Raněný, Bronze statue in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
Raněný is a slightly larger-than-life bronze figure of a naked, unnamed man falling diagonally to the ground, his body anchored only by the tips of his fingers. Jan Štursa modelled it in 1916–1921, twisting the torso so that the falling mass seems to rise at the same time. The bronze at Nové Město na Moravě, near the sculptor's birth house, is one of two casts.
Štursa modelled the figure between 1916 and 1921, drawing on his own experience on the Galician front, where he saw a soldier hit in the head by a bullet and slide slowly to the ground. A 1915 photograph in the magazine Der Tag of a fallen Russian soldier caught in barbed wire also shaped the composition. Two slightly larger-than-life bronze casts exist: one in the chapel of the fallen at the National Memorial on Vítkov in Prague, the other by Štursa's birth house in Nové Město na Moravě, where it is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.
The bronze cast stands by Štursa's birth house in Nové Město na Moravě and is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic. Štursa modelled the wounded soldier as an anonymous nude, so the figure became a general symbol of the tragedy and senselessness of war rather than a portrait of one man.
The bronze cast stands by Štursa's birth house in Nové Město na Moravě, in the Vysočina region, and is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic. The original cast is in the Chapel of the Fallen in the National Memorial on Vítkov in Prague. Smaller models, roughly 50–60 cm high, were cast in series and still appear at auctions.
Štursa planned to enlarge the two-metre Wounded to four metres as part of a large war memorial, but the project was never carried out. The high finish of the details reflects that ambition. The figure is an unnamed nude, which made it a general symbol of the tragedy of war.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,707 contributors worldwide.