worker who finally surmounted the obstacles that beset him, alone contrived to raise himself above their level. Although living in Vienna, he took part in the construction of the monuments which had gradually been undertaken in his native country, such as the decoration of the National Theatre on the right bank of the Vltava or that of the Bohemian Museum which overlooks the Wenceslaus Square (Václavské náměstí). For the Theatre he provided two figures of legendary Czech bards and the group representing the Judgment of Libuše, and for the staircase of the museum a vigorous allegory of the Czechoslovak country. His productions already mirror, to a remarkable degree, the tendencies of modern sculpture. Himself one of the Viennese Italianizers, he derived inspiration from the Italian Renaissance at its flowering-time, keeping close to Nature even in his allegories, and seeing in the model no longer a mere intermediary, but an essential basis for the forms to be produced.
Wagner, however, was not equal to the task of breathing new life into Bohemian sculpture. Nor was his junior, Bohuslav Schnirch, although he received an exceedingly thorough training. Moulded in Italy, in the school of the Renaissance, he acquired a love for its classic form, and, like the great Italian masters, managed to subordinate his art to the ideas and requirements of the architect. His friend Josef Zítek, architect of the Prague National Theatre, could not have found a more loyal collaborator: and indeed, there is no point either in the exterior or in the interior of the Theatre where the sculptor has been at cross-purposes with the architect, so admirably do Schnirch’s decorations in high relief and bas-relief figures and ornaments harmonize with the rest. Below the roof, Apollo and the Muses gracefully carry on the rhythm of the façade, the allegorical figures placed on the pediment of the stage-boxes are in a calm, seemly attitude, and in carving the powerful Victories which he projected for the tall
