Flying with Wax Wings

Josef Mánes (1820–1871) was a creator on whom the Czech revivalist society placed its hopes for the creation of a national art. Mánes was a painter, draftsman, decorator, author of models for applied art and architecture, and an enfant terrible of the domestic art scene. A disgraced artist but an entertaining companion, he was idealized and profaned in various cultural and political contexts. This volume offers a new perspective on a canonized figure, broadened by the varied voices and approaches of collective authors.

Flying with Wax Wings explores the many depictions of Mánes, the result of the research of a collective of authors whose aim was to introduce the key personality of nineteenth-century Czech art in the context of contemporary European art and from the current position of today’s art history. The result is a monograph on Josef Mánes that presents not only a complex view of his multifaceted work, but also contextualizes the Czech art scene of the period.