PLISKOVA'S BUTTERFLIES
Subtitle: AZ BUH REKNE DOST  -  WHEN GOD SAYS ENOUGH
Publisher: International Foundation for Biosocial Development and Human Health
Published: 2002
Place of publication: United States
Language: eng
Format: Hardbound
Number of pages: 91
Copyright date: 2002
Subjects: Plíšková, Nadezda: 1934 - 1999; Czech Life In The Socialist Era; Graphic Art in the Cold War  intermezzo; Butterflies in Art.; Butterflies -- Folklore.
Genres: INTERPRETATION  AND CRITICISM: LIFE AND ART IN SOCIALIST EUROPE
Other titles: Az Buh rekne dost; When God says enough
Work titles: GRAPHIC ART WITH COMMENTARY
First sentence: She said, "When God says enough, I'd like to be at home and in bed". The astrological clock on Old Town Square has been showing the mutual positions of earth, sun, and moon for centuries, and we too have revolved in contrary orbits for thirty years since we made it's first acquaintance. That was in 1972 when winter had frozen out all memory of the Prague Spring. The black seas of the universe waxed and waned and cloistered Time in mythology, magic, and maya of what was, and what was not. There was no question of what was to be.
Description: A Collection of Graphic Works with commentary. Following World War II unquestioningly the direction set for Czech artists in 1946 was to harmonize with the philosophy augmented by the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia in October 1917 and was a continuation of the principle set forth in the Socialist Education of the People. In keeping with this fundamental ideology of the socialist concept, art now had to recapitulate a materialist view of the world. It was to serve a constructive role in the socialist education of the people. These graphics illustrate the conflict within the artist - under the duress of the times - a sort of "freedom - in - chains". This expression is in great contrast to art work in post  World War II  Western countries. Each graphic is accompanied by an essay written by the author, who was a close friend of Pliskova and her husband, the sculptor Karel Nepras .
Notes: A selection of the BUTTERFLY GRAPHICS of the artist, many given as presents to the writer and to her friend of many years, Ivana Podvalova, presented with consent and permission of her daughter Karolina Neprasova. The graphics are accompanied with philosophical commentaries by the author reflecting his own thoughts on over thirty years of life under Cold War stress in Central Europe, and the toll it had taken on persons, and especially artists and intellectual persons, in what was once called "mitteleurope". Every individual searches for the essence of a work of art, and the writer, who had known Pliskova and her sculptor husband Karel Nepras for nearly thirty years, here seeks the mysterious shades and depths that dwelt  in the mind of the artist as she created her work. These essences and resonances are played back in the mind of the writer, relating what he had felt and thought over the years as he studied Pliskova's work, and the social and environmental conditions under which she worked in Prague. A self- portrait of Pliskova  appears as frontispiece to the book.
Table of contents: title: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; title: AZ BUH REKNE DOST; title: RAIN'S POURING DOWN SINCE MORNING; title: MORS ULTIMUM - BLACK ANGEL OF DEATH; title: DIE WELT ALS WILLE; title: EGOLESSNESS AND GOOD AND EVIL; title: MISHIMA'S OCCIDENTAL WOMAN; title: "I HAVE SET YOUR MIND AT PEACE"; title: BERDAEV'S MALEDICTION; title: CZECH CAESURA; title: INTERMEZZO 1945 - 1989; title: TAKE NOT A MUSKET TO KILL A BUTTERFLY; title: BLACK HOLE; DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY; title: LIGHT OR ENLIGHTENMENT; title: A REAL BUTTERFLY; title: AN EXPERIMENT OF NATURE AND GEIST; title: DUNG BEETLE AND BLUE BOTTLE FLY; title: AMOR FATI; title: NADEZDA PLISKOVA