The musical metal sculpture at the 9th station references the original inhabitants of Pohansko with its stringed fragment. It invites the pilgrim to stop, to listen and merge with the tones and nature surrounding him.
“The project Kristek’s Glyptotheque is a wholly unique artistic treatment of the river Thaya, and at the same time it constitutes a retrospective of the work of the artist himself. The pilgrims will pass through the Thaya gallery just as naturally as the evenly flowing Thaya, which has behaved this way since time immemorial.” (1)
Kristek’s sculpture Tree of the Aeolian Harp (1992), which is located in the landscape, makes a harp-like sound. He incorporated a fragment of a piano with wires into the sculpture. When the wind blows, the drops hanging on steel cables hit the wires. In ancient times a magical effect was ascribed to the harp’s tones, because they calmed wild animals. In the middle ages, harp playing evoked happiness and expressed praise and thanks. The harp was often an instrument of troubadours and minnesingers, and later court etiquette required a mastery of the harp. The landscape around the sculpture Tree of the Aeolian Harp is transformed into a musical landscape consisting of sounds, trees, plants and animals. In this way, music imprints harmony and choreography on to apparently chaotic natural events in the landscape.
Text: Barbora Půtová
1 Mrva, Vlastimil (13th June 2006): Podhradí se může chlubit sedmimetrovou plastikou.
Znojemsko, p. 1.
Barbora Půtová (born 1985) is a Czech anthropologist and art historian lecturing at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.
She deals with history of culture, artwork and cultural heritage. Other fields of her expert interest include historical anthropology, visual anthropology and anthropology of art.
She has published dozens of articles and experts studies as well as several expert monographs such as Pravěké umění (Prehistoric Art, co-authors Jean Clottes and Václav Soukup, 2011), Félicien Rops: enfant terrible dekadence (Félicien Rops: Enfant Terrible of Decadence, 2013), Kristkova podyjská glyptotéka (Kristek Thaya Glyptoheque, co-author Iveta K. Pavlovičová, 2013), The Genesis of Creativity and the Origin of the Human Mind (co-edited by Václav Soukup, 2015) or Královská cesta: všední i sváteční život v proměnách času (The Royal Route: Ordinary and Festive Life Over the Course of Time, 2016).
In her monograph Félicien Rops she offers the first comprehensive view of the life and work of one of the most prominent representatives of decadence and symbolism; in her last book Královská cesta (The Royal Route) she writes about the creation, development, meaning and historical changes of the Royal Route in Prague. In her book Skalní umění (Rock Art, 2015), she published the results of her field research of Palaeolithic art that she carried out at archaeological sites in France and Portugal.
At presents she is carrying out research of African rock art in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
