Sto let českého umění 1830–1930 | Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820

Commentary

The exhibition Hundred Years of Czech Art presented a milestone for the Mánes Fine Arts Association (SVU Mánes). This was its 153rd members' exhibition, yet the first to be held in the new building on Riegrovo Embankment, designed by the association's chairman, Otakar Novotný.

The show was one of the first attempts to offer a large summarizing retrospective of Czech art. The first similar exhibition focusing on Czech art of the previous 100 years had taken place in 1891 as part of the Anniversary Provincial Exhibition. SVU Mánes probably also found inspiration in Paris, where similar exhibitions, entitled Cent ans de la peinture française, took place in 1922 and in the spring of 1930 [Urban 1930].

The exhibition was opened on October 31, 1930 with the patronage of President Masaryk. A joint opening for both the show and the entire new building, this was an extraordinary social event because SVU Mánes enjoyed an exclusive position in the Czech art world. Novotný delivered the opening address, in which he mentioned that the exhibition was meant to pay tribute to the past while simultaneously opening the door to an artistic future. Other speakers included honorary chairmen – the Ministers Beneš and Dérer and the Prague Mayor Baxa. Professors Hofbauer and Matějček spoke about the association and its new building and the architect Jurkovič concluded the ceremony with his contribution about Slovenská umělecká beseda (Slovak Artistic Forum).

Although art historians developed the show's overall concept, its modern section was prepared mainly by the SVU Mánes committee. The fundamental idea was to include lesser-known works, some of which were exhibited for the first time, thereby adding nuance to the Modern Gallery’s image of the evolution of Czech art. The Modern Gallery lent about a third of the exhibited artworks. A small number came from other public institutions, but the majority were on loan from private collections. The reviewers generally appreciated the curators' attempt at synthesis.

Antonín Matějček, who authored the catalogue introduction to the show, divided the exhibition's broad scope into smaller sections for easier orientation. His categorization claimed the year 1848 as the dividing line between the periods of Romanticism and Realism. He also wrote about the so-called National Theatre Generation and the art at the turn of the 20th century. In Matějček’s interpretation, the development concluded with the then-contemporary generation emerging around 1910.

Hana Frankensteinová-Volavková wrote the catalogue entries. The catalogue contained 450 items, including paintings, prints, sculptures and photographs of architecture. It was relatively extensive for its times. In addition to a number of reproductions, it offered short artists' biographies and detailed information about the works on display, including the current owner. However, as the critic in Právo lidu [anonymous author 1931] mentioned, this detailed treatment was not at all reflected in the exhibition. The artworks had no captions and there were only numbers under them referring to the catalogue, so visitors who could not afford to buy the catalogue were left without any information whatsoever.

The show was installed in the building's main and secondary halls; the latter was divided by partitions into several smaller cubicles. The painter Josef Mánes dominated the main hall, but his works and those of his contemporaries shared space with modern pieces. Juxtaposing classical and modern art was not a common practice at the time, and most reviewers sharply criticized the show's lack of chronological order. With a few exceptions, the critics considered it irreverent toward the “true masters.” The manner in which the artworks were distributed among the two halls was also criticized, because some artists were represented in both of them, an arrangement that confused reviewers.

The paintings in the main hall were hung in rows, as many as three on top of one another. According to many of the critics, the works in the upper row were difficult to view properly. Moreover, the rows were quite dense, so “the paintings clashed with one another” [a. st. 1930]. By then, this type of traditional salon installation was already considered obsolete. The reviewers also criticized the fact that sculptures did not allow for enough distance from the paintings [Nikodem 1930]. Jaromír Pečírka, one of the show's advocates, defended the installation, claiming that the tall walls in SVU Mánes's halls begged for such an arrangement, and that it was also necessary due to the large number of artworks on display [Pečírka 1930a].

Although the time period covered by the exhibition was bracketed by the years 1830 and 1930, the show did feature a few artworks from before 1830, such as paintings by Antonín Mánes and František Tkadlík. The year 1830 was no milestone for Czech art and the organizers created it randomly to mark the hundred-year period. Yet it sparked a debate about the periodization of early-nineteenth-century art and its stylistic development, a question that had been under-researched at the time.

It was clearly difficult to squeeze the hundred-year development of Czech art into just two halls. Any exhibition of such scope would necessarily present a mere fragment. The exhibition committee originally aimed to show more artworks, but had to reduce this plan due to the lack of space; some of the loaned artworks were not exhibited in the end. For this reason, many artists that appear essential from today's perspective were absent from the show, a fact that also earned much criticism from the period press. For example, artists such as Bedřich Havránek, Alfons Mucha and Jakub Schikaneder were not represented at all. This made the critics even more sensitive to the disparity in the amount of space dedicated to the individual epochs. Works from the period between 1900 and 1930 received more space than those in the previous seventy years. According to many reviewers, the choice of modern artists was tendentious and favoured SVU Mánes members, as the association followed its own agenda in selecting the participants. For this reason, the exhibition included artists who are today no longer considered part of the canon.

However, as the critic for Lidové listy mentioned, the exhibition did have clear objectives, showing that the present was built on tradition [V. H. 1930]. The fact that some artists were missing, then, did not seem significant: this was not an historical exhibition, and the authors were open about their simplified interpretation, which was necessary due to the lack of space. The individual periods were represented by the most important artworks and the concept generally favoured an illustrative approach over a comprehensive one [Pečírka 1930b].

The show's extraordinary contribution consisted in its concept that aimed to create a well-rounded picture of Czech art using an interpretive method rather than assemble a complete evolutionary progression. This was the first Czech exhibition to employ non-chronological installations and to juxtapose artworks from different periods. Also remarkable was the organizers' ef-fort to exhibit a large number of artworks from private collections that had previously been unknown to the public.

The exhibition was open daily from 9 am to 5pm for two months with a record attendance of 20,000 visitors. This number in and of itself does not appear particularly high compared to the attendance of other large early-twentieth-century exhibitions. For example, the 1920 Josef Mánes exhibition at the Topič Salon had 23,000 visitors, but it was open for twice as long. Lidové noviny [čeh. 1931] wrote: “Of the exhibitions held thus far at SVU Mánes in Prague, none enjoyed as much attention as this one.”

Tereza Štěpánová

Works cited

Anonymous author 1931: anonymous author, Výstava „Mánesa“ a potřeby obyčejných návštěvníků, Právo lidu (evening edition) XIX (XL), 1931, no. 3, 5. 1., p. 2

a. st. 1930: a. st., Hundert Jahre tschechischer Kunst, Deutsche Zeitung Bohemia CIII, 1930, no. 257, 1. 11., p. 8

Nikodem 1930: N. [Viktor Nikodem], Sto let českého umění, Národní osvobození VII, 1930, no. 314, 15. 11., p. 4

Pečírka 1930a: Jaromír Pečírka, Hundert Jahre tschechischer Kunst., Prager Presse X, 1930, no. 307, 9. 11., p. 10

Pečírka 1930b: Jaromír Pečírka, Výstavy, Rozpravy Aventina VI, 1930, no. 10, 26. 11., p. 118

Urban 1930: B. S. Urban, Sto let českého umění (Výstava v budově Mánesa.), Legie V, 1930, no. 47, 20. 11., p. 5

V. H. 1930: V. H., Velká tragika. Jubilejní výstava Mánesa, Lidové listy (nedělní příloha) IX, 1930, no. 258, 9. 11., p. 3

Archival sources

Prague City Archives, Fonds Spolek výtvarných umělců Mánes, Výstavní činnost, Sto let českého umění [exhibitions, Hundred Years of Czech Art] 1930 (November – December) http://katalog.ahmp.cz/pragapublica/permalink?xid=77C16858220E11E0823600166F1163D4

Exhibiting authors

Aleš, Mikoláš

Balšánek, Antonín
Barvitius, Antonín
Bauch, Jan
Beneš, Ladislav

Beneš, Vincenc
Bílek, František
Boettinger, Hugo
Brožík, Václav

Brunner, Vratislav Hugo
Bubák, Alois

Hilbert, Kamil
Holan, Karel