Articles

The double issue (nos.12–13) of the bulletin Studia Rudolphina has been just published by the Center for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II.

A recently discovered list of contracts signed with artists who worked on Albrecht of Wallenstein's palace in Prague is presented in the new issue of Umění/Art by Barbora Klipcová and Petr Uličný in the article "Domenico Pugliani: A New Face in the History of Wallenstein Palace in Prague". Do not miss the other topics: a copyright dispute in 1897 – Ohmann versus Grisebach, or the battle over modern architecture: August Perret versus Le Corbusier – Le Corbusier versus Karel Teige.

The Institute of Art History of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic presents collection of photographs, plans, drawings and graphics which have been restored within the frame of the project "Rescuing Memory: the restoration of Buquoy Property and its Place in Czech Identity (NAKI). The exhibits, some of them have never been shown in public to date. Now until 31 October 2013

Attached file: Rozmberk_invitation_en.pdf

The seventeen original texts assembled here as a tribute to the prominent Czech architectural historian and theorist Rostislav Švácha (* 1952). “Shapes” refers to his book Lomené, hranaté a obloukové tvary. Česká kubistická architektura 1911–1923 [Pointed, Square, and Arched Shapes. Czech Cubist Architecture 1911–1923] (2000), which reflects his interest in the classic figures of art history and in the psychology of shape. Rostislav Švácha’s reflections on space which is also a specific form and idea follows an intellectual line leading from a purely formal, stylistic interpretation to a deeper understanding of the ideas underlying works of art.

Attached file: eseje_TFI_obsah.jpg

In the second issue of Umění / Art 2013–2 we would like to draw your attention to articles about an ornamental system called "fleuronné", the architecture of Prague's sixteenth and seventeenth-century synagogues or the work of the architect Bernhard Grueber. From others contributions do not miss review by Rostislav Švácha on Bratislava’s mass housing: Welcome to Prefab Story!

The Director of the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prof. Vojtěch Lahoda, was involved in the preparation of the international exhibition Cubisti Cubismo, which is open from 8 March to 23 June 2013 at the Complesso Monumentale del Vittoriano in Rome. The curator, Charlotte N. Eyerman, an art historian from Los Angeles, planned it as a wide-ranging survey of Cubists and Cubism, from Picasso, through Russian artists, to figures from the USA (Max Weber) and Great Britain (Wyndham Lewis). She presented Cubism as a trend that eventually influenced all local schools, and emphasised the spread of Cubism into decorative art, architecture (Czech examples were at least shown in photographs and a model of Chochol’s house in Neklanova Street), and into film. Czech participation in the exhibition suffers as a result of the well-known restriction on lending works of art, due to the unresolved case of Diag Human. Czech paintings are therefore represented by a single work, František Foltýn’s Portrait of Dostojevsky from 1922.

Keith Holz, Associate Professor of the Western Illinois University in Macomb, examines in his lecture held on 12 June 2013 at 3.30 p.m. in the Institute of Art History, Husova 4, Prague 1, room 117, newly available letters by and about Oskar Kokoschka form Moscow and Zürich archives. This lecture revises extant interpretations of his art and activities in Czechoslovakia (1934–1938). Kokoschka's public role as an outspoken advocate for human rights, his pursuit of democracy through educational reform (the Volkshochschule movement), and his role as a critic of fascist governments are related to his less understood, but elaborate, network of supporters, friends and family within and beyond the borders of the Republic.

Attached file: 20130612_Holz.pdf

The new issue of Umění / Art has been just published. Among the articles it contains, we would lite to draw your attention to Michal Šroněk's study focused on the Evangelist Jan Hus as an iconographic type. Milan Pavlík analysis a Baroque plan to prove the authorship of J. B. Santini, or Hubert Guzik demonstrates how the Czech collective houses (koldomy) originated independently of their counterparts abroad.

Attached file: Umění LXI_1.pdf

The new issue of Umění / Art has been just published. Among the articles it contains, we would like to draw your attention to Jindřich Vybíral, Petr Wittlich or Marie Rakušanová. The Jindřich Vybíral’s study looks at the reconstructions, renovations, and new structures designed for the chateaux and residences of the nobility by Leopold Bauer in 1904–1910. This prominent Viennese architect, working at that time in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia executed five important projects of this kind (Zlín, Linhartovy, Kněžice, Ždánice and Roztěž). Petr Wittlich deals with the Czech sculptor Bohumil Kafka (1878–1942. In 1906 Rodin invited him to Meudon. Through Hébrard, whose company did the lost-wax casting of his sculpture, Kafka acquainted with the work of Rembrandt Bugatti and tried to equal him with his own work in the Jardin des Plantes. The study by Marie Rakušanová is devoted to the reflections on art, artists, and artistic activities written by the all-round creative individual Josef Váchal (1884–1969). This Czech artist incorporated forms of modern art into his magic theory of art, parallels to which can be found in the theories of Vasilij Kandinski, G. F. Harlaub, and Johannes Molzahn.

Attached file: obsah_umeni_art_6_2012.pdf

Max Dvořák is often seen as a crucial figure in the development of art history in central Europe in the early twentieth century. Sir Ernst Gombrich recalled, for example, that his death in 1921 was greeted as a major public event. For Czechs in particular he was often lauded as being a representative of Czech scholarship, who helped establish an authentically 'Czech' art history. Yet for all that Dvořák was often attacked by German nationalist voices, he was hardly driven by strong Czech national sentiment. Indeed, his political views were clearly those of a loyal Habsburg subject, who argued for maintenance of the political and social status quo, and whose political views underpinned much of his art historical writing. Dvořák was thus in many respects a supporter of Habsburg imperialism. In this paper professor Matthew Rumplay (University of Birmingham) explores these claims, and consider ways in which Dvořák can be seen as an apologist for the imperial order.

Attached file: 20130327_Rampley.pdf

“Baroque Ceiling Painting in European Monasteries” will be the theme of a conference to be held in Bratislava on 19-21 September 2013. It will focus in particular on issues relating to the relationship between image and text and the reception of monumental paintings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The conference will be organised by the Institute of Art History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the Research Group for Baroque Ceiling Painting in Central Europe, the Department of Art History of Masaryk University in Brno, and the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Attached file: CFP_Bratislava_2013_09.pdf

Sabine Frommel, Directress of Renaissance Art Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes – Sorbonne, gives the lecture held on the 27th February 2013 at 3. 30 p.m. in the Institute of Art History, Husova 4, Prague 1, room 117. In her paper she will elucidate the adoption of Italian typologies and patterns in the field of architecture during the reign of Francis I (1515–1547). It is focused on the role of Italians at the French court (Leonardo da Vinci, Rosso FIorentinom, Sebastiano Serlio, Francesco Primaticcio) and analyses how Italian paradigms and Franch tradition come together in new synthesis. The reconstruction of the western wing of the Louvre by Pierre Lescot, the most significant example of French classicism, will be at the core of our subject.

Attached file: bibliografia_Sabine_Frommel_2013.pdf

Attached file: bio_Sabine_Frommel.pdf

Tomáš Winter of the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, presents the results of his many years of research into the issue of primitivism in the exhibition Palm Trees on the Vltava. Primitivism, non-European cultures and Czech visual art 1850–1950, which is being held by the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň in cooperation with the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The exhibition can be seen from 30 January to 28 April 2013. The book has been published by the publishing house Arbor Vitae together with the West Bohemian Gallery in Plzeň and the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Thanks to its wide-ranging approach and the methods it uses, it represents the first comprehensive and critical survey of the issue of primitivism in Czech visual art in the years 1850–1950.

Attached file: palmy_pozvanka_www.jpg

The fifth issue of Umění/Art of the last year came out. Among the articles it contains, we would like to draw your attention to the article about Giovanni Bellini’s St Jerome in Washington and the Idea of the Hermit’s Life by Pavel Kalina, the question of the denominational identity of the late medieval panel from Nový Bydžov known as the Bydžov Altarpiece (afte 1531) by Michal Šroněk or a review by Christiaan J. A. Jörg on the book about perception and image of China in Early Photographs.

Attached file: Umění 5-2012.pdf

On 31 August the exhibition “Geomeetriline inimene. Eesti Kunstnikkude Rühm ja 1920.–1930. aastate kunstiuuendus.” [Geometrical Man. The Group of Estonian Artists and Art Innovation in the 1920s and 1930s.] was opened in the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn. This retrospective of the activities of the Estonian avant-garde group brought together 60 paintings and 50 drawings by prominent representatives of the Estonian avant-garde (Jaan Vahtra, Eduard Ole, Friedrich Voldemar Hist, Juhan Raudsepp, Felix Randel, Märt Laarman, Arnold Akberg and Henrik Olvi), as well as works by members of the Riga Artists Group from Latvia, whose oeuvre was an important springboard for Estonian Modernists thanks to exhibitions by the Riga Artists Group in Tartu and Tallinn in 1924. The close connections between Estonian and Latvian artists (Romans Suta, Aleksandra Beļcova, Niklāvs Strunke) is evidence of a different kind of artistic communication than the traditional relationship between the centre and the periphery. In this case the link is rather between one periphery and another, although in the traditional way of thinking it could be said that Riga became the centre, as the works of art produced there had such a strong influence on Estonian Modernists.

Attached file: Geometrical Man_Lahoda.pdf

The publication Munich – Prague. The Visual Arts between Tradition and Modernity deals with the connections between Munich and Prague from the 1830s to the beginning of the 20th century. It is the outcome of a grant of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and the editorial work for it in the Institute of Art History of the Academy was done by Taťána Petrasová and Roman Prahl, who also wrote some of the contributions, along with Lenka Bydžovská, Luděk Jirásek, Věra Laštovičková, Lucie Vlčková, Milada Sekyrková, Caroline Sternberg, and Jindřich Vybíral.

Attached file: Mnichov–Praha_2012.docx

Christine Casey, who works in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin, and the architecture historian Conor Lucey, member of the Humanities Institute at University College Dublin, have published a book devoted to stucco decoration in the early modern period, which aims to provide a new survey of interior decoration in Ireland in relation to other European countries. The book consists of contributions by Irish, British, Italian, German, Dutch and Czech experts, who examine the theme from the point of view of style, the techniques used, the established workshop practices, and the social and economic background of the artists and those commissioning the work. An essay on Baroque stucco in Bohemia and Moravia was contributed to the publication by Martin Krummholz from the Institute of Art History. The book has been published by Four Courts Press, based in Dublin and Portland OR.

Attached file: Irsko_stuk.doc

Paolo Sanvita, Associated Professor of the Humboldt University in Berlin examins in his lecture held on 10 October 2012 at 3.30 p.m. in the Institute of Art History, Husova 4, Prague 1, room 117 the wave of Vitruvian studies which came after Copernicanism in late Cinquecento.

Attached file: 20121010_Sanvito.pdf

A new publication with the title Naprej! Česká sportovní architektura 1567-2012 [Naprej! Czech Sports Architecture 1567-2012] has been prepared and edited by Rostislav Švácha from the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in cooperation with a team of seven architectural historians. Naprej! was a slogan of the Sokol physical education movement meaning something like “Go all out to achieve your goal”.

Attached file: Sport anotace.doc

The new issue of Umění / Art has been just published. Among the articles it contains, we would lite to draw your attention to Josef Vojvodik, Jidřich Vybíral, Radka Tibitanzlová and Štěpán Vácha or Blanka Kubíková.

Attached file: UMENI 2012_3-4.pdf