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The study Art and Culture of South Africa. In search of artistic identity of South Africa, as influenced by historical transformations – was conceived and written thanks to a study-stay of its author in Johannesburg, South Africa during a four year period between 2001 and 2004.
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Bilingual volume published in cooperation with the Embassy of Italy in Poland and with the Italian Institute of Culture to celebrate the centenary of the Italian-Polish diplomatic relations (1919–2019).Texts by the renowned Italian and Polish authors (translated from Italian to Polish or vice versa) are divided into two parts: “Diplomacy, economy, history” and “Art, film, literature, theatre”. Such division allows to follow the Polish-Italian bonds in different fields, from translation and performance of the Italian tragedies on the Polish stages, to cooperation with the FIAT company. There is also reflection on the Polish-Italian relations in the difficult interwar period and during the Second World War. In this context one text has exceptional significance - that of Vincenzo Mario Palmieri, Italian anatomic pathologist and a member of the international commission that examined the Katyń massacre in 1943.The volume not only for the Italophiles but also for all those interested in the history of the 20th century and in the issues of the international relations.
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WHY AN ARCHITECTURAL GUIDE? The Republic of Macedonia, having as its priority the integration of the country in the European processes (both by becoming a full member of the European Union, and also by increasing awareness about the diverse cultural heritage that we have on our soil), has started creating a great variety of promotional materials. Looking through the wide range of offers for tourist tours, assorted guides, maps, promotional materials and internet sites made us think and ask ourselves what else we could do to enrich the cultural map of Europe.Somehow instinctively, and perhaps because of the professional occupation of most of the team members (architects and historians of architecture), our conceptions were focused on the potential of our architecture as an important point of reference when defining the contribution of Macedonia to the cultural or, if you prefer, to the tourist and cultural map of Europe. During the course of the project “Towards new strategies for communicating Macedonian cultural capitol abroad”, we were proved right.Macedonia is a country with a great cultural and architectural heritage, dating from ancient times, through the middle ages and up to the present, and also from the period that bears the title of modern. Maybe such classification of the periods does not correspond, in terms of a timeline, with the European classification of historical and cultural periods, but, in our belief, this is what gives our architectural heritage a marked uniqueness and value. Macedonia, being throughout the history always at the crossroads of eastern and western cultural influences, has created and interpreted architecture and cities in its specific way. And this is something that should be offered and communicated clearly: those differences, similarities, interpretations. On the other hand, what makes it even more interesting is the great variety and depth of richness in such a small territory. This is definitely a quality that deserves recognition. In this small territory there are trails of intersections over a vast range of time, with so many valuable buildings and settlements which offer visitors the feeling of a time-machine that constantly increases the degree of excitement.An overview of the numerous travel-guide promotional materials unwittingly leaves the impression that out of the desire to put everything in, sometimes in the same place and even on the same page, one can read about a valuable monument of architecture, a place that offers the possibility to taste some really good kebabs and tips where to buy a coloured carpet. This in it self is nothing really bad, but still, there is one question that comes to mind: what type of tourist is the audience? As the representative of the City of Skopje, Mr. Igor Simjanoski standing of the significance of cities and their buildings, are particularly interested in specialised guides to the architecture of the city in addition to the more general tourist guides. If you have ever been to Vienna, Barcelona, Chicago … you must have heard about their famous architectural guides which make the exquisite heritage of these cities even more visible. Providing the opportunity to choose will attract different kind of tourists: not those who will go to see something they have heard should be seen, but those who know what they want to see and will look for it where they know they can find it. Based on what is stated above, we truly believe that, for enriching the European cultural, and tourist map, the publication of this specialised guide to the architecture of Skopje (and we hope in near future, publication of similar architectural guides of Veles, Bitola, Kruševo, Ohrid, Strumica, and why not of Probištip and Makedonska Kamenica - as new industrial towns) is more than a valuable contribution. Skopje was chosen only as an example and at the moment as a city with the most available data relevant for such a type of guide. However, what we believe should be our next priority is to seriously consider the importance of different “reading” and start to work on the valorisation of our architectural heritage over the whole territory of our country. Macedonia is blessed not only by diverse architectural heritage, but also by very distinctive urban heritage. Every settlement has some distinguishing marks and specific ways of development connected with its origins. This Guide should not be regarded as something final and closed, but more as the beginning of a process that will continue and, in time, will become even more dynamic. It does not intend to be perfect - the aim of this Guide is to initiate and stimulate the creation of new, better and more comprehensive architectural guides. This first edition of the Guide presents only a small part of the materials that we collected, and which await to be classified and valorised. But this we will leave to the experts who work on the subject. As freelancers in the civic sector we will continue with our efforts to open new questions and to stimulate debates which will contribute towards communicating and promoting our architectural heritage at home and abroad.
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Art history as a discipline is currently undergoing a remarkable period during which the traditional and new theoretical approaches to visual art are discussed. In the first section, the propaedeutic manual of methods in art history discusses the objects of art history, the question of personality of an art historian, and basic techniques in the discipline. Subsequetnly, leading figures of art historians and mainstream currents in art history in the second half of the 20th century are mentioned, focusing on latest trends in the interpretation of art and video works. An important part of the book is a treatise on the fundamental concepts of art history (style, structure, theme- symbol, function, and historic time) and an overview of the major art historical approaches, and also approaches of different disciplines and applied approaches in multidisciplinary fields. The volume is intended primarily for students of art history and follows the earlier part of the previous “Schools of art history.“
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The music-literary dictionary of world’s composers is a contribution to Czech lexicographic literature as it brings a new perspective on the world’s music. It exclusively focuses on composers who were inspired by verbal arts. Deep correspondence between music and literary work is often hidden or is considered as a mere coincidence. It is therefore praiseworthy that the author systematically emphasises and records this interconnection. The dictionary serves as a remarkably plentiful source of information for every admirer of art.
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German-language monograph on professional theatre in Brno during the baroque historical period is based on original research of so far unreflected and unpublished archival sources stored in the Brno archives. Thanks to the topic with numerous important overlaps the local history of professional theatre in Brno is included into the large context of Baroque theatre in Central Europe. The Czech edition of the book (2009) was received with enthusiasm in professional circles and superlative reviews in professional journals. The German version comes after repeated requests from foreign experts.
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This collection of selected papers is dedicated to the memory of Svetlana S. Ryabtseva (1966—2019), a very pure soul, scholar, archaeologist, leading student of the history of medieval gold-work, costume and jewelry set of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. As both Russian and Moldovan researcher, she took a unique place in science: her stuides became a ‘bridge between East and West’, i.e. between studies of Eastern, South-Eastern and Central Europe. Her life was short, but she left a very good heritage. It consists not only of her outstanding academic writings, but also her true and positive inspiration, which emanated from her and was shared between her family, friends and colleagues. The volume contains papers written by researchers from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, France and the United Kingdom.
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The thesis aims to map the theater life in Mikulov between the period when the estate belonged to the aristocratic family of the Dietrichsteins until the beginning of the World War II. The large time span of the scope understandably, has its negatives, as it does not allow a more thorough analysis of the Piarist school theatre in Mikulov. On the other hand, it enabled greater heuristic research, the results of which are collected here and offered to the needs of further researchers interested in the history of theater in Moravia and Silesia. The most important period in the history of theater in Mikulov, which currently has a significant overlap to the development of the Central European theater, begins with the era of Cardinal Dietrichstein in the first half of the 17th century, when Mikulov became an important political and cultural-social as well as religious center of Moravia. At that time the oldest castle theater in our territory was built and simultaneously the Piarists arrived, they used the theater as an educative tool. Piarist school theater remained the main mediator in performing arts in the city until the mid-18th century. The peak of the designated period came with the reign of Leopold Josef of Dietrichstein in the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Archival materials revealed Leopold as a significant lover of the performing arts, who had been in touch with theater since his childhood, whether at the Jesuit college or during his own activities in the home theater. Later on, he became a supporter of professional theater companies. During his reign, there was a significant heyday of the Piarist school theater, which managed to produce three performances per year. Two synopsis of Piarists’ plays from this period involves an interesting phrase “Nickolspurgerischen Parnasso” which emphasizes the importance of the performing arts in Mikulov together with its position in the contemporary consciousness. The professional traveling theater companies also played an important role in the theatre history of Mikulov. We can trace the presence of these travelling theatre companies from the end of the Thirty Years War. Records concerning their stay in Mikulov are unfortunately very scattered. They can be traced predominantly in the accounting documents of the Dietrichstein family, which proves that their performances had a connection with entertainment of nobility. From the second half of the 18th century, we can also work with requests from the theater directors who intended to perform their plays in the bourg. The Provincial Office, which usually approved these requests, however, did not grant the permission and rather limited the theater productions in the “small” subject towns. In the 19th century, the situation changed and theater companies increasingly appeared in Mikulov. From the second half of the same century, basically every year, unless there was a war or other unfortunate events, the city was visited by theater companies regularly. The repertoire included mostly comedies, farces, magical fable or “singspiele” and later mainly operettas. The repertoire varied according to the new trends stemming mainly from the Viennese theater environment. After the First World War, when the local German population became a minority in the newly established Czechoslovak Republic, the theater companies considered also national defensive and educative role of theater and they performed the dramas of German and Austrian classics. At the beginning of the 19th century the emancipated citizens tried to take over the initiative of the cultural life in Mikulov. At that time, unfortunately, they alluded to the limited possibilities of citizens and also the problem of inadequate facilities. The townspeople could occasionally use the castle areas for musical productions. For the operation the theater it was necessary to have a place with more permanent facilities, where it would be possible to build the stage and store the coulisse and props. Since 1812, the townspeople managed to get an space for the theater in the winter riding hall, but this cooperation lasted only until 1819, when it was (based on complaints) ended by Prince Franz Josef Dietrichstein. The problem of the shortage of suitable premises for holding the cultural and especially theater events in Mikulov continued into the early 20th century. This is a paradox, especially when there had been a piarist theater in the city since 1771, unfortunately it was unused at that time. A city theater that could be used by a professional travelling society did not exist at that time, even though this idea has existed in Mikulov, at least in the second half of the 19th century. There has never arisen any “German House”, where thelocal companies could meet, as was established in the nearby and smaller Valtice and Hustopeče towns. Theater companies and associations used the halls of local inns or a town shooting gallery for their per formances. Probably the most representative theatre scene in the modern history of the town was created in 1914 at the Hotel Rose. Translated text is an initial step for further research, which should facilitate a deeper understanding of Castle Theater, processing history piarist school theater and research theater activities of Leopold Ignác Dietrichstein. The presented study is an initial step for further research, which should help to facilitate a more elaborated understanding of castle theater, processing of the history of the piarist school theater and for a research of theater activities of Leopold Ignác Dietrichstein. These three branches of the research topics, which are mutually intertwined, are currently the most important stages in the theater life of Mikulov. Finally, the research also remains open for the roots of the important theater principal Johann Georg Gettner in Mikulov, whose years spent in Mikulov are still shrouded in mystery.
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The book "Pejzaże miasta w komiksie. Studia nad komiksem" focuses on the study of comics, where the main motif becomes the analysis of urban space. The city is a research track, but also a pretext for addressing the issues of the functioning of comics, its structure and components. The author starts with an overview of the state of comics studies. Another important part of the monograph is the preparation of tools and methods which are important in the study and analysis of comics. The book constructs and describes the research methodology, including its new elements. The final part of the work, in turn, offers examples of comics analysis in the light of the study of urban space, also employing the developed tools. The adopted research perspective allows to use the methods developed in this book to study also other, not only urban, tropes and themes in comics.
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This unique collection of letters form the last ten years of Bohuslav Martinů's life addressed to Zdeněk Zouhar is a key testimony to Martinů's works, life and relationship between the composer and the interpreter of his works who premiered the cantata The Opening of the Springs, the cycles Three Part-Songs and Three Sacred Songs and initiated the origin of the primrose cycle. This edition captures Martinů's specific literary style in authentic form, without corrections, provides facsimiles of letters and juxtaposes the correspondence with the composer's letters to his family, firends, performers, as well as the reminiscences of his wife Charlotte. A more detailed picture of the composer's last years is emerging.
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The idea of looking at the architects operating within the cultural framework of the Habsburg Empire, embedded in this book, stems from our previous research. It has its roots in the research on Slavic peripheral narratives, conducted by the Research Group on the Slavic Cultures in the Habsburg Monarchy (http://uwhabsburgstudies.uw.edu.pl/), which has operated since 2011 at the Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies of the University of Warsaw. We studied the issue of peripheral attitudes towards both national narratives, created after 1861 by the Slovak, Czech and Croatian elites, and the imperial project imposed by Vienna and Budapest. Faithful to the microlevel approach, we looked at figures, spaces and social phenomena that do not fit into the stereotypical view of national historiography. (Anna Kobylińska, Maciej Falski)
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This book attempts to capture the momentum, a moment of transformation, where the complex processes related to the expansion of heterogeneous cosmopolitan modernity intersect and converge, processes that influence and change both Euro-American civilisation and the planet as a whole, and along the way transform the state, economic, cultural and social arrangement, the practices and the notions used in order to understand our existence in the world. The authors of the studies that make up this publication look at the problem from several selected aspects falling within the domains of sociology, culture and new media art, which have in common an effort to put current phenomena into more general and more profound social, political and cultural contexts. They strive to avoid presentism in order to observe the processes gathered under the umbrella of “cosmopolitan modernity” from the point of view of the longue durée.
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The study of the artworks of the Old Masters has long been the prerogative of art historians alone. Expertise and other art-historical methods can now make much greater use than ever before of the findings of the so-called exact sciences. These make it possible to acquire new knowledge about works of art of the past that is not obvious to our eyes. Imaging and instrumental methods for the study of works of art often allow us to literally “look into the painting”, below the surface of what we see, and observe the work in different areas of the invisible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, for example. By using various research methods – with the necessary caution and awareness of their limitations – it is often possible to gain insight into the hypothetical process of the creation of the work and into the painting’s layers. It is possible to characterize the material nature or technological processes or to study the author’s changes and later interventions in the work. Various research methods allow us to see artworks from different perspectives and to study them figuratively speaking “in new colours”, often the colours in which they appear to our eyes using a variety of imaging methods. How an art historian can work with technological knowledge and to what extent he can rely on it at all is demonstrated and addressed in a total of seven case studies dealing with hanging paintings by Old Masters from the collections of the Archbishopric of Olomouc and the Olomouc Museum of Art.
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"The Church of Our Lady before Týn, since the 14th century the main parish church of the Old Town, after the Hussite Wars the main church of the Utraquist Church in Bohemia and Moravia and an unmissable dominant feature of the historical centre of Prague, is the second most important medieval sacral building in Prague after St. In syntheses of the history of Czech Gothic architecture, it is often ranked at the forefront of the development of the architecture of the Luxemburg period, and at the same time the completion of the church after the Hussite Revolution is mostly presented as the most important building of the time of George of Poděbrady. On closer inspection, however, the ideas of many authors regarding the identification of the pre-Hussite and post-Hussite parts of the church differ fundamentally, which raises important questions for the understanding of the architecture of the Poděbrady period. The present book on the Late Gothic completion of the Old Town Church of Our Lady of before Týn attempts to contribute at least partially to a more detailed treatment of the architecture of the Poděbrady period, which summarises many years of research on the building."
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The book presents the sum of research of an outstanding art historian Prof. Pavel Štěpánek, a specialist on Spanish and Ibero-American culture, especially the visual arts. The publication collects eleven studies that display in notable scope of topics the relations between Spanish culture and Bohemian lands. These studies covers the extensive chronological space since the Middle Ages up to 20th century. The essays also deal with wide range of visual media as architecture, painting, sculpture, drawing and also many artifacts of the “minor arts”. A reader can meet, thanks to this book, an extraordinary phenomenon of “Spanish presence” in the Central Europe. It provides also opportunity to see the Central-Europe as dynamic space of cultural exchange, artistic intersections and creative cultural adaptations.
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Municepal theatre in Krnov was among the municipal theatres in Opava and Těšín the youngest and smallest theatre with German speaking ensemble. This monography gives a chronological interpretation of the Krnov municipal theatre history. The author describes the production of the theatre, its audience potential, organization, and artistic reach in the wide context of the history of German language theatres in Moravia and Silesia. The interpretation is presented with extensive note apparatus, pictorial supplement, register of namese, list of ascertained repertoires and English and German resumé.
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The book Dutch theatre plays in the Middle Ages gives an insight into the richness of Dutch written theater culture from the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. The book is divided into twelve chapters, centered around the most famous representatives of medieval theater production from the Dutch-speaking environment. First of all, the so-called Abele Spelen, the first worldly theatre pieces written in Dutch. The second focus is on the play Elckerlijc, the best-known rhetoric Dutch play from the late fifteenth century and the third on the late-medieval miracle play Mariken van Nieumeghen. These chapters are combined with studies on the history of Dutch medieval literature (the theme of the death dance, Neolatin Dutch theater, indecent speech in farces etc.).
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A collection of correspondence with Miloš Šafránek, Czech diplomat, music publicist, promoter of the work and biographer of B. Martinů contains diplomatic transcriptions of one hundred and sixty-eight letters, six postcards, five correspondence notes, one telegram and one sticker from the period 1928-1959. The correspondence is mostly one-sided, addressed to M. Šafránek, with M. Šafránek being the sender of only two items. The authors of the edition respect the specifics of Martinů's linguistic expression, which is why they chose the method of diplomatic transcription of letters. The entire text is supplemented by extensive annotation, which not only illuminates the historical context and the political situation in the most turbulent years of the 20th century, but also comments on the genesis of the works, the circumstances of performing, recording and publishing Martinů's compositions.
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The book aims to present the artistic ways of problematising the (non-)existence of material manifestations of the communist past in the space of present-day Sofia. Using the tools of visual anthropology as well as cultural studies on art and the city, the author delves into recent history of Bulgarian culture, providing a detailed overview of the historical context, including the mechanism by which the city space was arranged in the second half of the 20th century, the spatial heterogeneity of today’s Sofia, and the present changes in ways of defining art and its meaning. The discussed artists consider art a way of articulating engagement – taking on an activist stance, they invite the audience to join in on an exciting game, whose field, object and stake is the city.
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The story of the mythical Princess Libuše has been one of the cornerstones of the “old Czech tales” for more than a thousand years. Over the centuries, it has also inspired many artistic treatments. Libuše had already entered the opera stage at the end of the 17th century – after several performances in Italian during the Baroque era, she reappeared in the first quarter of the 19th century in German Romantic opera. During the 19th century, Czech artists gave the character of Libuše – at least in the Czech environment – a petrified form. The anthology of Libuše librettos gathers for the first time in its comprehensiveness all published and so far unpublished opera librettos and other texts from the 17th to the 20th century, mostly set to music. It includes works written in Italian (F. Parisetti, G. C. Corradi, A. Denzio) and German (E. von Lannoy, J. C. Bernard, J. L. Choulant, J. Bayer, J. Wenzig, L. Hartmann) with parallel Czech translations, as well as texts in Czech (J. K. Chmelenský, F. Patočka, J. J. Kolár, E. Špindler, E. Destinnová, J. Berg). The edition is accompanied by an introductory study in Czech and English.
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