The Shape of Orpheus. The sketch of the Iconography of Orfeus in European and Czech nineteenth-century visual arts

Who says there is only one Orpheus, the mythical singer, poet, lover, musician, tragedian? The pivotal term of this study 'Orpheus' potential' refers to a set of characteristic datas or qualities, encrypted into the iconography of this theme by the time of c. 3 000 years and deciphered and interpreted by artists for nearly equivalent period. Although the Czech lands of the nineteenth century were both metaforically and literally distant from the Greek antiquity, we are able to trace a surprising volume of comments, receptions or appropriatons of Orpheus' iconography in various fields of arts: visual arts, dramatic arts, poetry, opera. The transformation of typology is discussed on illustrative examples using the genre of micro- stories, the second part of the study focuses on the localy determined shape of 'Slavic Orpheus', the person from the pre-Czech mythology, Lumír, who was gifted by analogic talents like his prototype