PAINTERS OF FOLK DRESS

Abstract

The realist paintings of Czech and Slovak artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are of considerable interest to students of folk dress. Since the sixteenth century, there has been a fashion for producing albums of prints depicting the variety of European dress. These become especiany numerous with the development of Romanticism in art and literature. The territories of the Habsburg Empire provided a wide range of folk costumes, and these were depicted by a number of artists, both local and foreign. As the Romantic Revival developed, native artists began to identify themselves with the people they were painting, and the conventional costume-plate prints began to give way to a more lively and realistic treatment, motivated by a genuine sympathy with the subject. Whereas the Austrian, Josef Heinbucher von Bikkessy had produced a splendid album, Pannoniens Bewohner in ihren volkstumlichen Trachten, between 1816 and 1820, and later, the Slovak artist Peter Bohun began but never completed a fine series of Slovak costumes,! these were still in the conventional manner. It was Boh{uJ's contemporary, the Czech, Josef Manes, who founded the realistic school of Czechoslovak genre painting, which undoubtedly derived from the artist's romantic involvement in the life of the people together with the growing resurgence of national pride which the Romantic Movement did so much to feed. Josef Manes, 1820-1871,2 was the contemporary of the composer Smetana and of Bozena Nemcova, the folk story teller. All three were contributing in their own way to the formation of a cultural identity for their people, as yet lacking any political identity. F or~nes, his involvement with the people was genuine. He went to live amongst them for considerable periods. He recorded their dress and their customs, and his work provides a lasting memorial to them as people and as individuals, for many of his drawings and paintings bear the names of the sitters. His work is sharp and delicate. Where his drawings have been rendered as woodcuts, the effect, of course, is heavier, but even here, the lively quality is maintained. His greatest follower, Mikulas Ales, 1852-1913,3 was a bolder draughtsman with a cartoonist's exuberance of line and with consequently less delicate individuality. Like Manes, much of his work was used for book illustrations, to illustrate the folk-songs and stories of the nation. Though little known outside Czechoslovakia, both artists are honoured as national figures. One of Prague's bridges is named after Manes. The famous astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall has plaques representing the months painted by him in 1865, when it was restored. In fact, those on display are copies; the originals are in the