Poor nymph Echo mourns her love for Narcissus. She is portrayed as a shadow, a transparent image of the woman she was. A thin layer of paint subtly covers the imprimatur it resembles, the cave and the water into which the figure seems to be absorbed. The painting is part of the Sudeten Romance series.
Sudetenland, the borderland of the Czech Republic was heavily affected by the World War II,
the postwar expulsion of ethnic Germans, by communism and resettlement of the land by people with no relation to this poor part of the world, the hills and the foothills. This defines the uneasy cultural and social situation.
The human-less lanscape had been inhabited by mythological creatures - fauns, nymphs and other entities. They keep encountering humans; sometimes they interact with them, sometimes you only fleetingly notice them at the painting when they're already fading away t or they're just materializing from the imprimatura.
The nudity and figure contrast withe the nature in both its delicacy and cruelty.
Should this landcape be reinhabited by people or should it be left to myths and legends? Is it at all possible to cohabit with the Nature in this day and age? Is there any space left still for ancient secrets?
Can we face the past? Do these places still have future at times when life is lived here and now?
