Illustration in the works of Petr Nikl, Martin Velíšek and František Skála Jr.

Petr Nikl and Martin Velfsek began to illustrate books as Frantisek Skala Jr. did during the eighties or nineties of the 20 th century. But the illustration itself made and still makes only a small (but meaningful) part among their extensive artistic activities. However, their generally nonconformal relation to arts brings into whole illustration new and surprising conceptions and breaks standard and classical models of treatment of literary works. The character of artistic realizations is very intimate, inly reserved and painterly in the case of Petr Nikl, which is distinctly confirmed by his illustrations of world-famous melancholy fairy tales by Oscar Wilde. Also VeHsek's conception of the classical Czech novel Babicka, which was written by Bozena Nemcova, represents, for its expressivity and combination of modem contemporary elements with quite different prinCiples of the text, the extraordinary individual experiment. Alhough Skala illustrates some books in absolutely classical style, he is able to react excellently and sensibly on contents of the books, thanks to the change of his drawing. He has used an interesting combination of photography with text and Velfsek has illustrated with subtle humour several delightful books. Especially in the illustrations, which are related to their own text, there is..