The Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava is preparing an international colloquium concerning art and architecture around 1800 with a focus on the urban environment of the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, which corresponds with the present-day territory of Slovakia, and its bonds to the main art centers of Central Europe. The colloquium will take place in October 2022.

Building on the successful international colloquium of 2019 entitled Umelecký mecenát okolo 1800 / Art Patronage around 1800, the main aim of the October 2022 event is to inspire wider and interdisciplinary discussions regarding this heretofore under-researched topic. Like the previous colloquium, this one will be oriented on the years 1780 to 1830, when the forms of late Baroque, Rococo, Classicism and Romantism appeared in mutual interaction. Other essential aspects of this matter represented by art in the city and its social and theoretical reflection will also be emphasized. The unique intervening period, around 1800, is characterized by the modernization of society sparked by the Enlightenment. The image of cities was also transformed visually and structurally; new forms of social life, as well as the first attempts at national movements arose. Artists and their patrons searched between tradition and innovation for appropriate forms of expression of the necessary content for the new society. Research of the Central European social reflection of architecture and various artistic expressions and their creators in urban environments (particularly, although not exclusively based on the examples of Bratislava and Košice) should take into consideration the following themes:

– Tradition and innovation in the theory and practice of art around 1800 considering the transforming image of cities

– State cultural policy and its expressions – a reflection of reforms, the court office and its impact, tension between church and state, new art schools and other institutional contexts of period art expression

– Forms of artistic representation in the city – state / church / elites, press and the social reflection of artistic events

– Aspects and motivations of the stylistic and ideological preferences in art, the search for form on the path from statehood to nationhood.

All inquiries should be addressed to doc. Mgr. Katarína Kolbiarz Chmelinová, PhD. and doc. Mgr. Katarína Beňová, PhD.:
katarina.chmelinova@uniba.sk; katarina.benova@uniba.sk

Conference languages: Slovak, English.
Selected case studies will be published in 2023.
Essay abstracts (up to max. 3600 characters) for case studies are due May 13, 2022.