Mauclair in L’Art décoratif (1908), and Raymond Bouyer in Art et Décoration (1913).
In Kafka’s work, under the influence of French sculpture, an entirely new sensitiveness to impressions comes to the fore, reacting nervously and restlessly on the life about him to a degree hitherto quite unusual in Bohemia. The heroic-cum-patriotic idyll that formed the atmosphere of Myslbek’s studio here gives place to the palpitating life of our day. In Paris, Kafka had set himself to hunt after fresh sensations, to scrutinize the various phases of the modern man’s complex mentality. His early productions were those of an uncompromising realist who drew his inspiration from Nature and rendered the emotions he himself had experienced in a form still rigid. It was not long, however, before dreams got the better of reality. The keenly analytic psychologist felt an overmastering need for clearness, simplicity and synthesis. This period of his career has been brilliantly characterized by M. F. de Miomandre: “It is on the uncontrollable fever of his hand that he relies in order to imbue his creations with that strange energy, that moving thrill, that inimitable style which they possess. And from that fever vitalizing that discipline, from that industry tempering that ardour, springs an art both violent and gentle, both fantastic and natural, highly personal and of an universality altogether antique, vigorously realistic yet diving into the world of dreams, and every day more sober, more stately, more ‘classical.’” Of late years Kafka’s work has shown even more discipline, its form has become more coherent, with more subordination of the parts to the whole. The artist, in approaching the zenith of his powers, has gained the serenity needful for the creation of works that shall reveal his full genius and give complete expression to his ideals.
Another artist who issued from Myslbek’s studio—that alma mater of all our contemporary sculptors—is Jan Štursa,
