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On the Artistic Situation of the Contemporary Czech Theatre (1945)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Extract

The world storm, which has now passed, left its marks on all areas of artistic creation. Everywhere that Fascism reached, it disturbed the internal coherence of things, and their respective relationships, in order to create a formless, passive mixture, incapable of initiative. As far as art is concerned, Fascism has proclaimed the slogan of perverse art, and declared a struggle of annihilation against such art. In praxis, however, the particular artistic methods that had been created—through the modern art that was blacklisted—remained intact, because those methods did not create a system, or express a particular artistic desire, through which an intentional artistic will could have created a gap in the totality of violence. It is natural that this state of affairs endangered not only the cohesion of the internal elements of the artistic structure, but also the consistency of the functional organization of persons and institutions serving the art. The artistic schools and movements disappeared, or were at the very least disrupted. The affiliations of creative artists with distinct associations and societies became in many instances more a matter of external circumstances than of artistic decision.

Type
Special Section: Prague School Semiotics
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1995

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Schmoranz, G., Eduard Vojan, 1934.Google Scholar

2 Honzl, J., “Slovo na jevisti a ve filmu,” Slává a bída divadel [“The Word on Stage and in Film,” The Glory and Misery of Theatres], (Prague, 1937).Google Scholar

3 Honzl, J., “Pohyb divadelnichznaku” (“Dynamic Theatrical Signs”), Slova a Slovesnost VI, 1940: 177188Google Scholar. (In English in Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions, ed. Matejka, and Titunik, [Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976].)Google Scholar

4 For this side of Kolar see Bartoš, Jan, Prozatimni divadlo a jeho Činohra (The Temporary Theatre and its Dramatic Works), p. 109Google Scholar, and for Vojan the study by Honzl, J.. “Slovo na jevisti a ve filmu,” Slává a bída divadelGoogle Scholar (“The Word on Stage and in Film,” The Glory and Misery of Theatres), p. 185.

5 See Miroslav Kouřil's preface to Furtenbach's Perspectives, Prague, 1944.Google Scholar

6 Tille, , Theatrical Reminiscences.Google Scholar

7 Honzl, , “The Word on Stage and in film,” 185.Google Scholar