Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/151
reveal to us the purity and intensity of the religious and artistic feeling of the time. The first steps in the art of painting had been made in the linear style which we find in numerous frescoes, such as those at Jindřichův Hradec (1138) as well as in book decorating, which seem even at this early date to have had a long tradition. “The Passionale of the Princess Kunigund” (1314) and the “Velislav Bible” are among the most beautiful works of that time and remind one strongly of the art of the early French illuminators. Since at this period the austere Gothic form and the linear style clarly dominated technique in color, we can judge that there had been thus far no communication with the Tuscan school.
In the first decades of the reign of Charles, however, we find a sudden development which displayed a remarkable affinity with Italian art. The author of the cycle of the nine paintings at the monastery of Višebrod displays a manner indicating at least an indirect knowledge of Italian art, although his formal conception and Gothic naturalism remain deeply enrooted. The presence of Byzantine elements, e. g., the disposition of planes, the golden background and other details, tell of various influences. However, the author of this Višebrod cycle, in continuing the tradition of Czech illumination, created a great masterpiece which can be compared with the best of that time and in which he consolidated all the influences which had acted as a stimulant on Bohemia. To the school he represented are ascribed paintings scattered all over Bohemia as well as some paintings in the Kaiser Friedrichs Museum in Berlin and the three great panels of the altar at Thorn.
Another great individuality is Theodoricus Pragensis, the court painter of Charles IV, whose works adorned especially the castle Karlstein. His portrait tell of a quite unusual realism and individual conception.
The culminating point of early Czech art was attained by a school of great vigor which centered around the author of the Altar at Třeboň in southern Bohemia. All the works ascribed to this school show a great step toward a solution of the problems of plasticity and an organic union of the principal elements of pictorial art. The means of expression are extraordinarily rich and abundant, and the background is already filled in with landscapes and other details giving depth to the picture.
The school of Třeboň abandoned the mediaeval tradition and prepared the way for the great master of the fifteenth century. It surpassed by far anything existing at that time in Central Europe, and if it could not attain quite all that was possible to the Flemish masters of the fifteenth century, this was due to the limited material means at its command, the technique of oil painting not yet having reached Bohemia. The influence of the master of Třeboň did not remain limited to Bohemia but spread throughout Central Europe and can be traced in all the more important works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries