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The distinctiveness of Bohemian
baroque:
a study in the architecture of Central Europe, c.1680-c.1720
Ralph Harrington
BA (Lond.), MSt (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.)
copyright notice | citation
information | illustrations | plagiarism | notesDURING THE EARLIER seventeenth century the dominant influence on Bohemian architecture was Italian, and by 1680 architects of Italian origin were well-established in the region; there were then 28 Italian architects working in Prague, compared with seven from northern Europe.[1] The rapidity with which Germanic influence displaced that of Italy can be gauged from the fact that by the later1690s the proportions were reversed, largely as a result of the great immigration of architects, particularly from southern Germany, which took place from 1690 to 1700. This influx of talent ensured that, despite long-held Italian architectural dominance, the great flowering of the Austrian baroque which took place in the 1680s had rapid repercussions in Bohemia, where its influence became transformed into a style altogether distinct from that prevalent in Austria itself.
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The first phase of the Austrian baroque had itself been
dependent on Italian artists, and a large number of architects, sculptors and
decorators originating in Italy made vital contributions to the development of
the style known as ‘Imperial Baroque’. This Austrian imperial
architectural style was fully formed by 1700, its fullest expression being
found in the work of two Italian-trained native architects, Johann Fischer von
Erlach (1656-1723) and Lucas von Hildebrandt (1688-1745), who were both to have
an important influence on the architecture of Bohemia and particularly on the
Bohemian capital, Prague. The evolution of the initial Italian influence in the
architecture of Bohemia and of Austria however, provided an early point of
divergence between the two. Perhaps because of its absorption into the canon of
the imperial style, Italian influence in Austria became more permanent,
producing a a baroque which tend to be unwilling to break away from the
accepted standard Italian architectural usage; an example of a somewhat rigid,
formalised architecture which could result is the interior of Fischer’s
Karlskirche in Vienna (1716-29). In Bohemia, as in Bavaria, the blend of
Austrian and Italian baroque was interpreted with rather more freedom. It has been said that Austrian influence on Bohemian art
and architecture was ‘indirect rather than direct ... [Vienna] was one of
the stations through which the new iconographic styles passed and from which
technical innovations spread’.[2] The line through
Vienna and Prague began in Italy; by the time it reached Bohemia it had
acquired a strong Austrian and south German strain, and went on to blend with
other influences from France, Poland and Russia to become a clearly Bohemian
style, although closely related to the Austrian and international baroque. The long period of Italian dominance in Bohemia left
several notable buildings in Prague: the Wallenstein Palace (Czech:
Valdštejnský palác), begun in 1621 by Andrea Spezza,
blends renaissance elements such as the arched loggia with a baroque facade and
a courtyard in the classic Roman baroque pattern, with the three orders
superimposed on the three stories. This building marks the early stages of
Italian influence, and has parallels in Austria and southern Germany; but
characteristically Bohemian features are making their appearance in the large
dormer windows with their pointed finials, standing out sharply against the
steeply pitched roof. 
Wallenstein Palace, Prague (1623-30): view of the central loggia from the gardens. [Public domain image: source]
Both the general stimulus of the Italian baroque and the
inspiration provided by specific buildings remained strong in Bohemia
throughout the century, and the Italian vocabulary of form and detail became
thoroughly absorbed; but local tradition and character rapidly modified this
legacy in a way that did not happen in Austria. Thus the Italian manner of
placing a dome on top of a drum, with clear horizontal demarcation between the
different components of the structure, remained firmly engrained in Austria,
but was rarely employed in Bohemia. The late seventeenth-century Church of St
John in Kromeriz, a classic example of later Italian influence, has a dome
pierced in the lower part by windows and developing directly from the nave
below, without any intervening drum; its oval plan, without aisles or
transepts, again links it to southern German styles. The design of churches provides ample evidence of the way
in which the international baroque style was shaped and modified by distinctly
Bohemian characteristics. At the centre of church architecture in Bohemia from
the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth are
Christoph Dientzenhofer (1655-1722) and his son Kilian Ignatz (1689-1751),
members of an Upper Bavarian family which provided several of the most
important architects of the Central European baroque. Christoph came to Prague
in 1678; over the next half century he and his son created some of the most
imaginative, colourful and inventive baroque architecture in the old world,
justifying the claim that all the inherent tendencies of the baroque were
carried in Bohemia ‘to their logical conclusions’.[3] The church of St Nicholas on the Kleinseite (1703-11) is
generally regarded as Christoph Dientzenhofer’s finest building, and as
the greatest baroque church in Prague. The exterior, with its undulating
façade and lantern-capped dome atop a great drum, broadly conforms to
the accepted canons of Austro-Italian baroque, and gains great dignity from its
restrained ornamentation; but there is a certain plasticity in its
monumentality, in the curves of the facade, the delicacy with which the windows
are treated, and the lightness of the lantern, indicating the presence of a
brightness and energy which is rare in contemporary Austrian churches. If the
exterior hints at restlessness, the interior has a sense of perpetual movement
which transcends its basically Italian structure, with its curved entablature,
the almost organic freedom of the balconies at gallery level, the angled wall
pillars with their tops dissolving into sculpture, the play of convex and
concave surfaces, and the expressive yet untheatrical carving of the statuary
and public decoration. The whole shows clearly the influence of the Italian
baroque architect Guarino Guarini, filtered through a blend of Polish, Bavarian
and Bohemian styles. 
St Nicholas on the Kleinseite, Prague (1703-11): western façade (left), view from the east showing drum and dome (right). [Public domain images: source]
Christoph’s other great church, St Margaret’s
church at Brevnov Monastery (1707-21), has an exterior which, it has been said,
‘defies all rules and transcends all boundaries’;[4] there is nothing quite like it in Austria, or even in
Bavaria. The walls are plain, articulated with ionic pilasters and pillars; at
the west wnd, the facade curves back around the corners, without the curves
being marked by any particular decoration – the simplicity of the
arrangement only adding to its drama. The building’s dynamic quality is
further emphasised by the lateral projections of the nave, two bays in width,
and the recessed endmost days on either side. There is a distinctly Slavic
quality to the entablature and the roof, where the sharp corners of the masonry
contrast with curved pediments. The whole building has left the formulae of the
Austrian and Italian baroque behind, and has more in common with the styles of
Poland than with those of Austria. St Margaret’s Church stands as a clear
confirmation of the claim that Bohemian architecture derives its unique
character from ‘the joining of Slavic and Germanic elements’.[5] 
Entrance to St Margaret’s church, Brevnov Monastery (1707-21). [Public domain image: source]
Secular buildings tended not to offer baroque architects
the same degree of opportunity for inventiveness and originality as churches,
but the palaces, university buildings and country houses of Bohemia can
nonetheless by circa 1680 be said to have left behind their
Italo-Austrian origins and developed a distinctively Bohemian character. The
beginnings of Bohemian influence on Italian-derived palace architecture in the
case of the Wallenstein Palace, with its steep roof and visually striking
dormer windows, have been mentioned above; and a picturesque, broken roof line
remains one of the clearly Bohemian qualities of building during this period.
Fischer’s Clam-Gallas Palace of 1713, also in Prague, shares many features
with comparable Austrian structures, but with its varied roofline and lively
decoration has a picturesque quality which is simply un-Austrian. The skyline
of the Clam-Gallas, the expressive detailing of door and window surrounds, and
the vigour of sculpture around the entrance portals (by Matthias Braun) combine
to create an overall impression of energy and balance which is
characteristically Fischer but equally characteristically Bohemian.
Façade of the Clam-Gallas Palace, Prague (1713). [Public domain image: source]
The Clam-Gallas Palace can be compared with
Fischer’s earlier work on the saloon at the Castle of Vranov, which dates
from the rebuilding of the castle in 1678-95. This is a far more purely
Austrian conception in its somewhat pedantic harmony; the sculpture, by Tobias
Kracker, is more refined than Braun’s but at the same time much less
expressive. The Vranov saloon has more in common with the space and careful
elegance of the Hofburg in Vienna than with the vigorous baroque of Bohemia.
Braun’s sculpture is employed in Prague in ways
which can be paralleled in Vienna, integrated into architectural compositions
around doorways and staircases; but the difference between his work and that of
Vienna and other Austrian towns in some ways crystallises the distinctiveness
of the Bohemian baroque. The colossal eagles which flank one of the doorways of
the Thun-Hohenstein Palace in Prague (c.1720) are roughly contemporary with the
carving in the Prinz Eugen Stadtpalais in Vienna, and possess the same central
European baroque massiveness and boldness, but are more distorted, more
textured, more vigorous, more savagely powerful than anything to be found in
Vienna. Braun’s sculpture is integrated with the architecture in the
classic Austrian manner, but never seems to be at ease with the situation
– and therein lies its power. Perhaps the most completely original architecture
produced in Bohemia during the early 17th century is the ‘Baroque
Gothic’ of Johann Saintin-Aichel (1667-1723), a native of Prague who
trained in Italy and studied in both England and Holland. His main interests
were in lively angular contours and largely unornamented services, which are
traditional characteristics of native Bohemian architecture. His most
distinctive work, carried out at abbeys and pilgrimage churches, was the
product of a conscious attempt to return to native Bohemian traditions. A
combination of an assertive, reinvigorated Catholicism and a desire to
resurrect the greatness of mediaeval Bohemia – rediscovered in the early
eighteenth century through the writings of historians, notably the Czech
Jesuit, Bohuslaus Balbin (1621-1688) – lead to Bohemian abbeys taking on
the role of transmitting native traditions through their architecture. The
result and was a reversion to Gothic forms; at the abbeys of Sedlec, Kladruby
and Zeliv, Aichel employed Gothic inspired vaults devoid of structural purpose,
combined with plain walls, baroque entablatures and classical orders, and
remarkable light effects to create an architecture quite unlike any other, and
unique to Bohemia. When working on a purely secular structure, however, Aichel
showed himself a master of more conventional Fischer-style Austrian baroque,
such as he employed in the Thun-Hohenstein Palace. Discussing Bohemia’s general rejection of the rococo
and neoclassical styles later in the eighteenth century, one writer has
referred to a ‘counter-attack against classicism’[6] on the part of Bohemian architecture, characterized by
buildings such as the Villa Amerika of 1720. This exquisite building, by K. I.
Dientzenhofer, combines the simplicity and elegance of Veneto villa
architecture with a confident, rhythmically baroque style of wall articulation
and a typically Prague broken roof line of sculpture, moulded dormer windows
and strongly grouped chimneys.
Villa Amerika, Prague (1720). [Public domain image: source]
A similar adherence to the baroque spirit is demonstrated by the Sylva Tarouca Palace of 1749, which despite its careful proportions and symmetry declines to be a building at rest; instead it shows its baroque vitality in its entablature and pediments, and in the massing of its bold pavilion like central block and flanking wings. That both the austerity of neoclassicism and the profuse ornament of the rococo were rejected in Bohemia reflected the extent to which baroque had been absorbed into and adapted by the native tradition, acquiring qualities of vigour, energy and originality and expressing a willingness to test the accepted rules of architectural composition to their limits.
© Ralph Harrington 2005. This work is protected by copyright and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Licence. This means that you can copy, distribute and transmit this work freely as long as it is attributed to the original author; you may not alter, transform or build upon this work; and you may not use this work for commercial purposes.
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Cite as: Ralph Harrington, ‘The distinctiveness of Bohemian
baroque: a study in the architecture of Central Europe, c.1680-c.1720’
(2005)
Location (stable URL): http://www.greycat.org/papers/bohemia.html
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1. Eberhard Hempel, Baroque Art and Architecture in Central Europe (London: Penguin, 1965), p. 125.
2. Václav Vilém Štech, Baroque Sculpture (London: Spring Books, 1959), p. 35.
3. Václav Vilém Štech, Baroque Sculpture (London: Spring Books, 1959), p. 19.
4. Eberhard Hempel, Baroque Art and Architecture in Central Europe (London: Penguin, 1965), p. 129.
5. Christian Norberg-Schultz, Late Baroque and Rococo Architecture (London: Faber, 1980), p. 181.
6. Eberhard Hempel, Baroque Art and Architecture in Central Europe (London: Penguin, 1965), p. 132.
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