Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Art History

The paper presents the requirements and challenges of urban transitions towards sustainability from the perspective of the SAB of the JPI Urban Europe. Critical reflections on the achievements and identification of gaps in the activities of JPI Urban Europe, based on the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda SRIA (2015–2020), reveal advanced research questions, tasks, and approaches that influenced the development process of the SRIA 2.0 (released in February 2019). The authors emphasize the dilemma approach, the local context and the co-creation concept to pursue urban transitions in real-world context. Considering this frame, they propose specific domains for further research on urban transitions.

By introducing workers’ self-management in the 1950s, socialist Yugoslavia aimed to decentralize socio-economic planning and gradually translate into practice the Marxist-Leninist theory of the ‘withering away of the State’. Although the new planning model was intended to provide a more balanced distribution of economic opportunities across the socially diverse federal territory, in practice it prioritized exponential economic growth, contributing to a rural exodus and hyper-concentration of workforce, management capacities and resources in the urban agglomerations. As a direct response to the severe consequences of post-war urbanisation in Yugoslavia, experts from the Urban Planning Institute of Croatia developed the first Yugoslavian methodology of regional planning. With a reference to Hilberseimer’s theoretical work on regional planning, the methodology aimed to integrate rural and urban areas into a coherent regional space with a greater degree of socio-economic independence from the urban centres. This paper provides a critical overview of social and regional planning in Yugoslavia between the introduction of the communal system in 1955 and the new constitution in 1963. By following the two parallel yet interwoven planning discourses, the paper analyses the transition of the State ideology and political economy into the spatial realm. The comparison of two discourses reveals the ambiguous relationship between social and regional planning and the strategic attempts of urban planners to negotiate their ideological positions within the evolving political system. The regional plan for the Krapina district is the first manifestation of the new planning methodology, which intended to reconcile contradictions between city and countryside, centre and periphery, centralisation and decentralisation.

The study deals with public space both as a physical phenomenon and social phenomenon. It defines its fundamental meaning by referring to the works of sociologists Richard Sennett and Hans Paul Bahrdt: The public space offers the opportunity to meet other people, confront the differences, and at the same time it is a place where we can strengthen social solidarity and mutual respect. The study briefly mentions the development of public spaces in Czech towns at the time of communist regime. However in the first instance it shows selected current works to document the attempts to express the openness of democratic society after 1989 and the new arrangements of public spaces. Evaluation of the development during the recent years shows both positive and negative aspects: On one side it is a sensitive reconstruction of previously neglected public spaces in historical centres of towns and several completely new spaces in other town quarters, on the other side it is too strong commercialisation of these spaces, their submission to tourism, and the lack of interesting public spaces in the places of everyday life of the inhabitants and in newly developing areas of towns. The increasing interest of professional community and general public in the quality of public space, as well as attempts to make the care for public spaces a substantial part of municipal strategies in some cities give a hope for the future.

Linking physical perception and computer science in education offers new possibilities to comprehend the present world and develop coping skills. We show that a specific exposure to computers in schools can contribute to an understanding of our complex world. It shows how digi- tal, interactive media can increase our perception of our immediate surroundings and also and han- dling skills. Detailed descriptions are presented of three experiments, which were held at schools, which incorporated a body -based, an Internet-based, and a systemic -based approach to learning. The theoretical background behind the three experiments is explored.

Mieczysław Porębski, a distinguished Polish art historian of the 20th century, once expressed the demand for Polish art history to be researched simultaneously with foreign studies - as parallel fields. "We entered the research field of the old masters' art as partners in, so to say, a ‘furnished household', whereas in the field of contemporary art we are co-explorers, exploring a ‘virgin land'", as Porębski put it. The book by professor Piotr Piotrowski Awangarda w cieniu Jałty. Sztuka w Europie środkowo-wschodniej w latach 1945-89 (The Avant-Garde in the Shadow of Yalta. The Art in East-Central Europe, 1945-1989) fully accomplishes this demanding postulate which nowadays seems to be rather rarely remembered by Polish art historians. The explored area, the East-Central European countries, which emerged, as a result of the Yalta Conference, between the iron curtain and the border of The Soviet Union (including former Yugoslavia) appears at least as an ‘old maiden' land, where scientific penetration still seems to be necessary.

A forgotten Renaissance herbarium dated to 1595 is described. It is connected to herbaria created by the naturalist Hieronymus Harder (1523–1607) of Ulm. This hortus siccus was recently found in the Muzeum Broumovska, Broumov (Braunau), Czech Republic, to which it came from the collections of the local Benedictine monastery. It is the oldest hortus siccus known in collections in the Czech Republic. It contains 358 specimens as well as annotations and drawings. Its creator was Johann Brehe from Überlingen, a sixteenth-century barber-surgeon. The paper analyzes the representation of species, the purpose of the annotations, and also the meaning of the illustrations which supplement some of the specimens. It also investigates connections between Brehe’s work and Harder’s activities linked to herbaria. Brehe’s herbarium is compared with two similar collections; Johann Jakob Han’s (?1565–1616) herbarium of 1594 and Harder’s herbarium, also of 1594, and both kept in Überlingen. It shares some features with both, while differing in other respects. In particular, we compare representations of plants from the New World and the inclusion of mosses and lichens. Finally, we address the question of how a herbarium created in a town on the shores of Lake Constance, in present-day Germany, found its way to an eastern Bohemian monastery, where its presence was first documented as recently as 1937 by Pater Vincenz Maiwald OSB (1862–1951). We also highlight the importance of Czech monasteries as sources of important, unpublished documents dealing with both the natural and social sciences.

The affectivity of works of art and the affective response to them remain a difficult subject for art history and theory. Among the key issues for art history and theory are questions such as: What constitutes the affectivity of the image? The essay focuses on these issues by considering a few micro case studies through the prism of the emerging theory of affective response to images.

Xenoreceptors of the nuclear receptor superfamily, such as pregnane X receptor (PXR), are liver-enriched ligand-activated transcription factors regarded as crucial sensors in xenobiotic exposure and detoxification. PXR controls transcription of many drug-handling genes and influx/efflux transporters, thus playing a crucial role in drug metabolism and excretion. Liver functions have been studied using primary human hepatocytes (PHHs), which, when conventionally cultured, undergo rapid de-differentiation, leaving them unsuitable for long-term studies. Recently, 3D PHHs called spheroids have emerged as an in vitro model that is similar to in vivo hepatocytes regarding phenotype and function and represents the first in vitro model to study the long-term regulation of drug-handling genes by PXR. In this study, we used mathematical modelling to analyze the long-term activation of PXR in 3D PHHs through expression kinetics of three key PXR-regulated drug-metabolizing enzymes, CYP3A4, CYP2C9, and CYP2B6 and the P-glycoprotein efflux transporter encoding gene, MDR1. PXR action in 3D PHHs was induced by the antibiotic rifampicin at two clinically relevant concentrations. The results confirmed that high rifampicin concentrations activated PXR nearly to its full capacity. The analysis indicated the highest PXR-induced transcription rate constant for CYP2B6. The rate constant dictating mRNA degradation associated with activated PXR was highest for CYP3A4. Moreover, we measured the metabolic activity of CYP3A4, CYP2C9, and CYP2B6 and quantified their metabolic rate constants. Metabolic activity rate constant of CYP3A4 was found to be the highest whereas that of CYP2B6 was found to be the lowest among the studied enzymes. Our results provide important insight into the regulation of PXR-target genes in 3D PHHs and show that mRNA expression and metabolic activity data can be combined with quantitative analysis to reveal the long-term action of PXR and its effects on drug-handling genes.

Architect Ernest Weissmann (1903-1985) dedicated his career to improving the living conditions of the deprived population - before and immediately after World War II in Europe and the United States and, starting from the 1950s and owing to senior positions he held at the United Nations Department of Social Affairs [UN DESA], also in underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The means by which he tried to achieve it were type projects flexible enough to respond to each individual case, education, teamwork, and self-help approach. The latter was thought to strengthen the local communities, their experts, resources, and production. Relying on the research on Weissmann’s pre-UN DESA career, this paper argues that Weissmann formulated most of his ideas, in particular self-help, and the above-mentioned methods, and put them into practice and an international perspective, before 1951 thanks, to his collaboration with Le Corbusier, the School of Public Health in Zagreb, the International Congress of Modern Architecture [CIAM], New York-based Structural Study Associates [SSA] group, Board of Warfare, and United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration [UNRRA].

This audiovisual essay presents a comparative study between Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas and Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinéma, focusing on the metaphorical figure of the nymph (i.e. the image of woman) in both projects. The essay is composed of five variations related to thematic and formal inflections organized around the motif of the nymphal body.

This study aims to share light upon the various iconographic functions that the images of the prophet Elijah undertook in the Moldavian wall painting at the end of the 15 th century and in the first decades of the following one. A funeral function is registered in his depictions from nartheka at Lujeni, Rdui and Blineti, paired in the latter two instances with the Anapeson. More frequently, Elijah stands alongside John the Baptist on the thresholds of the apse, alluding henceforth to the 'Elijah redivivus' theological thread. His relationship with Elisha, shown in the micro-cycle from Neam and in the iconic portraits from Vorone and Popui, opens eventually Elijah's iconography towards the theme of spiritual filiation, enhancing the monastic character of the programmes involving their connection.

In the 1970s both sociologists and experts on housing culture correctly noted that a tendency towards consumerism was developing in Polish society. These tendencies were described as the neo-bourgeois lifestyle. This lifestyle was supposedly characterised by a focus on material possessions and prestige. The achievement of affluence was pronounced to be the life aim of this group, and the outward marks of affluence (and the acts of demonstrating them) to be an important element of favourable self-assessment. It was noted that these consumerist aspirations resulted from the citizens’ acceptance of Western models. It was also stated that the main indicators of this style were the apartment itself, its standard and equipment, and the culture of leisure time. Poznań in the last years of the communist government in Poland seems to be a particularly fitting place to exemplify the phenomena characterised herein. It has for a long time been associated (not only in popular perceptions) with the bourgeoisie, the entrepreneurial spirit, and affluence; scholarly research points to the same fact. In those days, a detached house for one family, or a villa – especially one constructed to an individually commissioned design and with equipment that exceeded standards in various aspects – was a clear and socially distinctive signal of status to a far greater extent than it is at present. Such buildings were commissioned by members of the affluent intelligentsia, but also by numerous private entrepreneurs. Jan Dudek-Kornecki (b. 1928) was particularly fashionable and sought after as a designer of such villas. His designs were a compromise between the aspirations of his clients, the restrictions imposed by construction law, and the availability of building and finishing materials. Nevertheless, in terms of equipment they differed significantly from contemporary residential quarters, mainly due to the presence of antiques and works of art, as well as unique pieces of contemporary furniture acquired from exhibitions at the Poznań International Fair or from the furniture factory in Swarzędz. The essay offers an analysis of the practices and strategies of deluxe living in Poland in the period before the 1989 breakthrough.

Abstract This essay assesses the role of regionalism in interwar Austrian painting with a focus on the Tyrolean painter and architect Alfons Walde (1891–1958). At a time when painting was seen to be in crisis, eclipsed by the deaths of prominent Viennese artists such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, regionalism offered an alternative engagement with modern art. As the representative of a wider regionalist movement, Walde paved the way for a clearly identifiable image of rural Austria without foregoing the modernization process that took place in the Alps at the time. Filtering essential elements of local culture and synthesizing them with both a modern formal language and “modern” topics, most significantly ski tourism, he created a regionalism that reverberated beyond the narrow confines of his home province and caught particular momentum during the rise of the Austrian Ständestaat in the 1930s. Moving in between regional and national significance, Walde's work underlines the essential position of the region in Austria after 1918 and conveys that an engaged regionalism that responded to the rapid cultural and political changes taking place became a significant aspect of interwar Austrian painting.

In February of 1978 the exhibition Trzy kobiety. Ania Bednarczuk, Iza Gustowska, Krynia Piotrowska opened at the Bureau of Art Exhibitions in Poznań. It became a starting point for two cycles of exhibitions that have been organised practically until today: Odbicia (Gustowska’s and Piotrowska’s joint exhibitions) and Spotkania. The essay focuses on Spotkania, i.e. exhibitions at which Gustowska (initially with Piotrowska) presented the works of invited women artists. These exhibitions were Trzy kobiety (1978, Poznań), Sztuka kobiet (1980, Poznań), Spotkania – Obecność I (1987, Poznań), Spotkania – Obecność III (1992, Poznań), Presence IV – 6 Women (1994, Galeria La Coupole, Rennes) and Osiem dni tygodnia (2011, Szczecin). To consider them a cycle and to analyse them under the joint title of Spotkania is the author’s own interpretative approach based on the observation that, in their case, Izabella Gustowska’s actions comprise a consistent project based mainly on the recurrent gesture of creating an opportunity for women artists to meet – hence the word meetings – and to engage in a dialogue. Spotkania is the longest-lasting and most consistently carried out project enabling women artists to meet but, paradoxically, not intended to consolidate them. All of the exhibitions emphasised Gustowska’s certainty of essential closeness between women. This closeness was always characterised, very generally and indistinctly, as a kinship that becomes evident only when sought. An analysis of the exhibitions leads one to the conclusion that the combination of the conviction that women share essential similarities with an emphasis on their individuality and on the separateness of their artistic proposals, coupled with Gustowska’s distancing herself from feminism, are the reasons why Spotkania did not result in the emergence of any kind of community or in the undertaking of collective actions. The exhibitions remained as incidental meetings and their infl uence on the oeuvres of the women artists who participated in them is yet to be analysed.

This study aims to bring forth two iconographic contexts which relate to the issue of the primacy of Rome. The first one dwells upon the evidence taken from Byzantium and the Balkans, while the second follows this line of investigation into the Romanian Post-Byzantine heritage. The cult of Saint Peter was strong enough in Byzantium as to prevent any refutation of his primacy, even during the harshest quarrels with Rome. This could explain the presence of Roman Popes (most frequently of St. Sylvester) in the procession of saintly bishops depicted in Moldavian apses at the end of the 15 th c. and in the 16 th c., but equally in Wallachian iconographic programs from the 16 th and 17 th c. This phenomenon might hint at a claim to the plenitude of the apostolic tradition for the local Church, but also at a polemical anti-Latin discourse, which makes use of papal iconic portraits in contexts with strong ecclesiastic imprint.

The International Research Centre for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages prepared a Festschrift in honour of one of its founders, Igor Fisković on the occassion of his 70th birthday. The Festschrift  includes works addressing the periods that Igor Fisković has dealt with most, thus reflecting the diversity of his interests, ranging from Late Antiquity to contemporary art, with key emphasis on the Late Middle Ages and early modernity. Due to the diversity and the broad period of time the texts are covering, they have been arranged more or less chronologically. The works focus mainly on the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, Fisković’s forte and the topic of some of his best writings. There are also several texts addressing the baroque period, which was not one of the honouree’s interests, but they were written by some of his closest friends and members of the generation of his former students who have had prestigious careers. (from the Foreword)

The article is the first introduction to the garden city movement in the Czech lands. The dynamic transformations of its trajectory are highlighted by selected upheavals. It spans from its cautious beginnings in the first decade of the twentieth century to its climax in the 1920s, and a singular appropriation of the urban vision by the Czechoslovak government in the 1930s. Encompassing the turbulent era, the way in which the garden city utopia was approached exposes not only implementation of the modern urban concept but also the constant response to political transformations underlined by Czech and Germans conflicts in what was to become interwar Czechoslovakia.

The text deals with the mural paintings at the end of the northern and southern nave of the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary in Olomouc. They are connected with Marian piety and its expression in the rosary. These trends were supported by the mendicant orders and spread through the influence of the Franciscan-Observants. Among the Franciscans of the 15th century was the most popular version the one that was promoted by St Bernardino of Siena and his disciple St Giovanni of Capistrano, who has visited Olomouc in the fifties of the 15th century.

This article examines the changes to religious art during the era of the Josephine Reforms. It focuses on the role of the central and provincial authorities in public commissions for the Church and on the mechanisms that influenced the nature of such work. It also analyses three decades of work by Andreas Schweigl, who from the start of Joseph II´s reign to the time of his own death in 1812 furnished almost three dozen churches in various parts of Moravia, Silesia, and Lower Austria with artwork produced by his workshop.

The text deals with contacts between the Brno architect, typographer and organizer of cultural events Frantisek Kalivoda and Hungarian avant-garde artist László Moholy-Nagy, related to Kalivodovým interested in experimental film and subsequent activities in the film section of the Association of Left Front.