Krásné časy v Paříži - Radosti a strasti našich krajanů v „Babylonu nad Seinou“ – Ditrych Břetislav (2021)

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Paris attracted Czech artists, writers, scientists, athletes and pioneers of technology. Painters such as Alfons Mucha, Viktor Stretti, Václav Brožík, Hugo Boettinger, Jan Dědina, Georg Kars, Zdenka Braunerová, Bohumil Kubišta, Vojtěch Hynais, Karel Špillar, Luděk Marold and František Kupka came to the city, as did sculptors Josef Mařatka, Bohumil Kafka, František Bílek and Otto Gutfreund, and writers and poets including Julius Zeyer, the Čapek brothers, Otakar Theer, František Gellner, Hanuš Jelínek, Růžena Svobodová and Růžena Jesenská. Others travelled there for sport, science or adventure: Jan Kuklík cycled from Prague to Paris in 1895, while Karel Reisner made the journey on foot. Professor K. V. Zenger lectured at scientific congresses, František Křižík was well known in the city, and astronomer Milan Rastislav Štefánik worked at the observatory in Meudon from 1904. In Auguste Rodin’s studio, Sidonie Nádherná met the poet Rilke, while many Czech artists visited the celebrated sculptor and Luděk Marold lived nearby with his family. Paris was then a centre of art, industry and technology, drawing artists and aviation pioneers into the extraordinary atmosphere of the belle époque, an era of World’s Fairs, electricity and rapid technological development. The contents are in Czech.