Josef Vyleťal (1940-1989)

TRESHOLD OF TRANSFORMATION

1981
Oil and ink on plywood, 36,5x27 cm (48x39 cm), signed and dated lower center "J. Vyleťal 81". Framed. A figure entering a surrealised landscape evokes the archetype of the “traveller between worlds”: Orpheus descending into Hades, Hermes as psychopomp, but also Jung’s archetype of the Hero leaving the conscious world behind. The landscape is not merely a setting – it is an inner map of the soul, an alchemical vas mundi in which the opus magnum begins. The key motif is the shadow separating from the figure and revealing its own autonomy. In Jungian symbolism, this is a descriptive image of the process of confronting the Shadow, the first step towards individuation – the acceptance of the repressed aspects of the personality. The colours of fire, the red rocky formations and the blurred masses refer to the alchemical stage of rubedo, the phase of heat and decomposition of matter, in which the old form must perish so that a new one may arise. The painting serves as both the starting point and counterpart to the following work, with which it forms a diptych. Condition A.