Church Song (from the cycle Musica)

Musica is one of the most coherent cycles in the oeuvre of painter Josef Mánes. Ten large pen and wash drawings were predecessors of a planned but unspecified final artwork, probably a cycle of graphic sheets or hanging paintings. In the 1850s and 1860s, Josef Mánes often dealt with the theme of music, like he did in his design of illustrations of folk songs. In his lithographic allegory Homeland from 1855-1856, Mánes highlighted musicality as a major component of the nation’s character and elaborated this idea in the general cycle of Musica. The axis of this large allegory is the course of life in the countryside. Its phases are represented by events and situations linked with certain musical disciplines or types of song. The scenes employ various facts of life and the costumes and accessories in the cycle are mostly based on the artist’s studies done in Slovakia. The Church Song is deliberately situated in the Romanesque church, because this building style was associated with Slavism at that time.