Éminence Grise or a Mentor? More on Ester Krumbachová

Abstrakt

A graduate of painting and graphic arts at the Higher School of Arts and Crafts in Brno, Ester Krumbachová became known in her professional life as a costume designer, set designer, scriptwriter, author and finally a director. However, she was often pushed to the margins of authorship with the label of “inspiration and just a muse”. There are at least a few basic themes that organize the specificity of Ester’s artistic discourse. There are costumes, and props for which she was responsible: hats, shawls, black umbrellas, silk shirts, camp coats or overalls made out of newspaper and twine. But the whole galaxy of food, meal preparation, feeding and gluttony demands describing. The films Ester was involved in, as a writer or director, are woven from it. The specificity of the interior, often adjacent to the “metaphorical and mental” map of the artist’s apartment, becomes an important background for the platform of culinary images. The recorded registers seem to speak of food and clothes, typically female areas of interest and activity. The main aim of this article will be to treat them as semantically important mechanisms of communication, mostly visual and non-verbal.