Portrait of František Čermák
Viktor Barvitius conceived his oil painting John of Luxembourg in the Battle of Crécy as a collision between a creative spirit and the forces that destroy it. The blind king on a rearing white horse, surrounded by enemies, embodies a luminous idea overwhelmed by an incomprehensible darkness. This reading is reinforced by the faces of two painters who served as models for wounded or dying knights – František Čermák and Adolf Kosárek (who died of tuberculosis before the painting was finished). In the preparatory sketches, Barvitius concentrated on capturing the nearness of death: the fading sight of a knight struck by an arrow, and the solitary drift into death of one who was beheaded.
| Author: | Barvitius, Viktor |
| Title: | Portrait of František Čermák |
| Date: | [before 1860] |
| Licence: | Free license |