Alois Kubíček: Josef Zítek

Josef Zítek advanced boldly through life and artistic endeavor. There was no deviation in it; it was the only ascending line. His culmination falls into a blessed time when the revival generation of our visual arts reached the heights to which Smetana brought Czech music, Mánes Czech painting, and Myslbek Czech sculpture. Alongside them, Zítek stands as a representative and founder of modern Czech architectural art.
Zítek was a child of the proletariat. He died as a member of the conservative nobility. That was his life. He came from home schools, in which he only recognized the lack of upbringing of domestic artists, and he became our first teacher of architectural training. This was his teaching journey. He created a number of buildings, but only one "Temple of Rebirth," a work with which an entire generation, both national and artistic, was inseparably linked, so that future generations envied them for leaving behind a monument of which we have no second. This was the apex of Zítek's artistic work.
He was born on April 4, 1832, in Karlín. His father, Josef Zítek, a shoemaker's assistant, died almost three months before his birth. His mother, a seamstress, took care of his upbringing. Zítek spent his youth in Malá Strana, in the former Pinkas house on the island of Kampa. At the Prague Polytechnic Institute, the royal Czech elder Wiesenfeld gave him the first foundation in technical sciences, but not in art. He experienced the year 1848 already at university, where his national consciousness awoke, which he never denied, although he mostly did not live in a Czech environment. In 1851, he said goodbye to Prague for a full 13 years. The Geilings scholarship allowed him to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which had previously been sought by Kranner, Ullmann, Barvitius, and Hlávka. From 1851 to 1854, he was a student of E. Van der Nüll, Siccardsburg, and K. Roesner. He devoted his holidays to learning the masonry trade, which he studied from 1852 to 1855, when the court builder of Vienna, L. Mayer, issued him a trade certificate as a masons' apprentice. After finishing his academic studies, from September 1854 to October 1855, he was employed in Vienna by Kranner, after which he undertook a short trip to Trieste and Venice. In Kranner's studio, he was employed on the design of the Votive Church in Vienna. Modern Gothic was, during these years, an artistic vision not only of his but of teachers and all contemporaries, and Ferstel's design in the competition for the Votive Church was a peak work of Gothic revival in Vienna. Zítek, just as young Schinkel 40 years prior, paid his tribute to the romantic enthusiasm of his time. His conceptual idea of modern Gothic was applied in 1857 in the study of the "Great Catholic Parish Church" project, to prove that he perfectly mastered Gothic forms. In the same year, he had the opportunity to apply his design for a Greek-Catholic church in Csanalós in Hungary and in 1859 for a Catholic church in Raková in Slovakia, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Education.
From 1857 until the end of 1858, Zítek was employed in the studio of Professor Van der Nüll and Siccardsburg, where he collaborated, for example, on the competing project for the Czech Savings Bank in Prague and the university and student dormitory in Vienna. The year 1858 brought Zítek recognition and at the same time financial support for further study. That year, Zítek received an award for the "Great Parish Church" at the Academy of Fine Arts exhibition and finally, in October of the same year, he received a travel scholarship at the academy for two years.
Zítek's stay in Vienna was temporarily interrupted, but the connections he built with both the artistic colony and the Czech patriotic colony in Vienna revived in later years, both in Prague and Vienna. As a member of the Czech Society, upon the recommendation of Vocel, he was introduced to Count Černín by Palacký, who called him "patriotischer Böhme." His Viennese acquaintances enabled Zítek, in the years to come, not only to return to Prague but also later to gain builders who appreciated art.
The trip to Italy in 1859, extended until the beginning of 1862, was a discovery of ideas of the Renaissance still little recognized at that time. The admiration for Italy and its captivating influence accompanied his entire life path.
Zítek diligently studied the architecture of Northern Italy, from where, three hundred years earlier, its creators had been crossing north over the Alps, just like in Central and Southern Italy. His sketchbooks narrate for whole volumes how he did not overlook but rather studied not as an archaeologist but as an artist seeking validation of his ideas about the legitimacy of new art through all the cities of Italy. Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Ferrara, Rome, Florence, Naples, Sicily, Orvieto, Assisi, Bologna, and Genoa were to him what Mecca is to all architects, was, and will be.
In Pompeii, Zítek met the painter Friedrich Preller, who was commissioned to create a cycle of paintings from the Odyssey for the Weimar patron of the arts, Grand Duke Karl Alexander. Preller recommended Zítek to the Grand Duke as a talented artist who would design a gallery for the cycle of paintings in his intent. During his stay in Rome, in 1861, Zítek developed the first proposals for the gallery as a standalone ground-level building in which the cycle of 16 wall paintings was to be placed. The proposal was submitted for execution after favorable recommendations from Peter Cornelius; thus, the original intention to use the cycle of paintings to decorate the so-called Wieland Room designed by Schinkel was abandoned. In 1862, Zítek returned to Vienna to work in the studio of his teachers Van der Nüll and Siccardsburg to participate in the work on the Vienna Opera. He was already independently employed on some smaller projects for Count Eug. Černín. However, still that year, he departed again for a longer scholarship trip, this time to Germany, Belgium, and France. On his journey, he visited Weimar, Mainz, Aachen, Brussels, Paris, Reims, Chartres, etc., and studied the castles and palaces on the Loire. During his stay in Brussels, he was commissioned by the Duke of Beaufort to develop a proposal for the reconstruction of the Duke's palace in Bečov at Mariánské Lázně. His stay in Weimar ensured that the Grand Duke was convinced to resolve the hall for Preller's cycle within the framework of the construction program of a new museum, the project of which the Grand Duke commissioned Zítek to execute.
Zítek understood that he was entrusted with an exceptionally honorable task. Weimar was then experiencing the last years of its golden age. The constellation of Goethe, Herder, Wieland, and Schiller had recently given it significance unmatched by any other city in Central Europe. During the reign of Karl Alexander, Weimar once again attracted a large colony of representatives of science and art, to which for a short time belonged also Bedřich Smetana and Josef Zítek, who had true friends in Weimar, Zítek in Preller and Smetana in F. Liszt. There is a certain similarity between Zítek and Smetana. For both young artists, their acquaintance with the German Athens brought a turning point in their further artistic careers. The 24-year-old Smetana sent to Liszt his first opus, "Dix morceaux caractéristiques," which was his first step into a world that established a friendship between Liszt and Smetana, which would later pave his way not only to the Grand Duke but also served as a letter of recommendation to the entire world. Similarly, the 29-year-old Zítek sent his first opus of new art to Weimar to develop into a perfect artist. Weimar has been and still is a place that believes in the possibility of artistic development. Here Zítek led and saw grow his first great work, which was the first deviation from the Gothic nature of his first works, and whose mere refinement and development are his later and peak works. Both Smetana and Zítek arrived back after trials conducted abroad, their artistic expression was not limited to small geographical borders, but they returned matured and ready to give the nation the greatest works of music and architecture of the entire 19th century. Not only that, both laid the foundations for artistic disciplines on which it has been possible to build up to our times. This development was accelerated and brought closer to us by Weimar. Smetana and Zítek forged through Weimar their artistic credo, both grew in the favor of Weimar and established themselves before tight circumstances in their homeland could enable them to do so.
After his return to Vienna, Zítek was fully occupied with tasks from Weimar. His Weimar assignment was soon expanded. It was necessary to develop the regulation of the entire district between the station and the old part of the city. Zítek skillfully resolved this task and placed the project for the museum along the main boulevard. Almost the entire year from 1863 to 1864, Zítek stayed in Weimar to personally oversee the construction that began in 1864.
His last stay in Vienna was filled with further work entrusted to him in Bečov, which he was carrying out together with architect G. A. Gnauth, whom he met in Italy. Distant reminiscences from his journey to the west (Pierrefonds) resonate in this work, which remained only a romantic dream of the builder and designers.
Partially executed according to his design was the renovation of the Černín Palace in Peterborough in Bohemia, although even there his generous design from 1864 remained unexecuted. Had it not been for the sudden turn in Zítek's life path, he might have remained permanently in Vienna, where in August 1864 he obtained a building license.
In Prague, in May 1864, a competition was announced at the Polytechnic Institute for filling the newly created chair of land-based construction (3rd course) and training in style drawing. All applicants were foreigners. The Provincial Council asked architect Ullmann to evaluate the applicants. Ullmann suggested that the Provincial Council negotiate with a domestic artist willing to take over the chair, naming Barvitius, Bergmann, Rivnáč, and explicitly Zítek as "eine im Aufblühen begriffene Kapazität." On July 20, 1864, the Provincial Council resolved, on the proposal of Professor Kořistka, to negotiate with Zítek, and Zítek's appointment was confirmed on November 6. By the end of 1864, in December, Zítek had already started his activities in Prague.
Alongside his teaching activity, Zítek was occupied with the construction of the Weimar museum, which was completed under roof that year, and finally the design of a Catholic church for Weimar, for which there was no funding for execution.
Patriotic and artistic Prague was then continuously occupied with the question of constructing the National Theatre. The building site was acquired, and ten years had already passed since the competition was announced, from which the project of architect F. Froehlich from Vienna emerged as the designated plan. Finally, in 1862, Ullmann built a provisional theatre on part of the original site. When Bach's absolutism was broken and the idea of realizing the National Theatre was revived, and in 1865 the first activities of the committee for the theatre construction began, Froehlich's plan could not be used for the diminished site. The committee accepted Ullmann's offer that he was willing to create new plans for the theatre free of charge but also invited architect Zítek to submit a proposal. On March 6, 1865, Zítek informed the negotiator Mr. J. Grégra: "I will try to prepare plans for a building that would fully fulfill its purpose while also being worthy of our nation."
The narrower competition was then expanded to include Professor Niklas, who also promised to submit a plan, and besides that, an additional proposal was submitted by an unnamed builder. The program for the theatre was sent out on April 27, in which it was announced to the competitors that they were to design a theatre for 2,500 people and reserved for the committee that the plans would be assessed by artists outside the Guild. In August 1866, plans arrived in Vienna, submitted by Mr. Sladkovský, to architects Van der Nüll and Siccardsburg, who recommended Zítek's design for execution. On April 28, 1867, the architectural management of the building was handed over to architect Zítek, and on May 16, 1868, the cornerstone was laid for the construction. On June 11, 1881, the theatre was ceremonially opened, and Zítek together with Smetana received the greatest honors that the official public could offer at that time. On September 11, the final opening was to take place, but the theatre fire on August 12 not only ruined the completed work in a single day but was also the beginning of the tragic departure of the artist from the unfinished work. At the opening, Zítek was criticized for many design errors: the small number of seats and standing places, cramped gallery spaces, and narrowness of the boxes, the chimney leads into the balustrade of the cupola, the low cupola, and so on. Some of these design faults arose from the limited building site and the large construction program, others from the effort of the builder to fit as many places as possible in the auditorium, and still other shortcomings were not caused by the design but by the then still imperfect lighting technology (gas) or heating and ventilation.
Although the architectural value of the theatre building was recognized, it seemed that at that time the true material of the building or its detail spoke more to laypeople than the whole was appreciated. There is no comparison in our cultural history where an artist experienced attacks like Zítek did at that time.
About the National Theatre, as Ot. Hostinský writes, "so much evil has been spoken and written as if it had been the worst theatre in the world." In defense of Zítek, O. Hostinský pleads that "the old layout should remain unchanged in any reconstruction of the theatre."
On Zítek's further work in the National Theatre, an inquiry from experts (Brandner, Baum, Helmer, Wiehl, and Wolf) on March 19 and 20, 1882, decided, imposing a series of conditions for the reconstruction that were unacceptable to Zítek. To the fateful ultimatum of this commission, communicated by Mr. J. Škarda, Zítek conceived several responses, of which the unfinished passage most important for us remained only in draft: "I wish the further execution a successful success and that love and effort that I have given through 15 years of activity..." He wrote no more. On March 31, Zítek's resignation was accepted by the committee for the establishment of the National Theatre. From this day, all of Zítek's creative activity belongs to history.
The eighteen years of his activity in Prague have primarily been filled with leading the construction of the National Theatre. It was a work of gigantic proportions for its time. Zítek emerges here as the first organizer of the Czech generation of artists and craftsmen and at the same time as a warrior for high artistic goals under very difficult circumstances, emphasizing both the quality of work and the nobility of building materials.
Zítek's artistic activity in his homeland actually falls into the first decade of his work in Prague—that is, into the time when he was not yet fully exhausted by work on the theatre.
In 1869, Zítek was invited by the city council in Karlovy Vary to assess the official project of the Mill Colonnade, for which a public competition had already been announced in 1851. Zítek was then asked to submit his own proposal, and in 1871, the new spa colonnade was built. In the same year, while the foundations were being built, the city council decided to change the original expensive project and Zítek was invited to submit a new proposal for a ground-level colonnade. Although it was only a torso of the original idea, the colonnade is a magnificent expansion of the artist's genius at its most promising beginning and his first completed major building in Bohemia.
In 1874, Zítek competed with architect J. Schulz for the construction of the Rudolfinum in Prague. It would require a more detailed study to prove Zítek's predominant work on this project, in which an unsurpassed example of public buildings is provided along the unique Vltava waterfront.
Smaller works by Zítek: the Havlíček's memorial in Olšany, the Pinkas memorial in Košíře, the proposal for the renovation of the staircase of Thun's palace in Malá Strana are also from these years.
Recognized as an outstanding artist, Zítek gladly escaped from the environment in which he grew up and co-created after the theatre's construction was interrupted, to never again "take the pencil in hand."
A new life—a beautiful country by the castle of Lčovice with a distant view of Šumava with Boubín, accompanied by his late love—proved stronger than the will of his genius. Zítek fell silent for 27 more years of life. His life and work have only an ascending line; perhaps he sensed that he had accomplished what he wanted: to bring Czech architecture for the first time to a European height.
F. X. Salda recalled the legacy of Vrchlický last year as follows: "A peculiar phenomenon; we did not have a renaissance in our literature. It seems that fate wanted to compensate us for this with Vrchlický. In some respects of his work, Vrchlický is a typical renaissance poet..." Perhaps this could also lead to reflections on our architecture. Zítek was not merely a co-creator of the work to which Semper and his predecessors bestowed only admiration for the Renaissance. History compensated us through Zítek.