Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The annual report of the Fine Arts Association (Krasoumná jednota) for 1888 celebrated the 49th annual exhibition as a resounding success: "Our domestic artists provided brilliant proof of their skill and determination; attendance was higher than the previous year, sales of artworks were brisker, and the financial results were highly satisfactory given our circumstances. The increase in admission fees contributed partly to this outcome. Our press coverage was invaluable in achieving these excellent results, and we express our heartfelt gratitude. [...] The net proceeds from the exhibitions are designated to support impoverished students of the Prague Academy of Painting." The exhibition catalogue listed 455 entries, though the final tally, including supplements, reached 517 works. The cited report states, "A total of 517 items were submitted to this year's artistic exhibition, including: 288 oil paintings, 91 watercolors and pastels, 18 sculptures, six paintings on glass, and a collection of 114 oil studies from nature by our compatriot Alois Kirnig."

Initially, the organizers were concerned about securing enough works to exhibit, because in spring 1888, two major exhibitions were held in Vienna (jubilee exhibition) and Munich (international exhibition). While the proportion of foreign works indeed declined, critic Vilém Weitenweber welcomed this development, noting that this edition could finally be called a "Prague salon," a "colourful concert in which our domestic artists play first violin" [Weitenweber 1888, p. 1; Filip – Musil 2021, p. 232]. The Prague Academy of Fine Arts deserved significant credit for this transformation. Following the appointment of professors Mařák and Pirner in 1887, the institution "seemed to have been reborn" [Weitenweber 1888a, p. 351]. Weitenweber also praised the placement of domestic works in positions of honor, particularly in the great hall. The exhibition featured an exceptionally high number of Prague Academy students (marked with asterisks in the catalogue): Vojtěch Bartoněk, Josef Douba, Alexander Jakesch, Luděk Marold, Karel Pavlík, Josef Rolletschek, Vilém Trsek, and Joža Uprka. Their works attracted considerable attention and achieved commercial success – three pieces sold even before the exhibition opened, with Professor Mařák facilitating the transactions [Filip – Musil 2021, p. 232]. Marold's Egg Market was initially acquired by Knight Vojtěch Lanna, who then let the k.u. k. Ministry of Culture and Education buy it for the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of Fine Arts in the Rudolfinum. Other buyers also came from Vienna: Bartoněk's Recruits and The Old Speaker were purchased by builder Josef Hlávka and Minister Paul von Gautsch respectively. Rudolf Schuster, a representative of Kunstverlag Berlin SW, bought Karel Pavlík's large canvas Pompeian Slave Dealer. In the artist's obituary – Pavlík died of tuberculosis at the age of 27 – this work was retrospectively evaluated as "not only the largest but also the most interesting painting of the entire exhibition," though critics regretted that Pavlík "did not draw his subject matter from domestic history" [Weitenweber 1890, p. 287; Filip – Musil 2021, pp. 237-238]. Uprka's Painters was purchased by Ms. Wiehl, presumably the wife of the Prague architect Antonín Wiehl. The painters Douba and Jakesch captivated the audience with their provocative combination of eroticism with Old Testament and early Christian themes; the former presented David and Abigail and the latter The Martyrdom of St. Theodosia, following Gabriel Max's model. Critics devoted the greatest attention to these student works, viewing them as harbingers of future developments in art.

According to the catalogue inventory, including the incomplete appendix, the exhibition featured 241 artists (six of them posthumously). The catalogue also lists their places of residence, with Prague being the home to most exhibiting artists – 56 (23.2% of the total) – three artists came from Bohemian regions (Česká Lípa, Karlovy Vary, and Teplice). 40 artists came from Vienna plus three more from other Austrian locations (Bad Aussee, Klagenfurt, and Salzburg); three more came from Cisleithania (Kraków, Trieste, and Opatija) and one from Transleithania (Nadasd-Ladány).

Most foreign artists were from Germany – 82 in total (34% of all participants): 34 from Munich, 17 from Berlin, 15 from Düsseldorf, four from Dresden, Hamburg (including Altona), and Stuttgart, and one from Frankfurt, Hanover, Leipzig, and Strasbourg each. Artists also came from Italy, particularly Milan (8), Florence (5), Rome (4), and Venice (3), with Bologna (2), Verona, and Livorno (1 each) completing the tally of 24. Notably, Paris (5) and Brussels (6, including nearby Laeken and Ixelles) showed relatively weak representation compared to the following decade, along with Antwerp (3), Amsterdam, and The Hague (one artist from each city). The international scope extended to Swiss Lugano, Russian Tula, and Warsaw (one artist each).

Based on the list of private purchases kept in the archive of the Fine Arts Association, the highest-priced works, selling for thousands of guldens, included Ludwig Passini's watercolor Venetian Motif at 5,623.31 guldens (purchased by the public fund for the picture gallery) and several oil paintings: Oswald Achenbach's Villa Borghese (2,676 guldens), Karl Ludwig's Spring in the Gaden Valley in the Bernese Mountains (1,684.80 guldens), Pavlík's aforementioned Pompeian Slave Dealer (1,500 guldens), Albert Flamm's Motif from the Island of Capri (1,116 guldens), Julius Mařák's Autumn Evening (1,113 guldens), and August Kessler's North Sea Motif (1,000 guldens). Total sales reached 35 works for 20,709.71 guldens, plus 32 additional works for 4,745.25 guldens to give out to lottery winners. The most expensive piece, Passini's Venetian watercolour, received enthusiastic praise: "A beautiful, light, and effective palette; a confidently captured mood; and a ‘chic’ bravura in the drawing. Invention and execution merge into an impression as effective as that of no other painting in the entire exhibition" (Mrštík 1888, p. 268).

The critics mostly discussed the emergence of naturalism, an artistic tendency that spread throughout Europe during the final twenty years of the 19th century and culminated in the 1889 Paris Exposition [Le Men 2000, p. 306]. Renáta Tyršová, the exhibition's most prolific reviewer, preferred idealistic art, in keeping with the aesthetic philosophy of her late husband, Miroslav Tyrš. In her review, Tyršová warned against both the looming banality of naturalism and mere technical virtuosity: "In the flood of slightly shoddy artistic goods, there is a prevalence of modern reproductions that faithfully depict mundane reality, as well as works in which dexterity and boldness of hand replace both spirit and soul. Consequently, audiences and critics of local and wider-reaching exhibitions no longer expect to encounter works that soar above the mound of earthly ordinariness." [Tyršová 1888] As an example of work demonstrating both "confident hand" and "expression of a purely elevated artistic soul," she cited J. V. Myslbek's equestrian statue of St. Wenceslas. Visitors to the great hall of the Rudolfinum could compare a preparatory model of this sculpture with a similar work by Myslbek's rival Bohuslav Schnirch – a half-scale equestrian statue of George of Poděbrady. Although naturalistic works were not represented at the 1888 "Prague salon," elements of the style had begun to penetrate genre painting. This is best illustrated by the aforementioned market scenes by Vojtěch Bartoněk and Luděk Marold set in Prague's marketplaces.

Aleš Filip

Works Cited

Filip – Musil 2021: Aleš Filip – Roman Musil, Proměny salonního umění na výročních výstavách Krasoumné jednoty v Praze, in: iidem (eds.), Epocha salonů. České salonní umění a mezinárodní výtvarná scéna 1870–1914, Brno – Plzeň 2021, pp. 199–310

Le Men 2000: Ségolène Le Men, „Když už tu je naturalismus…“, in: Marie Mžyková (ed.), Křídla slávy. Vojtěch Hynais, čeští Pařížané a Francie, Praha 2000, vol. I., pp. 296–319

Mrštík 1888: V(ilém) Mrštík, Umělecká výstava v Praze, část V., Ruch X, 1888, pp. 268–269

Tyršová 1888: R(enáta) Tyršová, Umělecká výstava v Rudolfinu, část I., Národní listy XXVIII, 1888, appendix to no. 119, n. pag.

Weitenweber 1888: W. W. (mark in the last part, Wilhelm Weitenweber), Prager Salon 1888, part I., Politik XXVII, 1888, no. 107, pp. 1–2

Weitenweber 1888a: V. W. (Vilém Weitenweber), Výroční výstava Krasoumné jednoty v Rudolfinu, část I., Zlatá Praha V, 1887–1888, pp. 351

Weitenweber 1890: V. W. (Vilém Weitenweber), Karel Pavlík, Zlatá Praha VII, 1889–1890, p. 287

Further Reading

Jakub Bachtík – Lukáš Duchek – Jakub Jareš (eds.), Chrám umění: Rudolfinum, Praha 2020

Anna Masaryková, Cizí umělci na výstavách Krasoumné jednoty v Praze, in: Jaroslav Pešina (ed.), Sborník k sedmdesátinám Jana Květa (Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philosophica et historica), Praha 1965, pp. 199–205

Vladimír Novotný, Sto let Krasoumné jednoty, Praha 1935

Roman Prahl, Z malířských salonů v Praze před sto lety (exh. cat.), Národní galerie v Praze, 1980

Lucie Vlčková, Krajinomalba v Praze 1840–1890. Prezentace krajinomalby a její reflexe na výstavách Krasoumné jednoty, Praha 2009

Vít Vlnas (ed.), Obrazárna v Čechách 1796–1918. Katalog výstavy uspořádané Národní galerií v Praze u příležitosti dvoustého výročí založení Obrazárny Společnosti vlasteneckých přátel umění, Praha 1996

Archival Sources

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, fonds SVPU, inv. no. 165, Zpráva Krasoumné jednoty o činnosti za rok 1888 [Activity Report of the Fine Arts Association for the year 1888], inv. no. 199, Seznamy soukromých nákupů na výstavách [Lists of private purchases from exhibitions], 1843–1896

Anonymous author, Výroční umělecká výstava, Světozor XXII, 1887–1888, p. 352

Anonymous author, Kunstausstellung in Rudolphinum, Prager Tagblatt XII, 1888, no. 104, p. 3

Anonymous author, Die Kunstausstellung in Rudolphinum, Prager Tagblatt XII, 1888, no. 106, p. 3

Anonymous author, Die Kunstausstellung in Rudolphinum, Prager Tagblatt XII, 1888, no. 139, p. 2

Anonymous author, Die Kunstausstellung in Rudolphinum, Prager Tagblatt XII, 1888, no. 164, p. 3

Anonymous author, Gemäldegalerie in Rudolphinum, Prager Tagblatt XII, 1888, no. 174, p. 4