**AFTER REMBRANDT**
The chamber project After Rembrandt will present in turn the works of nine Czech artists, created as artistic reflections of Rembrandt’s painting. This reception / or appropriation / of Old Masters is a standard phenomenon in art and an attractive genre linking so called classical art with contemporary art. The aim is to show that old art is a constant source of inspiration for fresh generations of artists, that still has potential.
**Jan Uldrych** **(\* 1983 )**
In my reinterpretation of Rembrandt’s Scholar, I have completely subdued the looks of the “Oriental”, the representative of knowledge and secret teachings. Hermetism was mutually permeating with various mystic tendencies for centuries, and perhaps also departed from the ancient cults of magic mushrooms. The ethnobotanist Terence McKenna advocated the influence of the psilocybin mushroom on the development of abstract thinking and speech. The similarity between the mycelium and the neural network of brain, as well as the symbiotic nature of the mushrooms has brought me to the considerations about the nature of gnosis and to the title Anima Mundi – Mushroom as the Initiator of Human Knowledge. I view the gesture of the Scholar’s left hand as both ideological and compositional centre of the picture. In my painting, I have situated the centre identically and have transformed the radiation of ideas into a radial arrangement of lines, which are based on photographically precise record of the mushroom spores.
