Cover design for the magazine Volné směry (Free Directions)
Both of Hlaváček's designs depict a woman as a confident creator. A female painter, smiling bemusedly, wearing a dress blown by the wind, polarises the surrounding free space with her dark appearance and the black surface of her easel, and seems to dominate and negate it. Similarly, the lady on the poster walks through Prague, wearing a dark dress, and almost overshadowing the bright panorama of Prague Castle. Her direct, penetrating gaze, accentuated by her lorgnette and fixed on the viewer, makes her a shrewd artist of life; an Art Nouveau archetype of Hermann Hesse's Hermine of The Steppenwolf - a woman who can turn a man's life upside down.
| Subject: | Others |
| Author: | Hlaváček, Karel |
| Title: | Cover design for the magazine Volné směry (Free Directions) |
| Date: | 1897 |
| Technique: | ink on paper |
| Dimensions: | 50 × 37,5 cm |
| Origin: | Karel Hlaváček fonds |
| Licence: | Free license |
