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The impact of Max Dvořák is habitually considered to consist of reading his texts. I would like to argue that the key aspect is rather an interpretation and representation and that their mode depends on specific conditions of time and place. A recapitulation of renewed interest in Dvořák in Czech art historiography during the 1960s recognizes the strategies that were used to adapt his “idealistic” methodology for the use of the period Marxist-Leninist scholarship. It was only due to success of this re-interpretation campaign that Dvořák was able to fill the position of the “father of Czech art history”.

This article considers the development of Czech art history from the late nineteenth century to the present. It argues that while Czech art historians were anxious to establish a distinctive art historical voice in Europe, they were led a symbiotic relationship with the Vienna School. Most of the leading art historians of the early years of the Czechosovak Republic after 1918 studied with Alois Riegl, Franz Wickhoff, Max Dvořák of Josef Strzygowski, and maintained a strong loyalty to the values and methods of their teachers. Thus for all that 1918 marked a political watershed, there was considerable continuity with the Vienna School of the Habsburg Empire. Despite the numerous subsequent political and ideological events, including four decades of Communist, Czech art historians continued to regard Vienna School art historians as fundamental points of reference, and this has been sustained by a self-understanding that has emphasised continuity with the past.

Czech art history in the 20th century has been strongly informed by the tradition of the Vienna School. After the Communist takeover of power in 1948, Marxism – or more precisely Marxism-Leninism – became a compulsory philosophical approach. After a brief Stalinist phase, an ‘iconologic turn’ was construed by Jaromír Neumann before 1960: iconology was reframed in terms of Dvořák´s ‘spiritual history’ and the result was labelled Marxist, as it enabled to provide a direct access to the ideology of the past without having to pay attention to class and social relations. Frederick Antal´s or Arnold Hauser´s social history of art was rejected, the main focus was on the noetic qualities of artworks and the main topic the debate of realism. As a result, Czech art history was pursued as an elitist discipline in the humanist tradition, but it did not need to participate in the search for ‘humanist Marxism’ or revisionism which was typical for the East-Central Europe in the 1960. Dvořák-type iconology combined with formalist approach and belief in a validity of the laws of develompent remained attractive for Czech art history up to the 1990s.