When you open a preview of Veronica’s thesis photo in an internet search engine, a selection of ancient reliefs appears in the thumbnail images of visual matches offered by Google. Indeed, if we squint, the patches of shadows and highlights almost blend in with the image of Veronica’s relief. Unlike the Roman sarcophagi and friezes, the latter depicts not mythical heroes, but a civilian subject of figures seated at a table, whose exposed intimacy, in addition to the voyeuristic position of the observer, is heightened by the focus on legs and arms – torsos and faces do not penetrate the kneaded matrix of the scene seen. Just as Google’s visual meta-memory proves, Veronika Durová (1984) is often and repeatedly called a “classical” sculptor. What do we imagine by the well-worn term “classic” in this context? Certainly, this is how we characterize the artist’s inclination towards themes based on reality and her choice of proven techniques. The form in which she expresses herself seems simple. However, Veronika Durová is classical especially in an intuitive, extra-artistic sense, in her immediate, innate knowledge of thousands of years of figurative sculpture tradition, in her intuitive use of ergonomic volumes of matter whose shadows coincide with ancient mastery.
