Modernism and Avant-garde in Stefan Krcmery's Reflection in 1920s

Stefan Krcmery's (1892 - 1955) wide-ranging interest in art did not concern only literature and music, but also painting and sculpture. In the autumn of 1920, he attended an exposition in the Autumn Salon in Paris about which he informed in an extensive article in the National Newspaper. His aesthetic standpoint was fully determined by the classical perception of the category of the beautiful, which had a negative impact on his aesthetic experience in terms of reception of the modern works. He perceived the modern art as being in the opposition to the tradition, he refused the abstraction, which he did not understand. He stressed the traditionalism, also at the thematic level, and the need of interconnecting the new with the old also in terms of the reflection of the young contemporary Slovak literature. The study refers to S. H. Vajansky's ideological heritage in Krcmery's perception of the modern art and literature and its building on such postulates as was the national activism and the emphasis on the positive values, (national) self-confidence, will and optimism, that were characteristic of the supporters of the conservative orientation of the national culture from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.