Gallery »

There are more than 500 paintings made with this technique on display.

History

In the past, paintings on the reverse side of the glass hung almost in every house. They used to be displayed in every possible place, near the table, next to the cross and so on. You could find different saints on these pictures like St. Florian the patron of the fire fighters, St. Barbara the patron of the miners, or St. Isidor the patron of the farmers, and so on. The pictures were supposed to protect the people, remind them of important events (e. g. a journey, a pilgrimage), their function was spiritual as well as decorational.

Meaning

Reverse painting on glass is universal, it goes beyond period and time, it still has to tell the future generations something. Everyone has fights inside oneself like St. George did with the dragons, devils like St. Prokop, everyone carries his Lazarus hidden inside, many times in our lives we choose minor things with Martha and miss opportunities to make better choices with Mary and several times a day we manage to change our celebrational "Hosianna" to the convicting "Crucify" in case we do not get what we expected.

Exhibition

On display you can find traditional and popular reverse paintings on glass and also copied ones. There are paintings in professional craftsman style as well as in folk style, manually painted after the author´s loved creche theme and after every picture which captivates her. And there is Svatavas "invention" - 3D reverse paintings on glass, which contains several paintings put one behind the other in a deep frame. The impression of a stereometric picture can be enhanced by a LED diode light inside.

Reverse painting on glass training

I am offering the opportunity to learn the technique of reverse painting on glass. The so far youngest pupil was an eight-year-old boy, the oldest a lady in her sixties. It is difficult to say which one enjoyed the results of their work more. Once I taught this technique to all the children in the childrens´ home where I used to work and this kind of work kept busy even the hyperactive individuals. I guess this could be a good idea how to raise some extra money for institutions like this. With these paintings it doesn´t matter if they are kind of naive or imperfect ? many who do and were doing this did not go to an art conservatory. And you don´t need to start with traditional spiritual topics, just take a picture from a flower or animal book or a fairy tale. For the beginning put the picture under the glass, draw the outline and off you go.