A number of art historians have noted how in around 1800 the social function of the visual arts in the Czech Lands fundamentally changed and a new ideal of bourgeois vizuality emerged. At the same time, visual culture in the Age of Enlightenment came to be seen as a ‘movement of knowledge’ through different cultural spheres. Reacting to the discussion of Daniela Tinková’s view of the Enlightenment as a process of spreading and democratizing knowledge and extending information networks, the present text develops these ideas and considers other ways in which art in the Czech Lands during the Enlightenment could be conceptualized. We point out that new centres of culture and broad-based social penetration brought not only changes in the way information on the visual arts was disseminated, but a new situation in which the exchange of knowledge across a variety of social and educational fields was no longer restricted to the hitherto clearly defined professions that had established the prevailing terminology and methodology in their own domains. For example, professional artists might now explore all sorts of fields of knowledge, while traditional humanistic art-theoretical discourse began to attract not only dilettante ‘amateurs’ but also a new class of professional art experts and critics with no formal artistic training. and The study of art thus became an independent branch of knowledge, a component of education, a source of cultural and historical memory, and a badge of patriotism and personal identity. A similar shift can be observed in modes of visual perception, which in the Enlightenment were moulded by an endeavour to extend the traditional range of art consumers and recipients by means of aesthetically oriented education and training. There was also a clear attempt to fulfil the ideal of public art based on modern criteria of ‘taste’, aimed at eliminating persisting social barriers and the cultural monopoly of established aristocratic elites and creating a template for a bourgeois visual culture (sensibility, reappraisal of hierarchy of genres, instruction in drawing, growth of graphic art, etc.). This movement of knowledge also made it far easier for recipients to find their bearings in the art market (exhibitions, reviews, advertisements) by providing them with criteria for judging the quality of artworks and, more generally, promoting the visuality of the dawning industrial age (public access to art collections, industrial exhibitions, the first museums, etc.), and hence to a hitherto unseen extent opening up the world of visual art to the wider public.
This study, in the form of an essay or first draft of opening remarks delivered at an international conference on Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, presents one of many possible models for the conceptualization of the Enlightenment in the Czech Lands. Here Enlightenment is conceived as a process whereby ‘knowledge’ (information) is disseminated and gradually democratized and information networks are expanded. This conception draws primarily on theories of vernacularization and cultural transfer. In view of the directional dynamic, we have focussed mainly on ‘unidirectional’ flow in the sense of dispersal from (informational/cultural) centres to the (informational/cultural) periphery – both socioeconomically (transfer to lower social classes) and geographically (transfer to rural areas remote from major urban and educational centres). In this model, the process of vernacularization and democratization of knowledge was divided into three periods: the early formation of educated elites; the ‘acculturation’ of the middle classes; and the extension of information networks to the petty intelligentsia – and through them to the wider rural population. This last phase, carried out as part of a ‘programme’ of popular enlightenment around the turn of the 19th century, more or less coincided, in the theory Miroslav Hroch, with the first and second phases of the Czech National Revival and relied on the same media (Czech-language newspapers, ‘popular’ literature) and authors (Kramerius, Tomsa, Rulík, et al.)
This study is a response to the preceding discussion on the original essay on the concept of enlightenment. It examines the relationship between enlightenment, national revival and Romanticism, issues of popular enlightenment, and the role of the Catholic clergy in the Enlightenment, with further remarks on the phases and specific features of the Czech Enlightenment.
By a patent of 10 March 1770, Empress Maria Teresa ordered a register and census to be carried out in Bohemia, Lower Austria and the Habsburg Erblande of all persons, draft animals and houses with the aim of reorganizing military sectors and determining the defensive capability of the population. Conscription was carried out door-to-door by senior army officers in conjunction with regional commissars, or in the case of Prague with councillors from the various municipalities. In Prague New Town, the recruitment commission began work on 1 October 1770 and finished on 19 February 1771. This study is devoted to members of the painting profession – painters and their assistants (varnishers and gilders) – whose names are to be found in these records. Painters were to some extent a special case since, unlike most other artisans, they were legally permitted to carry out their trade in various different ways. The study thus looks not only at the circumstances, origin and age of individual artists, but also aims to describe the different ways in which they could conduct their profession. Examining the conscription records, it also becomes clear what a rich source they represent, providing invaluable insights into the population of Prague in the latter half of the 18th century.
This paper looks at the care of orphans and the new welfare institutions that emerged in the second half of the 18th century. It traces changes in social care provision and its gradual transfer to local municipal authorities, and the rationale behind institutional care and support for the poor. Specifically, it focuses on the St John the Baptist Orphanage in Prague, which had the patronage of Maria Theresa. In the 18th and 19th centuries orphanages were few and far between, chiefly because of the high costs involved. Mostly they were founded by larger municipalities, benevolent societies or individuals. The St John the Baptist Orphanage differed not only in its founders – the Freemasons – but in its teachers, who were initially members of the Masonic Lodge, and it provided a good education by the standards of the day. The paper considers how the orphanage selected its charges and how it looked after them.
The subject of this study is the issue of sickness, death and dying as approached in the first textbooks of pastoral theology. In the Catholic confessional environment of late 18th century Central Europe, pastoral theology was a new discipline that was about to be introduced into university curricula. The aim of this article is to outline and describe the concept of sickness and death with which the first textbooks of the new discipline worked in formulating new content and forms of spiritual care for the sick and dying. These, presented as binding on future spiritual administrators, defined itself against the older tradition and drew inspiration from Jansenist-Enlightenment approaches and thought. We mainly analyse two or three textbooks that were widely used in the Czech environment. They relied on the prescribed and most successful textbook of the Viennese pastoralist Franz Giftschütz, translated into Czech by the Olomouc teacher Václav Stach, and on the Czech scripts of Aegidius (Jiljí) Chládek, a Premonstratensian of Strahov Monastery and Prague university professor. The changes in the content and forms of Catholic preparation for death and of the concepts of illness and death must be understood in the context of the reforms that affected the field of spiritual education at this time, the new view of the person of the Catholic clergyman, and also the changes in religious and moral sentiments and the promotion and dissemination of medical knowledge and concepts also in the non-medical strata of society.
Using the example of several royal dowry towns, this article examines the transformation in the practices of town offices in 18th century Bohemia – an important milestone in the field of study under consideration. In earlier times, the sophistication of some town offices – the quality and extent of their official agenda; the number and expertise of their staff – was, as a provisional study of the sources indicates, a reflection of the cultural and economic development as well as the population of the city in question. Each town office had its own individual character, the study of which can provide important insights into the history of our towns. Research into town offices is still in its early stages, as numerous case studies must be undertaken before any solid conclusions can be reached. Yet it is already clear that at the beginning of the 18th century town offices, which can be seen as an extension of city administrations, started implementing changes aimed at unification, especially in the areas of official competences and organizational structure., The process reached its peak as part of a wider conception of judicial reform, which in our towns manifested itself in the so-called regulation of municipalities. In the case of Hradec Králové it is clear these changes must have taken place with a certain continuity of personnel, and that this regional centre had difficulty filling some posts. The task remains for researchers of 18th century history to establish whether and to what extent Bohemian towns were able to fulfil the demands of the reform. The limits imposed on the number of county courts in the 1750s and 1760s is itself an indication that a number of towns were unable to meet all the requirements of the new dispensation. The transformation of the town offices certainly did not occur without external intervention. But pre-existing mechanisms were also at play in the process, as even after such interventions the offices’ performance depended on the quality of the individuals who worked there., and They accrued their life and work experience within a particular environment that modified their personalities in multiple ways. We may therefore assume that future research will also discover sympathisers who lent their support to the incoming reforms. Working conditions were another important factor, with officials complaining of overwork in the years following the introduction of the regulation of municipalities. This too might over time have affected the quality of their work. On the other hand it should be said that even before the reforms, towns had in times of need taken on new staff (e.g. temporary teaching assistants in schools), with the main aim of serving the town’s long-term interests. State interventions and ballooning agendas, however, began to upset this (approximate) balance, until a new division of towns was decreed, this time into three categories based on size and wealth. The result was an acrossthe- board unification, especially in the areas of official competences and organizational structure. Here too there is plenty of room for further research to fill out our knowledge of the 18th century town environment.