Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/308
might: caught in the middle of a great stride, the left hand holding the grain he scatters, the right drawn back a little for the strong, scattering sweep, the “Sower” is, at first sight, the embodiment of all that is physically unconquerable in the reproduction of the race. But that insistent quality that Parkes finds “almost haunting” forces a deeper meaning on the observer. It is the sower of thoughts that the sculptor tried to represent, and his indomitable, almost ruthless march. Here Mr. Polášek’s realism and strength are at their best and a study of this work enhances the beauty of the “Spirit of Music”, since it makes plain what power of restraint there is in the man to have held in check that lavish strength which would have been out of place in the latter piece.
At the time when work for the liberation of Czechoslovakia was at its height, Mr. Polášek designed a memorial medallion which represents a young Czech peasant pinning to the ground, with a long-sword, a huge dragon. On the right is a young basswood, bearing five leaves, representing the five divisions of Czechoslovakia. Above is the legend, “Svoboda Život Národa” (Liberty is the Life of the Nation). To go further into Mr. Polášek’s relations with his native land, it may be of interest to note here, incidentally, that he spends the summer months in his native city of Frenštát and is very much interested in Slav mythology.
Mr. Polášek’s minor work is well summed up by Kineton Parkes, whom we quote again: “His ‘Eternal Moment’ is full of beautiful poetry, which only an idealist could have imagined. The ‘Young Eve’ is by way of being a new vision of the first woman, and I know of no more tender, nor more wistful, nor more womanly conception than this. The exquisite figure holds the apple, and looks upon it with an intensity of emotion, and symbolism, which have not been seen before in sculpture. ‘Aspiration,’ again, is a new revelation: a female figure, holding primitive pipes in the right hand, and a winged baby’s head in the left. The woman’s face is upturned and her lips meet those of the child.”
During a recent interview, Mr. Polášek showed us one of his latest works, a statue of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. It is eight feet high, made of white Carrara marble and will stand in the Slavonic chapel in St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Paul, Minn. Mr. Polášek is a member of the Architectual League, the Chicago National Sculpture Society, the Society of Artists and the Alumni Association of the Fellowship of the American Academy in Rome.
We cannot conclude better than by quoting the tribute of “Chicago Commerce” to one of its city’s most famous citizens. “No more genuine personality of creative talent in the arts has emerged from the fruitful and marvelous cosmopolitanism of this wondrous city than the wood-carver of an ancient race—Albin Polášek.”