The Czech Painter Božena Jelínková-Jirásková. On the Life and Work on the Periphery of the Male World
Abstract
The paper focuses on the life and work of Božena Jelínková-Jirásková (1880MINUS SIGN 1951), which are described and interpreted by means of a content analysis of her correspondence and artistic production. It presents the basic phases in the artist's life and work in terms of the influence of her father, the writer Alois Jirásek, and subsequently her husband, the diplomat and writer Hanuš Jelínek.
The study provides a chronological overview of the course of her education, life in Paris, exhibition activities, social contacts and artistic movements that affected her paintings. In this respect, a source of inspiration for the work of Jelínková-Jirásková canmainly be seen in the work of Paul Cézanne and Otakar Kubín, with the latter of whom she maintained long-term contacts.
The central motif of their work was a landscape, comprising not only a major theme of her artistic production, but also a form of search for personal identity, internal security and a familiar home. A partial objective of the article is to cover the artistic development of Jelínková-Jirásková from Impressionism to realistic and figural work, her subsequent inclination to Neoclassical landscape painting and eventually a return to Realist painting, the Czech landscape and still lifes.
The article presents Jelínková-Jirásková as one of the first Czech professional painters to have achieved recognition in both Czechoslovakia and France.