Sheet from the Southern Italian Sketchbook - view of Cava de’ Tirreni

The so-called Southern Italian sketchbook dates to Tkadlík’s Italian stay in the second half of the 1820’s. Tkadlík arrives in Rome in February 1825. During his Southern Italian journey, dated as late as 1829, he visited majority of important places in the region of the Gulf of Naples - he records motifs from Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi. In terms of expression, these studies are, again, very restrained; he depicts the architecture using the typical cubic-like forms with an emphasis on outline, while he deals with the natural elements with an utmost interest in detail. Not even in the case of rapidly sketched studies, his drawings are never devoid of spatiality and three-dimensionality. As well as wide landscape parts, he also focuses on picturesque secluded places, figure studies representing typical figures of rowers, pilgrims or carriers as well as moments when he was captivated by the charm of a female or a child’s face. Three of the drawings are dedicated to an attractively undulating landscape nearby the town of Cava de’Tirreni with the dominant hill of Monte San Liberatore.