Jakub Schikaneder

Jakub Schikaneder (27 February 1855 – 15 November 1924) was a Czech painter and art professor. His work is known for its atmospheric, soft, and sorrowful genre scenes. The melancholy and moody themes of Schikaneder's pieces bear resemblance to the artistic trends of Romanticism, Realism, and Symbolism. Gabriel von Max, a Prague artist and professor of history painting, was a mentor and teacher for Schikaneder. Schikaneder notably participated in the decorating of the National Theatre in Prague in 1881. Much of Schikaneder's work has since been lost, and the artist passed largely unknown to Czech society until the rediscovery of his work in 1998.

Biography

Early life Jakub (or Jakob) Schikaneder was born on 27 February 1855 in Prague, Bohemia, in the Austrian Empire to an Austrian father and a Czech mother. His father, Karel Friedrich Schikaneder, was from Vienna and worked as a customs office clerk in Prague. His mother Leokadia (née Běhavá) was a native of Prague. He was a paternal descendant of Urban Schikaneder, the elder brother of librettist Emanuel Schikaneder.

Emerging artist

The Schikaneder family's love of art and their middle-class status in Prague society enabled him to pursue his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts from the age of 15. From 1870 to 1878, Schikaneder was immersed in the academy's stereometric and classical art style. He was a student of Antonín Lhota at the academy and finished his studies in 1878, serving for a year in the Austro-Hungarian Army. He travelled to and stayed in Paris from 1878 to 1880, where he gleaned inspiration from the late-nineteenth-century Parisian art scene before continuing his studies at the academy in Munich under Czech painter Gabriel von Max. Max's teaching allowed Schikaneder to explore deeper spiritual themes and examine the social contradictions in Czech art and culture of the time. Co-working with Emanuel Krescenc Liška, the two artists' proposal for the decoration of the Royal Box was accepted, a design that illustrated three important periods of Czech history upon a frieze.

Style Schikaneder is known for his soft paintings of the outdoors, often lonely and melancholic. His paintings often feature poor and outcast figures and "combined neo-romantic and naturalist impulses." Schikaneder takes a particular interest in depicting shadow–both indoors and outdoors–that draws parallels to the nostalgic atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Symbolism. He draws inspiration from Parisian culture for depicting women, 19th-century European painting for themes of nostalgia and despair, and baroque Dutch painting–especially that of Rembrandt–for depicting light and aestheticism.

During the 1890s, Schikander dedicated his work to portraying everyday emotional relationships and intellectual reactions to the crisis of modern existence. Schikaneder gave poet Jaroslav Vrchlicky a sketch of Drowned in 1893. Another of Schikaneder's notable works, painted in 1910, is Evening Mood. Several auctions have also exhibited Schikaneder's pieces, with a record price of US$580,110 for his Winter in Prague, sold at Sotheby's London in 2021.

Selected works