{"id":10721,"date":"2025-11-06T02:10:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/?p=10721"},"modified":"2025-11-06T02:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T01:39:20","slug":"https-www-solarisschool-cz-en-blog-flowing-through-czech-culture-vltava-exhibition-prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/https-www-solarisschool-cz-en-blog-flowing-through-czech-culture-vltava-exhibition-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"Flowing Through Czech Culture \u2013 The Vltava Exhibition in Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You can enrich your wanderings through damp autumnal Prague by visiting the exhibition \u201cVltava Famed & Flowing<\/a>\u201d<\/em>, held in the historic Riding Hall of Prague Castle, not far from the bridge over the Jelen\u00ed p\u0159\u00edkop.
Marking the 150th anniversary of Bed\u0159ich Smetana<\/a>\u2019s symphonic poem The Vltava <\/em>(Moldau)<\/em><\/strong>, which you surely know well, the authors pay tribute to the river that occupies an important place in Czech national mythology.
If you study Czech<\/a> or wish to immerse yourself in Czech culture, this is a wonderful opportunity!<\/p>

The exhibition focuses not only on Smetana\u2019s music, which you can hear in various recordings, but also on the river itself and everything connected to it.
Did you know, for instance, that the name Vltava<\/em> comes from the Celtic words Wild Ahwa<\/em>, meaning \u201cwild, untamed river\u201d?<\/p>

Let\u2019s take a virtual walk through the exhibition. As we move through the displays, we follow the course of the river.
Right at the entrance, we are captivated by an exhibit linked to a symbolic gesture \u2014 a vase representing the source of the Vltava, made by the renowned Czech glass company Lasvit.
Before the exhibition opened, real water was collected from the Vltava\u2019s spring and passed from person to person, each carrying it along or on the river in different ways until it reached Prague Castle.
There, the First Lady ceremonially poured the spring water into the vase, officially inaugurating the exhibition.<\/p>

We now find ourselves in the \u0160umava region, celebrated by many Czech artists such as Josef Ma\u0159\u00e1k and Josef V\u00e1chal, as well as in literature.
Next, we sail past the Vy\u0161\u0161\u00ed Brod Monastery, founded by the Cistercian monks on the Vltava\u2019s bank in the 13th century, and admiring the region\u2019s beauty \u2014 from cliffs and forests to mills and even industrial sites such as a cement plant painted by the Czech cubist Bohumil Kubi\u0161ta<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Cement Factory in Bran\u00edk by Bohumil Kubi\u0161ta, a leading Czech cubist painter, as seen at the Flowing Through Czech Culture \u2013 The Vltava Exhibition in Prague.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Most artworks, however, depict the river as it flows through Prague.
Here we can admire several paintings by Anton\u00edn Slav\u00ed\u010dek<\/a>, such as his view of Elisabeth Bridge.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Eli\u0161ka\u2019s Bridge by Anton\u00edn Slav\u00ed\u010dek \u2014 an impressionist view of Prague and the Vltava River, displayed at the Flowing Through Czech Culture \u2013 The Vltava Exhibition in Prague.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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We also encounter depictions of various vessels \u2014 rafts, boats, barges, and ships for special cargoes \u2014 including the lovely painting On the Embankment <\/em>by Jakub Schikaneder<\/a>.<\/p>

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Equally valuable are works that document historical reality: Prague districts before their demolition, such as Podskal\u00ed, or the construction of bridges that gradually shaped the city\u2019s landscape. It\u2019s also a chance to test yourself \u2014 how well do you actually know Prague?
As we move further through the exhibition, the focus shifts from the river\u2019s physical form to its symbolic power. The Vltava played a key role during the Czech National Revival in the 19th century, embodied in numerous allegorical statues personifying the river \u2014 among them the Art Nouveau sculpture by Stanislav Sucharda<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A bronze relief by Stanislav Sucharda - the eternal bond between Prague and the Vltava River, displayed at the Flowing Through Czech Culture \u2013 The Vltava Exhibition in Prague.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From there, the exhibition flows seamlessly into themes of myth and material \u2014 a special section presents pearls, gemstones, and even gold once extracted from the Vltava\u2019s waters, while another explores the cult of Saint John of Nepomuk<\/a>, the river\u2019s patron saint and protector.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The golden statue of Saint John of Nepomuk, one of the most iconic Czech saints, exhibited at Flowing Through Czech Culture \u2013 The Vltava Exhibition in Prague.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Overall, the scope of the exhibition is impressively broad, ensuring that everyone will find a topic to connect with \u2014 and perhaps a favorite artifact to remember.
Thematic sections range from Floods<\/em> a River Regulation<\/em> to Occupations Connected with the River<\/em> (rafters, washerwomen), and even Legends, Fairy Tales,<\/em> and other historical curiosities that reveal how deeply the Vltava flows through Czech imagination.<\/p>

Visitors learning Czech<\/a> will find the Vltava exhibition in Prague an inspiring journey through the language, music, and culture of the Czech Republic. With rich bilingual captions in Czech and English, they can expand their vocabulary while discovering cultural phenomena essential to understanding Czech identity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can enrich your wanderings through damp autumnal Prague by visiting the exhibition \u201cVltava Famed & Flowing\u201d, held…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarisschool.cz\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}