Marxism in Czech art history 1945–1970

Czechoslovakia was subject to authoritarian rule of the Communist Party since 1948 and any research had to comply with Marxism-Leninism as the sole acceptable scientific method. Czech art history (as different form art criticism) lacked any experience with Marxism. Around and after 1950, there continued the quest for a method that would be both compatible with the scholarly tradition following the Vienna School and acceptable to the ideologues of the political regime. Jaromír Neumann found the best result in his invention of “formalist iconology” around 1960: a strange hybrid of Panofsky’s post-war iconology and the late Dvořák’s “spiritual art history” has served Czech art history well until today

Pietà from Jihlava as a site of memory

The Pietà from Jihlava/Iglau is larger than most lifesize wooden sculptures dating from the 1330s. The contribution deals with the history of the artwork which extends over nearly seven hundred years. During this time, the Pietà served primarily as an object of religious devotion but also played an important role as a focus of communal identity for the inhabitants of Jihlava. If perceived as a specific site of memory, the sculpture relates to the changing loyalties in the town: between the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the Catholics and the Reformation, and in modern times between the German and Czech speakers

Continuity and discontinuity in the Czech legacy of the Vienna School of Art History

This article considers the development of Czech art history from the late nineteenth century to the present. It argues that while Czech art historians were anxious to establish a distinctive art historical voice in Europe, they were led a symbiotic relationship with the Vienna School. Most of the leading art historians of the early years of the Czechosovak Republic after 1918 studied with Alois Riegl, Franz Wickhoff, Max Dvořák of Josef Strzygowski, and maintained a strong loyalty to the values and methods of their teachers. Thus for all that 1918 marked a political watershed, there was considerable continuity with the Vienna School of the Habsburg Empire. Despite the numerous subsequent political and ideological events, including four decades of Communist, Czech art historians continued to regard Vienna School art historians as fundamental points of reference, and this has been sustained by a self-understanding that has emphasised continuity with the past

Czech art history and Marxism

Czech art history in the 20th century has been strongly informed by the tradition of the Vienna School. After the Communist takeover of power in 1948, Marxism – or more precisely Marxism-Leninism – became a compulsory philosophical approach. After a brief Stalinist phase, an ‘iconologic turn’ was construed by Jaromír Neumann before 1960: iconology was reframed in terms of Dvořák´s ‘spiritual history’ and the result was labelled Marxist, as it enabled to provide a direct access to the ideology of the past without having to pay attention to class and social relations. Frederick Antal´s or Arnold Hauser´s social history of art was rejected, the main focus was on the noetic qualities of artworks and the main topic the debate of realism. As a result, Czech art history was pursued as an elitist discipline in the humanist tradition, but it did not need to participate in the search for ‘humanist Marxism’ or revisionism which was typical for the East-Central Europe in the 1960. Dvořák-type iconology combined with formalist approach and belief in a validity of the laws of develompent remained attractive for Czech art history up to the 1990s

Max Dvořák in the 1960s: a re-construction of tradition

The impact of Max Dvořák is habitually considered to consist of reading his texts. I would like to argue that the key aspect is rather an interpretation and representation and that their mode depends on specific conditions of time and place. A recapitulation of renewed interest in Dvořák in Czech art historiography during the 1960s recognizes the strategies that were used to adapt his “idealistic” methodology for the use of the period Marxist-Leninist scholarship. It was only due to success of this re-interpretation campaign that Dvořák was able to fill the position of the “father of Czech art history”

1968: In Search of “Socialism with Human Face” in Czech Art History

The five or eight years leading up to the failed “Prague Spring” represent the most important period of Czech humanities tradition during the Communist Party dictatorship. Art history did not directly participate in either of the most prominent period discourses, but it was able to develop its own specific methodologies following the Czech continuation of the Vienna School legacy. The contribution analyzes the discourse of Marxist Iconology, developed by J. Neumann and R. Chadraba, and presents the case of F. Šmejkal and his concept of Imaginative Art, which was, interestingly, the sole case during the whole 40 years of the Communist Party rule when the highest Party officials became directly involved in Czech art historical practice. From the point of view of art historical practice, the most important feature of the brief period 1963–1969 was the new possibility of contacts with foreign art historians and of traveling abroad