Jiří Trnka

Jiří Trnka (pron. yir-ji trènn-ka ) was a scenario writer of Czech animation, born with Pilsen (Austria-Hungary, today Czech Republic) in 1912, and died in Prague (Czech Republic) in 1969.

In France one especially knows it for his films of Animation in volume (Marionnettes), but it was also painter, illustrator, sculptor, creator of decorations and costumes for the cinema as for the Théâtre.

Years of training

Established with Lager, in Western Bohemia, Trnka belong to the middle-class. Even if the father is tinman and the mother dressmaker, the family remains very attached to her country origins, developing the work of wood in particular. Child, the Jiří young person enjoys to carve Marionnettes and assembles small spectacles for his comrades.

He integrates initially a vocational school, where he profits from the sympathy and the support of his professor Josef Skupa, who will become itself a key figure in the world of the Czech marionnettists. This one the guide, entrusts some responsibilities to him and manages to convince its family - initially reticent with the prospect for an artistic career - to let it fit in a school of applied arts (today the Academy of architecture, art and design of Prague), a school of reputation which he attends of 1929 with 1935.

The young boy must also provide for his needs, and thus he works in parallel in the workshop of engraving of another of his professors, Jaroslav Benda.

A prolific illustrator

Having thus acquired good bases on the one hand during its studies of art and on the other hand in the engraver, Jiří Trnka launches out very early in the illustration of books, Czech or foreigners, including sometimes of its own works.

In this field, its first employer is the large publisher pragoise Melantrich, which entrusts cartoons to him, illustrations, but also articles with political character.

He devotes himself to the illustration throughout his life and thus collaborates in nearly 130 works on the whole.

Children's literature is largely represented, and the Prix Hans Christian Andersen is decreed to him in 1968, not only for its illustration of famous the Contes , but for the whole of its work.

One also owes in Trnka the illustration of the Thousand and One Nights , of the tales of the brothers Grimm, those of Charles Perrault, the fables of the Fountain, parts of Shakespeare ( Romeo and Juliette , Falstaff ) or of Alice to the country of the wonders of Lewis Carroll.

Besides several of this work constitute the starting point of a cinematographic adventure, such as for example Bajaja or the one night Dream of summer .

Many its books remain the traditional ones, and much of children knew the multiple adventures of the Micha bears, imagined by Josef Menzel and illustrated by Jiří Trnka.

With the service of the theater

Without never losing sight of the fact its specific interest for the puppets, it also on the occasion to express its talent with the theater, when one entrusts to him the station of Chef decorator with the National theater of Prague. In the great national tradition it creates many decorations and costumes thus there, and its name remains attached to the setting in scene of parts of Plaute, Carlo Goldoni, Jan Hus, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega or Franz Grillparzer.

Painting, too

The pictorial work of Jiří Trnka is sometimes ignored abroad. The artist however produced tens of oil and watercolours, drawing his inspiration with the most various sources.

One owes him in particular a series of portraits. As fascinated by its own image (it was carrying a scar to the face), it carries out also its Autoportrait with regular intervals, for example in 1933,1935,1944,1945,1955 or 1966. Several of these works are exposed to the national Galerie in Prague.

The universe of the tales and legends is also represented, often near to its work for the childish illustration or the cinema of animation.

Sometimes a series of landscapes of winter make think of Pieter Bruegel Old the, such this remarkable Bethlehem of 1942: the Czech tradition is also with go, and one can perceive there a glimmer of hope in the middle of the dark years then crossed by the country.

Let us note also many bouquets, ballet dancers, variations on the topic of the Commedia dell' arte, like some compositions connected with the Surréalisme.

The Master of Czech animation

As one saw, Jiří Trnka is impassioned by the puppets since its more young age. It is true that it is a national tradition. After having made its beginnings near Josef Skupa, it assembles soon its own troop (1936).

The shortly after the war, it founds with Eduard Hoffman and Jiří Brdečka a true studio of animation called Bratři v Triku (what means " three brothers in only one sweater-over").

It carries out initially some short films on cellulose, then is made known with a first true film of puppets, the Czech Year (1947), which brilliantly puts in scene the legends and habits of its country and draws the attention of international criticism to the Czech cinema of animation.

It continues with two other feature-length films very appreciated, Prince Bayaya (1950) and the Old Czech Legends (1952), before carrying to the screen a great national figure in the Honest Soldier Chvéïk (1955).

But it also turns to the chiefs of work of the world literature and carries out successively the Novel of the double bass , according to Tchekhov, the Gabriel Archangel and Madam Oye according to Boccace or the one night Dream of summer according to Shakespeare.

The upheavals of the company during the Years 1960 and the acceleration of technological advance constitute for him new sources of inspiration, with for example the cybernetic Grandmother (1962, and especially its last film, the Hand (1965), which one can see today like a kind of will, since he will die of a cardiac affection in 1969, hardly 57 years old.

A reflection on the sculptural form

Accustomed to work wood since its more young age, Trnka regularly alternates the periods devoted to animation with those turned towards the sculpture, particularly towards the end of its life.

Rich person of its multiple experiments in many fields, also sensitive to the novel ideas which emergent then, it renews his art and carries out a real esthetic research task, through characters and objects generally of small size (30, 50, even 80 cm), and not deprived of humor on the occasion.

About fifty carved works were thus listed.

International recognition

Without speaking about his work of creator in other disciplines, one owes in Trnka 22 cartoon films in all, including five feature-length films. Its work was rewarded in many festivals (Cannes, Venice, Locarno, London, Edinburgh, Montevideo, Bucharest, Paris, Oberhausen, Karlovy Vary…), during which about fifty distinctions is decreed to him.

Intellectuals and artists of plane primier greeted his work (see bibliography), such as for example the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the French Jean Cocteau, the historian of the cinema Georges Sadoul, the Russian writer Ilya Ehrenbourg or the man of letters turco-Polish Nazim Hikmet.

At the time of its success with the Cannes festival in 1959, for the Dream one night of summer , an English critic called it " the Walt Disney of Est" , a formula which - though very debatable - made flora, as several later articles testify some. It is true that the Disney productions were then the only known cartoon films of the general public, since television (and thus short films) did not have the place which it occupies today.

In fact the Western spectator especially discovered Trnka (and at the same time originality of the productions of Central Europe) as from the years 1960 and from now on one readily presents it like the leader of Czech animation.

Already in 1958 it had been in charge of the decoration of the Czech house to the World Fair of Brussels. He is again requested for that of Montreal, the Expo 67, for which he designs the Tree of the toys and the Tree of the tales, two very appreciated creations.

The same year it is named professor with the VSUP (the Academy of Arts, the Architecture and the Design of Prague), precisely the school where it was itself student.

The heritage of Trnka

As one of his/her daughters during a radiophonic interview deplores it, the cartoon films of Trnka seem from now on to have lost a little their popularity, an interest punctually revived by televised repeat broadcasts or retrospectives, like that of Annecy in 2003 or with the Québécois Cinémathèque in 2005. She recognizes that these works can appear too realistic, even obsolete, with the spectator of today (and it is noted indeed that French criticism often seems to have preferred to him his compatriot Jan Švankmajer), but she thinks that its work could be redécouvert in the future and recalls that generations of children know the tales of Grimm or Andersen mainly through the illustrations of his/her father.

A little intimidated by the paternal stature, it is the only one of her five children of the artist (three of a first marriage with the artist Helena Chvojková, two of one second union Věnceslava Assmannová) not to have followed its traces. Three of them are sculptors, one of wire is architect and worked in close cooperation with his/her father.

On the professional level Jiří Trnka exerted a strong influence on several of his/her companions, in particular Stanislas Látal, Jan Karpaš and especially Břetislav Pojar which does itself a beautiful career.

More close to us, the Japanese Kihachirō Kawamoto - one of the current references as regards animation in volume - does not hide what it owes with his Czech mentor, with which it worked around 1963.

Catalog of films (as a realizer)

Catalog of films (on Jiří Trnka)

  • the Puppets of Jiří Trnka ( Lotky Jiriho Trnky ) is a documentary short film of Bruno Sefranek which obtained a special mention with the Cannes festival of 1956.

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