Art in the Czech lands 800 - 2000

The publication ART IN THE CZECH LANDS 800–2000, edited by Taťána Petrasová and Rostislav Švácha from the Institute of Art History at the Czech Academy of Sciences, provides readers in other countries the opportunity, for the first time, to become better acquainted with the entire range of the art of this part of Europe in a single comprehensive volume.

On the basis of around eight hundred examples, a team of leading experts demonstrates the changes that have taken place in various different forms of art from the early Middle Ages down to the present day. In the book, readers will find examples from the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture and ornamental gardening, manuscript illumination and printmaking, art handicraft and design, photography, performance art, and other forms of new media art. The authors decided to take a  different approach from traditional art history surveys, and to present the changes that have taken place in artistic production in the Czech lands in the form of groups of two, three, or four works of art which together form a  context and explain each other. As Larry Silver wrote in his review of the book, ‘Thus the case study of the Czech region in this book can also provide an insightful primer about art in wider European history for other regions and prove valuable for a much wider readership (in this readable English translation) than their fellow Czechs.