ABSTRACT
This chapter considers class to be an important topic in the formulations of modern Czech art in the international artistic and social movements. It explores the efforts to revise the role of modern art within the nation’s and the state’s social structure, and engage with it politically, showing the limits of such a struggle. The language of historicism and Art Nouveau that had been established in the Czech lands was nevertheless applied to buildings of a different purpose: especially those linked with business, administration, and state representation. The composition of society and the party distribution in interwar Czechoslovakia indicate that the working class had an important place in the new state. The war, the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and continuing industrialisation and modernisation played a significant role in reshaping the social, political, and cultural landscape of the Czech lands.
