up to 1913, ten were given over to French art. Thus every branch of French graphic art has been seen in Prague. Among later exhibits were Rodin’s drawings, a rich collection of statues by Bourdelle, and finally some works of the ultramoderns, from Matisse to Derain and Bracque. The struggle of the “Mánes” on behalf of French art ended in a victory, and what Czech art had gained by that victory was speedily recognised.
The “Mánesist” generation is still at work to-day. There are some who, while availing themselves of the foreign teaching in cases where they can find no local tradition, accentuate more strongly the regional note in their work. Others have owed nothing to any foreign model, and have formed themselves entirely through contact with their own country. To this class belongs Joža Úprka, the painter of the Moravian Slovaks, his compatriots. He received his training in Prague and in Munich, finished it off with a journey in the West and then, establishing himself in a Slovak village in the heart of the district to which he has since devoted all his activities, and where he has worked out for himself an original plein air method, he sought at first to seize the soul of Slovakia in genre paintings a trifle “literary” in quality. But his palette, heavy at first with the opaque tones of the Munich school, grew brighter and gayer as he became more familiar with his Slovak environment and as the lively hues of the peasant costumes took his fancy. In the end, he came to use pure tonalities without blending them, and his brush, at first too prone to render the minutæ of detail, soon acquired a sweeping, vigorous stroke. It was, in fact, this that made him an Impressionist painter. His intimate knowledge of the country enabled him to reproduce with astounding accuracy Slovak scenery, and the faces and gestures of the inhabitants. Moreover, to him man and Nature are but one, and the animal rather than spiritual side of man is brought into
