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Description

A watercolour painting of the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sts Jerome, Cyril and Methodius, Adalbert and Procopius in the Emmaus Benedictine Abbey in Prague (mostly known simply as the Emmaus Chuch).

I hope you like it and I'll appreciate your comments. 🙂

The painting was made as the cover art for a booklet about the church. I made the booklet (not just the art, but complete work including the text, photos and graphic design) for the local government. It is one in a series about all the churches in this municipal district which includes a significant part of the historical centre of Prague, so there are quite many of them. ⛪️ This is I think the 10th booklet in the series, and there are still many churches that have not been covered (In fact, I have just started working on another one, which should be printed this autumn).

Some of the churches I have already painted for previous booklets:
And work in progress photos of this one: The Emmaus Church in Prague - WIP , The Emmaus Church in Prague - WIP 2

I love this work, because it is a great combination of various kinds of creative activity I like to do (writing, painting, graphic design) with subject matter I am quite interested in (architecture, art history, church history). And this church is really full of beauty, so it was awesome working on it.

The church and monastery are very interesting in their history, cultural significance and architecture and I am happy I have learned a lot about it as I was working on the booklet.⁠ So if you are interested, here is some basic information:
The monastery was founded in the 14th century by Emperor Charles IV (who wanted to make Prague into the imperial capital of the Holy Roman Empire) as a centre of Slavic learning, to follow the tradition of Sts Cyril and Methodius. He invited Benedictine monks from Croatia who used Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. In the following centuries the monastery had a very complicated history with many interesting periods. In the 15th century it became the only Utraquist monastery. In the 17th century Spanish Benedictines settled there, introducing the cult of Our Lady of Montserrat. In the 19th century the monks expelled from Beuron in Germany came there, bringing with them the unique Beuron school of art (which, by the way, has been a great source of inspiration for me). The monastery complex was rebuilt and added to several times, but the saddest moment came in 1945 when it was bombed during a WWII Allied airstrike – most of the monastery burned down and the church towers and a great part of its vaults collapsed. After the war, the Benedictines determinedly started to rebuild their abbey, but soon they were expelled and imprisoned by the Communists, who confiscated the monastery and started using it for secular purposes. And during the Communist rule, the modern towers were built in the 1960s. While they are surely controversial, they have since become a well-known part of the Prague cityscape and even I, not a big fan of modern architecture, admit that they have certain unique elegance to them and with the pointed arch in the centre they nicely fit with the Gothic architecture. At last, the monastery was also returned to the Benedictines in 1990 and they have been gradually restoring it to its original beauty.

Description

A watercolour painting of the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sts Jerome, Cyril and Methodius, Adalbert and Procopius in the Emmaus Benedictine Abbey in Prague (mostly known simply as the Emmaus Chuch).

I hope you like it and I'll appreciate your comments. 🙂

The painting was made as the cover art for a booklet about the church. I made the booklet (not just the art, but complete work including the text, photos and graphic design) for the local government. It is one in a series about all the churches in this municipal district which includes a significant part of the historical centre of Prague, so there are quite many of them. ⛪️ This is I think the 10th booklet in the series, and there are still many churches that have not been covered (In fact, I have just started working on another one, which should be printed this autumn).

Some of the churches I have already painted for previous booklets:
And work in progress photos of this one: The Emmaus Church in Prague - WIP , The Emmaus Church in Prague - WIP 2

I love this work, because it is a great combination of various kinds of creative activity I like to do (writing, painting, graphic design) with subject matter I am quite interested in (architecture, art history, church history). And this church is really full of beauty, so it was awesome working on it.

The church and monastery are very interesting in their history, cultural significance and architecture and I am happy I have learned a lot about it as I was working on the booklet.⁠ So if you are interested, here is some basic information:
The monastery was founded in the 14th century by Emperor Charles IV (who wanted to make Prague into the imperial capital of the Holy Roman Empire) as a centre of Slavic learning, to follow the tradition of Sts Cyril and Methodius. He invited Benedictine monks from Croatia who used Church Slavonic as their liturgical language. In the following centuries the monastery had a very complicated history with many interesting periods. In the 15th century it became the only Utraquist monastery. In the 17th century Spanish Benedictines settled there, introducing the cult of Our Lady of Montserrat. In the 19th century the monks expelled from Beuron in Germany came there, bringing with them the unique Beuron school of art (which, by the way, has been a great source of inspiration for me). The monastery complex was rebuilt and added to several times, but the saddest moment came in 1945 when it was bombed during a WWII Allied airstrike – most of the monastery burned down and the church towers and a great part of its vaults collapsed. After the war, the Benedictines determinedly started to rebuild their abbey, but soon they were expelled and imprisoned by the Communists, who confiscated the monastery and started using it for secular purposes. And during the Communist rule, the modern towers were built in the 1960s. While they are surely controversial, they have since become a well-known part of the Prague cityscape and even I, not a big fan of modern architecture, admit that they have certain unique elegance to them and with the pointed arch in the centre they nicely fit with the Gothic architecture. At last, the monastery was also returned to the Benedictines in 1990 and they have been gradually restoring it to its original beauty.