Czechia - The Betlém Rock Sculptures near Kuks

The complex of rock sculptures called Betiém in Nov@ les near the village of Kuks belongs to the most important monuments of the High Baroque in Central Europe. It is situated in East Bohemia, approximately 150 km from Prague, not far frorn the regional centre and @historical town of Hradec Kràlové (Kônigsgratz). They came into being thanks to the initiative of the well-educated and art-loving earl Franz Anton Sporck (âpork), a typical cavalier of the Baroque period. Earl Sporck made a significant contribution to the development of many fields of Baroque culture in Bohemia. The main centre of hîs activities, apart from Prague, was his country estate in Kuks where, in the first three decades of the 18th century, he built a unique monument of Baroque urbanisme The complex of the hospital and spa in Kuks, with the surrounding landscape magnificently embellîshed with sculptures and other external works embedded in nature, expresses the extreme polarities of the Baroque period. The Baroque fluctuâtes between the seeking of worldly pleasures on one hand and spirituel asceticism with the permament memento of life's vanity and the omnipresent death on the other (Memento Mori).