St. Vitus Cathedral

In his fascination with Gothic architecture Kohl repeatedly painted St Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle (Hradčany). In the years 1810 and 1816 he painted many views of both the outside and inside of the cathedral, in which he not only recorded what he saw, but also envisaged an ideal completion. In two oil paintings on wood with views of the cathedral from the third Hradčany courtyard he expressed his idea of the completion of the cathedral, fully in line with Parler's Gothic: he replaced the Renaissance galleries and the Baroque dome of the tower with a Gothic pyramid and for the sake of symmetry placed a similar tower on the northern side. On either side of the western front he placed a tower with a spiral staircase and opened the cathedral with a uniaxial portal with a large window. He broke niches with sculptured decorations into the gable and on its top placed, in one case a cross and in the second one, in the picture on view, a sculpture. The two paintings blend Kohl's rational technical thinking and his dreamlike fantasies - both are in a uniform silvery blue-grey tone - the only colourful counterpoints are the staffage and the fountain in the foregound.