Stanislav Libenský (1921—2002) and Jaroslava Brychtová (1924—2020) were world-renowned glass artists whose sculptures, technological developments and teachings established new possibilities for small-scale and monumental glass sculpture, influencing generations of artists. They created some of the most iconic glass sculptures and architectural installations of the 20th century. Throughout their lives and artistic partnership spanning almost five decades, the artists defied the artistic mandates of the communist state-sanctioned style, Socialist Realism, experimenting with the optical and material properties of glass to develop a striking modernist body of work that explored form, light and color, and which helped define 20th-century abstract and monumental glass sculpture. Their kiln-cast, transparent glass work, Sphere in a Cube (figs. 1—3), from the Uměleckoprůmyslové museum v Praze collection of 1970, embodies several of the artists’ core philosophical and artistic principles concerning the critical role of light and movement in glass sculptures, as well as the key artistic and political influences and technical innovations that guided their career. An early work in what many call the artists’ “crystal period” in the 1970s and 1980s, named after the era’s predominate use of colorless glass in both small-scale sculptures and architectural installations, Sphere in a Cube also reveals their approach to interior and exterior spaces and their keen interest in geometry and optical effects. Looking at Sphere in a Cube is akin to stepping into a mesmerizing miniature hall of mirrors: one’s gaze is drawn from the sculpture’s exterior edges to its interior, where an ever-shifting universe of shapes and colors seemingly disappears and reappears, morphing and distorting the surroundings as light and movement interact with the piece (fig. 1). Working in kiln-cast glass, where solid chunks of glass are placed in a mold, melted in a kiln and then annealed (slowly cooled in a kiln), cut and coldworked (e.g. ground and polished), Libenský and Brychtová devised a new formal language and vocabulary for their practice, developing new technologies and techniques to create expressive and abstract sculptures on both small and massive scales. Today, most of the world’s largest cast glass sculptures are still made in the region of northern Bohemian where Libenský and Brychtová lived. This is testament to their legacy: Brychtová played an instrumental role in developing kilns large enough to anneal monumental glass as the founder of the architectural glass center at the Železnobrodské sklo factory, while Libenský influenced a generation of artists as teacher and mentor in his role as head of the glass studio at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague, where he taught for over twenty years.
“Glass is light” and the origins of the “inner glass shape”
In an interview with artist Robert Kehlmann, Libenský’s statement that “there is no sense producing objects. Creating ideas is what makes sense” conveys a deep conviction that guided the two artists’ practice.1Robert Kehlmann, The Inner Light: Sculpture by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, exh. cat., Tacoma 2002, 14. ↩ Their interest in pushing the boundaries of glass technology was not driven by a desire to create beautiful objects, but rather as a means of exploring ideas.2Kehlmann (2002), 14. ↩ The main focus was on the ability of glass to make visible the inner cavity of the piece and its critical relationship to light---a relationship so intertwined that Libenský stated “glass is light.”3Kehlmann (2002), 24. ↩ When discussing what distinguishes glass sculptures from those in other media, Brychtová explained that “[a]ll sculpture is defined or viewed by the reflection of light, but only glass sculpture is also defined by light penetration”, due to the transparent, translucent, ephemeral and optical properties of glass and how these interact with light and movement.4Kehlmann (2002), 25. ↩ They both realized that, in contrast to sculpture in other media, glass sculpture could hold light within its interior and that the inner space of a glass sculpture could possess a visual, metaphoric, even spiritual life. Throughout their nearly five-decade collaboration, which began in the late 1950s and ended with Libenský’s death in 2002, they employed various approaches to capturing and controlling light in their sculptures. This became a driving force of artistic inquiry and technical innovation. Conceptions of a work began with drawings by Libenský, which Brychtová translated into clay models intended to reveal the inner space when envisioned in glass. After back-and-forth dialogue, Brychtová would make a plaster mold for the work to be cast in glass.
One area in which the artists made huge progress of casting advancements is their development of negative relief molding, where the relief is contained within the interior of the work as opposed to the exterior. When amplified with light and movement, this technique gives their works one of their trademark features, a sense that the sculpture’s interior is moving, shifting and/or glowing from within. Libenský and Brychtová referred to these interior spaces as the “inner glass shape” of their works.5Kehlmann (2002), 40. ↩ We see this in Sphere in a Cube, which consists of five identically-sized colorless, transparent cast glass squares, each of which contains a negative relief in the form of a hollowed out portion in a concave shape in the center of the square (fig. 1). While the perimeters of the concave negative relief are uniform in each cast square, the depth of the relief varies in each piece. Because of the transparent nature of the material, these inner glass shapes within the sculpture are visible. When the squares are placed next to each other, the negative reliefs in them visually form a sphere inside the combined square panels. Combining the optical properties of glass and relief work creates an infinity of geometric shapes that multiply, shift, disappear and reappear within the work when activated by light and movement. This is because the optical properties of glass distort, reflect and morph the environment and the contours of the sculpture as one looks through and moves around the piece. Peering into Sphere in a Cube draws the viewer into a universe of optical phenomena where reality is altered, deconstructed, distorted, reversed or erased, depending on the light and movement around the piece. The visible bubbles, a natural result of the casting process, add subtle texture to the visual plane. The artists’ focus on the inner glass shape of the work, their deep knowledge of how the shape and density of glass determine the amount of light a sculpture can hold, and their mastery of casting technology enabled Libenský and Brychtová to explore the relationship of the inner cavity, the inner light and outer shell of their works in order to make that which is invisible, visible. Though they experimented with techniques other than negative relief at different stages of their career to articulate the inner glass shape, their focus on the inner cavity and its relationship with light and the outer shell remained a constant feature of all their works.
Artistic heritage: a Cubist legacy
With its synthesis of geometric and mathematical forms, and by incorporating multiple viewpoints of perspective within one vantage point, Sphere in a Cube is also representative of the artists’ deep interest in Cubist principles. This early modernist movement devised a new visual language showcasing multiple perspectives and fracturing objects into geometric forms. While the movement originated in early-20th-century France, Prague also became a vibrant Cubist center. Differing from French Cubism in seminal ways, Czech Cubism placed a greater emphasis on existential and spiritual issues, including the spirituality of matter, and applied these principles to the applied arts and architecture, painting, and sculpture.6See period texts, including Bohumil Kubišta, “O duchovní podstatě moderní doby”, in: Česká kultura 2, nos. 14-15 (April 1914); Pavel Janák, “Hranol a pyramida”, in: Umělecký měsíčník 1 (1911—1912), Emil Filla, “Cesta tvořivosti”, in: Úvahy o výtvarném umění, Prague, 1948. For a discussion of the difference between French and Czech Cubist principles, see Jaroslav Anděl et al., Czech Modernism: 1900—1945, exh.cat., Houston 1990, 22. ↩ Czech art historian Jiří Šetlík recalled that when Libenský and Brychtová first began creating geometric, optical works like Sphere in a Cube, Cubist principles championed by both Czech and French artists such as Otto Gutfreund and Raymond Duchamp-Villon helped them recognize the potential of glass in applying these theories.7Kehlmann (2002), 56. ↩
The influence of Cubism is evident in Sphere in a Cube. The perspective from fig. 2 of the front glass square panels showcases and distorts multiple viewpoints. The vertical lines that make up each of the five glass squares are only visible at the edges, where they form a visual frame around the perimeter of the work, flattening foreground and background. The interior inner glass shape is also visible, depicting a sphere nesting within several smaller spheres inside the square. Additionally, the back wall and window behind the sculpture are visible and are morphed into a dwarfed, miniature size and brought into the sculpture’s center. The room and window thus become part of the sculpture. In fig. 3, the side view, the squares are placed next to each other, and fracture the visual plane with vertical lines, creating a variety of geometric shapes that disappear and reappear as the viewer moves around the piece. Though the work is made of colorless glass, in both figs. 2 and 3 the sculpture presents an array of grey hues---different in each image---which simultaneously define and challenge the sense of volume in the work.
Indeed, Libenský and Brychtová considered themselves heirs to the Cubists,8Kehlmann, (2002), 80. ↩ stating that
our earlier work had very much in common with Cubist thinking in terms of shaping the volumes […] but in our pieces light penetrates the object […]. It was a goal of the Cubists to show many views within the visibility of one plane. The Cubists achieved the expressive appeal of their work by putting volumes together. We have the advantage of also being able to allow expression to come from the interior of the volume.9Kehlmann, (2002), 56; 76. ↩
The complexity of *Sphere in a Cube’*s interiority, at once mathematical, geometric and structured, and at the same time metaphysically and enigmatically unpredictable and ephemeral, evokes a sense that the work is somehow animated, alive or glowing from within. In this sense, Sphere in Cube occupies an important space within the legacy of Czech Cubism. While the concept of existential mystery or spirituality is one the artists explore more openly and deeply in their later works, Sphere in Cube reveals that traces of these concepts are already present in their sculptures at this time.
Glass’ “ability to express all human feeling”: contextualizing Sphere in a Cube in its political climate
The artists’ deeply held beliefs regarding glass’s potential as an expressive medium and the ambition of their practice---one thinks of Libenský assertion that glass “has the ability to express all human feelings”, and Brychtová’s comment that “good art must incorporate all of one’s life” ---suggest that the visual attributes of Sphere in a Cube reveal additional layers of meaning. 10American Craft Museum, Czechoslovak Glass: Seven Masters, exh. cat., New York 1983; Jaroslava Brychtová, conversation with Amy J. Hughes, Železný Brod, Czech Republic, July 26, 2018. ↩ Taking seriously the artists’ own words about glass and art raises a central question: what emotions and life experiences might the inner glass space of Sphere in a Cube, with its shapes that disappear, reappear and shapeshift, and which distort, alter, and mutate reality, signify about their lived experience of life in Czechoslovakia in the early 1970s? This line of analysis requires a brief contextualization of Sphere in A Cube within the wider political climate.
After the communists gained power in 1948, the production, sale and distribution of art was nationalized. All official art became the property of the state. Only Party members in good standing could work as official artists, attend art schools, teach, or apply for and receive commissions. Art was required to conform to the official state-sponsored style, Socialist Realism, which glorified the state, promoted historicism and the proletarian worker, and emphasized stylization rather than abstraction. While strict adherence to these artistic tenets was not consistent throughout the regime’s forty-year reign, all official artists had to meet state stipulations to varying degrees. They had to navigate external censors and self-imposed censorship, and balance the expression of their artistic vision with concern about retribution by the state if their work strayed too far from official dictates.
Like other applied art media, glass was relatively less censored than artforms in other so-called “fine art” media (such as painting and literature), since it was considered utilitarian and apolitical. Due to the country’s long-standing reputation for producing high-quality glass, which generated significant foreign currency reserves through exports, the government tolerated and even encouraged abstraction in glass because it sold well internationally. Many artists who had trained in other media flocked to glassmaking so as to explore abstraction, since it offered more artistic freedom than other media. This influx of new ideas in glassmaking contributed to the rise of an extraordinarily vibrant and creative period in all types of glassmaking, despite challenging political circumstances.11For further reading on how the glass industry, schools and universities and artists functioned within the state, see Jan Mergl, “The Artist and Industry 1945—1960: Conditions, Potentials and Results of the Artist-Industry Relationship”, in: Helmut Ricke, ed., Czech Glass 1945-1980: Design in an Age of Adversity, exh. cat., trans. Linda Paukertová, Stuttgart 2005,74-85; Sylva Petrová, Czech Glass, trans. Štěpán Suchochleb and Beta Havelská, 2nd ed., Prague, 2018, 33-57, 71-101, 113-169; Verena Wasmuth, Tschechisches Glass: künstlerische Gestaltung im Sozialismus, Wien, 2016. ↩ As glass gained both global critical and commercial acclaim, it was heavily promoted at international fairs, world expos and global exhibitions, and Czechoslovakian glass and glass artists, including Libenský and Brychtová, were catapulted to international renown. The political and artistic climate that Libenský and Brychtová navigated was indeed censored to varying and shifting degrees. However, because of glass’s privileged position and the artists’ status on the world stage, the abstraction embedded in their work faced less scrutiny.
This situation changed in 1968. On August 20—21, 1968, Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia, marking the beginning of the late socialist period commonly known as normalization, an era characterized by severe crackdowns, Party purges, trials, and the implementation of policies and laws repressing all areas of public life.12Normalization referred to the return to order after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. According to Kieran Williams, the term first entered Soviet parlance as a euphemism for the restoration of communist control after the Hungarian and Polish uprising. See Kieran Williams, The Prague Spring and Its Aftermath: Czechoslovak Politics 1968—1970, Cambridge 1997, 40. For a firsthand account of normalization, see Milan Šimečka, The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia, trans. A. G. Brain, London 1984. ↩ While it is true that individuals react differently to stimuli, and there are gaps in our knowledge of Libenský’s and Brychtová’s specific interactions with and responses to the regime, we can ascertain some key facts. Beginning in 1970, the year Sphere in a Cube was made, the artists began facing threats and intimidation for their opposition to the 1968 invasion that lasted well into the mid-1980s, with the early 1970s being particularly difficult years for them.13Jaroslava Brychtová, conversation with Amy J. Hughes, Železný Brod, Czech Republic, April 8, 2019; Pavel Karous, conversation with Amy J. Hughes, Prague, Czechia, December 3, 2021. See also Amy J. Hughes, “A Haunted Site of Modernity: Affective Dissent and the Legacies of Trauma in Czechoslovakian Monumental Public Sculpture”, in: David S. Danaher, Barbara J. Falk, and Delia Popescu, eds., Lessons from the Revolutions in East Central Europe in 1989: You Say You Want a Revolution?, New York 2026. ↩ As previously mentioned, the creation and expression of their inner glass shapes, such as those in Sphere in a Cube, was a driving theme of their creative work throughout their careers. The artists made clear that “there is symbolism in our colors”, and that they used colors to both build light space and to serve as metaphors.14Kehlmann (2002), 84. ↩ This suggests the transparent color in Sphere in a Cube may also have possessed symbolic content. When asked why glass that distorted and changed reality was used so prominently in those years, Brychtová responded by saying “it was best suited to that period”.15Jaroslava Brychtová, conversation with Amy J. Hughes, Železný Brod, Czechia, July 26, 2018. ↩ According to art historian Milena Klasová, there was a general interest growing in transparent and optical glass at this time, since its luminous effects harmonized well with its environment, making it well-suited for architectural projects.16Milena Klasová, Libensky Brychtová, trans. Jana Solperová, Joy-Moss Kohoutová, Gerald Turner, Prague 2002, 99. ↩ However, transparency could also be perceived as neutral and harder to misinterpret, making it a safer political choice than color, which has long been associated with symbolism.
Taken together, these factors suggest that the formal language in Sphere in a Cube may reflect yet another prismatic layer of either conscious or subconscious meaning concerning how the artists viewed and experienced this tumultuous period in their lives. Perhaps the shapes, colors, and environment depicted in the inner glass shape of Sphere in a Cube that shift, appear, then disappear and distort the surrounding environment convey the experience of shifting norms and stability and a reality that was quickly changing and mutating against the backdrop of an increasingly oppressive political climate. Despite the challenging climate and harassment, the artists demonstrated remarkable resilience, and this era became a prolific period for them, resulting in the production of both small-scale and monumental works.
“Making order of the ungraspable”
Libenský and Brychtová pioneered new artistic ambitions and conceptions of what glass could achieve and express. Through their conception of the inner glass shape, the development of new techniques to capture and control light, and their examination of the role of light and the relationship between an exterior shell and inner core in glass, Sphere in Cube engages with timeless questions and ideas. These include making the invisible visible, visualizing the geometric principles that affect mass and volume in glass, and finding resiliency in adversity. Šetlík argued that one of the artists’ greatest achievements was their ability to elevate glass from the realm of the applied arts into ” the fine arts […]. They have brought glass into the realm of sculpture. Other artists have used glass with other materials in sculpture, but not as the material of sculpting.”17Kehlmann (2002), 63. ↩ Brychtová said the following about glass: “you cannot grasp glass sculpture in one view. It’s ungraspable. And that’s a problem when working with glass. It’s too difficult to grasp at once. But that is the point. We have to make order of the ungraspable.”18Kehlmann (2002), 81. ↩
As with glass sculpture, life’s mysteries and tragedies are also ungraspable. Perhaps in its attempt to make order of the ungraspable, Sphere in a Cube not only reflects timeless concepts back to us, but also encourages us to keep trying to impose order on the unknowable in our own lives, while remaining open to the wonders that surround us.
- Amy J. Hughes