Jaroslav Egon Salaba-Vojan

“ At this period, sketched in such a masterly manner by Jirásek in his “Temno” (Darkness) , the nobility and clergy were the nation; the lower classes did not count, their taste approved everything that the upper classes favored, and so the luxury and pomp of the barocco were in style. The power of the sovereign, of the church and of the nobility was at its highest. A revolution was inevitable and forces preparing it were already busy, but did not yet manifest themselves. ”

“ They declared that a painter should put down on canvass the real scene, as he sees it through his own eyes and his individual temperament, that a painter should infuse his soul and his feelings into his immediate concepts. Thus impression becomes the main thing and a landscape must be expressed by fluttering tones. ”

“ As these great events were taking place, Prague lost its bustling life, squares and streets were empty, the old world was in death throes, and the new world had not yet taken shape. The third new estate, the estate of citizens, was in the process of creation, but some decades elapsed before it was able to undertake the nurture of art. ”

“ This fact alone proves what a gigantic work was done by the patriots who awakened the Czech nation to a new life. And yet the citizens of Prague were in a sense patriotic Bohemians, for all of them, Czechs and Germans, looked upon Bohemia as their fatherland and were proud of its noble history. ”

“ Joseph Mánes was 17, both possessed of a soft, sensitive temperament, and they became fast frieds for life. When Bedřich later became a priest in Moravia, the Moravian seat of the Silva-Tarouca family, the castle of Čechy, was Mánes’ haven of refuge. Count Bedřich Tarouca was an enthusiastic Bohemian patriot and soon made the young artist acquainted with the aims of the national movement. It was a strange whim of chance that a young nobleman should have shown the Prague student of art the road to his people. ”

“ The Jesuits looked upon the bigness and pomp of their ecclesiastical structures as eloquent evidence of their victory over the heretics; besides, barocco agreed with the easy regimen extended to all who were obedient sons of the Church. The outside alone mattered; self-denial was not demanded, and the Church put the stamp of approval upon the pleasures of life. This attitude manifests itself in painting and statuary by the noble female figures that are found in so many over-decorated churches. ”

“ The presence of the foremost masters of the contemporary world of art was necessarily a tremendous encouragement to the home talent. And the art of Bohemia, while conforming to the general medieval atmosphere, soon manifested a distinct form and acquired at the same time a progressive trait advancing beyond the generally accepted norms. “Paintings enclosed in the walls of the Karlštejn castle, colored illustrations on the pages of our books, brought into the medieval art the first wave of living realism growing out of domestic concepts. ”

“ He studies not merely the costume with detail and extreme care, that has not been surpassed so far by any one, but like a true artist he studies the movement of bodies, he observes how men walk and stand, how they sit and make motions; and in all this his great pen finds rich material and happy reproduction. Many beautiful folk studies had their birth at this time; they were made use of later as illustrations to folk songs and in the cycle “Music”.
This ideal type, so happily conceived, helps Mánes to find the true expression for the prehistoric Bohemian period. ”

“ As Smetana reached by his study of the spirit of folk songs a type of Bohemian musiv which combining modern music with racial characteristics became an example of a distinctive Czech musical art, so Mánes determined in that memorable year 1849 to produce out of Bohemian soil and its spirit artistic creations that would portray the charm of Bohemian soul. By painstakingly careful ethnological study Mánes slowly collated the distinctive characteristics of the people into an artistic type of the Czechoslovak race which for many years was supreme in all Bohemian decorative art. ”

“ He left the Prague Academy in 1875 with a number of fellow-students as a protest against the gross insult of the Czech people by Professor Woltmann. He rented an atelier with Frank Ženíšek, but the occupation of Bosnia put him into the military uniform and dragged him to the south. After a discharge from the army service in 1879 he went to Paris and there for the first time found himself. Up to this time he was occupied with historical paintings, never dreaming that a rare landscape artist was hidden in his soul. The modern French school of landscape painting opened his eyes. ”

“ The young, fiery statesman, bold, clever, uncompromising, who had just ignited the enthusiasm of his people and drew the attention of all Europe by his speech of January 6, 1849, on the first paragraph of the proposed constitution “All authority in the state proceeds from the people”, this man lives before us in Mánes’ drawing as a veritable tribune of the people. A noble, high forehead, large, glowing eye, the whole body with the closed first reveals a great orator. February 8, a month before the parliament was dissolved, Mánes was through with his work. ”

“ Everything in them is real life, nature and truth—nothing stiff, nothing unreal, no imitation. Two great albums of Marold’s works publishe din Prague fill the soul of the Czech student over and over again with pity that such a splendid talent should have been carried away so soon. ”

“ Toward the end of the forties, when Josef Mánes was laying the foundations for the modern Bohemian decorative arts, a man of talent appeared at the Prague Academy who, if not a pioneer, was at any rate a strong progressive spirit. His name was Jaroslav Čermák. ”

“ Of other Bohemian artists whose talent blossomed out through the influence of Paris the greatest are Chittussi, Hynais, Marold, Mucha and Kupka.
Antonin Chittussi is the first modern Czech landscape painter. His Italian name indicates that some ancestor of his came to Bohemia from Italy and became a Czech. Antonin was born in Ronov in 1847. After graduating from the middle school he entered the Prague Polytechnic, but in 1866 he left the Technical School and enrolled in the Painters’ Academy; later he went to Munich where he was the pupil of Anschutz, then to Vienna and back to Prague. ”

“ You know, to be called ‘the purest Czech master’ implies a lot of disadvantages. If I could live in the country, I would avoid the obtrusive people and it would be healthier for body and soul. For my artist’s roots lie in the woods and fields and meadows.”
The young Bohemian artists fortunately were convinced that Aleš was a great master, and they finally compelled recognition for him. When in 1886 Wiesner undertook the serial publication of the famous “manuscripts” with Aleš’ drawings, a violent attack against Aleš was started. ”

“ After the classical period which had filled imaginary vistas with antique temples and chapels bordered by beautiful trees right and left and hills and groves rolling in the background, and after the period of new romanticism which again demanded castles and ruins and picturesqueness of scenes came the modern masters who smashed tradition and fashion and forbad the painting of immaginary landscapes. ”

“ Aleš came to the painters’ academy of Prague a born master of pen, as the director, John Swerts, a Belgian, found out very soon. He told him once: “You may become a great artist, for you possess in great measure the things that cannot be taught.” Aleš remained in the academy until 1875. That he possessed a hard, South Bohemian head he proved at the riot caused by professor Alfred von Woltmann. This German historian of art came in 1874 to the Prague University, at that time still wholly German, and lectured also at the painters’ academy. ”

“ The nobility of Bohemia was foreign nobility, German, Walloon, Spanish, Italian; their ancestors were military adventurers to whom Emperor Ferdinand granted confiscated estates of the Czech rebels. The men who owned the soil of Bohemia in the first part of the eighteenth century were eager to satisfy their vanity and impress with their lordly magnificence their peasant subjects. The Catholic Church was closely allied to the feudal nobles. The influence of the Church was wielded principally by the Jesuits, and barocco was commonly known as the “Jesuit style”. ”

“ When the old soldier related his experiences to the boys about his white horse and his successor the black horse with whom the soldier parted so reluctantly that he almost decided to remain in the army, when uncle sang with them folk songs of Bohemia, the soul of young Aleš received indelible impressions, so that we do not wonder, why the drawings of Aleš abound with rearing horses, such as few artists can create, and why Aleš became the incomparable illustrator of Czech folk song. ”

“ The codex was frequently lent to others, sometimes placed as security for loans, but finally the Swedes in the Thirty Years’ War took it away with them to Stockholm, where it is found today in the royal library.
When Charles IV. was king, Prague was the heart of Europe, for Charles was also emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. His reign is a time of rapid growth of Bohemian art; and for the first time now the Czech individuality leaves its distinct impress up on the arts of Bohemia. ”

“ A heroic young man brought up on the stories and tales of his people, rides through the Bohemian lands; in the Ore Mountains he has a sword forged, in the Trutnov country as Trut he fights the dragon of Teutonism, in the Krkonoše Mountians he is healed of his wound by herbs of strange virtue, in the Tábor district he talks with the future Žižka’s peasants, in the gold-bearing Otava he waters his horse, etc. The cycle ends with Žalov, the ancient Czech cemetery, where Morana points out to the young man the end of his road. ”

“ Then Čermák returned once more to Bohemian history and in 1875 he painted “Procopius the Great before Naumburg”, but shortly after he died of a pulmonary complaint, April 23, 1872. His remains were transported to Prague and buried with great ceremony on the Olšany Cemetery under a splendid monument. The house on Bethlehem Square, where he was born, bears a memorial tablet by the sculptor Joseph Mauder: Genius holding laurels in the left hand and writing with the other hand Čermák’s name.
Čermák by his removal to Paris tore up the bonds that had up to that time fettered the art of the Czechs. ”

“ And finally the painting only succeeds to portray a picturesque event, but does not suggest at the same time the connection with the past and the future, in other words the causes and effects of the particular great moment. For that one must be more than a brilliant painter, one ought to be also a strong and deep psychologist. ”

“ The latter had a son, named Joseph, born May 12, 1820, whom fate selected for the founder of modern Bohemian painting.
Little Joseph grew up in an atmosphere of art. He saw father and uncle busy drawing, painting, engraving and lithographing: the talk at home turned on art, and friends who called at the Mánes home were all artists. As early as 1835 Joseph was enrolled in the Academy. His education was caried on in German, for at that time everything in Prague was German and in the homes of better class Czech conversation was an exception up to the year 1848. ”

“ Even though the girl from Herzegovina is not to be found in all province, though the girl is a princess and her horse a wonderful Arabian, the like of which can only be seen in the Sultan’s stables, the whole vision has such a charming Slav type and strong individuality that it makes a permanent impression. ”

“ The less important country gentlemen, scared by the aggressive accents of the French revolution and the increase of democratic tendencies, vegetated upon their estates and abandoned all inclination to patronize art. ”

“ After the battle of the White Mountain, during the vicissitudes of the long war, enemies and “friends” alike robbed the magnificent collections. The former took them as booty of war, the latter as “souvenirs”. The Bavarians carried away 1500 wagon loads, of artistic treasures. The Saxons carried them off by wagons and by boat down the Elbe, later came the Swedes, then the imperialists, and what was left over was sold by the Austrian government as recently as one hundred years ago. ”

“ Countess Leopoldina Silva-Tarouca, daughter of Count František Šternberk, came to Prague to live with her son Bedřich. The young man inherited from his grandfather the love of art, was fond of drawing since his childhood and now in Prague he got for his drawing master the father of Mánes. ”

“ Secularization of many churches and convents, carried out by Joseph, deprived the painters and sculptors of regular and wealthy patrons, while the nobles gravitated more and more to Vienna to be in attendance at the imperial court, the center of all fashion and power. ”

“ The bourgeois art produced various historical disasters, battles, solemn entrances, flights, kidnappings, murders, etc., poorly painted and more than mediocre from the viewpoint of invention and composition. ”