Between Nationalism and Modernity: Artists of Eastern Europe

This course traces the development of eastern European art during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a dynamic and unsettled period in both politics and the arts. On the one hand there was nationalism. Much of eastern Europe – present-day Hungary, the Czech Republic, northern Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, parts of Ukraine, Romania and Poland – was contained within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and increasingly the empire’s rulers in Vienna struggled to maintain control over regions pushing for greater autonomy. The arts had a leading role to play. In the regional capitals of Prague, Cracow, Zagreb and Budapest artists sought to express their peoples’ nationalist aspirations, using their work to assert historic and cultural identities.

On the other hand there was modernism. The development of the arts during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was dominated by a drive towards innovation and a rejection of academic values. This cosmopolitan movement had a powerful impact on eastern European culture, with artists looking beyond the boundaries of empire to emulate the latest trends. Paris became a key destination for the most ambitious and daring among them – notably painter and poster designer Alphonse Mucha, who became an international celebrity, and František Kupka, who emerged as a leading practitioner of abstraction within Europe’s avant-garde.

Lectures

• Introduction. i) Regional Survey ii) Vienna, Centre of the European Order
• Place, People, History. i) Artists of Budapest ii) History for a Nation – Poland
• Age of Secession. i) Centres of Innovation: Prague and Zagreb ii) Life of the Country
• New Nationalisms. i) Polish Symbolism ii) Mucha’s Slav Epic
• Inventions in Abstraction. i) Czech Cubism  ii) Frantisek Kupka