Jakub Schikaneder (1855–1924)

The work of this remarkably talented painter has traditionally been associated with the Art Nouveau period or the so-called National Theatre Generation and can be divided into four thematic units. First, it is necessary to mention Schikaneder’s early phase of historical painting (primarily associated with commissions for the National Theatre). The second thematic area concerns Realist and socially engaged paintings depicting women in difficult circumstances. The third deals with views of old Prague, in which the artist employs a harmony of coloured tones to express a lonely atmosphere. The fourth features paintings inspired by stays on the German island of Helgoland. Thanks to a meditative artistic approach and the choice of melancholy, even sombre, yet entirely original subject matter, his paintings number among the best and most original Czech art of the late nineteenth century.

 

By the age of 15, the gifted Schikaneder was frequenting the studios of professors M. Trenkwald, A. Lhota and J. Sweerts (1870–1878) at the Academy of Visual Arts in Prague. At this time, he and his art friends (F. Ženíšek, M. Aleš, V. Brožík, A. Chittussi, J. V. Myslbek, etc.) often went to a Suchdol farmstead owned by Alexander Brandeis, a patron of the younger generation, to create their works. By 1875, he was exhibiting with the Krasoumná Jednota (Fine Arts Association) and in 1878 set out on a study trip across Europe. He visited France (drawing in Paris upon T. Géricault’s psychological knowledge, G. Courbet’s objective realism and the effect of T. Coutour’s mastery of colour), England, Scotland, Italy, Holland and Switzerland and also stayed in Munich, where he visited the celebrated painter Gabriel Max. Immediately after returning from abroad, he and his colleague E. K. Liška entered the competition to decorate the National Theatre. After the fire of 1881, however, their friezes featuring monarchical families, designed for the gentlemen’s salon of the National Theatre’s Royal Loge, were replaced by Brožík’s friezes (even though the originals were undamaged by the fire). In the following years, Schikaneder worked as an assistant to the painter František Ženíšek at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, where he was later named professor, and also contributed drawings to the magazines Ruch, Světozor and Zlatá Praha

The painting Murder in the House (1890), nowadays exhibited at the National Gallery in Prague, is unequivocally regarded as Schikaneder’s crowning achievement. In it, the artist captures the tragic fate of a woman from a poor tenement house in very realistic detail. Exhibited in Berlin and then in Paris, the work attracted significant attention because the author dared to use a canvas measuring over two metres high and three metres wide for a story from the lowest social strata, thus positioning it on the same level as historical painting. In 1895, he set out on another study tour, this time to England and Scotland with Dr J. Thomayer. In 1908, he was appointed to the board of the Moderní galerie (Modern Gallery) alongside the painter J. Preisler and sculptor S. Sucharda. In the early twentieth century, the artist gradually withdrew from Prague cultural life, continuing only to teach at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, and ceased to exhibit his works.