Page:Modern and contemporary Czech art (1924).pdf/102

 has endowed with an air of cheerfulness and novelty. On the other hand, the efforts made by Wiehl to create a national Czech style by utilising the elements of rustic architecture and adapting them for modern buildings, did not meet with the expected success. Nevertheless, there were a few smaller buildings at the exhibition of 1891 and 1895, which were not lacking in a certain cachet. Later on, this tendency was pursued even to the point of bad taste, by imitating the designs of wooden peasant dwellings on the fronts of houses in large towns. Wiehl’s chief merit, however, lies in his having adapted the middle-class house to the conditions of modern life, to the requirements of the tenants and of public health regulations.

Wiehl had disciples: Jan Zeyer, his collaborator, who helped him to organise the new domestic architecture, Rudolf Štech, who disseminated the new style in the provinces, J. Vejrych and others. But even the zealots of the official Renaissance style could not always resist the temptation to apply Wiehl’s forms to the town houses or country villas that they built.

By the side of Wiehl, whose practical instinct exceeded his skill as a designer and decorator, honourable mention must be accorded to Jan Koula. A theorist and a propagator of the Czech Renaissance, the Prague Baroque and the Czechoslovak popular art, a brilliant draughtsman and painter in water-colours, and a learned archeologist and museum director, he had neither the fire nor the spontaneity of his eminent contemporary. None the less, he exerted a considerable influence on the development of Czech architecture down to the end of the century. Above all he fertilized by his erudition the decorative arts of every kind, his “Old Czech” furniture and ornaments being a counterblast to the “Old German” (altdeutsch) style which was then threatening to invade our homes.

With Wiehl’s death, genuine enthusiasm and unity of style