The Medieval and the Modern: Our Day Trip to Kutna Hora

Kutna Hora might be a sleepy, quaint little town today, but five centuries ago it was a happening place. In terms of population, it was equal to the city of London, and because of its rich silver mines, it rivaled Prague as the wealthiest and most powerful city in the lands of Bohemia.

This piece of history was our destination for the day on Saturday. After breakfast, we loaded up in our private bus and took in the Czech landscape for the hour-and-a-half-long drive.

Our first stop was one that we were both excited and apprehensive about – the Sedlec Ossuary! It’s safe to say that the ossuary is completely unique in the world. According to legend, a monk who had participated in the Crusades returned to Kutna Hora with a handful of dirt from the Holy Land. He sprinkled the earth outside of his church, making the land a desirable spot for Bohemians to choose as their final resting place. After a series of wars and an outbreak of plague, space was at a premium, so older graves were exhumed, and the bones were stacked in the church to make way for the more-recently-deceased. In 1870, a local carpenter took the bones of the 40,000 to 70,000 people and created a most original style of interior décor, including a chandelier that is supposed to contain every bone in the human body! (For an interesting contrast in how other Czechs have dealt with death and the space that it takes up, read up on the Jewish Cemetery in Prague – or better yet, visit it yourself.)

A short walk away from the ossuary is the first of Kutna Hora’s two cathedrals. The Sedlec Cathedral’s sparse Gothic style reflects the aesthetic of the Cistercian monks who founded it – with the exception of the baroque ceiling.

From Sedlec, we travelled on to the city center of Kutna Hora. After a fortifying lunch, we visited the second cathedral on our itinerary: Saint Barbara’s Church. Three tented spires mark the site from any vantage point in the city. As a young woman in Turkey, Barbara was buried alive in stone after refusing to marry; as a result, she is the patron saint of miners and a revered figure in the mining industry of Kutna Hora.

Approaching the church, you can see evidence of the town’s rivalry with Prague; a pathway flanked on one side by statues of famous figures in Czech history is reminiscent of the Charles Bridge and leads directly to the cathedral.

The inside of Saint Barbara’s could not have been more different from the interior of the Sedlec Cathedral. Heavy, dark stone, elaborate scenes wrought in stained glass, and murals depicting minters making coins – the other major industry in the community – decorated the structure. We were able to climb to the upper level to get a close look at the organ and notice the details of the ceiling.

And then we entered a time warp as we visited the GASK Museum immediately adjacent to the cathedral. This former Jesuit building was turned into a modern art museum in 2010. Our Global Navigators walked the thematically-arranged galleries with a curator, who asked them to stop and consider a piece called “Before the Execution” by Rudolf Nemec (1966). Students reflected on how the artist’s techniques might have influenced his message and how that message related to the history of communism in the Czech Republic.

And then it was time for us to try it ourselves! Students visited an upstairs studio to try their hands at action painting using spray paint. They cut out silhouettes of themselves and worked together in pairs to create a “conversation” between their two bodies.

Kutna Hora gave us a chance to see how art has evolved in this corner of the Czech Republic over almost a millennium. We are excited to see how students use this inspiration in their own works in the digital studio at the Art and Design Institute in Prague over the course of the next week!