In 1347, when Charles IV came to power in Bohemia, he ushered in a flourishing, 90-year golden age of high culture, said Hilarie M. Sheets in Newsday. Educated at the French court and an obsessive collector, Charles intended to make Bohemia's capital, Prague, a rival to Paris and Rome. In large part, he succeeded. He built palaces and universities and commissioned art that was meant to be of the most modern sort, influenced by early Renaissance masters in Italy. The Metropolitan Museum has mounted 'œthe kind of show you won't see anywhere else.' It's comprehensive and scholarly, yet it also dazzles with the sheer power and sophistication of the assembled reliquaries, statues, and religious paintings.
These objects are 'œall but unknown except to the most committed students of the grand tradition,' said James Gardner in the New York Post. Painting styles from Florence and Siena involving more realistic perspective and mottling made their way to Central Europe. But once there, these modern trends 'œdeveloped in odd and beautiful ways.' There's a certain earthbound, imperfect loveliness and 'œmacabre spirituality' to the Madonnas, said Walter Robinson in Artnet.com. In the wooden statue Virgin and Child (c. 1355'“60), a young Mary stands smiling, eyes downcast, her hip thrust out, the Christ child perched upon it. It is 'œstriking to contemporary eyes' because it looks nothing like the demure, otherworldly Italian virgins of the time. The Strahov Madonna (c. 1430s) even gazes, from a painted-wood altarpiece, directly at her audience, with 'œwhat might pass for bee-stung lips.'
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