By the Seaside Painting

''When we observe Václav’s paintings, we might recall the eye-catching shadows and illusive overlapping plans in De Chirico’s early work, and think of the quiet, diffused light in Morandi’s paintings. His pictures are impressions, individual visions, that seem familiar to us. We might have dreamt of this, we might want to dream of that. What is certain is that the light, space and atmospheres evoke a tension that exists in all of us, a tension that we try to resist or deny by day, but which comes back at night to swallow us all the more. A silent, in nite and unappeasable tension. The indifference of Nature. The sun rises, the sun sets. The sun is at the centre, not Man, and what we do, or don’t do, is irrelevant. Václav might suggest that we embrace what we are and what we are not, that we slowly but surely desert false pretences and conventions, and surrender to the terrible beauty that runs in our veins. He sketches, frantically draws, then laboriously paints atmospheres and scenes, which murmur like the wind, lonely ballads, deserter’s songs, longing for an elsewhere; which cry like the rain, anxieties of deluge, fantasies of overflow, desires of shipwreck; which stay silent, like fallen leaves covering the imprints of time, the traces of pride, and the steps of a tiptoeing evasion. The painter, ever receding from prejudices, meticulously investigating the crime scene of his thoughts and perceptions, leads us towards the (re)discovery of dreams. There is no mystery to solve but an enigma to love.'' Cecile B.