Jindřich Chalupecký a Mikoláš Aleš

The paper focuses on the way in which in the 1930s and 1940s the critic and theoretician Jindřich Chalupecký (1910– 1990) interpreted the work and persona of Mikoláš Aleš (1852–1913), an artist whose work is considered one of the highlights of 19th-century national revival art. Chalupecký's comments on Aleš say much about the critic's contemporary attitudes to modern art, and are thus understood here as pars pro toto for his own conception of modernism, which takes shape precisely in the period in question. To compare and contextualize, another reception of Aleš in the first half of the 20th century is briefly mapped, alongside which the specifics of Chalupecký's concept stand out better. Above all, how the critic defined himself against the Devětsil avant-garde and his inspiration from contemporary existentialist philosophy prove crucial here.