Abstract
An artwork is a communication medium, which can, at the same time, display other media. We can therefore talk about a specific meta-communication of a medium about a medium.
The motive of mass media in fine arts appears in both Czech and international artworks almost since the very time of their occurrence. There has especially been a rich tradition of displaying readers, while readers of books can already be found on medieval panel paintings.
In the 19th century, a new type of reader began to appear in the Czech art - the one who is reading press instead of a book, while newspaper at that time was a medium that was gaining greater social and political significance. Newspaper readers have occurred in many forms over the past two hundred years, same as the meaning of artistic representation of newspapers as an artifact and of the environment in which the readers are displayed has changed.
From Karel Purkyně's realistic portrait of the blacksmith Jech reading the Slovak Newspaper in his workshop to the Cubist newspaper reader by Antonín Procházka. The media-historical study is the result of an extensive research and art investigation, which brings a new perspective on the development of the periodical press in the Czech lands through the optics of fine arts and of the readers of the press depicted in artworks.
The multidisciplinary research, unique in the Czech academic environment, works with methodology and literature, both from the field of media history and media theory, as well as of the history of art, and with semiotics and iconography findings.