Acis and Galatea (after Claude Lorrain)

This mezzotint was modeled after the 1657 painting Coastal landscape with Acis and Galatea, by French Baroque painter Claude Lorrain. Anderle found much inspiration in the paintings of the Renaissance masters. Both Lorrain and Anderle paint a landscape depicting the Greek myth of the lovers. Although, Anderle does not merely copy the composition of the original painting; he introduces a new narrative with his inclusion of a grotesque figure watching over the scene. Due to the political climate at the time, it appears this voyeuristic moment between the lovers and the figure could represent the sentiment Czechoslovakians would have felt for sexual privacy, as they were the only moments of private freedom they truly had at the time.

[Sabrina Piña-McMahon, wall text in "Suppression, Subversion, and the Surreal: The Art of Czechoslovakian Resistance," USC Fisher Museum of Art, March 9 - May 10, 2019.]