Pavel Šopák

The bicentennial of the Gymnasium Museum (which existed as an independent institution in 1814–1939) calls for an analysis on the topic of science and museums in the modern era. Sources of information include library catalogues and infrequent reports about collections, which were mostly destroyed by 1945. The paper focuses on a selection of examples of scientific activities (particularly geology, palaeontology, and the social sciences) which were developed in relation to the Gymnasium Museum in the region of Czech Silesia. Unlike the Joanneum in Graz or the Brno museum, in which history held the dominant position, Opava was the backdrop for the thriving of natural sciences, particularly geognosy; i.e. geology, entomology, and botany. Since the collections are no longer intact, the intellectual settings have been reconstructed from the layout of the library. The same library also reveals value preferences in the domain of social sciences.

The text is conceived as a critical commentary to the monography and catalogue of the work of the painter and graphic artist, Helena Salichova (1895–1975). It is an attempt at revision of the approach to the work, based not on the projection of career and objective facts about the artistic creation, but on grounds of application of general theoretical principals applied in the work that is based on the complex visual strategy (within its frame it concerns the aspects of style and stylistic mode, artistry, self-representation and expectation of the audience, paradigm value and artistic tradition versus innovation, nonclassical monumentality, creative undogmatical attitude towards folk culture etc.)

Adapted version of the text presented at the colloquium organised in Prague on 12 November 2019 by the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) on the 85th anniversary of PhDr. Karel Chytil’s death. The text deals with the institutional and cultural political aspects of Chytil’s career as an art historian, museologist, and lecturer.

This paper deals with a museum worker, an art historian and an ethnographer Karel Cernohorsky (1896-1982), who was a staff member of Silesian Museum in Opava between 1921 and 1938 and who worked, between 1938 and 1945 and between 1921 and 1938 once again, in Moravian Museum in Brno, where he later joined Brno branch of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences. Great emphasis is laid on the complexity of Cernohorsky's personality as well as on the difficulties of promoting various ideas regarding both museum services and the organization of culture in Silesia. This commemorative paper is intended to make people remember the 110 th anniversary of the birth of a prominent personality of Moravian and Silesian museum services of the 20 th century.

This paper deals with the convention of the young generation of artists from Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia, that took place in Brno on the 12th of October 1919. The convention was organized by the club of arts Koliba. Theforemost speeches were delivered by a philosopher Frantisek Tunny, by Emil Pacovsky, the chairman of Koliba and the editor of the magazine Veraikon, by a painter FerdiS Dusa and by architect Ceněk Vořech. The convention pleaded for the regeneration of Slavic art that would counterpoise the western art. The convention initiated a variety of reactions, more critical than supporting, and its programm represents an importent part of a discussion about the character of Czech culture after the First World War.