Page:Bohemia; a brief evaluation of Bohemia's contribution to civilization (1917).pdf/45

 paints his figures. His work is characterized by the superb lines in the bodies of his figures, simplicity in color, style and conception, and the depth of feeling. The religious Middle Ages, with their deep religious fervor are powerfully treated in his work of which the most noted is the emotionally powerful cyclus “The Plague”.

Vojtěch Hynajs, the painter of the curtain at the National Theatre at Prague, is a depictor of joyous childhood scenes. He was as excellent a painter as he was a teacher.

The Bohemian National Theatre also possesses the works of J.F. [sic] Ženíšek, one of Manes’ greatest pupils. His pictures are lyric in expression, full of ryhthmic lines and a delicate sense for the figural beauty of the healthy human body. His many allegorical works are as easily understood as our simple melodious national song. F. X. Harlas, the Bohemian art critic, correctly says of him: “A beautiful human body means to him what it meant to Manes: the glory of the human race.”

Mikuláš Aleš, the most characteristically Bohemian and most beloved of the Bohemian artists, was born in 1852, in the poor Southeastern part of Bohemia. Although Manes’ art, in spite of its Bohemianism and Slavism, might be classed as international, Aleš’ art itself can only be classed as typically Bohemian. He simply cannot be understood by the foreign world; other nations cannot realize what a gift from above this blessed genius was to his nation. It is he who warms the Bohemian heart.

Aleš improved upon Manes in his portrayal of the Bohemian-Slovak type. His type of the peasant, his Hussite warrior, “the defender of the word of God”, and his type of the Bohemian child, with which he illustrates the Bohemian song, is not merely an illustration, it is a3 song in itself, breathing the spirit of the Bohemian mothers, the Bohemian meadows and the Bohemian history, voicing the joys of the harvest and Christmas as the yearning Bohemian soul feels them. He worked with pen and pencil, illustrating thousands of our songs, proverbs, sayings, folk tales and hundreds of our Bohemian books which are typical of the national spirit. Of the people he was born, of the people and for the people he