DOI issue:
No. 286 (January 1917)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24575#0210
Studio- Talk
each year, he proves himself an artist of marked
talent, successful alike in landscape and figure-
subjects, but especially in recording the effects of
light and atmosphere. Radiant with sunshine,
they speak of a temperament that found satis-
faction and joy in searching for and interpreting
the smiling side of Nature.
Before the war one of the chief events of the
winter Art season in London was the Goupil
Gallery Salon, but when war broke out in August
1914 Messrs. Marchant and Co. decided to cancel
this fixture and it has not been resumed since.
During the past two months they have, however,
had on view a small but interesting collection of
drawings and paintings by various modern artists
whose work we were accustomed to see in their
pre-war Salons. The collection contained two con-
tributions from the Belgian artist, Albert Baertsoen,
who in one of them has made use of that much
criticised structure, Hungerford Bridge, as the
motive for an effective charcoal and wash study.
The unhappy fate which has befallen the Poles,
the Serbs, and other branches of the Slav race,
is one of the great tragedies of this greatest of
all wars, and the various organisations which have
been started in this country with the view of
making known the cause of these suffering peoples
deserve the sympathy and encouragement of the
British public. The Czechs of Bohemia, who also
belong to the Slav race, have encountered many
hardships since the outbreak of war, for their
sympathies are undoubtedly on the side of this
country and her Allies, upon whose victory de-
pends the realisation of their national aspirations.
Though, however, they have been subject to
Austrian rule for several centuries they have ever
striven to preserve their national characteristics,
prominent among which is the universal feeling for
art, manifested very markedly in the handicrafts
practised by the peasants. In pictorial art they
have developed a school with distinctly national
traits amid which but little trace of exotic influence
is now discernible. Perhaps the most representa-
tive member of this school at the present day is
Joza Uprka, whose painting Seeking a Lost King
we reproduce as a supplement. Uprka hails from
Moravia, and there it is that he seeks and finds the
motives for his pictures. Writing of this artist in
a little brochure issued a few months ago by the
London Czech Committee, Mr. Prochazka says :
"Uprka's canvases 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." The
fairs and feasts especially have fascinated him, for
on these occasions the people assemble in their gala
costumes and the villages are ablaze with colour.
"spring sunlight"
198
BY TO^A UPRKA
each year, he proves himself an artist of marked
talent, successful alike in landscape and figure-
subjects, but especially in recording the effects of
light and atmosphere. Radiant with sunshine,
they speak of a temperament that found satis-
faction and joy in searching for and interpreting
the smiling side of Nature.
Before the war one of the chief events of the
winter Art season in London was the Goupil
Gallery Salon, but when war broke out in August
1914 Messrs. Marchant and Co. decided to cancel
this fixture and it has not been resumed since.
During the past two months they have, however,
had on view a small but interesting collection of
drawings and paintings by various modern artists
whose work we were accustomed to see in their
pre-war Salons. The collection contained two con-
tributions from the Belgian artist, Albert Baertsoen,
who in one of them has made use of that much
criticised structure, Hungerford Bridge, as the
motive for an effective charcoal and wash study.
The unhappy fate which has befallen the Poles,
the Serbs, and other branches of the Slav race,
is one of the great tragedies of this greatest of
all wars, and the various organisations which have
been started in this country with the view of
making known the cause of these suffering peoples
deserve the sympathy and encouragement of the
British public. The Czechs of Bohemia, who also
belong to the Slav race, have encountered many
hardships since the outbreak of war, for their
sympathies are undoubtedly on the side of this
country and her Allies, upon whose victory de-
pends the realisation of their national aspirations.
Though, however, they have been subject to
Austrian rule for several centuries they have ever
striven to preserve their national characteristics,
prominent among which is the universal feeling for
art, manifested very markedly in the handicrafts
practised by the peasants. In pictorial art they
have developed a school with distinctly national
traits amid which but little trace of exotic influence
is now discernible. Perhaps the most representa-
tive member of this school at the present day is
Joza Uprka, whose painting Seeking a Lost King
we reproduce as a supplement. Uprka hails from
Moravia, and there it is that he seeks and finds the
motives for his pictures. Writing of this artist in
a little brochure issued a few months ago by the
London Czech Committee, Mr. Prochazka says :
"Uprka's canvases 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." The
fairs and feasts especially have fascinated him, for
on these occasions the people assemble in their gala
costumes and the villages are ablaze with colour.
"spring sunlight"
198
BY TO^A UPRKA