Karel Čapek's graphic Britain: a study of the visual intermodernism of Čapek's 'Letters from England'

Best known as a science-fiction writer, Karel Čapek’s drawings from his 1924 tour of Great Britain are here analysed in terms of what is categorised as ‘intermodernism.’ As an integral part of the travelogue he published in English as Letters from England, they are seen as coordinates for navigating identity, detailing, through their construction and composition of lines, a subtle and perceptive understanding of difference and unity. That they are biographical as well as ostensibly documentary is conveyed through exploring the development of their visual language and its blending of modernist and historic conventions. Simultaneously, their assessment of society and nature is revealed as a nuanced explication of community and place. Čapek’s visual journey beyond the country of his birth is evaluated in terms of the meanings to be found in the acute, quirky and ironic nature of his drawings. Ultimately, the distinctions in form, seeing and understanding are revealed in terms of Čapek’s non-canonical, synthetic and humanist intermodernism.