Page:Modern and contemporary Czech art (1924).pdf/108

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purely architectonic conception of masses, and loved flat surfaces, he studied decorative effects for a time, as if he were seeking to measure his strength with Ohmann. This temporary check was not without its value for architecture. As the need of a new style of ornamentation was universally felt, Kotěra met it in an original fashion. The fine Czechoslovak Ethnographical Exhibition of 1895 having just revealed the inexhaustible wealth of peasant art, he utilized the resources of popular ornamentation in order to invent decorative themes in which the peasant element was transformed and adapted, to suit the requirements of the new technique. Furniture and decorative knick-knacks gained enormously in freshness. Among Kotěra’s creations of this period, the most important is his Czech interior shown at the St. Louis Exhibition of 1904. It was not long, however, before the architect returned to his first path. By word and deed he disseminated Wagner’s principles. More important than decorative effect, according to him, was technical construction in keeping with its object, the nature of the materials, and the technical aspect. In the “Mánes” association of Czech artists, the centre for painters and sculptors who followed the new tendencies, some young architects grouped themselves about him, and the Society’s periodical Volné Směry (Free Tendencies) became the mouthpiece of the new doctrines. Later, the same society issued a special architectural review, Style. Still more fruitful, however, was Kotěra’s direct teaching at the School of Decorative Arts, where a band of enthusiastic and enterprising young men was springing up. The master himself, without attaching himself to any academic system, was unwearied in his attempts to reach a balance between the architectonic and the decorative side of his art, and in the end declared for the former, devoting himself to the cult of pure architectural form. At Prague, where the official architects, mainly associated with the Polytechnic, still