Barcarole (Mythical Creature with Lyre), 1914

A “barcarole” is a type of Italian gondola song that was revisited by Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) in his opera The Tales of Hoffmann. The 1914 work Barcarole (Mythical Creature with Lyre), which Franz Sedlacek (1891, missing since 1945) painted with India ink on paper, is stylistically reminiscent of antique Greek vase painting in which figures were rendered as bright omissions, more closely defined through delicate, precise outlines, on a dark ground. This wondrous mythical creature is a sort of sea dragon with human facial features, arms and legs, whose overall shape is reminiscent of a gondola. Floating gracefully and calmly on the water, it appears to be singing and playing the lyre. Despite the strictly bichrome, shadowless and sharply delineated black-and-white rendering, the creature appears impressively three-dimensional.

RR, 2021