is a fine example of unspoiled national genius. Such buoyant energy our national organism, so permeated by German influence, sorely needs.
It is not mere chance that this master hails from Moravia, because from there and also from the healthy, unspoiled Slovaks, we Czechs expect the strengthening and rejuvenating of our national spirit and the purification of our national ideals. This truly is the great mission of Moravia, of her people and of her art.
Art to be real should be a natural phenomenon, an organic growth, as a tree growing from the soil that it nourishes. Uprka is such an artist, growing from the soil living amongst the peasants, equal among equals. Nowhere else could he live. A cosmopolitan city spoils men by its distracting influences, Uprka runs away from the city. He lives a simple life—works in the garden and on the fields, and paints—paints incessantly the sunlit simple people that he loves so well. That is all the biography that is of interest, or indeed necessary. Full of love of that corner of South Moravia, he works with marvellous intensity. His work will also be valued as a permanent and faithful record of the typical dress of our peasants, fast disappearing; their customs and ceremonies. The materialism of Western Europe, and the speculative Jew, begins to work a mission of barbarism even in that quiet, beautiful country.
The characteristic of Uprka's art—his joy of life, love of colour, glorification of light, all so intimately connected with the innate genius of our poetic peasants—is a triumphant augury for
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