Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Čumil

Done in small moleskine with Faber-Castel watercolor pencils and waterbrush.

There are several goofy statues here in Bratislava , each of them has their unique story. On the corner of streets Rybárska brána , Panská and Laurinská streets you can see man sticking his head out of a manhole. Meet Čumil . Author of this bronze statue is Viktor Hulík and here is from 26th Jul 1997 . From this time is one of the most photographed "citizen " of Bratislava because Bratislavians and tourists love him. Children love to abuse him by sitting on his head, adults love make photo with him or simply touch him for luck.

Great discussion have taken place as to what actually the man is up to..was he a sewer worker during the Second World War and had hid below ground to escape the bombs. With the war over, he’d climbed back out, thus explaining the satisfied grin on his face ? Or that Čumil was a guerrilla leader fighting against the Soviets ?

NO !

A close look at the statue reveals that instead of a helmet, a cap with a strap covers the head. It means Čumil is a normal boy observing beautiful girls (maybe up their skirts , who knows ) passing by, as Bratislava is also famous for an unusually high rate of beautiful girls per square kilometre.

Btw. Čumil is word from noun "čumieť" in Slovak language , in English it means man who is gazing, man who stare at something .

4 comments:

Teri said...

What a fascinating pose on this statue and you have captured it so wonderfully!

I laughed at your description of maybe he is looking up skirts...he is in the right position for that isn't he!

Anonymous said...

Great story and beautiful drawing!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the explanation! I am a collector for manhole pics! I have many pics of them, but no explanation.
One question please:
I know that there are some other statues at Bratislava (a photgrapher etc....), but I did not have pics of them.
Can you snap it for me or did you know a source for pics of them?

And did you know the creator of cumil etc?

Thanks please for an answer!

gerd from germany!

JaKo said...

Haloo Gerd ,

I can snap photos of other statues in Bratislava for you , of course ...some of the statues you can already find in this blog :-)

Author of Čumil is Viktor Hulík .

I need you email or address , if you want the pictures.