Jan Zrzavý, 1890-1977
Town Hall Steps, 1915
Oil on canvas
The painting Town Hall Steps ranks among the most valuable works, along with still life work by Emil Filla, which Anna Matičková donated to Litomyšl in 1977 at the request of her husband Josef Matička. The roots of Jan Zrzavý’s unmistakable painting style can be found in reality, whose visuality was however, modified by the author according to his inner state. During the 1930s, he developed a unique visual language based on this poetic transformation of reality, which he reduced to a system of basic, figurative symbols. The theme of Town Hall Steps is the existing urban scenery, specifically the interface between Prague’s Castle and Small Quarter. The scene, capturing the quiet melancholy of urban architecture with stylized sculptures, evokes the mysterious, distress-inducing views of abandoned Italian squares by the painter Giorgio de Chirico.
