Abstract
With a rise of communist power, both art theory and art production had to cope with the dictates of theoretical standards. This article aims to describe and explain a media perception of Czech fine art in the years 1956, 1957, and 1958.
In order to understand the issues of fine art in the selected years, it was necessary to describe cultural and political circumstances that preceded them. The opening part outlines historical development of Czech communistic system and its cultural policy in the post war years (from 1945 to 1956).
Specifically, it explains the intrusion of Socialist realism and its consequence. Finally, it describes a media system, a censorship establishment, and an information monopoly in the totalitarian state.
In the empirical part, we outline the results of qualitative analyses of the perception of fine art between 1956 and 1958 in the contemporary newspapers and magazines. We also describe the main art criticism concerns.
For this purpose, we applied analytical model to a case study of the important art events. Based on the method of a qualitative and comparative media content analysis called "based theory", we named and described the main fine art theoretical issues, and its perception in the contemporary daily press and other printed media.
Among the conclusions of the comparative analyses is the fact that the liberal art criticism challenged Socialist realism as a single, and absolute art method. As a result, the subsequent discussion in the printed media searched for adequate artistic expression, which would remain realistic.
However, it would tolerate a degree of individualism and experimentation as well. On the contrary, political power, firmly insisted on the dogma laid down in 1948.
The XI. Communist Party congress in June 1958 emphasized political awareness of art, and its key role in a fight with the vestiges of the bourgeois worldview.