Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/147
of France, however, due to dynastic relationships, predominated later on and gave especially to Czech Gothic art its stimulus.
Bohemia being situated right in the center of Europe, can symbolically be called its heart. In fact, it has always reflected all the intellectual and spiritual currents which stir the Continent. We find at any time the mind of the Czech people accessible, sensitive and adaptable to all sorts of external influences, as if it were conscious of its quasi-anatomic functions. The sudden and resolute reception of the ogival style shows how quickly Bohemia adapted itself to the West. At any point in its history up to recent times we can discover that the same acquisitiveness and eclecticism ages. The early Gothic which suddenly invaded Bohemia is free from any Romanesque reminiscences, although Romanesque architecture seemed solidly implanted there up to that time. The reign of Charles