There in the trees with strange powers is a magic enchanted...                                                                                                                           – Joseph von Eichendorff

Tree has recently become one of the objects of environmental protection. It has become apparent that even solitary trees in the open countryside and in the immediate vicinity of man need to be preserved. The environment in which man has lived for tens of thousands of years has consisted mainly of plant vegetation. The sudden absence or lack of trees, according to some views, could have a negative effect on the human psyche.

A tree, however, as some of the works in the exhibition show, is not only an object of ecological interest, but can also be a symbol of it, can become an embodiment of environmental values. There are deeper reasons for this. The tree is one of the oldest motifs in art and literature, its image runs through the entire cultural history of mankind. The tree has always been one of the main themes of the human imagination. 

The French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, best known as a theorist of natural sciences, already in the 1940s convincingly showed the great value of the tree for the human imagination. He dealt with the image of the tree in literature and drew attention to the connection between contemporary and the earliest poetic images, which he characterised as the connection of dreaming. What dreams in us today, dreamed in ancient times. According to Bachelard, not everything can be explained by the association of ideas and forms; the pictorial associations, the linking of images or dreams, must also be studied. 

The special physical relationship between man and tree, based on their verticality, is revealed. It is this verticality that is the feature that creates a strong imaginative bond between man and tree, giving rise to the imagination to the myriad metamorphoses of tree and man. The tree is an image that unites all kinds of imagery – in its verticality and multiplicity of forms it is a great image of the whole.

Curator of the exhibition, author of the paintings and author of the text: Jaroslav Anděl

Visit is possible by prior arrangement at info@krajinadomov.cz.