Study of a man for the painting Return of Saint Adalbert to His Homeland

Viewed as the culmination of Tkadlík’s Viennese period and the essence of ideas arisen from the contact with patriotic circles, is the Return of St. Adalbert to Homeland (1824). In the context of the period history painting, the picture represents a new approach to this field: Tkadlík does not compose the history scene as a typical narration of an event, but he stops the action in an emotionally charged point in time. Instead of describing the event and actions of the figures by artistic means, which require a certain kind ’reading’, the scene depicts a moment of silence when no dialogue-based action takes place, and emphasises only emotions associated with the return to homeland. Thanks to the gestures and facial expressions, these emotions almost come across as religious ecstasy. Interconnection between the particular patriotic content and emotionally charged, almost religious treatment of the subject matter was a fundamental process of the contemporary tendency in history painting.