Illustration for Vyšehrad 

Artuš Scheiner created this illustration for Vyšehrad at the turn of the 20th century, though it’s undated. The image depicts a scene of Czech national mythology centered around Princess Libuše, who prophesied the glory of Prague. It’s hard to overstate the importance of folklore in the building of national identity. Note the details with which Scheiner imbues the figures. Their costumes reference archaic notions of Slavic dress, and their poses are borrowed from classical painting, connecting Czech identity to both its local roots and a broader European culture. The institution of folklore was, like that of the museum, crucial to the self-fashioning of nations in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars looked to folk tales to discover the unique soul of a people, as the Brothers Grimm did in Germany. Art like Scheiner’s helped to visualize that soul for a wide public. To understand the image better, you might look into the history of folklore studies in Bohemia and Moravia and visit the museums dedicated to Czech national history.