The Gentle Barbarian by Bohumil Hrabal

Author:Bohumil Hrabal
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811228596
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:01+00:00

Bohumil Hrabal

drypoint, 1953

Bohumil Hrabal reading “A Letter to Attendees at an Exhibition” at the opening of the Boudník exhibition at Galerie pod Radnicí, Ústí nad Orlicí, January 26, 1974

A Letter to Attendees at an Exhibition

To all of you who are reading this text and looking at Vladi­mír’s graphics, don’t think of them merely in terms of technique. Do not try to determine what Vladimír was trying to say about reality through his graphics. Think, as you look, about the miraculous effervescence of reality itself ticking away from second to second, and on into eternity.

Think about Vladimír, who felt at home wherever he was. Think of how his studio was always where he happened to be at the moment. Think of how he had the eyes of a child and those of a scientist as well, eyes that looked closely at what was around him, so that he imbued things of little apparent worth and meaning, things people scorn, with nobility and great beauty, though it may have been on a surface no larger than a handkerchief.

Those of you who aspire to become visual artists, don’t wait until you have a studio and can live in Prague. Vladimír’s studio was so small it could only accommodate three people; the fourth had to stand outside in the hallway. And yet, in that tiny room in Žižkov, Vladimír achieved, with his active graphics, work as important as what Jackson Pollock and Georges Mathieu accomplished with their gestural painting.

You who are simply observers should try, as Vladimír did, to peel back the skin of matter, to get inside the membranes that cover animate and inanimate forms. Don’t be afraid to perform a vivisection, not just on yourself but on all things, because that is the only way you can find lifelong pleasure and rejoice in the knowledge that human eyes have evolved so that, through them, matter might see itself and recognize its own million-faceted beauty.

You who look at Vladimír’s graphics should know that Vladimír was a trained lathe operator, that he loved all the expressive techniques afforded by this kind of work, and that he loved the materials from which useful objects and their constituent parts could be made. Vladimír thoroughly understood the workings of a lathe operator’s workshop, and he was able to use those skills in his art in a way unique among graphic artists, to create artifacts so diverse, so beautiful, and so appealing.

His active graphics have the power to delight both the visual arts aesthete and the ironworker, the practitioner of the “black” trade. His lithographs can bear the closest scrutiny of the intellect as well as of the senses.

You who look upon Vladimír’s graphic art, know that he could frighten me with his ability to spot materials and events that I had failed to notice. When he came across something exceptional, a surprised smile would appear on his face, I would look where he was looking until I saw what he saw. It could be anything: metal

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