The exhibition of selected works by Dominik Skutecký in the Mozart Café was not chosen by chance in the Gallery and Hotel Lomnica.

The exhibition of selected works by Dominik Skutecký in the Mozart Café was not chosen by chance in the Gallery and Hotel Lomnica. Not only does the zenith of the author's artistic genesis coincide to some extent with the boom of the legendary Tatra hotel, but the key position of Skutecký on the eve of the emergence of classical Slovak modernism is also significant . Dominik Skutecký, a Slovak painter of Jewish origin, a globetrotter and an enchanted witness of bourgeois life and its virtues, stands at the birth of realism with an emphasis on light, colour and painting technique, thus completely departing from the former historical academicism and romantic sentiments. His artistic destinies touch many corners of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, including Vienna and Budapest as well as the Munich academic environment. In particular, he had a deep relationship with Venice, where he spent 15 years of his life (1876 – 1889). If we exclude Skutecký's excellent portrait works, especially from the related portfolio, as well as his great theme of boilers, blacksmiths and casters from old Medené Hámre (emphasis on light, fire, shadows), the main iconographic areas of the artist are fashionable urban genres and plein airs (i.e. anecdotal figurative motifs from the interiors and exteriors of a sun-drenched landscape). With his enchanted optics, which does not lack smiles, a sense of situational detail, a strong visual relationship with models of Venetian beauties and dancers, as well as the quiet joy of family motifs, often with children and family environment, he – like the Italian masters Favreto, Bianchi and Cremona – became an enthusiastic chronicler of the bourgeois social class and its joys, as well as woes (praying widows in the temple premises). A great selection of this key iconography by Dominik Skutecký can be found in our Mozart cafe. As in the music of this Austrian genius, we can admire the sense of colour harmony, radiant decorative colourism, work with the intonation of sunlight or interior light, an amazing sense of the nature of environmental materials, draperies, furniture, jewellery, contemporary fashion, but especially love-illuminated humanity. However, admirable artistic perfectionism is never made up, rigid and mentored, it is full of spontaneous artistic and pictorial joy.

Authors included in the exhibit