The České Budějovice exhibition will showcase South Bohemia as a spiritual landscape

České Budějovice - Southern Bohemia will present itself as a spiritual landscape next week at the Metropol in České Budějovice with a large exhibition of photographs, paintings, and sculptures by South Bohemian artists. The theme will be small sacred architecture, namely chapels, wayside crosses, calvaries, or crucifixes, of which there are unusually many in the region, giving it a mystical atmosphere. The foundation of the exhibition will comprise large photographs by Jiří Tiller, paintings by Roman Brichcín and Miroslav Konrád, and sculptures of saints by Tomáš Štolba. Alena Schelová from the organizing civic association Hortensia told ČTK today.
    "It is said that every person has their own chapel. Each is connected to a story," Schelová noted. This will kick off a major project titled Spiritual Landscape: Southern Bohemia - Brittany, which will include about ten other exhibitions both domestically and abroad. Thanks to this, people in Lorient, the partner city of České Budějovice located in French Brittany, will see the face of the South Bohemian landscape. South Bohemian artists often travel to this area for inspiration, which they also applied in this exhibition.
    According to Schelová, heritage preservationists have recorded about 3,000 pieces of small sacred architecture in southern Bohemia. The exhibition will showcase a selection of the most impressive with 50 large-format photographs by Tiller. People will see another 500 to 600 chapels, wayside crosses, or calvaries on panels created by experts from the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ), Pavel Hájek and Zdenka Paloušová.
    The South Bohemian exhibition will be complemented by images of spiritual sites from Brittany. Some were photographed by Tiller, while others were painted by the České Budějovice painter Miroslav Konrád. South Bohemian Roman Brichcín will also exhibit his paintings with spiritual themes. Sculptor Tomáš Štolba has drawn inspiration from folk art and created wooden statues of saints that once stood in chapels.
    Hortensia is organizing the exhibition in collaboration with the French Alliance and the Czech Budějovice office of the NPÚ. The opening is on Thursday, April 16th, at 5:00 PM, and among other things, water from three "miraculous" springs in southern Bohemia will be served. The exhibition will remain in České Budějovice until May 7th.