Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/116



n addition to the pictures illustrating interesting landscape views of Bohemia, and of Prague and exhibiting the beauty of its monuments of art, the Bohemian Section of the Austrian Exhibition, contains a department designed for the purpose of making English visitors aquainted with the peculiar merits of the art-work executed by Bohemian peasants, and with their home industries,—so far as they have an artistic value.

Specimens of the products of this home-work, are shown in the rooms VI. and II. while in the INTERIOR OF THE CITY OF PRAGUE, (Room V.) there are displayed beautiful embroideries, parts of National Costumes, etc. memorials of the inventive genius and of the arts which flourished in by-gone days in the homes of the Slavonic country people.

The Bohemian peasantry whose chief occupation until the middle of the nineteenth century, was agriculture, created for themselves on the basis of old traditions, an original style of arranging their homes, and their costumes, having their own poetry, music and dances, customs and ceremonies, all of which may be considered as the artistic side of Bohemian peasant culture and exhibiting in a stri-