You trust what paintings show you.What if they are telling a myth?
Look beneath the surfaceAn exhibition video is coming soon.
For the first time in over a century, an exhibition presents the full breadth of Jaroslav Čermák’s work — and the European world of which he was a part.
Born in Prague, he exhibited at the Paris Salons and won awards in France and Belgium. Jaroslav Čermák (1830–1878) brought a Czech perspective to the international art world of the nineteenth century.
He studied in Prague, Antwerp and Brussels. His career took shape through exhibitions and Paris studios, in dialogue with critics, dealers and collectors. He embraced his Czech origins, yet his painting crossed national borders and resisted the confines of any single style.
Prague City Gallery and the National Gallery Prague invite you to discover an artist whose story is richer than the legend we have come to tell about him.
Plan your visitA friend in traditional Herzegovinian dress. Garments from different regions on a single figure. A scene composed in the studio, later taken to depict an actual event.
These transformations of reality give the exhibition its title, Myths of European Reality. Reproductions, contemporary criticism and political circumstances added further layers of meaning to the paintings.
Come and explore what the painter experienced, what he invented — and what later generations read into his work.
Herzegovinian Women Returning to a Village Burned by Bashi-bazouks · 1877 · Prague Castle Administration · photograph: Jan Gloc
This time, you need not travel across Europe to see Čermák’s work.
The exhibition brings together loans from museums abroad and works from Czech collections, revealing connections that no single painting can show on its own.
This is just a glimpse.
The full story awaits at the exhibition.
1857 · National Gallery Prague
A historical scene tells us more than a story from the past. The exhibition also examines how reproductions, criticism and political circumstances changed the meaning of Čermák’s paintings and their place in national memory.
1870 · Prague City Gallery
Čermák’s work cannot be confined to national themes or a single style. Alongside dramatic historical scenes, his paintings include this view of the Breton coast.
1875 · Prague City Gallery
The exhibition distinguishes between the painter’s documented experience, the construction of an image and the myths that followed. It invites us to ask what a painting can really tell us about the world beyond its frame.
His paintings endured after his death. The story told around them changed.
In Czech culture, the image of Čermák as a patriot and Slavic hero gradually took hold. His connections with Belgium, France and the European art market receded into the background.
Exhibitions, reproductions, Hippolyte Gallait’s gifts to the city of Prague, and later books and films shaped this memory. An internationally successful professional became a symbol of devotion to his homeland and the struggle for freedom.
Archival sources, art-historical research and technical examination of the paintings shed new light on chronology, the artist’s working methods, and his personal and professional networks. The exhibition offers a fresh appraisal of a familiar artist and traces the changing reception of his work.
1830 PRAGUE — 1878 PARIS
Discover paintings that brought Czech roots and European ambition together — and the stories, realities and myths they hold.
Visit the exhibition