Hrabalovy kubistické obrazy
Hrabal’s Cubist Pictures

Summary/Abstract: The article considers in detail the intellectual and aesthetic influence of twentieth-century Avant-garde art, in particular Cubism and Surrealism, in the literary work of Bohumil Hrabal (1914–1997) and in forming the style and composition of his fiction. The main aim of the article is to draw attention to an important link between the structure of Hrabal’s fiction and Cubism.But it also considers the fact that another milestone in Hrabal’s artistic perception of the world was his encounter with Surrealism. It explores the way the experience of Cubist painting influenced his outlook on life and our perception of the picture, and does so by considering Apollinaire’s calligrammes and the picture poems of Vítězslav Nezval (1900–1958), Jaroslav Seifert (1901–1986), and Karel Teige (1900–1951). In particular, the article looks at Nezval’s poem ‘Pierot cyklista’ (Pierrot, the cyclist) from the collection Pantomima (Pantomime, 1924), a foundational work of Poetism. As an analogy, the article mentions the works of the Polish poet and Avant-garde painter TytusCzyżewski (1880–1945), who wrote his Cubist poetry in the same period as Nezval wrote his.

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