Czechness and Internationalism of Modern Art in Bohemia (1848-1948): Ideas - Personalities - Institutions
Abstract
The conference "Czechness and Internationalism of Modern Art in Bohemia (1848-1948): Ideas - Personalities - Institutions" was held on 24 May 2022 at the Institute of Art History, Faculty of Arts, Charles University. The conference was initiated by the jubilee of Professor Petr Wittlich (90), a long-time teacher and researcher of the Institute. The conference focused on a topic that has long been of interest not only to Petr Wittlich but also to other experts on Czech modern art, and which touches upon the identity problems of local modernism. The question of to what extent Czech modern art is defined by national or, on the contrary, international discourse was attempted to be answered by colleagues from a number of Czech (and foreign) university, gallery and research institutions, in particular from the Institute of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague, Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Seminar of Art History of the Masaryk University in Brno, Université Sorbonne, Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Academy of Arts, Design and Architecture in Prague, Gallery of Fine Arts in Cheb and Dox Gallery. The conference, "Czechness and Internationalism in Modern Art in Bohemia", focused both on local art historical disciplinary practice and retrospective assessment of the phenomenon of nationality within modernity, modernism and the avant-garde, and explored discussions on the subject, projected into specific works, art projects and institutional programmes. In the morning session, we explored ideas, personalities and institutions associated with the phenomena of 'Czechness' and 'internationalism' in modern art in the period roughly defined by the years 1848 to 1918. The issue of 'Czechness' was developed primarily in the fields of history and literature at the beginning of the national revival in Bohemia, but gradually began to permeate the visual arts programme and writing about it. The search for an answer to the question "What is 'Czech' about art in Bohemia?" was driven in the last third of the 19th century by the frustration of Czech art history, caused by the self-confidence of German art historians declaring in lectures and texts the Germanic character of Bohemia's art monuments. At the same time, Czech critics looking for 'Czechness' in contemporary modern works were faced with the difficult task of proving their high artistic quality, which did not have to have a local pedigree. Part of the national agenda of Czech modern culture thus became, paradoxically, the search for support in 'world' and 'universal' models of modernity. Against the backdrop of the gradual political formation of their nation state, the Czechs dealt with their relationship to the 'universal' canon and decided to lean towards the values defined especially by the French modern culture, perceived as a counterbalance to the ubiquitous Germanic pressure.
'Czechness' as a cipher of national identity permeated the programme of art and discussions about it during the emancipation movement in the 19th century, then during the First Republic (when the Czech nation became the nation of 'Czechoslovakia') and again during the Protectorate. In the afternoon session, the conference mapped how the meaning of the terms 'Czechness', 'modernity' and 'internationalism' changed during the period under review. The nascent history of modern and avant-garde art in interwar Czechoslovakia unwittingly resonated with the notion that the modern nation-state was blood-related and therefore inevitably linked to the 'original' historical tribe: the revivalist definition of the Czech nation as a Slavic ethnicity, united by the bonds of blood and language, thus survived. Although Czech modern art during the First Republic was not as closely connected to the national myth in its theoretical framework as Slovak modern art, the idea of 'Czechness' was nevertheless reflected in a whole range of theoretical and art-historical constructions of the specificity of local modernism and modernity. Complicated in this context were the contemporary and later retrospective interpretations of Czech modern and avant-garde works, whose authors clearly followed the internationalist universalism of the movements and '-isms'. With regard to the opinion orientation of a given critic and art historian, and also under the influence of political doctrines and ideologies, similar cases of modernist and avant-garde transfers were either unequivocally rejected or sophistically defended with reference to the quality of 'Czechness' counterbalancing or even overcoming the internationalism of modernism.