Go to the Countryside!

Go to the Countryside! Fine Arts and Folk Culture in the Czech lands 1800–1960

Tomáš Winter, Pavla Machalíková (eds.)

The country, folk tradition, and the art culture of rural people are a part of our lives in many ways. This book presents and interprets the sources and forms of interest in the country environment from the beginning of the nineteenth century up to the 1960s.
It explores the countryside and the lives of its people around the year 1800 in relation to the cult of nature and searches for the “natural” beginnings of society, modern nations, and their cultures and characteristics. It focuses on folk culture as a source of national art, the mythization of the countryside as an exotic environment, or on folk art inspiring Cubism and historical avant-garde. The conclusion of the book takes up the politization of folklore in the 1950s and the exploitation of its content.
The book includes Czech architecture, paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics, and photography, as well as foreign artists and selected films.

First edition, in Czech, 402 pages, colour illustrations, Prague 2019
ISBN 978-80-88256-10-6

This book was published by Artefactum in cooperation with the publishing house Arbor vitae.

The sale and distribution of the book is provided by Arbor vitae. Please send your order to the email address office.arborvitae@volny.cz