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.
Text představuje pojmy estetiky, které se tak či onak váží k pojetí oboru jako teorie umělecké kritiky. Snahou o argumentaci chce být text řazen do širokého proudu analytické estetiky. Metodou je jednak výklad věcných či historických souvislostí – to platí pro pojmy tradiční, jednak analýza pojmů – těch, které byly jako odborné termíny zavedeny relativně nedávno. Protože charakteristickým rysem analytické estetiky je kontrolovatelné uvažování o dané věci, je v první kapitole vyložen pojem argument. ,The text introduces some concepts which are related, in a way, to the conception of Aesthetics as the theory of art criticism. Through a publicly accessible form of writing, namely argumentation, the text can be catergorized as part of the wide stream of analytical Aesthetics. The writing method has two aspects: an explication of facts on the one hand, an analysis on the other. Many structured considerations appear as the text moves along, and that is why the whole is opened with a short explanation of the concept of argument.
Text představuje pojmy estetiky, které se tak či onak váží k pojetí oboru jako teorie umělecké kritiky. Snahou o argumentaci chce být text řazen do širokého proudu analytické estetiky. Metodou je jednak výklad věcných či historických souvislostí – to platí pro pojmy tradiční, jednak analýza pojmů – těch, které byly jako odborné termíny zavedeny relativně nedávno. Protože charakteristickým rysem analytické estetiky je kontrolovatelné uvažování o dané věci, je v první kapitole vyložen pojem argument. ,The text introduces some concepts which are related, in a way, to the conception of Aesthetics as the theory of art criticism. Through a publicly accessible form of writing, namely argumentation, the text can be catergorized as part of the wide stream of analytical Aesthetics. The writing method has two aspects: an explication of facts on the one hand, an analysis on the other. Many structured considerations appear as the text moves along, and that is why the whole is opened with a short explanation of the concept of argument.
The method and criteria that are used for detecting the aesthetic value in works of art are among the key themes of aesthetic epistemology. The object of this study is to attempt a rational reconstruction of the background of art criticism. In tradition Western thought, aesthetic value lies in archieving unity in complexity, unitas multiplex. In the 20th century, this duality was enriched by a third category, intensity. In 1989, Tomáš Kulka suggested that these three categorical features could be detected within works of art by applying a falsification proving method to the aesthetic value. Kulka described an intuitive process of assessing the aesthetic value of works of art by finding possible alternations that would contribute to improving and/or damaging the work of art. The number of possibilities thus found may lead us to recognize the aesthetic value of the work of art. This paper addresses Kulka's concept, emphasizing some of its potential problematic aspects and concluding with a suggested percentage modification of Kulka's concept that might better correspond with an practical background in assessing the aesthetic value of works of art. and Způsob a kritéria, kterými je odhalována estetická hodnota uvnitř uměleckých děl jsou jedním z klíčových témat epistemologie estetiky. Předmětem této studie je pokus o racionální rekonstrukci procesu, který stojí v pozadí umělecké kritiky. V tradici západního myšlení převládá názor, že estetická hodnota spočívá v dosažení jednoty v mnohosti (unitas multiplex). Ve 20. stol. byla tato dualita pojmů rozšířena o třetí kategorii, intenzitu. Způsob, jakým jsou tyto tři kategorické vlastnosti odhalovány uvnitř uměleckých děl, navrhl v roce 1989 Tomáš Kulka, který na tuto trojici pojmů aplikoval popperiánský falzifikační způsob ověřování hodnoty uměleckých děl. Kulka se pokusil popsat pozadí intuitivního procesu, kterým bývají hodnocena umělecká díla tím, že jsou nalézány možnosti (alterace), kterými je možné dílo znehodnotit a/nebo zdokonalit. Počet takto nalezených možností nám pak umožňuje roz-poznat estetickou hodnotu uměleckého díla. Naše práce se kriticky zabývá Kulkovým konceptem, zdůrazňuje některé jeho případné problematické aspekty a v závěru se pokouší o jeho percentuální modifikaci, která by mohla lépe odpovídat pozadí praktického způsobu hodnocení estetické hodnoty uměleckých děl.