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The Politics of Artistic Identity: the Czech Art World in the 1950s and 1960s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Maruška Svašek
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Extract

Since the Czech 'revivalist' movement of the last century, Czech art – along with the roles assigned to its artists – has been undergoing a continual process of definition and redefinition. The question of what constituted and what should constitute Czech artistic identity has often proved politically charged, with artists and art historians on opposing sides attacking each other for their political views. More often than not, debates on the issue have been part and parcel of wider social contexts in which artists and art historians have competed for influential positions and artistic prestige within the art world itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 1997 , pp. 383 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 Svašek, Maruška, ‘Styles, Struggles, and Careers. An Ethnography of the Czech Art World, 1948–1992’, PhD thesis (University of Amsterdam, 1996)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Soviets Remembered: Liberators or Aggressors?’, Focaal. Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 10, no. 25 (1995) 103–24Google Scholar; ‘What's [the] Matter? Objects, Materiality, and Interpretability’, Etnofoor, Vol. 9, no. 2 (1996), 49–70.

2 Inherent in all artistic discourse is the concept of artistic quality, by which ‘good’ artists are distinguished from ‘bad’, and hierarchies of artistic reputation are created. A higher reputation normally brings commercial benefits in the art market and a place in art history. However, the definition of artistic quality is never totally fixed, and art specialists may support conflicting opinions. Defining what is art and what not thus often remains a contentious issue debated by art historians and artists who struggle for the acceptance of their own particular viewpoint. In specific socio-historical contexts the struggle for artistic recognition becomes inseparably linked with political power struggles.

3 Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1990), 20.Google Scholar

4 For a more elaborate analysis of the period 1938–48, cf. Svašek, , ‘Styles, Struggles and Careers’, 26–33.Google Scholar

5 Gottwald, Klement, ‘Projev Klementa Gottwalda na Sjezdu Národní Kultury 1948’, Výtvamé Umění, Vol. 1, no. 1 (1950), 4;Google ScholarJůza, Vilém, ‘Smutná léta padesátá. Druhá avantgarda’, in Vykoukal, Jiří (ed.), Záznam Nejrozmanitějších Faktoru. České Malířství 2. Poloviny 20. století ze Sbírek Galerií (Prague: Národní Galerie, 1993), 27.Google Scholar

6 The idea of artists and intellectuals being a closed élitist group, mistakenly considering itself ‘free and independent’, was not an idea bandied about within the Eastern Bloc alone. It was also taken up and further developed by Western European socialist scholars. The topic was heatedly debated in the interwar period in Britain and France and during the immediate post-war years throughout Europe. Various Western social scientists, historians, literary critics and writers developed theories in which they viewed the role of art in modern capitalist societies as an instrument of class distinction. See further, Adorno, Theodor, Introduction to the Sociology of Music (New York: Seabury Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Benjamin, Walter, Understanding Brecht (London: New Left Books, 1973)Google Scholar; Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Symbolic Power’, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 4, no. 13–14 (1979), 77–85;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDistinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984); Brecht, Bertold, ‘A Short Organum for the Theatre’, in Willet, John (ed.), Brecht on Theatre. The Development of an Aesthetic (London: Eyre Methuen, 1964), 179–205;Google ScholarEagleton, Terry, Criticism and Ideology (London: New Left Books, 1976)Google Scholar; Hadjinicolaou, Nicos, Art History and Class Struggle (London: Pluto, 1978)Google Scholar; Haskell, Francis, Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (Oxford: Phaidon, 1976)Google Scholar; Hauser, Arnold, The Social History of Art (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968)Google Scholar; Johnson, Pauline, Marxist Aesthetics. The Foundation within Everyday Life for an Emancipated Consciousness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984)Google Scholar; Marcuse, Herbert, One Dimensional Man (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964)Google Scholar; The Aesthetic Dimension: Towards a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978).

7 Gottwald, , ‘Projev na Sjezdu Národní Kultury 1948’, 4.Google Scholar

8 ibid.

9 ibid.

10 ibid.

11 ibid.

12 See Samuel, Raphael and Thompson, Paul (eds.), The Myths We Live By (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), 5.Google Scholar

13 Gottwald, , ‘Projev na Sjezdu Národní Kultury 1948’, 4.Google Scholar

14 ibid.

15 See Lindey, Christine, Art in the Cold War. From Vladivostok to Kalamazoo, 1945–1962 (New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1990), 8.Google Scholar

16 According to Lindey, the demonising and idealising of two opposing groups of artists during the Cold War should be set against the backdrop of the Second World War, during which people had become used to thinking in terms of allies and enemies. She argues that, after 1945, ‘it was easy for people to substitute the Red Menace or the Capitalist Devil for the Nazi Demon’. Art in the Cold War, 8. In the West, the media similarly propagated an extremely simplified and negative mythical image of their Soviet counterparts. Nieburg, H. L., Culture Storm: Politics and the Ritual Order (New York: St Martin's Press, 1973), 204.Google Scholar

17 The Wanderers were inspired by works of Chernyshevsky such as The Aesthetic Relations of Art and Reality (1855) and What is to be Done? (1864). Chernyshevsky advocated an art that would not limit itself to the beautiful but which would embrace the whole of reality. Elliot, David, New Worlds. Russian Art and Society 1900–1937 (New York: Rizzoli, 1986), 8.Google Scholar

18 Šolta, Vladimír, ‘K některým otázkám socialistického realismu ve výtvarném umení’, Výtvamé umění, Vol. 1, no. 3 (1950), 110.Google Scholar

19 ibid.

20 ibid.

21 ibid., 117–18. Šolta referred to Antonín Slavíček and Max Švabinsky as exemplars. Slavíček (1870–1910) mainly painted landscapes. Reithartová, , ‘Slavíček, Antonín’, in Poche, Emanuel (ed.), Encyklopedie českého výtvamého umění (Prague: Českoslovak Academy of Science, 1975), 464.Google Scholar Švabinsky (1873–1962) was known for his historical paintings. Hlaváček, Ludvík, ‘Skupiny tvůrcích umělců’, in Poche, Emanuel (ed.), Encyklopedie českého výtvamého umění (Prague: Českoslovak Academy of Science, 1975), 519.Google Scholar

22 See Tetiva, Vlastimil, České malířství a sochařství 2. poloviny 20. stol (Hluboká nad Vltavou: Alšova jihočeská galerie, 1991), 53.Google Scholar

23 Scott noted that, in general, people in situations of extreme oppression only dare to voice alternative opinions if they possess a ‘sequestered social site where the control, surveillance, and repression of the dominant are least able to reach’, and which must be ‘composed entirely of close confidants who share similar expressions of domination’. Scott, , Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 120.Google Scholar

24 Members included J. Balcar, A. Bělocvětov, V. Beneš, B. Čermáková, L. Dydek, L. Fára, R. Fremund, M. Hájek, D. Hendrychová, F. Caun, M. Chlupáč, J. Kolínská, J. Martin, M. Martinová, Neprakta, J. Winter, V. Nolč, D. Nováková, Z. Palcr, R. Piesen, J. Rathouský, J. Skřivánek, M. Vystrčil and K. Vysušil.

25 J. Bartoš, V. Bláha, D. Foll, F. Gross, F. Hudeček, J. Chadima, V. Kovařik and O. Synaček.

26 J. Brož, J. Grus, K. Hladík, S. Ježek, M. Jirava, J. Kodet, J. Liesler, J. Malejovskyˇ, V. V. Novák, J. Otčenášek, J. Smetana, A. Sopr, V. Tittlebach, R. Wiesner and V. Žalud.

27 V. Bošrík, F. Burant, V. Janoušek, V. Janoušková, J. John, S. Kolíbal, A. Kučerová, J. Mrázek, D. Mrázková, V. Prachatická, O. Smutný, A. Simotová and A. Vitík.

28 Members included the painters Eva Burešová, Věra Hařmanská, Vladimír Jarcovják, Čestmir Kafka, Dalibor Matouš, V. Menčik, Karel Vaca, Jitka Válová and Kvéta Válová and the sculptors Zdenek Fibichová, Eva Kmentová, Václav Preclík, Zdeněk Šimak and Olbram Zoubek.

29 Goldfarb, Jeffrey, On Cultural Freedom. An Exploration of Public Life in Poland and America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 98.Google Scholar

30 Defined as ‘[a] loose title for various philosophies that emphasise certain common themes: the individual, the experience of choice, and the absence of rational understanding of the universe with a consequent dread or sense of absurdity in human life. The combination suggests an emotional tone or mood rather than a set of deductively related theses, and existentialism attained its zenith in Europe following the disenchantments of the Second World War.’ Blackburn, Simon, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 129–30.Google Scholar

31 Jůza, , ‘Smutná léta padesátá’, 30.Google Scholar

32 ibid.

33 One of the artists I spoke with, who was a member of one of the unofficial art groups in the late 1950s, told me that small art groups were a necessary counter to the overwhelming dominance of the Union. The illegal groups offered artists the possibility of meeting colleagues with similar interests, with whom they could discuss both art in general and their own work. However, they also felt the need to exhibit their work before a wider public, and wished to use the official network of galleries and museums to do so.

34 Jůza, , ‘Smutná léta padesátá’, 31.Google Scholar

35 Some of the artists reviewed, such as Gustav Courbet and Théodore Géricault, had already been accepted as socially conscious realists, and their work had already been reviewed. In Lamač's article they were represented by paintings with social themes, such as a beggar and a woman in a kitchen. Other painters discussed by Lamač, such as Manet, Dégas, Renoir and van Gogh, now appeared for the first time in the magazine. However, as had been the case with Picasso in 1953, none of their more abstract works were shown. Instead, realist paintings that had a social or relatively neutral content served as illustrations. Van Gogh, for example, was represented by a painting of agricultural labourers. Toulouse-Lautrec's work showed people in a bar, Renoir's people in a street, Pierre Bonnard's people in a garden, Manet's a woman applying her make-up; and Dégas was represented by three of his nudes, a woman ironing and a dancer. The most avant-garde artists Lamač wrote about were Picasso and Matisse. The reproduction of Matisse's painting depicted a woman and a child.

36 Lamač, Miroslav, ‘Moderni umění 1’, Výtvamé umění, Vol. 17, no. 5 (1956), 212.Google Scholar In the same issue Picasso was quoted as attacking the idea that Realism and Abstractionism were incompatible artistic categories. The quote was taken from his interview with Christian Zervos, originally published in Picasso 1930–35 (ed. Cahiers d'art). Picasso's and Lamač's statements reinforced each other.

37 Chalupecký, Jindřich, ‘Umění a skutečnost’, Výtvamé umění, Vol. 18 (1957), 157.Google Scholar

38 Padrta, Jiří, ‘Umění nezobrazujíci a neobjektivní, jeho počátky a vývoj 1’, Výtvamé umění, Vol. 18, no. 4 (1957), 174–81Google Scholar; ‘Umění nezobrazujíci a neobjektivni, jeho počátky a vývoj 2.’ Výtvarné umění, Vol. 18, no. 5 (1957), 214–21.

39 Padrta, , ‘Umění nezobrazujíci a neobjektivní, jeho počátky a vývoj 1’, 174.Google Scholar

40 Seuphor, quoted by Padrta, ibid., 181.

41 The first part of the essay was accompanied by twenty-three reproductions of works by Vasilij Kandinsky (3), Joan Miró (2), Hans Arp (1), Willi Baumeister (1), Hans Hartung (1), Marcel Duchamp (1), Robert Delaunay (2), Franz Marc (1), Piet Mondrian (2), Fernand Léger (1), Umberto Boccioni (1), Alberto Magnelli (2), Giacomo Balla (1), Auguste Herbin (1) and František Kupka (1). The second part of the essay, published in the next issue (no. 5), contained twenty-six reproductions of paintings by Piet Mondrian (1), Emilio Vedova (1), Roger Bissiere (1), Ernst Wilhelm Nay (2), Jean Bazaine (1), (Otto) Wols (1), Mark Tobey (1), Georges Mathieu (1), Hans Hartung (1), Dieira da Silva (1), Geer van de Velde (1), Jackson Pollock (1), Alfred Manessier (1), Boris Lanskoy (1), Georg Meistermann (1), Fritz Winter (1), Maurice Esteve (1), Bram van Velde (1), Gustave Singier (1), Renato Birolli (1), Jean Atlan (1), Gérard Scheider (1), Jean Dubuffet (1), Pierre Soulae (1) and Alfred Manessier (1).

42 See Hughes, Robert, The Shock of the New, rev. ed. (New York: Knopf, 1991), 255.Google Scholar

43 The lack of political reform in Czechoslovakia can be explained by a number of reasons. The Czechoslovak economy had not been as drastically affected by Stalinist policies as had the economies of other Eastern bloc countries, and consequently economic pressure for reform was not as great. The majority of intellectuals had remained loyal to the Party and, as a result of the purges and strict political control, those not loyal to the Party had been given no chance to organise themselves. Ethnic and historical differences between Czechs and Slovaks might also have been a factor involved or exploited in hindering the development of any unified opposition. Many politicians in the upper echelons of the Party took a reactionary stance and resisted change in any direction. The experience of the purges meant that most still feared punishment for any leeway to those opposed to Stalinist rule. See Wolchik, Sharon L., Czechoslovakia in Transition. Politics, Economics, and Society (London: Pinter Publishers, 1991), 25–6.Google Scholar

44 See Jůza, , ‘Smutná léta padesátá’, 32.Google Scholar

45 The anthropologist Ladislav Holy argued that, after 1948, the idea of an autonomous Czech identity was not denied outright: ‘Hand in hand with the officially proclaimed ideology of “proletarian internationalism” went the recognition of the national principle in the organisation of communist society and the communist state’. Holy, Ladislav, ‘The End of Socialism in Czechoslovakia’, in Mann, C. M. (ed.), Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice (London: Routledge, 1994), 809–10.Google Scholar

46 Tomášek, Dušan, Pozor, cenzurováno! Aneb ze života soudruzky cenzury (Prague: MV ČR, 1994), 111–14.Google Scholar

47 Libor Fára, Josef Istler, Oto Janeček, A. Karášek, Jan Kotík, P. Kotík, Mikuláš Medek and Karel Teissig.

48 See Kříź, , ‘Imaginace-struktura-divnost’, in Vykoukal, Jiří, ed., Záznam nejrozmanitějších faktorů. České malířství 2. poloviny 20. století ze sbírek galení (Prague: Národní galerie, 1993), 37;Google ScholarTetiva, Vlastimil, České malířstvi a sochařství 2. poloviny 20. stol, 90.Google Scholar

49 Jůza, Vilém, ‘Smutná léta padesátá’, 33.Google Scholar

50 Scott, , Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 196.Google Scholar

51 See Rupnik, Jacques, The Other People (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988), 171–2Google Scholar; Fejto, François, A History of the People's Democracies (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), 70.Google Scholar

52 Chalupecký, Jindřich, ‘K čemu je Svaz?’, Výtvamá Práce, Vol. 17, no. 3–4, 11.Google Scholar

53 For a detailed analysis of subsequent developments in the Czech art world, see Svašek, , ‘Styles, Struggles, and Careers’, 88–234.Google Scholar