Painting Leaving the church

Originally Czech designer Jan Hála (1890 - 1959), after studying in Prague, settled in 1923 in the Slovak village Važec pod Tatrami. Apart from painting, he devoted himself to ethnography and documentary, and also wrote essays to the Czech newspaper Lidové noviny. As an artist he focused mainly on the documentation of the impressive landscape of Važec and Slovak folklore. He recorded it by traditional artistic means. He devoted himself to illustration, he is one of the founders of modern Slovak art of illustration for children and youth. The genre composition depicts a group of women in Važec folk costumes who are leaving the village church, with the mountainous Tatra countryside at the background. In Hála's painting manifestation, characterized by the use of varied colours, elements of stylized Art Nouveau decorativism can be found, which were typical for his work in the early 1930s.