Petr Wittlich

Preisleriana

This report draws attention to the recent discovery of a key painting by Jan Preisler (1872–1918) titled Tři dívky (Three Girls), from 1906, which till now has been erroneously confused with the painting Primavera, which was purchased for the Gallerie nazionale d’arte moderna in Rome in 1911 at the International Exhibition of Art there. With its startling motif of large dark surfaces creating the impression of an anthropomorphic shadow, the painting was in all likelihood Preisler’s response to similar paint- ings by Edvard Munch that were present at the major Munch exhibition organised by SVU Mánes in Prague at the start of 1905. In terms of its content, however, the painting can be interpreted as Preisler’s intuitive revision of the theme Et in Arcadia ego in the original sense of the words that was revealed by Panofsky and is also consistent with Preisler’s melancholy nature and his conception of the theme of Spring. Preisler’s Three Girls is thus an interesting illustration of the creative revival of the tradition of a painter with a designedly modernist outlook.

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