dreams of landscape | Schikaneder–Slavíček–Moll et al. | Forms of landscape painting in Central European Symbolism and Art Nouveau

The exhibition Dreams of Landscape | Schikaneder–Slavíček–Moll et al. | Forms of landscape painting in Central European Symbolism and Art Nouveau focuses on analyzing the transformation of landscape painting around 1900, a period when this traditional genre became a privileged space for psychologization and subjective experience. The project tracks how landscape painting ceased to be a mere mimetic record of external reality and gradually transformed into a medium reflecting the state of modern introspection and spiritualization.

Particular attention is paid to the phenomenon of genre syncretism, where figural elements are incorporated into the landscape, not as decorative complements, but as carriers of specific psychologization. The staffage becomes a key element of the meaning-making structure and at the same time a visual catalyst for emotional projections. This is evident, for example, in the works of Arnold Böcklin, Giovanni Segantini, or – in the Czech context – Antonín Hudeček, Jakub Schikaneder, and Beneš Knüpfer. In this constellation, the landscape becomes a place where elements of other genres are transformed.

At the same time, the project reflects contemporary theoretical discussions that preceded the formulation of Worringer's dichotomy. The exhibition touches upon, for example, the aesthetic considerations of Hermann Bahr, who in his texts on modern art emphasized the subjectivization of vision and the disruption of academic categories; Julius Meier-Graefe, who analyzed the transformation of perception in the works of modern landscape painters; and Wilhelm Dilthey, whose concept of experience (Erlebnis) and expressive psychology fundamentally influenced the Symbolist understanding of landscape as a carrier of inner states.

The influence of the Austrian environment is also reflected here, especially within the local criticism that emphasized the emotional and metaphysical qualities of natural motifs. This theoretical layer allows landscape to be read not only as a visual element but as a psychological structure whose semantic depth is born from the tension between subjective projection and objective form.

The exhibition thus presents a defined segment of Central European landscape painting that allows a glimpse, before the very “Munchian lesson” of expressive modernism, into a period when psychological layers began to dynamically intertwine. In addition to works from Czech institutions, the exhibition will also feature works from foreign collections.

Adam Hnojil