Josef Mánes (1820-71) was a creator on whom the Czech revivalist society placed its hopes for the creation of a national art. Mánes was a painter, draftsman, decorator, author of models for applied art and architecture, and an enfant terrible of the domestic art scene. A disgraced artist but an entertaining companion, he was idealized and profaned in various cultural and political contexts. This volume offers a new perspective on a canonized figure, broadened by the varied voices and approaches of collective authors.

Flying with Wax Wings explores the many depictions of Mánes, the result of the research of a collective of authors whose aim was to introduce the key personality of nineteenth-century Czech art in the context of contemporary European art and from the current position of today's art history. The result is, strangely enough, the first monograph on Josef Mánes that does not present a distorted picture of his life and work.