From the Earth over the Hill towards the Sky. On Walking, Pilgrimage and the Sacred Landscape

The catalogue deals with the mutually interconnected themes of walking, pilgrimage and the sacred landscape. It is a homage to the beautiful mountains and hills of Northern Bohemia, to the Czech Romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha and the German painter Caspar David Friedrich, both of whom contributed significantly to the empathetic perception of the landscape. The catalogue also presents samples of works by Czech and foreign artists from the 19th–21st centuries: painters, printmakers, sculptors, action and conceptual artists, e. g. Antonín Karel Balzer, Josef Mánes, Carl Gustav Carus, Josef Váchal, František Drtikol, Karel Malich, Marko Pogančik, Miloš Šejn, Jaroslav Anděl, Karel Adamus, and František Skála. The catalogue offers a variety of views on the mutual combination of art, pilgrimage and the landscape without trying to be didactic or present any overarching guidelines. The texts cover a wide range from a detailed art historical analysis, experimental texts written by the artists, to descriptions of the energy fields of Europe and its mountains. The book also contains two articles of a purely environmental character focusing on mining in the hills of Northern Bohemia and the aimless attempts to stop the building of the highway through the Czech Central Mountains. The catalogue has a German-language summary.