Leseprobe

Artists in times of war 414 aspirations and level of education are also evident from the biographies of his brothers: in addition to Paul, who rose to the position of Mint officer ( Münzamtmann ) in Kuttenberg, mention should also be made of his brother Daniel, who was secretary at the Bohemian Chamber and in 1618 was one of the 30 directors in charge of the government. As an advocate of Utraquism (an adherent of the Hussite movement), Daniel Škréta was forced to flee after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, his route taking him to Silesia and Poland.The will of their brother Konrad, who died in 1613, charged Daniel and Paul with the task of looking after his widow and seeing to the religious, literary and artistic education of the children. The family was initially able to continue living in their house immediately north of the choir of the then Utraquist Týn Church. No evidence exists, however, regarding Karel’s schooling and studies, and the suggestion remains hypothet- ical that the boy, whose talent was apparently recognised at an early age, may have had instruction from the artist Aegidius Sadeler.His first work is known from an engraving by Wenceslav Hollar, dated 1635, featuring a beardless male head, which is inscribed “C. Screta Boh. inv. 1627”. This sheet provides documentary evidence that these two artists were acquainted; they both came from Protestant families and left Prague because of the Revised Ordinance of the Land decreed in the same year, 1627. While Karel’s mother Katharina emigrated to Freiberg in Saxony, the budding painter initially travelled to Basel in July 1627 in order to visit his older brother Jan, who was studying medicine there, had married a daughter of the uni- versity rector and was later to be appointed municipal phy- sician in Schaffhausen.7 In 1628 the aspiring artist was to be found in Stuttgart, where he probably met up with Wences­ lav Hollar and may have become acquainted with fellow-art- ists Johann Wilhelm Baur and Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, who later belonged to his circle of friends in Rome. Škréta subsequently travelled on to Italy via Constance. He spent the four years from 1630 to 1634 in Venice, where he studied the paintings of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, and met with dealers and collectors who are known to have purchased works by him. He then moved to Rome, the city of Michel- angelo and Caravaggio. He stayed there for two years and was admitted under the alias Slagswaart (Broadsword) into the Schildersbent (Band of Painters), whose members were also called Bentvueghels (Birds of a Feather). The members of this association of mainly Flemish and Dutch painters also included Baur, Schönfeld and Joachim von Sandrart, with whom he may possibly have become acquainted in Prague during the latter’s apprenticeship with Aegidius Sadeler. He probably also met Nicolas Poussin. From Rome, Škréta made a visit to Naples. Afterwards, there is evidence of stays in Bologna, Florence and Pistoia, before he finally returned to Venice, where his first surviving paintings were probably created. During his time there, Tiberio Tinelli painted a portrait of him accompanied by a dedicatory poem by the painter and poet Alessandro Berardelli (fig. 1). In 1637 Škréta travelled back across the Alps and was in Prague again by April 1638 at the latest. Already from Italy he had made efforts to secure the family’s assets in and around Prague. In order to be able to take over houses and real estate, and to be permitted to settle in his native city, he had to profess the Catholic faith.Where his conversion took place—whether it was already during his travels in Italy or only after his return home—remains unclear. In any case, detailed court records show that Škréta managed to retrieve the lost family property by 1640, although he did not recoil from putting on record that he was by no means an exile or emigrant, claiming that he had left his hometown only in order to acquire greater knowledge and experience.8 As a Catholic, a wealthy citizen with an aristocratic title, and a widely travelled artist, he succeeded in building up an impres- sive career for himself in Prague over the following years. Although the Bohemian capital was the starting point of the Thirty Years’ War and was severely affected after 1620, and especially after 1627, by the exodus of a consider- able proportion of the Protestant elite, it remained relatively unaffected by direct warfare. Especially after the Peace of Prague in 1635, the Catholic Church consolidated its posi- tion of supremacy, resulting in high demand for impressive and politically influential works of art for the places of wor- ship it had regained, and also for new religious establish- ments. Altarpieces for the high altars of churches were the most prestigious commissions. In 1636, the Augustinian canons of St Thomas in the Lesser Town ordered two monu­ mental altarpieces from Peter Paul Rubens, which were delivered from Antwerp in 1638 and are now in the National Gallery Prague. And in September of the same year, Johann Georg Hering, a painter from Eschwege who was highly respected in Prague and who had himself spent time in Italy, received a commission from the Jesuits to create a high FIG. 2 Karel Škréta, The Death of Drahomíra (from the St Wenceslas Cycle), Prague, 1641, oil on canvas, h. 136 cm, w. 223 cm, Prague, Národní galerie Praha, inv. no. O 19197 FIG. 3 Karel Škréta, Saint Charles Borromeo Visiting the Plague Victims in Milan , Prague, 1647, oil on canvas, h. 210 cm, w. 247 cm, Prague, Národní galerie Praha, inv. no. O 2579