Page:Bohemia's claim for freedom.djvu/61

 modulated, here joyful, there tearful or festively lyric, nowhere "Secco recitativo," nowhere "parlando."

In the lyricism of his art Zenisek is a true follower of our great lyric painter J. Manes. Zenisek possesses an equal feeling for rythmic lines and can express the sweet charm of the beautiful human figure. Like Manes he delights to draw lovable children, and understands the rythmic sweetness of a child's uncertain steps and gestures. Like Manes he knows only a beautiful, healthy, strong man. The human body is to him, as to Manes, "Crown of the created world," the highest achievement of the Creator of Cosmos. (Quoted from F. X. Harlas.)

The influence of the historical memories of the tragic past on the contradiction of modern life is, in works of some Czech artists, strangely persistent. Such an artist is Holarek. His genius is a continuation of the spirit of John Hus, of the great Humanists, the Bohemian Brethren. Through the drawings of Holarek speaks the same undaunted spirit, the same tenderness, the same understanding of human frailty.

Holarek's Preface to his collection of drawings "Thoughts on the Catechism" speaks eloquently: "This protest of a suffering and martyred soul I give to human society in return for the artificial care with which she educated my heart to such a sensitiveness that, tremble under any emotion, and the sorrow of others feel above my own. The human Society took away from me even as a child the sweet egotism of nature, which is the child's happiness. Instead, she deeply instilled into me 57