Page:Historical paintings of the Slavic nations by Alfons Mucha (1921).pdf/18

 our present minister to China. Possessing a remarkable insight into the ethnic characteristics of the Slavic races, and deeply interested in their history and ultimate political destiny, Mr. Crane has supported the plan from its inception, feeling sure that this pictorial epic of the Slavs would find place in one of the great Slavic capitals.

Of the projected series of twenty subjects eleven have thus far been completed, and recently Mr. Crane and the artist decided to offer the paintings to the Czecho-Slovak people if they would guarantee to install them under conditions befitting their merit and importance. The suggestion was received with enthusiasm, the outcome being a pledge from the Czech government to erect a public building in Prague, the walls of which will eventually be decorated with Mucha’s Epic of Slavia.

The presence in our midst of the artist, who is well known in America, adds particular interest to the current exhibition of five of these imposing mural compositions, which so graphically depict the determination of the Slavic peoples to cast off the yoke of the oppressor, whether temporal or spiritual, and achieve a more definite measure of race consciousness. Alfons Mucha is an ardent apostle of nationalism in art, and later on he intends to devote his energies to the organization of a comprehensive exposition of the arts and crafts of his native land, a land that has always been noted for the aesthetic and musical genius of its people—the new and aspiring Republic of Czecho-Slovakia.