compositions; he forgets all languages; he speaks to God and men only through decorativeness. Much is a true Slav, for in his work there is the essential Slavonic element, a half-savage, half-superhuman mysticism. In Mucha's art the cosmopolitan influences have strangely overgrown the original Slavonic idea; they develop in him a new, spontaneous, and rich decorative expression.
Perhaps the most representative of modern Czech or Slovak artists is Joza Uprka. The love of Slavonic motives drove him out of academic pedantries to the typical people of Moravia and Slovakia. To that poetic corner of Europe Uprka gladly retired, not to dream, but to live and enjoy the richness of colour and ornament. And from his rich paintings comes the vigorous, healthy breeze of rural scenes, full of strong white light, full of perfume from the fields and meadows and gardens. His typical figures of humanity — old, grey-haired patriarchs, manly youths, or buxom young peasant women — are all in the daring rythmic colours of the Slav national costume. Uprka's canvasses rebelliously but triumphantly dance in light and colour; the artist lives and feels with the subjects of his paintings: work in the meadows and fields, village life, joys, feasts, dances, prayers. In his art there is nothing melancholy; no shadows, no miseries, no dying, as if in his happy land people never died nor knew of death! Not, indeed, that Uprka never painted sombre scenes, but by a happy instinct he rushes from them towards light and joyful colour. His work, in its brilliant, direct technic,
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