Criticism and Autonomy of Czech Art (1859-1892)

Understanding artistic creation as an autonomous activity with its own rules and criteria for evaluating success seems almost natural today; we realize its non-obviousness perhaps most often during court proceedings conducted against authors of works with controversial content. There were times, however, when even the art world was not unified in its view of the autonomy of its production – the primacy of aesthetics in evaluation had to assert itself in complex discussions over specific works. The authors of the book seek the focus of these negotiations in the period of the beginnings of parliamentarism in our country, when the growing self-confidence of the artistic sphere was expressed not only by the production itself, but also, for example, by the construction of representative public spaces (Prague' s National Theatre, Rudolfinum). Interdisciplinary research, inspired by the sociological and literary-historical study of the autonomization of French art (P. Bourdieu, M. Einfalt), focuses on the critical response to literary, visual and musical production, which between 1859 and 1892 raised questions related to the creators' obligations to society. At the same time, it traces the changes in criticism itself, which reflected on its growing degree of autonomy and clarified its own relationships to the audience and creators. The collective monograph presents the results of research into periodicals and other sources, including archival ones, which allow us to capture contemporary critical practice in its full breadth. The explanation is supplemented by a pictorial appendix presenting, in addition to the discussed works of art, also typical forms of promotion of artistic production of the period.