Josef Mánes
When the Czech nation in the 17th and 18th centuries passed through a long period of deathlike sleep under the Germanizing policies of Austrian emperors, Czech art also decayed, and whatever of artistic value was produced in the Czech lands had a German or international character. As a result of the French Revolution new life began to stir in Bohemia, and art also was affected. Czech landscapes were painted and large canvasses from Bohemian history were produced, but all had little life in them and less of the spirit of the people. The artists were skilled artisans without true enthusiasm and inspiration.
The first modern Czech artist who came close to the soul of his people is Josef Mánes. In fact he was the first great painter of the Czech renaissance and is today acknowledged generally as the founder of modern Czech art. A society which numbers among its members all the great living Czech decorative artists —Šimon, Švábinský, Mucha, Bílek—calls itself after Mánes to show that in their opinion he is the teacher of modern Bohemian school of art. Mánes was born May 2, 1820, and entered the Prague Academy of Art at the time when the professors were men of small calibre, brought up in the German school. The director of the school, Professor Ruben, himself a German, was a man of small talent and early took a prejudice against Mánes on account of his Czech patriotism. Mánes therefore left the Prague school and went to Munich in 1843. During the revolutionary year of 1848 he was back in Prague and took an active part in the political life. The reflex of all new hopes of the people made itself felt in other fields, and a Society of Decorative Artists was founded in Prague with Mánes as one of its most active members.
Since that time the young artist devoted himself to the study of his people. He proceeded to Moravia, where the Slav characteristics of the Czech people were less obscured by foreign influences; he learned to draw the cheerful and colorful costume of the peasant, mirroring his simple soul. His lyric art loved the study of the peasants’ life, their customs and songs. He painted the strong, handsome type of the peasant in his work, in his joys and his sorrows; his art sang, rejoiced and wept. His frequent children’s types are an expression of care free childhood in its sunny joyousness.
Mánes was in love not with the people only, but with the Bohemian and Moravian scenery. His landscapes, his villages with the little churches on the hills speak the Czech tongue and have a Slav soul. His famous illustrations of folk songs are taken from the people and are admired by the Czechs both because they are so clearly Czech and because they are highly artistic. In portrait work Mánes was also a master, his painting of Rieger being specially well known.
Perhaps the greatest work of Mánes is the Horloge of the Old Town Hall of Prague. It is a series of twelve scenes from peasant life representing the twelve months of the year and through them the happy life of an honest and industrious tiller of the soil.
The art of Mánes was Czech and Slav, not because he put his peasants and the country maids into the old costumes, but because he gave them a Slav soul. This he could do for the reason that he lived among the people and felt that he was one of them. He made merry with them and suffered their pains, and thus the productions of his pen and brush were vital and true.
In spite of this the life of Mánes was far from happy and mental disease threatened his mind more and more. After he had completed the twelve scenes that adorn the ancient clock of Prague Town Hall, his mind suffered an eclipse. His life ended on December 9, 1871.
