Page:Modern and contemporary Czech art (1924).pdf/77

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SCULPTURE
 

composition, but without making the flesh cease to throb with life. Thus the great statues at the doorway and upper storeys of the Prague City Hall reveal admirable taste and surprising dexterity. The portrait-medallions of the Hlávka Bridge at Prague are further evidence of his capacity for synthesis and his decorative sense. At Prague he executed, besides the Hlávka Monument, two granite bas-reliefs, “Commerce” and “Labour,” for the Rudolphinum Bridge, the Attic statues for the Communal Hall, and some statues for funeral monuments, among them the one entitled “Intelligence,” which was to figure in the Autumn Salon of 1914. Some portraits, like that of the composer, Dvořák, admirable in its final form, and the bust of Santos-Dumont (now in the airman’s possession) also bear witness to his solid talent. The new works now maturing in his studio on the Letná Hill will prove that the war, while giving him other work to do for a time, has not hindered his progress. An exhaustive study of his art, from the pen of M. Jules Chopin, is contained in L’Art décoratif for 1912.

Another pupil of Myslbek, Bohumil Kafka, went to Paris to find a solution to the problems that were exercising his brain. He was successful in his quest, and learnt so much there that he was soon able to pit himself even against French artists at the great annual exhibitions. From 1905 he was exhibiting regularly at the Société Nationale and the autumn Salon. In 1908, he exhibited there a collection of twenty-four sculptures, after having attracted the attention of discerning critics by an exhibition at Hébrard’s, to which M. Camille Mauclair had contributed by writing the preface to the catalogue. He is a member of the Autumn Salon and an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Antoine Le Duc spoke of his work in L’Énergie Française (1906), Jacques Bramson in L’Art décoratif (1906), Francis de Miomandre in L’Art et les Artistes (1908), Camille

 
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