ration of the vestibule ceiling in the Old Town City Hall, of the “bar” in the Guests’ House of the City of Prague, etc.; also a number of oil paintings, aquarelles and cartons forming entire cycles, such as the “Five Senses” for Mr. Brandeis in Sukdol, the cycle “Elements” with Indian motifs, property of Countess Bianca Thun, the cycle “Prague”, then a multitude of drawings for books, such as the illustrations to Čelakovsky’s “Echo of Russian Songs”, Quis’ “Honza the Fool”, further the two celebrated Manuscripts, Jirásek’s Psohlavci” (Dogsheads), covers for all of Rais’ novels, etc., as well as illustrations for periodicals and occasional publications of all sorts.
For the “Květy” (Blossoms), edited for many years by Svatopluk Čech, Aleš drew his finest illustrations of the Czech folk songs which form one of the most important parts of his artistic legacy. They were republished by Otto in two small volumes. K. B. Madl says of them: “These drawings will bear comparison with the greatest masters that ever embodied their visions in pictures. And yet they resemble no others. First for their individuality, next for their distinctiveness of line and style, far different from the cold sharpness of Holbein’s “Dance of Death”, from the sentimental hardness of Durer’s engravings, from the picturesque fantasm of Rembrandt, from wild passion of Goya, from impressionist intellectualism of Foraine, from playful wittiness of Gavarni, from Heine’s impertinence, from sacred pathos of Jenewein, from the forked crustiness of Schwaiger, from smooth delightfulness of Mánes. Nothing of that is a part of Aleš; his pictures are his own, although in other ways by the synthesis of material with its artistic transformation he resembles all these great men who translated their fantasy, their passions and loves, their hatreds and dreams into the free realm of art. The pictorial art of Aleš has the simplicity and singlemindedness of our folk songs, their lack of ostentation and polish. His art is sincere."
Austria and Europe.
I.
In all essentials the Hapsburg Monarchy is a dynastic estate. Its history is largely that of the Imperial House, a history not to be explained solely by chronology or by ethnology or in the light of the “Constitutional Rights” which figure so largely in the political demands of the Hapsburg peoples. If Austria-Hungary be regarded as a Sultanate and the Emperor as a Sultan much that seems obscure becomes intelligible. The singular, albeit baffling, charm and interest of Austrian affairs for a Western European, is that they constantly raise what he imagines to be fundamental issues of political and moral phisolophy. Time and again a foreign observer in Austria is obliged to ask himself: Are my beliefs well based or are they merely prejudices and preconceptions? Are liberty, truth, justice, sincerity, and progress mere words or do they correspond to essential realities? Is everything relative, does all depend on circumstances, or are there, after all, absolute principles in politics, morals and religion? At every turn, a man is driven back upon himself and forced to probe the reasons for whatever faith may be in him, if he would escape skepticism or save himself from being submerged by the light and lusty, thoughtless and sensuous current of life that swirls around him in Austria.
Kürnberger, the ablest Austrian essayist of the 19th century, dealt with one aspect of the moral puzzle that Austria presents, when he wrote in 1871:
“What is incomprehensible to every non-Austrian, nay, the eternally unintelligible about Austria, is what is Asiatic in Austria. . . . Austria is not really unintelligible; it must be understood as a sort of Asia. ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ are very precise ideas. Europe means law; Asia means arbitrary rule and caprice. Europe means respect for facts; Asia means the purely personal. Europe is the man; Asia is at once the old man and the child. With this key you may solve all Austrian riddles. Above all Austria knows no ‘must’ and no ‘shall’. In their place the Austrian will give you ‘Asiatic’ reasons for what he has done or left undone: ‘It pleased me’ or ‘it bored me’. . . .
“The way our people, lively, easy-going, variable, dance up to all things with verve and grace, is like a rosy children’s ball. But note well that, in all this South German liveliness and Slavonic changeability, in all this rapid whirl of persons, the thing itself remains Asiatically stiff, inert, conservative, sphinx-dead and spectrally hoary, not having budged an inch for ages. That is why the most daring novelties come easier to us than to other States—because they are only new names. Freedom of the press and confiscations, Ministerial responsibility and violations of the constitution, the Concordat with the Pope and an anti-clerical middle-class government—we can stand them all!. . . Were we at once to establish atheism as the State religion, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna would celebrate an atheistic High Mass in the cathedral!”
The history of Austria, within the last 150 years at least, fully bears out Kürnberger’s statement that
A lecture delivered at the University of London, King’s College, to the London County Council teachers, on December 8, 1917. Reprinted from The New Europe, January 3, 1918.
