In the case of official Czechoslovak socialist realism a negative evaluation of the rulers [still] prevails over a consideration of the talent of those who were assigned to carry out the artistic tasks of their day. Socialist realism today is a phenomenon outside the ordinary art-historical categories. Thus, absurd though it is to evaluate the morality of cubism, with socialist realism it is impossible to omit a moral evaluation of life at that time. And it was no ordinary time. Art and society as well went through radical change.

Alena Cermakova

Socialist realist artists were fond of historical themes; these paintings show their attempts to make communist leaders godlike and to weave their life stories into a web of legends and tales. At the same time, we can sense that these painters carefully sought to preserve every historical detail.

Their style and methods were easily modified to fit the local variety of socialist realism. Thus, Svabinsky and Nechleba, paradoxically, became classics of socialist painting, something they don't entirely deserve.

Careerism on the part of artists who obediently carried out any kind of state commission played its role. Many artists truly believed in communist ideals and honestly tried to fulfill communist aesthetic doctrines. A deliberate combination of persuasion, threats, and blackmail was able to break other artists' groups.

it was more a matter of a group of artists, who did not always lack talent and craftsmanship, choosing to adopt and develop socialist-realist methods.

the only official form of artistic expression in the USSR was Stalinist socialist realism

contructivism became the first official art, a radical art related to futurism and other progressive art forms

Communist propaganda explained the existence of the Soviet Union and its satellites as historical necessity.

It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true—his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.

birtherism,

A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses

chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,

My Brother at 3 A.M.

Nostos

ennis courts

Smell of the tall grass, new cut.

decades

birthday,

How many times, really, did the treeflower on my birthday

damp grass

apple tree in the yard

sober certainty of waking bliss

sacred, and home-felt delight,

home-felt delight,

Can any mortal mixture of Earths mould Breath such Divine inchanting ravishment?

And she shall be my Queen.

Comus,

How charming is divine Philosophy! Not harsh, and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfet raigns.

liveried Angels lacky her

Wherwith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone?

Eld. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength Which if Heav'n gave it, may be term'd her own: 'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: [ 420 ] She that has that, is clad in compleat steel, And like a quiver'd Nymph with Arrows keen May trace huge Forests, and unharbour'd Heaths, Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes, Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity, [ 425 ] No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity,

Eld. Bro

These thoughts may startle well, but not astound [ 210 ] The vertuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion Conscience.—— O welcom pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hov'ring Angel girt with golden wings, And thou unblemish't form of Chastity,

This is the place, as well as I may guess, Whence eev'n now the tumult of loud Mirth Was rife, and perfet in my list'ning ear, Yet nought but single darknes do I find. What might this be? A thousand fantasies [ 205 ] Begin to throng into my memory Of calling shapes and beckning shadows dire, And airy tongues, that syllable mens names On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses.

Lark begin his flight,

bucksom, blith, and debonair.

sevenlAnd six; and five; and four; and three; and rwo;And one

And hush now

beginning-cnd

he wniuerse is ruhere? ls hanging wbe

Heauenly Questio

violet-brown

Dcsccnding ridgc by ridgc

spir

symmctry;

And all is wcll now, hush now, close your cyc

Sclf-fabricating through gr:neric codes

seas of non-existence;

sand

ragged nucleusAccumulated layers crystallize:

wellnow, hush now, close your eyes,

substratum

overhead a water-ceiling sways;

Distant ocean-engines pulverizeTheir underwater mountains

burthen