vanish from Czech architecture. As commissions flow in rapidly, every architect has his turn of busy output, but the general activity is of a rather superficial order. The period that now ensued was one of inferior successors to the great masters. The “Czech” style, which seemed to have gained a firmly accepted position, disintegrated beyond repair. The craving for luxury grew, sham grandeur and sham sentiment were affected in dimensions and decoration, and the true sense of proportion was lost. About 1890, architecture became more and more a decorator’s business, and the façade claimed the architect’s chief interest and attention. But as the resources of Renaissance themes seemed to be exhausted, an attempt was made to reinvigorate architectural decoration on two different lines. On the one hand, earlier styles were exploited—a tendency that met with approval from all the pseudo-Gothics who had survived the Renaissance fashion; on the other, a new ornamentation was devised, taken direct from the forms of Nature. The historic style is no longer regarded as compulsory, and men begin rather to use it as they think fit, without any scrupulous observance of historic or artistic principles, accepting whatever suits their fancy at the moment, combining diverse elements without taking account of their original functions. Unhappy examples of this tendency may be seen in Prague on both sides of Mikuláš Street or of the Rieger embankment. On these composite façades, Gothic clashes with Renaissance, East and West, the rustic theme with subtle detail, the fanciful with the realistic. The Baroque once more came into favour, that style which the Renaissance school had so vigorously combated in theory and in practice, although about 1860 it was already employed, with rocaille, for the decoration of interiors. The quaint old quarters of Prague seemed to inspire the new fashion: their existence did something to encourage it, but in
