THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF MY WORK IS LOVE AND ADMIRATION FOR REALITY.

Both for nature, perceived by our senses, and for the relationships created by humans and understood through knowledge. We often read in the writings of some contemporary art theorists that this or that painter does not "describe" reality but "expresses" it, using the pejorative "describe" instead of the classical "depict." The difference between objective "depiction" and subjective "expression" is essentially the difference between classical and modern. These are two mutually exclusive approaches to reality. However, in every depiction, there is an element of expression, and in every expression, there is some depiction—because every "depictor" is also a subject, and every "expressor" is a part of objective reality.

This modern, subjective "expression" of reality is entirely distant and foreign to me. I cannot and do not want to identify with a subjective, strongly individualistic approach to reality. Reality, whether historical or contemporary, appears to me so interesting, captivating, exciting, and beautiful in itself that I feel no need to extract something from it, add to it, or, even less, evaluate it myself. Of course, I cannot capture all of reality, not even in its partial manifestations, but my personal standpoint, shaped by my capabilities, feels more like a limitation than an advantage.

Artistry, in my opinion, is necessarily contained within reality itself—both seen and understood—so much so that I would be completely satisfied if I could objectively depict this reality, or even describe or illustrate it. I see nothing wrong in being able to accompany the grandeur of reality with at least a somewhat adequate image or depiction.
Naturally, the reality around me and the contemporary world also include the views, attitudes, knowledge, and positions of people, especially those I know and who are close to me. I try to draw from their thinking, knowledge, and work as well. I have no desire—perhaps not even the ability—to see something in life and in everything around me that no one else sees and then reveal this "insight" to people. On the contrary, I want to paint things as I believe they are seen or could or should be seen by most people who share my perspective on the world.

I would like to see the new and rapidly changing world through the eyes of those closely connected to its transformations. Through my paintings, I wish to contribute to the collective efforts of people striving to merge humanism with the scientific and technological revolution, aiming for a new, victorious understanding and action.

I equally appreciate and feel close to the past and the present, the humanistic and the technical—everything, or almost everything—from Egypt and antiquity through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, to the nineteenth century and the most modern technology of today. Whether it is cybernetic robots, space rockets, or controlled thermonuclear reactions, artistic or technical forms.

I find everything that allows looking at a certain era or topic from multiple perspectives and enables storytelling to be an interesting subject for an extensive cycle of paintings. The narrative quality, which modern art often rejects, is important to me, and I want my paintings to "tell stories." Therefore, unlike modern art, the subject matter is crucial and often essential to me. Many of my paintings exist because painting allows me—or even often compels me—to delve deeper into themes that interest me.

When I painted more than thirty portraits of painters I admire, I naturally familiarized myself with their works, methods, and approaches to reality much more thoroughly than if I had merely browsed through reproductions of their works.

It is possible that my love for reality is somewhat naive, that it lacks criticality and often leads to idealization, but that is probably due to my nature. Perhaps it is also a reaction to a significant part of modern art, which finds artistic value in ugliness, depression, convulsions, and the distortion of reality. Perhaps it is not such a great and unforgivable sin to prefer beauty over ugliness in both life and art.

If almost every historical theme seems inherently interesting and artistic to me, it also appears extraordinarily contemporary. After all, we see history today, thanks to extraordinary new scientific discoveries, more truthfully and comprehensively than ever before. Compare, for example, the scope and quality of information a Renaissance artist had about antiquity with our current possibilities of understanding the ancient world. Consider how French art discovered Africa, recall Baroque depictions of biblical themes or the historical paintings of the Romantics. These and other examples allow us to compare and see how an enormous amount of concrete historical knowledge today merges with a new assessment made possible by science and technology. Never before in history has the entire past of humanity been the subject of such contemporary interest.

For these reasons, I find ancient and more recent civilizations, eras, and events completely relevant and alive today. My views contrast with modern art, which programmatically sought to rid humanity and art of the "burden of old civilizations." The twentieth century completely turned away from the Greco-Roman tradition, where reality and rationality were its two fundamental pillars. For me, this tradition, along with the classical union of reason and sensibility, serves as the fundamental basis and standard by which I evaluate my personal experience.

Just as modern art denies the past, it also denies the possibility of knowing objective reality, focusing instead on irrationality, instincts, and, at best, human emotions.

Of course, when we speak of modern art, we must consider its hundred-year duration and the vast diversity of opinions and changes it has undergone. After all, the difference between Velázquez and Manet or Rembrandt and Gogh is incomparably smaller than that between Monet and Kandinsky or Matisse and Pollock. – In recent decades, modern art has programmatically distanced itself from reality.

However, I find the tangible world around us—the world of new things, new shapes, new knowledge—immensely fascinating and exciting "in itself." Through new ways of thinking, it is once again becoming comprehensible, despite its constant transformations and rapid development.
This comprehensibility of the world, along with the ability to change it, provides incredible possibilities for realistic depiction. Realism is the representation of the typical under typical circumstances, and the scientific and technological revolution both captures the typical and constantly changes typical conditions.

On one hand, reason, logic, and knowledge restore humanity to life and art, creating the conditions for realism, while on the other hand, constant movement transforms its possible forms. Nineteenth-century realism was based on philosophical materialism and the emerging natural sciences. It viewed reality objectively but as given and essentially unchangeable. Today, dialectical thinking and the enormous progress of science and technology completely alter static notions of reality. What new possibilities does this new dynamism offer for depicting reality!

It seems to me that today's world is beginning, on a higher level, to regain a unity that enables synthesis and opens the door to a new stylistic period.

Naturally, if I see the world as increasingly unified and comprehensible, I seek a way of working that would allow me, with essentially the same painterly means, to depict this entire world as I understand it. To paint everything that is paintable and that interests me—from a child's portrait to paintings with such abstract themes as cybernetics or genetic engineering. I seek forms that allow me to organically unite my two great loves—history and the present—as well as historical artistic forms and technology.

I would also like to integrate what I find valuable in modern art—especially the color and formal vocabulary of non-figurative art—with an objective, "classical" approach to reality. I would like to merge what I see in nature and life with what I know about people and things.

I admire Velázquez as much as Miró. Manet and Picasso are as contemporary to me as Formula 1 racers. I admire Homer as much as Einstein, ancient art as much as electronics. I want my paintings with historical themes to carry something contemporary and my paintings of modern technology to possess something classical.

I would be pleased if my paintings were accepted as an expression of love for objective reality and if they could, even slightly, contribute to the revolutionary goals of today—the fusion of a qualitatively new humanism with the most advanced science and technology.

IVAN SEDLISKÝ

Ivan Sedliský

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