Archaeology and Art: the Relationship of Karel Absolon (1877–1960) and Czechoslovak Artists in the Period Between the World Wars* Petr Kostrhun Centre of Cultural Anthropology, Moravian Museum, Zelný trh 6, Brno, Czech republic. e-mail:
[email protected] Abstract: The article in the introductory section maps the connection of the production of the leading Czech artists in the services of archaeology from the middle of the 19th century and their role with the national emancipation before World War I. The main part of the text comes from a source study of the archive of Karel Absolon, who was one of the central personalities in the fields of archaeology and speleology in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period. Absolon’s scientific activities aroused interest with a number of Czech painters, men of letters, photographers, filmmakers and philosophers, who reflected on the results of archaeological research both in cooperation with Karel Absolon and in their own artistic production. Keywords: history of archaeology, Czech archaeology, Karel Absolon, artistic production Cooperation of Czech archaeologists and artists the first in Bohemia in the selection of painting themes from the earliest history and legends used an inventory Archaeology and Art – the connection of two human from real archaeological finds. However, Hellich felt activities, which thanks to the significant imaginative himself to be first of all a painter and therefore suddenly powers of both fields was very strong particularly left the National Museum already in 1846 and devoted in the past. We can follow with certainty the need of himself to an artistic career in Vienna and especially in reflection of one’s own past in art, which drew from Prague, where he became famous as a portrait painter archaeological finds and knowledge, from the time of and as the president of the Artistic Department of the the Renaissance (Barkan 2001).