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ART AND LIFE IN AVANT-GARDE PRAGUE, 1920–1924*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2010

THOMAS ORT
THOMAS ORT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, North Carolina State University E-mail: thomas_ort@ncsu.edu
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Abstract

This essay outlines the unique interpretation of the avant-garde formulated in the early 1920s by the Czech novelist, playwright, and cultural critic Karel Čapek (1890–1938). Whereas in Theory of the Avant-Garde (1974) Peter Bürger argued that the central problem of the avant-garde was its failure to effect a genuine reconciliation of art and life, Čapek, in contrast, worried about the prospect of success. Closely observing the practices of the Czech avant-garde group Devětsil, Čapek interpreted its attempt to fuse art and life in terms derived largely from the French vitalist philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) as an effort to free life from all constraints and bonds. Drawing on the work of Georg Simmel (1858–1918), he argued that the goal of living life “in itself,” without any constraints, was impossible. All life, he said, must necessarily be embodied in form and so less than completely free. Life conceived as a state of pure freedom, unbounded by any material or physical limits, amounted to the devaluation of individual life. The problem with the project of the avant-garde was that it was unethical.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 63 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 “U.S. Devětsil,” in Š. Vlašín, ed., Avantgarda známá a neznámá, vol. 1 (Prague, 1971), 81–3 (hereafter AZNI). Originally published in Pražské pondělí, 6 Dec. 1920. Although it did not officially announce its existence until December, Devětsil was first organized two months earlier, on 5 Oct. 1920. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

2 K. Teige, “Obrazy a předobrazy,” AZNI, 97. Originally published in Musaion II (spring 1921).

3 K. Teige, “Novým směrem,” AZNI, 91. Originally published in Kmen IV (24 Feb. 1921).

4 J. Jelínek, “Situace na počátku roku 1924,” AZNI, 538. Originally published in Veraikon, March–May 1924.

5 K. Teige and J. Seifert, “J. Kodíček a jeho generace (Několik fakt jako odpověd),” AZNI, 564. Originally published in Host 3 (1924).

6 There is a growing literature on avant-garde activity outside the main centers of European culture. One volume on eastern and central Europe is Benson, T., ed., Central European Avant-Gardes: Exchange and Transformation, 1910–1930 (Los Angeles and Cambridge, MA, 2002)Google Scholar. The accompanying primary source collection, Benson, T. and Forgács, E., eds., Between Worlds: A Sourcebook of Central European Avant-Gardes, 1910–1930 (Cambridge, MA, 2002)Google Scholar, contains many valuable essays, though the quality of the translations varies.

7 For a challenge to this interpretation of Duchamp's gesture, however, see Seigel, J., The Private Worlds of Marcel Duchamp: Desire, Liberation, and the Self in Modern Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995)Google Scholar.

8 I use the term “Czech lands” as shorthand for Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the historically Czech-speaking areas of both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Czechoslovakia.

9 Bürger, P., Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Shaw, Michael (Minneapolis, 1984), 47–8Google Scholar. Originally published in West Germany in 1974. For the continuing centrality of Bürger's theory (despite its being more than thirty years old) to scholarly debates about the avant-garde, see, for example, W. Adamson, Embattled Avant-Gardes: Modernism's Resistance to Commodity Culture in Europe (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2007). Adamson seeks to revise crucial aspects of Bürger's theory, but it remains his starting point.

10 Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, 49. The term “avant-garde” is often used to denote any artistic activity representing a radical departure from the practices of the past, but Bürger gives it in a much more specific meaning. For him, it refers primarily to those projects, first articulated from the 1910s to the 1930s, that aimed less at the creation of new artistic styles than at the negation of art as such. He thereby distinguishes sharply between the vanguard modernism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that brought into being so many novel artistic styles (e.g. cubism or expressionism) and the movements of the 1910s to the 1930s (e.g. Dadaism or surrealism) that for him define the avant-garde. I follow Bürger's usage.

11 Ibid., 50.

12 Ibid., 54.

13 Ibid.

14 Huyssen, A., After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1986), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The phrase is Richard Wolin's, but it is an apt characterization of Adorno's goals in Aesthetic Theory. See Wolin, R., “The De-aestheticization of Art: On Adorno's Aesthetische Theorie,” Telos 41 (1979), 122Google Scholar.

16 Although Karel Čapek is properly credited with introducing the word “robot” to the international lexicon, it was his brother Josef who actually coined it. See K. Čapek, “O slově robot,” in O umění a kultuře III (Prague, 1986), 502–3 (hereafter OUKIII). Originally published in Lidové noviny, 24 Dec. 1933.

17 According to the French critic A. Mercereau. Cited in V. Lahoda, “Malířství v Čechách 1907–1917/Osma, Skupina výtvarných umělcᘏ a jejich generační druhové,” in V. Lahoda et al., eds., Dějiny českého výtvarného umění (IV/1), 1890–1938 (Prague, 1998), 259.

18 The direct translation of the word devětsil is “butterbur” and should be taken primarily for what it seems to be: an avant-garde nonsense word. It does, however, have other possible meanings, including “nine strengths” or “nine forces.” I know, however, of no satisfactory explanation of them. Perhaps most important is the word's expressive quality: it sounds very good in Czech.

19 K. Teige, “Naše umělecké touhy,” AZNI, 165. Originally published in Rovnost, 19 July 1921.

20 See Cabada, L., Intelektuálové a idea komunismu v českých zemích, 1900–1939 (Prague, 2000), 80–176Google Scholar. For the later turn against communism in the 1930s see Pfaff, I., Česká levice proti Moskvě, 1936–38 (Prague, 1993)Google Scholar.

21 Teige, “Novým směrem,” AZNI, 91.

22 Ibid., 95–6. See also K. Teige, “Nové umění a lidová tvorba,” AZNI, 150–56. Originally published in Červen, 23 June 1921.

23 K. Teige, “Umění dnes a zítra,” AZNI, 365–81. Originally published in Sborník Devětsil, fall 1922.

24 See especially K. Teige, “Constructivism and the Liquidation of ‘Art’,” in K. Teige, Modern Architecture in Czechoslovakia and Other Writings, trans. Irena Žantovská Murray (Los Angeles, 2000), 340. Originally published as “Konstruktivismus a likvidace ‘umění’,” Disk 2 (1925).

25 Srp, K., “Teige in the Twenties,” in Dluhosch, E. and Švácha, R., eds., Karel Teige, 1900–1951: L'Enfant Terrible of the Czech Modernist Avant-Garde (Cambridge, MA, xyr), 26Google Scholar.

26 K. Teige, “Poetism,” trans. Alexandra Büchler, in Dluhosch and Švácha, Karel Teige, 70. Originally published as “Poetismus,” Host 3 (1924).

27 V. Nezval cited in Honzík, K., Ze života avantgardy: zážitky architektovy (Prague, 1963), 71Google Scholar.

28 Ibid.

29 Teige, “Novým směrem,” AZNI, 92. Emphasis in original.

30 Ibid.

31 Teige, “Naše umělecké touhy,” AZNI, 167.

32 J. Čapek, “Dnešní umělecké jaro,” Lidové noviny, 10 May 1922. V. Nebeský, “Manifest mladých I & II,” Tribuna, 6 and 7 May 1922.

33 Slavík, J., “Skupina Tvrdošíjní: Ke kronice její aktivity,” Umění 3 (1982), 193–211Google Scholar. For a good review of the conflicted relations between some members of the two generations, see Pečinková, P., “Generační roztržka (Josef Čapek kontra Karel Teige),” Zpravodaj Společnosti bratři Čapků 34 (1995)Google Scholar.

34 J. Kodíček, “Devěthnid,” AZNI, 382–91. Originally published in Tribuna, 31 Dec. 1922.

35 Čapek, K., “Moderní lyrika francouzká,” in O umění a kultuře I (Prague, 1984), 304–5 (hereafter OUKI)Google Scholar. Originally published in Lumír, 18 May 1913.

36 S.K. Neumann, “K nové poesii sociální,” in At' Žije Život! Nové úvahy o novém umění (Prague, 1920), 136–9. Originally published in Lidové noviny, 14 Nov. 1913. Emphasis in original. Born in 1875, Neumann was in fact closer in age to an earlier generation of writers, the “generation of the 1890s,” than to those of Čapek's cohort. In the 1910s, however, he identified wholeheartedly with the aspirations of the prewar modernist generation and became one of its most important spokesmen. In the years after World War I, Neumann broke politically with most members of Čapek's generation and joined the Communist Party. Although in this sense he aligned himself with the postwar avant-garde, Neumann's aesthetic commitments had by this time changed, and he never became a member of Devětsil.

37 Neumann, “Rᘏzné odpovědi,” in Ať Žije Život!, 82–3. Originally published in Lidové noviny, 2 Sept. 1913.

38 Teige, “Novým směrem” and “Obrazy a předobrazy,” AZNI, 90–96 and 97–103.

39 K. Čapek, “Poznámka,” AZNI, 104. Originally published in Musaion, spring 1921.

40 V. Nebeský, “Umělecký defétismus,” AZNI, 115–19. Originally published in Tribuna, 27 March 1921. For my analysis of the aesthetic conflict between the artists of Čapek's generation and those of Devětsil, I am indebted to the work of the excellent Czech art historian Karel Srp. His article, “Tvrdošíjní a Devětsil,” Umění 35 (1987), 54–68, was especially helpful.

41 Nebeský, “Umělecký defétismus,” 119.

42 Ibid.

43 See also V. Nebeský, “Uměni a společnost,” Volné směry, 1923–4, 9–20.

44 V. Nebeský, “Umění trᘏnu zbavené,” Tribuna, 10 May 1923.

45 Ibid., 2–3.

46 Honzík, Ze života avantgardy, 47–89. Devětsil's architects were far less dogmatic than its writers and theoreticians and were also among the first to have major differences with them.

47 See F. Šmejkal, “Výtvarná avantgarda dvacátých let Devětsil,” in V. Lahoda et al., ed., Dějiny českého výtvarného umění (IV/2), 1890–1938 (Prague, 1998), 171–72.

48 See Teige, “Uměni dnes a zítra,” AZNI, 371.

49 Nebeský, “Umění trᘏnu zbavené,” 3.

50 Nebeský, “Umění a společnost,” 11–12.

51 Tankred [Tancrède] de Visan, “Filosofie Henri Bergsona a současná estetika,” trans. Hanuš Jelínek, Lumír 41 (1913), 416–20, 443–8.

52 This was true not only in Prague, to be sure, but throughout Europe. For the influence of Bergson on French cubist art, see Antliff, M., Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde, (Princeton, NJ, 1993)Google Scholar.

53 Neumann, S. K., At' Žije Život! Nové úvahy o novém umění (Prague, 1920)Google Scholar.

54 Čapek, K., “Stanislav K. Neumann: At' Žije Život!” in O umění a kultuře II (Prague, 1985), 222–23Google Scholar (hereafter OUKII). Originally published in Národní listy, 26 Nov. 1920.

55 Ibid., 223.

56 Ibid., 224.

57 K. Čapek, “Filozofie Bergsonova. Henri Bergson: Vývoj tvořivý,” in OUKII, 159–87. Originally published in Cesta, 30 April, 7 May, and 14 May 1920, 864–8, 881–5, 902–6.

58 Ibid., 159–87.

59 Ibid., 186.

60 Ibid., 185–7.

61 Ibid., 184.

62 Ibid.

63 See his introduction to the play published in K. Čapek, Dramata (Prague, 1992), 181–2.

64 K. Čapek, Dramata, 256–7.

65 Cited in R. Hilferty and P. Thomason, “The Case for and against Makropulos,” in Opera News, 11 April 1998, 21.

66 Karel Čapek to Leoš Janáček (27 Feb. 1923), in K. Čapek, Korespondence I (Prague, 1993), 182–3.

67 As reported by Helena Čapková. Cited in Tyrell, J., Janáček's Operas: A Documentary Account (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 311Google Scholar.

68 See, for example, Bradbrook, B., Karel Čapek: In Pursuit of Truth, Tolerance, and Trust (Brighton, 1998), 56–61Google Scholar.

69 Čapek, K., The Makropulos Secret, trans. Graff, Yveta Synek and Jones, Robert T., in Kussi, P., ed., Towards the Radical Center: A Karel Čapek Reader (Highland Park, NJ, 1990), 111Google Scholar.

70 K. Čapek, “Filozofie Bergsonova,” 179.

71 Ibid., 179–80.

72 Halík, M., Karel Čapek: život a dílo v datech (Prague, 1983), 37Google Scholar. Most of the novel, however, was written in 1923. It was completed in Sept. 1923.

73 There are also clear similarities between krakatit and Čapek's invented device, the karburator, from his 1922 novel The Factory for the Absolute.

74 Čapek, K., Továrna na Absolutno, Krakatit (Prague, 1982), 179Google Scholar.

75 K. Čapek, “Filozofie Bergsonova,” 163.

76 Ibid.

77 K. Čapek, “O čapkovské generaci,” OUKIII, 312. Originally published in Přítomnost, 9 March 1932.

78 Simmel, G., “The Conflict in Modern Culture,” in Levine, D. N., ed., On Individuality and Social Forms (Chicago, 1971), 375–93Google Scholar. Reprinted from Simmel, G., The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays, trans. Etzkorn, K. P. (New York, 1968)Google Scholar. Originally published in 1918 but written in 1914.

79 Ibid., 375.

80 Ibid., 377–8. Emphasis in original.

81 Ibid., 392. Emphasis in original.

82 Ibid., 393.

83 Ibid.

84 K. Čapek, “O čapkovské generaci,” OUKIII, 312; idem, “A. Mamelet: Le Relativisme philosophique chez Georg Simmel,” OUKI, 400. Originally published in Přehled, 26 June 1914.

85 Halík, Karel Čapek, 37.

86 K. Čapek, “Formy,” in Od člověka k člověku I (Prague, 1988), 228–30. Originally published in Lidové noviny, 10 Sept. 1922.

87 Ibid., 229–30. Emphasis in original.

88 Čapek and his generational peers often accused members of the postwar avant-garde of plagiarizing their innovations. See, for example, J. Kodíček, “O jedné generaci,” Přítomnost, 20 March 1924, 152–3.

89 Krakatit, 398.

90 Halík, Karel Čapek, 40–41.

91 Krakatit, 399.

92 Ibid., 402.

93 Ibid., 400.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid., 402.

96 Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, 54.

97 Čapek, J., “Cestou II,” in Co má člověk z umění a jiné úvahy o umění—výbor z článků z let 1912–1937 (Prague, 1946), 63Google Scholar. Originally published in Život 8 (1928–9).