We are exposed to stress every day. Pressure. Cultivating resistance to it has become a part of our lives and even our daily news. Less well known is the fact that trying to find a solution to the problem of an ever-accelerating age is not a matter of the last few years. Back in 1985, August 15th was first celebrated as Relaxation Day in the United States with the intention of preventing the consequences of overwork. People were supposed to stop and focus on their own health, companies closed their offices and people were required to rest.

But the topic of rest has been important for a much longer time. The selected work Resting by Josef Kubíček dates from 1945 and continues the line of motifs of rest and those resting from the social civilism of the 1920s and 1930s.

For Kubíček, the topic of work and the way of relating to it seem to go beyond the boundaries of social topics at the time. Josef Kubíček (1890–1972) was born in Orlické hory in Slatina nad Zdobnicí. In nearby Žamberk, he trained as a carver in the workshop of Jan Rous, from where he left to work in a carving workshop in Augsburg after his apprenticeship. In Munich (1910–1911) he attended a professional sculpture school with Professor Bernauer and later studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with J.V . Myslbek (1911–1913) and the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (1913–14). Before the end of his studies, he received a scholarship to travel to Italy. From 1924, he moved from Zdobnice and Prague to Brno, where he lived until his death in 1972. Since 1915, he has been regularly organizing individual exhibitions in Bohemia, as part of group exhibitions, he was regularly included in the exhibitions of the associations Mánes, Koliba, SVU and others. In 1922, he received a six-month scholarship stay in France. He exhibited abroad in Venice, Milan, Zurich, Stockholm, Warsaw, Krakow and Vienna. In 1923 he won an award at the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Milan. He also worked in clay, stone, graphics (woodcut and wood engraving) or realizations in architecture, but wood remained the most important material throughout his life and he often returned to it. His work follows directly on the carving tradition of Orlické hory, but also absorbs the influence of Italian Renaissance sculpture, which he became acquainted with during a study trip to Italy, or the influences of French contemporaries whose work he got to know during his scholarship stay in France (Rodin, Bourdelle, Maillol). We must not forget the already mentioned influences of social civility after the First World War, the influence of folk art or the study of figures at work, in their environment. All this together forms a mix from which the Resting statue grows. It occupies a special position in the context of Kubíček's work: On the one hand, with its civility, it follows the sculptures of miners from the late 1920s (Shift, Miners), on the other hand, it seems to refer to the author's exhaustion caused by the death of his friend Jan Trampota in 1942 and the forced creative pause during World War II, caused by paralysis of the nerves in his right hand – and most likely also depression from the war. The Resting statue is represented by a male figure with a melancholy expression on his face, sitting on a tree trunk. Profession is not important, but fatigue and pain are: both hands rest above the left knee, as if the source of the pain rests there. But the expression on his face leaves us in no doubt that, in addition to physical pain, this is psychological pain. Kubíček does not present the pain expressively, but rather casually, as if he didn't even notice it, or it was so well hidden by the person that it is only noticeable when no one is looking. And it is in this unobtrusive way of inflicting pain that Josef Kubíček is faithful to his civilian principles. The Resting statue was created after the melancholic Bad Fate (1938) and the Christian-themed sculptures The Passionist and Calvary. Thus, The Resting in the context of Kubíček's work means a return to civility taught by the deep experience of the misfortunes of war and disease.

And what can the Resting offer us in connection with Relaxation Day? Perhaps a reminder that if we rest early and heed all the warnings, our rest may not be a painful rest, but a peaceful relaxation. And perhaps also the fact that it is good to look so it's not that obvious.

Lucie Nováčková, August 2024