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 In matters of art also Bohemia was early in the field. The Prague school of painting that came into prominence during the reign of Charles IV. (1316–1378) took favorable rank with similar early art movements in Italy. Painters, sculptors, and architects trained in Bohemia are represented to-day at most of the great cities in Europe where art treasures are preserved. The zealous and promising artistic movement inaugurated in the country by the followers of the Prague school, like most of the other culture movements in the kingdom, was well-nigh extinguished by the attempted Teutonization of the country by the Hapsburg rulers after the fatal Bílá Hora.

The political and literary activity in Bohemia during the opening years of the last century reacted favorably on the art life of the nation. A society of the fine arts, that was distinctly Bohemian and national in character, was organized at Prague in 1848; and this was followed by annual expositions of the chief productions of Bohemian and foreign artists. As an immediate result of these activities, Bohemia produced an astonishingly large number of painters who took high rank in their art, artists of the rare talent of Hellich, Manes, Čermák, Schwaiger, Aleš, Brožík, Mucha, Úprka. In sculpture, too, modern Bohemia has