Artificialism (art)
The term artificialism describes an avant-garde movement in the visual arts in the Czech Republic .
Jindřich Štyrský and Toyen proclaim it for the first time during a stay in Paris. In 1927 the Manifesto of Artificialism , signed by both artists, was published in ReD magazine. In it you advocate a reformulation of basic poetical principles in the field of the visual arts and demand the identification of the painter with the poet: "Artificielismus je ztotožněním malíře a básníka." This should not lead to a fusion of genres, but to a new aesthetic one Perception, a new understanding of painting as a color poem, from which literary and figurative art are remote. The artificial image can be described as lyrical. Due to its colored structure, it is directed at the recipient , trying to tear him out of the cycle of ordinary imaginations. He should neither find himself in the picture, nor be informed or even educated.
The aim is to evoke an emotion when looking at it. That is why the poet gives form and color an idea of feeling. He detaches himself completely from the representational and replaces the concrete object with an emotional relationship. The artificialist doesn't work with reality . He is attracted by the poetry that fills the gaps between the real spaces and the emptiness that reality radiates. Only the gaps between the representational are shown. These are often replaced by two-dimensional distances that are supposed to connect the shapes with one another through their size. This creates artificial structures that are independent of reality. The artificial image is not bound to reality in terms of time , place and space . František Šmejkal even speaks of a loss of spatial relationships with time. However, independence from reality should not result in the negation of their existence. It is important to strive for a maximum of imagination . Memory is seen as a continuation of perception and memories of memories as experience. According to Jan Mukařovský, it is a matter of the spiritual endeavor to critically examine the path that is approaching reality. The pictorial artistic result of these principles is the refusal to use geometric composition and an almost careless use of color. Color poems are created in which form and line are lost. They live only on nuances . The resulting experimental character of artificialism means that the works of this phase of the two main representatives are not necessarily characterized by a uniform formal structure.
Karel Teige describes the artificialists as the hope of “bored, Czech visual arts”. He expects their experimentalism to blossom poetically, because with their works they finally create originals and not just translations of European forms into Czech. František Šmejkal sees artificialism as the result of the connection of two opposing directions - the development towards non-representational painting (chromatic lyricism) and the simultaneous anticipation of surrealism (free association as a method of pictorial poetry). In 1927 Philippe Soupault viewed artificialism as an independent, Czech variant of representational painting at the level of the European avant-garde.
literature
Wolfgang Asholt: Manifestos and proclamations of the European avant-garde 1909 - 1938 , Verlag JB Metzler, 2005, ISBN 978-3476020758 , pp. 369 - 370