Articles

The Institute of Art History wishes you all the best for 2014.

The ESF project entitled Palatium 1400–1700 has now moved into its second half and has turned from the residences of the Valois and Habsburg families to the theme of summer houses. On 5–7 June 2014 an international colloquium will take place in Prague, which is being prepared by the Palatium 1400–1700 team in cooperation with the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The programme of the colloquium will consist of papers on those parts of residential complexes which we most often find in Central European sources from the 15th to the 19th century under the name of Lusthaus. In addition to the purely philological question of delimiting the term, an important part of the Prague meeting will be the typological identification of these buildings in terms of culture, history, and construction, with particular reference to the relationship with functionally similar architectural entities such as hunting lodges, villas, garden pavilions, and casinos. Researchers will also devote attention to the iconology of the decoration of these additional buildings in residential complexes and to the urbanistic function of the gardens, parks, and game preserves in which these buildings were situated. The call for papers ends on 31 January 2014. More information at www.courtresidences.eu

The international workshop “Art in an Unsettled Time. Boheian illumination book before Guttenberg (ca.1380–1450)”, organised by the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in cooperation with the Institut für Mittelalterforschung – Schrift- und Buchwesen of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, will take place on 12-14 November 2013. To tie in with this, an exhibition with the same title will be opened on 6 November 2013 at 17:00 in the window gallery of the Institute of Art History at 4 Husova Street in Prague. The exhibition also forms part of the largest event aimed at popularising science in the Czech Republic, the Week of Science and Technology, which this week takes place on 1-14 November 2013 with the theme “Fascination with the World”.

Attached file: Workshop Art in an unsettled time.pdf

Attached file: abstracts Art in an unsettled time.pdf

On 24 October 2013 Professor Rostislav Švácha from the Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, was awarded the Prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic “for his unrivalled contribution to making known and popularising modern and contemporary architecture, and for his intensive defence of our cultural heritage”. Our congratulations!

The new issue of Umění / Art brings e.g. an article by Dalibor Veselý (Surrealism, Mannerism and Disegno Interno), a treatise by Hedvika Kuchařová and Radim Vondráček (Censorship of Religious Printed Images in the 1820s–1839s), or the study by Daniela Kramerová ('We Sell Dreams': Work Commissioned by the Shah of Iran from Czech Artists in the 1970s).

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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.

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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.

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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