when men had already begun to profit more systematically by the lessons of Gothic archæology. It was a fatality for Czech art that the Neo-Gothics of that day devoted themselves mainly to the restoration of ancient monuments, the very inner organism of which they altered. Prague Cathedral, after surviving the Baroque period, was the principal object of these attempts at restoration. About the middle of the nineteenth century a society had been founded with a view to completing the construction of the Cathedral, and after 1860, under Kranner’s direction, several important alterations in the building as a whole were undertaken. The bulk of the work, however, was done some ten years later, when the architect Josef Mocker drew up the general plan of reconstruction. This architect had imported to Prague the purist doctrine of the Viennese Schmidt, who preached the necessity of lopping off from all ancient buildings the later additions that were “not in the style.” In Bohemia, as in fact all over Europe, men accordingly set about amputating the limbs of old buildings or enriching them with details that had no true historical or artistic basis. If indeed the new portion of Prague Cathedral, by Mocker, is perhaps not too unworthy of the rest, the radical rearrangement of the fine Powder Tower (Prašná brána) at Prague, the restoration of the memorable Church of St. Barbara at Kutná Hora and, above all, that of Karlštejn Castle, that priceless jewel among old Bohemian manor houses, have earned just ridicule both for their author and for the period that applauded these distortions. Mocker’s hand transformed Karlštejn into a lifeless thing, divested it of its antique coating and of the characteristic features imposed by wayward Gothic fancy. And as he had found painters and sculptors of his own stamp, he succeeded in spoiling a goodly number of old mural paintings and internal decorations.
This Neo-Gothic purism became in Bohemia a chronic
