The ambition of the illustrated encyclopaedia is to introduce a cultivated reader to the most extensive fund of architectural monuments and creative art relics in Slovakia. It is not an expert or art-historical publication describing or arranging the, often contradictory expert opinions. In the past decades, many of them have been collected in publications of this type. In contrast to scientific work, you will not encounter them there. On the contrary, we present painting, murals, altars, churches, castles, manor houses and historic town centres that only use their birth certificates, characteristics and forms to recount their history. The idea of this encyclopaedia`s was the reader to look closer, to establish relationships, to answer the questions of "why is it like that" when regarding the illustrations and photographs - or best, when visiting the sites directly. This publication aims to provide the largest possible scope of basic information - on where to find the beauty, on its orderers, creators, similar sites, the period and environment, in which it was created. Of course, many monuments do not have a known builder, painter, sculptor or craftsman. For most centuries, there were men - humble creators who did not feel the need for own presentation.
Even though no names are mentioned "at least" the work introduces them. You will also find the names of those who had the structures or pieces of art created and an explanation of the period in which the work was created. Current creators - artists usually assume a negative attitude to being questioned on the meaning of their work. Structures, sculptures and paintings of the past centuries hide messages that the period society understood. And often are very complicated. They include an enormous wealth of stories, fates, symbolism of the Old and New Testament, various legends, period reflections of science and literature. Some have their roots in the pre-Christian cultures. It is even possible to read the fortunes of people, orderers and viewers of these works. The period community looked much deeper at the shapes of architecture and the meaning of its details. In this publication, we are trying to point out at least a fraction of them.
Scenario and concept, draft, concept and coordination of 3D drawings, production of onsite photographic shooting, author of texts and annotations Peter Kresanek. Author of page on Slovak National Gallery and consultant Dusan Buran.
Book details:
extra large format of the book (32x20 cm)
984 pages
1 109 entries
more than 5500 photographs with detailed descriptions
110 three-dimensional illustrations of chosen monuments
28 spatial images of historical sites.
