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Poetism

Poetism is an early 20th-century avant-garde literary movement in Czech between the world wars. Poetism in early phase introduced to Czech art and synthesized Cubo-Futurism (Apollinaire), Dadaism and Constructivism. It is a purely Czech artistic movement that interosculates and translates the knowledge of other world-wide artistic movements. It embraced all new art instead of being oriented solely toward literature and poetry. It was in the spirit of avant-garde and social utopian theories. It could be interpreted as a particular aspect of European Dadaism, which inspired by primitive and naïve art. It was in the spirit of avant-garde and social utopian theories. Poetist’s works are mainly featured by programmatic optimism, playfulness, humour, lyricism, sensuality, imagination, orientation toward pure art, a multiplicity of themes, and emphasis on associations. By redefining a number of areas of life and human activity and also certain para-artistic realms as art, poetism redrew the boundary between life and art. Poetism was usually presented through poetry, drama and painting, which explored the beauty of new technologies innovatively. Artists in Poetism sought to use the avant-garde aesthetics to create things that could be made available to all. The most outstanding works of Poetism are its unique design of letterforms which express the mood of a poem, and the visual design of books expressed as artistic as the poetry itself.

Poetism

Years active	1924-1930s
Location	Czechoslovakia
Major figures	Karel Teige; Vítězslav Nezval

History

Poetism (Poetismus) was an important movement in Czech avant-garde art of the 1920s. It began in a Czech organization called Devetsil which was the major Czech avant-garde group of the 1920s and included all the arts and originally had a proletarian orientation. Poetism was first theorised by Karel Teige in 1924.

According to what Karel Teige wrote, poetism is above all a reaction against the ideological poetry predominant in Czech. It is opposite towards romantic aesthetics and traditionalism, an abandonment of the previous “artistical” forms.

‘Poetic naivism’ and proletarian art that once had been emphasised were rapidly supplanted by attention on international art currents and a celebration of technological culture. By 1923, Devetsil had their activity entered a transitional phase in which influences from Cubism, Purism, Neo-Plasticism, Dada, and Constructivism were dominant. There was a machine aesthetic notable in objects presented at the Bazaar of Modern Arts in 1923. Meanwhile, the group members began to make the simultaneously so-called ‘picture poems’ or ‘pictorial poems’. In Teige’s article ‘Painting and Poetry’ which was published in the Devetsil journal Disk in 1923, he noted the growing similarity between modern painting and poetry and called for easily reproduce Pictorial Poems.

In the mid-1930s, Vítězslav Nezval retroactively emphasised Poetism as a crucial precursor to Surrealism after the establishment of the Prague Surrealist group by Nezval, Štyrský, Toyen, and subsequently joined Teige. While it is true that the core ideas of literary Poetism are spontaneity and free association, the reason that could explain Nezval’s desire to connect Poetism to Surrealism was to wish to provide Czech with an earlier start than French Surrealism.

Poetism was a significant direction in avant-garde Czech literature during the 1920s, albeit the term is sometimes used generally to refer to Czech avant-garde art of that period, except its practice in Pictorial Poems which were invented by approximately fifteen over sixty members of Devetsil, it did not become a true movement in visual art.

Important Figures

Karel Teige

(13 December 1900 – 1 October 1951)

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Bust of Vítězslav Nezval in Dalešice, Třebíč District

He is one of the founders of Devetsil group and the most important figure of poetism movement. Teige was a Czech modernist avant-garde artist, writer and critic. With other artists, he promoted Czech photomontage in the early 20^thcentury with surrealists in France and promoted the ethos and the playfulness of surrealism to the later Czechoslovakia.

Vítězslav Nezval

(26 May 1900 – 6 April 1958)

Nezval was a Czech born writer and joined the Devetsil group. Soon he became known as one of the leading poets of his time. Nezval was also one of the founders of Poetism. He has contributed a number of poetry collections, experimental plays and novels, memoirs, essays, and translations to Poetism movement. He also performed an important role in founding The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia in 1934, in which he served as editor of the group’s journal Surrealismus.

Forms and characteristics

One of the major features of poetism was that it had a combination of media and genres or could be called the “intermedial” work which is to describe liminal artistic works combining two or more media forms. The favoured intermedial genre was the picture-poem in case of the Czech avant-garde artists. Among the painters, there were naturally a more pictorial aspect, sometimes produced entirely pictograms rather than words. Among the verbal artists, the picture-poem was in the form of connecting images and texts on a single surface or in a space which is treated as a canvas instead of the page of a book. Poetism was also made to prefer subjects for art, which include a new definition and dimension. Realms were organized according to the human senses which perceived them. There was an unorthodox way of understanding the “senses” as well. For example, fireworks and the circus were interpreted as poetry for sight; the poetry of hearing was interpreted from jazz, etc. According to poiesis, all the areas and fields already satisfied the condition of poiesis. Therefore, Poetism could be defined as the art of living or modernized epicureanism. Its best results in poetry, prose, painting, the theatre, and architecture were achieved during the movement.

Picture Poems

Teige, Toyen and Styrsky introduced a new art form – the picture poem, which enriched Czech art. Picture poems combined poetry, assemblage and collage together and applied techniques that were used by the European Dadaists and Russian Constructivists. Also, it was influenced by magazines, book covers and advertising materials, which was full of photomontages. Russian typographers’ posters and teachers and students from the German Bauhaus movement helped it created new compositions based on free association. Picture poem practitioners combined pictures from postcards, newspaper and maps. The work of picture poems was mainly used in book cultures, such as envelopes or the demonstration of avant-garde poetry and prose. The elements used in Picture poems later emerged surrealism movement.

Review and comments

Teige praised Poetism as an art of life and saw it a natural part of daily life. To him, Poetism was as delightful and accessible as all manner of other delectations. ------ Karel Teige

Nezval explained his approach and the spirit of Poetism by saying that he abandoned any other theme and chose the most subjectless object of poetry for the gym of the mind --- the letter. ------ Vítězslav Nezval

Influence

Compare to the discipline, order and a practical outlook that Constructivism required, the stance of Poetism was the freedom of creative imagination and the carefree release of all human senses. As a practice, Poetism has shifted its emphasis away from workshops and ateliers onto the practical experiences and beauties of life.

The Poetist setting free of art from the museums and cathedrals led not only onto the streets, into the city, but also into modern life. Thus, the new beauty of Poetism led straight forward to urban areas, which was developed under the support of Constructivism, conveying the aesthetic virtue pledged by the implementation of Constructivism of the style of the present.

See also

• Devětsil
• Surrealism
• Karel Teige
• Vítězslav Nezval