Melancholické století oblaku - Život umělců – Suk Jan (2020)

The new book by the prominent Czech essayist, poet, and philosopher Jan Suk has the subtitle "the life of artists," although it can also be perceived as a saga or fresco of the famous artistic family of the author's great-grandfather Antonín Dvořák and especially his grandfather Josef Suk (1874–1935). The composer's story serves as a starting point for a polyphonic reflection on the nature of artistic creation against the backdrop of a time that, with few exceptions, tends to be rather unfavorable, incomprehensible, or even indifferent to art and artists. Suk's essayistic text is characterized by numerous literary, musical, visual, and philosophical parallels and contrasts that create a colorful mosaic of the fate of the Czech composer, while also capturing the general characteristics of the plight of creators in the transformative era from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Suk's poetic essay is not merely an artistic biography or a memoir. It resonates with texts dedicated to the phenomenology of art and the essence of the creative process, such as those once written by Gaston Bachelard or Antonin Artaud. Like them, Jan Suk is critical of today's society, which largely resigns itself to spiritual and aesthetic values. Nevertheless, in the book about the "melancholic century of clouds," he expresses hope for the return of the "Orphic" or muse-like principle...