DOI article:
Milena Bartlová: Cultivating its Own Roots: Czech Art History in the 1980s in Search of its Own Beginnings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73804#0093
92
menacing was the official renaming in 1982 of the field of
study from art history to 'Marxist art theory and then
even to aesthetics with a focus on the visual arts'. This
move was justified by a leading Communist figure with
the pronouncement that we do not need historians deal-
ing with feudal culture, but experts who can help our art-
ists to create properly in the direction of socialist realism'.5
The identification of its own origins and pedigree thus
was an urgent task in Czech art history around 1980: it
was no longer enough to have a habitual identity, it had to
be clearly described and interpreted. In this paper I will
ask what identity model Czech art history had construed
for itself at the end of the modernist era.
NORMATIVE AMBITIONS
In the Introduction to Chapters, Chadraba defined the
normative criterion of what is already 'the real one', i.e.
modern art history: it is 'the search for and improve-
ment of a developmental model' . The first chapter opens
with the statement that 'Art history, this Herzenskind des
Dilettantismus (according to Max Dvorak), took shape as
a special branch of history about a hundred years ago'.6
Such a temporal demarcation is not repeated, and we can
see clearly in this and other details that the project lacked
a unifying program and even proper editing. The central
founding father figure of Czech art history in this logic is,
of course, Max Dvorak, and it is with a detailed discussion
of him and the Vienna School that editor-in-chief Chad-
raba opened the second volume. Nevertheless, it was still
deemed necessary to include the first volume, with its
subtitle Predecessors and Founders.
Both volumes are conceived as histories of ideas and
of great men. In the first volume just one woman is men-
tioned: Renata, the wife of professor of art history Miro-
slav Tyrs. Although she was an important art critic, and
the actual book on Tyrs states that 'today we would not
hesitate to label publications with the names of both hus-
band and wife as co-authors', she is credited here merely
with the preservation of her husband's estate.7 The con-
tents of the first volume can be divided into three parts:
first, it discusses the precursors of modern art history in
Karlovy, ed. by R. Prahl et al., Praha 2020, pp. 485-573, esp. 526.
- The topic will be discussed in a wider context and in more depth
in my Dejiny ceskych dejin umeni 1970-1990 (forthcoming in
2025); this contribution is a preliminary outcome of the research
project 'History of Czech Art History II. 1970-1990' supported
by the Czech Science Foundation in 2022-2024 (Nr. 22-14620S).
5 My own recollection of Duśan Konećny speaking at the confe-
rence 'Place of art history in the framework of social sciences', in
October 1979.
6 I. Koran, 'Obraz a slovo v nasich dejinach' , in Kapitoly z ceskeho
dejepisu I., pp. 15-34, quote p. 15 (as note 1).
7 K. Stibral, Sokol mezi obrazy. Teorie umeni, estetika a umelecka
kritika Miroslava Tyrse, Praha 2022, p. 165; R. Chadraba, 'Miro-
slav Tyrs', in Kapitoly z ceskeho dejepisu I., pp. 160-170 (as note 1).
the late Middle Ages, Humanism, the Baroque, the En-
lightenment and Romanticism; second, it includes mono-
graphs of the first university professors of Czech-language
art history, Vocel and Tyrs; and third, it contains a rather
chaotic summary of the representatives of positivist cul-
tural history and aesthetics from the 1870s to the 1890s.
The construction and consciousness of continuity in
Chapters is almost never connected to institutions; in the
first volume, any institutional basis of the art historical
field is mentioned only in references. The reason for this
was a complication that was never spoken about publicly
in the 1980s, namely that scientific institutions of univer-
sities and museums were bilingual in the territory of the
present-day Czech Republic until 1945. Charles Univer-
sity was divided into Czech and German institutions in
1882. The continuity from its foundation in 1862 was on
the part of the German-speaking Institute of Art History,
while the Czech-speaking one became permanent only in
1911. After all, even Max Dvorak did not work at a domes-
tic, let alone a Czech-language university. Jindfich Vybiral
discusses the topic of the precarious relationship between
the Czech and German speakers in art history in his con-
tribution to this volume, so I may return to the analysis of
the first volume of Chapters.
The first chapter, which I have already cited, was writ-
ten by Ivo Koran, and on the very first page he normative-
ly stated the national moment of Czech art history:
[...] the verbal commentary on art in the Baroque era
was not just a bitter lament for the faded glory of Bo-
hemia, but became an enchanted testimony to its un-
dying beauty, power, and strength. An uncritical, often
superstitious, not infrequently contradictory, but always
cordial, kind and often even affectionate testimony. This
approach to art in Bohemia is imprinted in the whole of
Czech art history, basically down to our own days. The
Czech art historian cannot - as his Western colleagues
do - simply state the artistic quality of a work 'in itself',
but is inwardly bound to the life of his people and ne-
cessarily views art through it, to better understand the
life of his own country through art.8
This strong nationalistic concept was cited approvingly
in a review of Chapters written by a representative of the
young generation of Czech art historians, Vojtech Laho-
da, for the first issue of a new journal published by the
official Union of Visual Artists.9 In another brief review,
which I wrote for the illegally published samizdat' Lidove
noviny under a code name, I stressed the concealment of
German speaking art historians.10 The third, longest and
most critical review was published by Jifi Kroupa from
Brno, who pointed to the unsatisfactory way Moravia was
8 I. Koran, 'Obraz a slovo' (as note 6).
9 V. Lahoda, 'Zasluzne dilo nasi umenovedy, Atelier, 1988, Nr. 1,
p. 5.
10 M. Bergmannova [cover for M. Bartlova], 'Dejepis pfikladne
opatrny, Lidove noviny* 1, 1988, ć. 5, p. 18.
menacing was the official renaming in 1982 of the field of
study from art history to 'Marxist art theory and then
even to aesthetics with a focus on the visual arts'. This
move was justified by a leading Communist figure with
the pronouncement that we do not need historians deal-
ing with feudal culture, but experts who can help our art-
ists to create properly in the direction of socialist realism'.5
The identification of its own origins and pedigree thus
was an urgent task in Czech art history around 1980: it
was no longer enough to have a habitual identity, it had to
be clearly described and interpreted. In this paper I will
ask what identity model Czech art history had construed
for itself at the end of the modernist era.
NORMATIVE AMBITIONS
In the Introduction to Chapters, Chadraba defined the
normative criterion of what is already 'the real one', i.e.
modern art history: it is 'the search for and improve-
ment of a developmental model' . The first chapter opens
with the statement that 'Art history, this Herzenskind des
Dilettantismus (according to Max Dvorak), took shape as
a special branch of history about a hundred years ago'.6
Such a temporal demarcation is not repeated, and we can
see clearly in this and other details that the project lacked
a unifying program and even proper editing. The central
founding father figure of Czech art history in this logic is,
of course, Max Dvorak, and it is with a detailed discussion
of him and the Vienna School that editor-in-chief Chad-
raba opened the second volume. Nevertheless, it was still
deemed necessary to include the first volume, with its
subtitle Predecessors and Founders.
Both volumes are conceived as histories of ideas and
of great men. In the first volume just one woman is men-
tioned: Renata, the wife of professor of art history Miro-
slav Tyrs. Although she was an important art critic, and
the actual book on Tyrs states that 'today we would not
hesitate to label publications with the names of both hus-
band and wife as co-authors', she is credited here merely
with the preservation of her husband's estate.7 The con-
tents of the first volume can be divided into three parts:
first, it discusses the precursors of modern art history in
Karlovy, ed. by R. Prahl et al., Praha 2020, pp. 485-573, esp. 526.
- The topic will be discussed in a wider context and in more depth
in my Dejiny ceskych dejin umeni 1970-1990 (forthcoming in
2025); this contribution is a preliminary outcome of the research
project 'History of Czech Art History II. 1970-1990' supported
by the Czech Science Foundation in 2022-2024 (Nr. 22-14620S).
5 My own recollection of Duśan Konećny speaking at the confe-
rence 'Place of art history in the framework of social sciences', in
October 1979.
6 I. Koran, 'Obraz a slovo v nasich dejinach' , in Kapitoly z ceskeho
dejepisu I., pp. 15-34, quote p. 15 (as note 1).
7 K. Stibral, Sokol mezi obrazy. Teorie umeni, estetika a umelecka
kritika Miroslava Tyrse, Praha 2022, p. 165; R. Chadraba, 'Miro-
slav Tyrs', in Kapitoly z ceskeho dejepisu I., pp. 160-170 (as note 1).
the late Middle Ages, Humanism, the Baroque, the En-
lightenment and Romanticism; second, it includes mono-
graphs of the first university professors of Czech-language
art history, Vocel and Tyrs; and third, it contains a rather
chaotic summary of the representatives of positivist cul-
tural history and aesthetics from the 1870s to the 1890s.
The construction and consciousness of continuity in
Chapters is almost never connected to institutions; in the
first volume, any institutional basis of the art historical
field is mentioned only in references. The reason for this
was a complication that was never spoken about publicly
in the 1980s, namely that scientific institutions of univer-
sities and museums were bilingual in the territory of the
present-day Czech Republic until 1945. Charles Univer-
sity was divided into Czech and German institutions in
1882. The continuity from its foundation in 1862 was on
the part of the German-speaking Institute of Art History,
while the Czech-speaking one became permanent only in
1911. After all, even Max Dvorak did not work at a domes-
tic, let alone a Czech-language university. Jindfich Vybiral
discusses the topic of the precarious relationship between
the Czech and German speakers in art history in his con-
tribution to this volume, so I may return to the analysis of
the first volume of Chapters.
The first chapter, which I have already cited, was writ-
ten by Ivo Koran, and on the very first page he normative-
ly stated the national moment of Czech art history:
[...] the verbal commentary on art in the Baroque era
was not just a bitter lament for the faded glory of Bo-
hemia, but became an enchanted testimony to its un-
dying beauty, power, and strength. An uncritical, often
superstitious, not infrequently contradictory, but always
cordial, kind and often even affectionate testimony. This
approach to art in Bohemia is imprinted in the whole of
Czech art history, basically down to our own days. The
Czech art historian cannot - as his Western colleagues
do - simply state the artistic quality of a work 'in itself',
but is inwardly bound to the life of his people and ne-
cessarily views art through it, to better understand the
life of his own country through art.8
This strong nationalistic concept was cited approvingly
in a review of Chapters written by a representative of the
young generation of Czech art historians, Vojtech Laho-
da, for the first issue of a new journal published by the
official Union of Visual Artists.9 In another brief review,
which I wrote for the illegally published samizdat' Lidove
noviny under a code name, I stressed the concealment of
German speaking art historians.10 The third, longest and
most critical review was published by Jifi Kroupa from
Brno, who pointed to the unsatisfactory way Moravia was
8 I. Koran, 'Obraz a slovo' (as note 6).
9 V. Lahoda, 'Zasluzne dilo nasi umenovedy, Atelier, 1988, Nr. 1,
p. 5.
10 M. Bergmannova [cover for M. Bartlova], 'Dejepis pfikladne
opatrny, Lidove noviny* 1, 1988, ć. 5, p. 18.