Czech Cubism was an avant-garde art and design movement that flourished in Prague from approximately 1911 to 1914. It is a unique and significant offshoot of the broader Cubist movement, distinguished by its application of Cubism's principles not only to painting and sculpture but, uniquely, to architecture, furniture, and the decorative arts.

The movement's core philosophy was that objects possessed an inner energy that could be released by breaking down their surfaces into dynamic, geometric planes. Rejecting the flowing, natural forms of Art Nouveau, Czech Cubists drew inspiration from the structure of crystals, creating a distinct style defined by sharp angles, prismatic shapes, and faceted surfaces. This was not just an artistic experiment but also a nationalistic one, as its proponents sought to create a modern and distinctly Czech style, independent of Viennese influence.

The Czech Cubist movement was centered around the Group of Fine Artists (Skupina výtvarných umělců), founded in Prague in 1911. The group's key figures included architects and designers like Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár, Josef Chochol, and Vlastislav Hofman, painter Emil Filla, and sculptor Otto Gutfreund. These artists were familiar with the Cubist works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in Paris and sought to adapt those radical ideas to the applied arts.

The theoretical foundation for the movement was largely established by Pavel Janák, who argued for a design philosophy based on the oblique lines and flat surfaces of inorganic crystals, which he saw as an expression of spirituality. The movement's creations were produced and sold by the Artěl cooperative and the Prague Art Workshops (PUD), which were founded on the model of the Wiener Werkstätte to promote high-quality craftsmanship in modern design. The movement was short-lived, effectively ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, but its influence was later seen in the development of Czech Art Deco .

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