Tombstone of Bohumil Kubišta

Bohumil Kubišta (1884–1918), a native of Vlčkovice near Hradec Králové, was one of the leading personalities of Czech modern art and co-founder of the Osma group. He was a great lover of order and harmony with a restless soul and ‘a diligent seeker of the perfect form’, which – when found – would be ‘filled with perfect content’. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, stayed in Florence and the Louvre, where he studied the canvases of the old masters and contemporary artists – he admired expressionism and cubism. In his works, he applied the ancient theory of colors and the golden ratio. Kubišta was also involved in the military field. After graduating from the school for officers in Pula, he put his knowledge to good use during WWI, in which he shot down the French submarine Curie in 1914, for which he was awarded the Order of Leopold and the rank of first lieutenant and then captain. At the end of the war (October 27, 1918) he visited Prague, and when an independent state was declared the following day, Kubišta was one of the first to enlist in the army of the Czechoslovak Republic. Less than a month after the establishment of the republic, he fell ill with the Spanish flu and died on November 27 at the age of 34. 

 

The funeral of one of the founders of Czech modern painting, which took place on 4 December 1918, was recalled by his former classmate from the Hradec Králové Realschule, architect Václav Rejchl Jr. (1884–1964): ‘It was a sad, gloomy autumn day at the time, with a little rain falling at times. The funeral took place from the villa of teacher Oldřich Kubišta in Kukleny, where the coffin with the deceased was transported. [...] Shortly afterwards, a civil funeral was held in Kukleny with the assistance of an artillery battalion, conducted from nearby Hradec Králové. [...] The funeral was attended by many Czechoslovak officers and numerous citizens from Hradec and Kukleny. [...] Kubišta’s old, bent mother walked behind the coffin in bitter tears, and Zrzavý could no longer hold back his tears on the way to the cemetery.’ Rejchl himself wanted to speak at his funeral, but he was too emotional to finish his speech. Later, he paid tribute to the painter by organizing a posthumous exhibition. Zrzavý designed one of Kubišta’s first tombstones, but the symbolist sculptor František Bílek (1872–1941) was responsible for its final form.

 

Bílek designed Kubišta’s tombstone as a stele tombstone with a relief five meters high set behind a double grave with a cover plate. A central shallow relief with a lunette and a figure of a mourning muse or genius in profile, inscribed Kubišta’s name in the memory of mankind. In the lower right-hand corner, there is the sculptor’s signature F. B. Below the relief, there is the inscription: To embrace life with a strong pull. The text on the pedestal below the depiction of the muse/genius says: Acad. Painter Boh. Kubišta – Centurion of the 1st artillery. Pl.. *21.8.1884 †27.11.1918.

 

The relief is flanked, in the style of František Bílek, with two urn boards on both sides. On the eastern side panel, in the sunken fields, there is an inscription: The Kubištas of Vlčkovice, the Stejskals of Zdechlovice with an urn inscribed: Věra Halámková 1924–2016. On the western plate, also in sunken fields, there is another inscription: The Charváta of Kuklen, the Knejps of Hradec Král., the Halámeks, and under the inscription, there is an urn with the inscription: Jarmila Halámková 1908–1970.

 

In Kubišta’s first monograph, written by his relative František Kubišta, we can read: ‘He longed to soar to the heights of ideas with his wings fully extended, but he falls broken by death. He did not like to die, he fought death as he fought adversity, he fought because he wanted to save and keep alive his genius, whose goals were great.’ Kubišta’s iconic paintings were created over a period of five years (1908–1913). The tombstone thus underlines his role as a legend, model, and symbol of Czech art for several generations.

 

JFB