DOI Artikel:
Milena Bartlová: Cultivating its Own Roots: Czech Art History in the 1980s in Search of its Own Beginnings
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73804#0092
Folia Historiae Artium
Seria Nowa, t. 22: 2024/PL ISSN 0071-6723
MILENA BARTLOVA
Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague
CULTIVATING ITS OWN ROOTS:
CZECH ART HISTORY IN THE 1980S
IN SEARCH OF ITS OWN BEGINNINGS
In 1986 and 1987, a team of researchers at the Institute of
Art History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
published two volumes of Chapters from Czech Art Histo-
riography.1 The project had been conceived and led from
the beginning of the seventies by one of the key personali-
ties of Czech art history, Josef Krasa. The mission of the
publication was to be, in his words,
to orient the general reading public in art historical is-
sues, to interest future students of art history, to serve as
the first dictionary of its kind and, last but not least, to
address the issues of periodization of the field, method-
ological traditions and the context of domestic and in-
ternational art history.2
Self-constructing the field of art history's own identi-
ty is not among the declared goals, but in retrospect it is
clear that it was a major function of both volumes. Krasa
was unable to see the final realization of the project be-
cause he died in 1985 at the age of only fifty-two, but the
manuscripts of both volumes had already been handed
over to the publishing house in 1981 and 1983.
The work is a typical product of the last phase of the
regime of really existing socialism in Czechoslovakia
during the period of so-called perestroika, when the In-
stitute of the Academy of Sciences could produce, under
the direction of three members of the Communist Par-
ty, a publication that ignored most of the official rheto-
ric and Marxism-Leninism. It had been in preparation
at the Institute since the middle of the 1970s as the most
1 Kapitoly z ceskeho dejepisu umenil.-II, ed. by R. Chadraba et al.,
Praha 1986-1987.
2 Quoted by R. Chadraba in the preface to Kapitoly z ceskeho
dejepisu I., p. 11 (as note 1).
important contribution of the Institutes department of art
history towards the output in the field of Marxist-Lenin-
ist theory, which was favored by the management. One of
the co-editors of Chapters, Rudolf Chadraba, had planned
for more than a decade to write a handbook for art his-
tory students. Another plan was to prepare a dictionary
of art historical terminology. Some older-generation ar-
chivists were supported by contracts to summarize rele-
vant excerpts from pre-modern literature.3 All these plans
morphed into the Chapters that were, however, published
while they yet lacked some necessary editing. In a certain
haste to complete the project, some of the Institute per-
sonnel were simply ordered to write the biography chap-
ters, which did not refer to original archival research.
Neither the Introduction nor other official materials
mentioned it, but the somewhat hurried completion of
the two volumes was a reaction to an imminent threat to
the existence of the scientific field of art history in our
country, i.e. in the Czech part of the then Czechoslovakia
(by the way, the existence of Slovak culture and art his-
tory is not even mentioned at all in either volume). The
radical reduction in the number of students in university
departments in both Prague and Brno since the late 1970s
was one dimension of this threat.4 More subtle but no less
3 Oddeleni dokumentace UDU AV ĆR, fond Josef Krasa, k. 3, i.c. 1
'Vykazy prace 1971-1982'; Masarykuv ustav - Archiv Akademie
ved, fond CSAV - Ustav teorie a dejin umeni 1970-1990 (neus-
pofadano), 'Zpravy 0 plneni ustavnich ukolu 1976-1982'; 'Hod-
noceni neperiodickych publikaci nakladatelstvi Academia 1987-
1988'.
4 T. Johanidesova, J. Bachtik, 'Rizeny utlum. Katedra dejin
umeni (a estetiky) na FF UK v obdobi normalizace 1970-1989',
in Stoleti ustavu pro dejiny umeni na Filozoficke fakulte Univerzity
Seria Nowa, t. 22: 2024/PL ISSN 0071-6723
MILENA BARTLOVA
Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague
CULTIVATING ITS OWN ROOTS:
CZECH ART HISTORY IN THE 1980S
IN SEARCH OF ITS OWN BEGINNINGS
In 1986 and 1987, a team of researchers at the Institute of
Art History of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences
published two volumes of Chapters from Czech Art Histo-
riography.1 The project had been conceived and led from
the beginning of the seventies by one of the key personali-
ties of Czech art history, Josef Krasa. The mission of the
publication was to be, in his words,
to orient the general reading public in art historical is-
sues, to interest future students of art history, to serve as
the first dictionary of its kind and, last but not least, to
address the issues of periodization of the field, method-
ological traditions and the context of domestic and in-
ternational art history.2
Self-constructing the field of art history's own identi-
ty is not among the declared goals, but in retrospect it is
clear that it was a major function of both volumes. Krasa
was unable to see the final realization of the project be-
cause he died in 1985 at the age of only fifty-two, but the
manuscripts of both volumes had already been handed
over to the publishing house in 1981 and 1983.
The work is a typical product of the last phase of the
regime of really existing socialism in Czechoslovakia
during the period of so-called perestroika, when the In-
stitute of the Academy of Sciences could produce, under
the direction of three members of the Communist Par-
ty, a publication that ignored most of the official rheto-
ric and Marxism-Leninism. It had been in preparation
at the Institute since the middle of the 1970s as the most
1 Kapitoly z ceskeho dejepisu umenil.-II, ed. by R. Chadraba et al.,
Praha 1986-1987.
2 Quoted by R. Chadraba in the preface to Kapitoly z ceskeho
dejepisu I., p. 11 (as note 1).
important contribution of the Institutes department of art
history towards the output in the field of Marxist-Lenin-
ist theory, which was favored by the management. One of
the co-editors of Chapters, Rudolf Chadraba, had planned
for more than a decade to write a handbook for art his-
tory students. Another plan was to prepare a dictionary
of art historical terminology. Some older-generation ar-
chivists were supported by contracts to summarize rele-
vant excerpts from pre-modern literature.3 All these plans
morphed into the Chapters that were, however, published
while they yet lacked some necessary editing. In a certain
haste to complete the project, some of the Institute per-
sonnel were simply ordered to write the biography chap-
ters, which did not refer to original archival research.
Neither the Introduction nor other official materials
mentioned it, but the somewhat hurried completion of
the two volumes was a reaction to an imminent threat to
the existence of the scientific field of art history in our
country, i.e. in the Czech part of the then Czechoslovakia
(by the way, the existence of Slovak culture and art his-
tory is not even mentioned at all in either volume). The
radical reduction in the number of students in university
departments in both Prague and Brno since the late 1970s
was one dimension of this threat.4 More subtle but no less
3 Oddeleni dokumentace UDU AV ĆR, fond Josef Krasa, k. 3, i.c. 1
'Vykazy prace 1971-1982'; Masarykuv ustav - Archiv Akademie
ved, fond CSAV - Ustav teorie a dejin umeni 1970-1990 (neus-
pofadano), 'Zpravy 0 plneni ustavnich ukolu 1976-1982'; 'Hod-
noceni neperiodickych publikaci nakladatelstvi Academia 1987-
1988'.
4 T. Johanidesova, J. Bachtik, 'Rizeny utlum. Katedra dejin
umeni (a estetiky) na FF UK v obdobi normalizace 1970-1989',
in Stoleti ustavu pro dejiny umeni na Filozoficke fakulte Univerzity