The time period from 1570 to 1670 was an epoch of large-scale wars. But during this time of crisis in East-Central Europe the arts were in no way silent. One important factor was the migration of artists within East-Central Europe as well as from the west and south of the continent to this region. The painters and sculptors who worked for the Bohemian, Moravian, or Polisch-Lithuanian nobility, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who wanted to obtain the best artists in Europe for his court in Prague, and, not least, the religious orders, which brought a new formal language to East-Central Europe in the course of the Counter-Reformation, contributed to multifaceted work during the long transition from the late Renaissance to the Baroque.

Agnieszka Gasior, Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur d. östl. Europa (GWZO) Leipzig; Marius Winzeler, Nationalgalerie Prague