24 Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 18 |une '86

.Annoa/uiruj the Opcm'nq ^ 'of Crafts e- Crafts J^scorntfons ~W( tut ifOid ftaf ijdders and restorers of Puntutqs and Picture frames, and me offer free consuftations and museum yuahry rrsepnuunr cf iffur worfy of art. frames and mtrrvrs Pear and l\ueif in tier you CP visit our shof and show room ar Cape Meadow Tarn. ^ tsya Short Ad iRl 9i Mertf. Staunton WJ if IS years experience as jyurvtyors of Pautnnys Tr antes ■ QoCd Jjtaf Cjildiny Art Pftwraeion. )jj Xnafjil

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Antiques

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By Arthur H. Schwerdt

One thing you should notice when visiting the local shops is the wide selection of beautiful Bohemian glass.

These are highly ornate, cut glass decanters, goblets, vases and bowls, all exotically decorated by centuries-old techniques with bright colors and/or lively designs. They are very decorative, and — to the open imagination — extremely evocative. WHAT DOES the word "Bohemian" evoke for you? Young artists living wildly, producing unappreciated masterpieces and dying — still young — in seedy lofts on the Left Bank in Paris? Do you hear Puccini's La Boheme ? Do you weep for Mimi? Or is it the 1950's and you're at the Cafe Wha in New York's Greenwich Village, and you are snapping your fingers to some real cool poetry? Can you

smell the capuccino and the smoke? Can you hear the bongos? Or when you hear "Bohemian" do you see gypsy campfires, a young girl wearing too many jewels and dancing seductively on a brightly colored rug? Can you hear the tambourine? the mandolin? the castanets? Have you become madly passionate? insanely jealous? DO YOU suddenly feel the urge to bite something — or someone? ("When your love wears golden earrings...") Bohemian is all these things and more. It is a history as fascinating as the people who lived through it, and as colorful as the crafts those people produced. The word "Bohemian" derives from the Boii, the Celtic tribe that in about 400 B.C., settled the land which is now the westernmost province of Czechoslovakia. THEY WERE swiftly conquered first by a Germanic tribe, then by the Moravians and Silesians who lived south of them, also by the Chechoves, who were the most powerful of the Slavic tribes, and, of course, they were subdued several times by the Romans. So, from their ancient times, the inhabitants of Bohemia have been known as a mixed breed. The Bohemians united to defend themselves in the 9th century B.C. behind the plowboy, Premsyl, who married the beautiful princess, Libusa. Now there was a Kingdom of Bohemia. BUT THE MEMBERS of the Premslid Dynasty fought fiercely among one another instead of their enemies. With these internecine disputes and the continued conquering by foreigners, the Bohemians learned to change their allegiances easily, to hoard their wealth, and to travel with their belongings so they could quickly evade the perils from within and without The only enduring loyalty for a Bohemian was to his own extended family Tenaciously holding on to their pagan gods, Bohemians were among the last of the Europeans to convert to Christianity. THEY WERE eventually brought to the Church by Ss. Cyril and Methodius, and, at first, practiced the rites of the Greco-Slavic Orthodox religion. Continued domination by Western Europe, however, saw to their finally being absorbed into the Roman Catholic rite. These factors have contributed to the Bohemians reputation as having the most unusual religious practices in all of ChrisL tiandom. The symbols and ' designs on Bohemian artI work and crafts, therefore, seem strange and mysterious to the rest of I the world. THE WORD "gypsy" derives from the word Egyptian. Since Bohemia's I

borders were weak and undefended, many people from the East and from North Africa used Bohemia as a way of entering Western Europe: Armenians fleeing the Turks, Turks fleeing the Russians, Coptic Egyptians fleeing the Moslems, etc. These were all grouped in the common consciousness as Bohemians, and tagged with the nickname "gypsies". AS ITALY. France, Germany and England were passing through the traditional periods of art and design, with craftsmen and artists entering academies and institutes, the Bohemians were moving in their own independent direction. The Bohemian artist was most likely a peasant, working from his own imagination, fueled with bits and pieces of all the cultures and religious practices to which he and his country had been experienced. BY THE 18TH Century, the Romantics of Western Europe began to be attracted to the concept of the Bohemian artist, as a man who was free of all the smothering rules of traditional Western art. By the defeat of Napolean in 1815, there was a resurgence of Bohemian nationalism. Bohemian crafts, especially cut glass, became such a rage that they were being reproduced in German, English and French glass factories just to fill the demand. THE STAID Victorians were especially fond of Bohemian crafts. The Victorian novelist Thackeray, (Vanity Fair) was the first to use the word "Bohemian" to mean something other than a person from Bohemia.

He used it to refer to artists in general, who must live independent and irregular lifestyles and hold unusual and unorthodox points of view — inspired vagabonds. THE ARTS and Crafts Movement of Morris and Ruskin of the late Victorian 1880s really admired the independence of the Bohemian artist. And it was around this time that Puccini wrote his famous opera about Bohemian life in Paris. The most popular of the Bohemian crafts was cut glass, a skill they learned from the Romans and had been practicing in their own way since two centuries before Christ. We will talk about the techniques of Bohemian glass and other concepts in Bohemian design NEXT WEEK. Schwerdt will answer your questions c/o this newspaper Tour Has 38th Year CAPE MAY - The Cape May County Art League will sponsor its 38th Old House Tour June 27-29 in the county. Tickets for the Old House tour are available in advance by calling or writing the Cape May County Art League, Box 596, 1050 Washington St.. Cape May, N.J. 08204, 884-8628. The tour begins with a reception at the Carriage House Gallery 8 p.m., June 27 and features tours of homes in Cape May and Cape May Point 10 a.m. -4 p.m., June 28 and 29.

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