REPRESENTATION
IN COLLECTIONS

Modern art expression is sometimes compared with contemporary music. Should we use the same comparison in case of Mžyk, his works may be compared to a good jazz suite in which the apparent colour areas resemble the rag rhythm and the elegance of line drawing is to be understood as the fundamental tune.

Mžyk's work lacks the "aesthetics of opposition and revolt" as well as the naive enthusiasm of an intellect which barely entered the subconscious and now frightens and bothers us with the visions he met there. Mžyk has never never been attracted by minimal expression, nor has he ever felt the need to manifest different positions of intellectual detachment from the delight he feels when he is painting a picture. Mžyk's large, complex compositions with alluded memories and a strange, peculiar, intimate personál iconography are so strongly characterised by harmony, brightness and beauty (at first glance and their ultimate meaning), that these old categories of spirituál aesthetics háve nevěr been omitted by any interpreter of his work. The works of Josef Mžyk do not, therefore, fit in with what were well until recently favourite definitions of the "weighty" and reflective Central European character and ironic-grotesque style of Czech art. These definitions sought to reveal an adequate position of contemporary art but were more than a mere apology for provincial ideals.