Christian Exercise in the Domažlice Region

Quido Mánes

Quido Mánes - Christian Exercise in the Domažlice Region
In the late 1860s the brothers Mánes used to stay quite often at the manor of Christian baron Kotz at Chodový Újezd near Domažlice, where Quido found an interesting subject, which he first used for a carton. The association Krasoumná jednota them commissioned a large canvas after the carton for its 1869 spring exhibition. The painter received beforehand some financial support towards the picture. The painting, exhibited only in 1870 and then bought for 600 guldens, was late erroneously called Christian exercise in the Haná region. The setting of Mánes’s genre with its many figures and emphasis on religious and didactic elements, is the parsonage at Štítary, between Horšovský Týn and Bělá nad Radbuzou. In the picture the Štítar parish priest Father Matěj Brauer asks the children in their Sunday best about religion in the presence of several grown-ups. The meticulous, detailed painting shows a scene full of compassion and deference. The spiritual atmosphere is enhanced by local light and subtle colours of the entire scene, all in warm tones. The painter paid considerable attention to details of folk costumes,to individual characters and, above all, to the different children’s types, which we know from several studies in oil.
date:
measurements: height 87 cm
width 114 cm
material: canvas
technique: oil
inscription:
inventory number: O 2755
gallery collection: Collection of 19th Century Art and Classical Modernism

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