Alfons Mucha
Encyclopedia
Alfons Maria Mucha (ˈalfons ˈmuxa; 24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939), known in English as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

 painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.

Early years

Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in the town of Ivančice
Ivancice
Ivančice is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, 21 km south-west of Brno. The town has approximately 9,300 inhabitants. It lies on the confluence of Oslava , Jihlava and Rokytná rivers.-History:...

, Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...

 (the present Czech Republic). Although his singing abilities allowed him to continue his education through high school in the Moravian capital of Brno, drawing had been his main hobby since childhood. He worked at decorative painting jobs in Moravia, mostly painting theatrical scenery. In 1879, he relocated to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to work for a major Viennese theatrical design company, while informally augmenting his artistic education. When a fire destroyed his employer's business during 1881 he returned to Moravia, to do freelance decorative and portrait painting. Count Karl Khuen of Mikulov
Mikulov
Mikulov is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of 7,608 . It is located directly on the border with Lower Austria. Mikulov is located at the edge of a hilly area and the three Nové Mlýny reservoirs...

 hired Mucha to decorate Hrušovany Emmahof Castle with murals, and was impressed enough that he agreed to sponsor Mucha's formal training at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.

Mucha moved to Paris in 1887, and continued his studies at Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

 and Académie Colarossi
Académie Colarossi
The Académie Colarossi is an art school founded by the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi. First located on the Île de la Cité, it moved in the 1870s to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France....

. In addition to his studies, he worked at producing magazine and advertising illustrations.
About Christmas 1894, Mucha happened to go into a print shop where there was a sudden and unexpected need for a new advertising poster for a play featuring Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

, the most famous actress in Paris, at the Théâtre de la Renaissance
Théâtre de la Renaissance
The name Théâtre de la Renaissance has been used successively for three distinct Parisian theatre companies. The first two companies, which were short-lived enterprises in the 19th century, used the Salle Ventadour, now an office building on the Rue Méhul in the 2nd arrondissement.The current...

 on the Boulevard Saint-Martin. Mucha volunteered to produce a lithographed
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...

 poster within two weeks, and on 1 January 1895, the advertisement for the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...

 was posted in the city, where it attracted much attention. Bernhardt was so satisfied with the success of this first poster that she began a six-year contract with Mucha.
Mucha produced a flurry of paintings, posters, advertisements, and book illustrations, as well as designs for jewelry, carpets, wallpaper, and theatre sets in what was termed initially the Mucha Style but became known as Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

(French for 'new art'). Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

-looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed halos
Halo (religious iconography)
A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...

 behind their heads.
In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used pale pastel colors.
The 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...

 spread the "Mucha style" internationally, of which Mucha said "I think [the Exposition Universelle] made some contribution toward bringing aesthetic values into arts and crafts."
He decorated the Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 Pavilion and collaborated with decorating the Austrian Pavilion.
His Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

 style was often imitated. The Art Nouveau style however, was one that Mucha attempted to disassociate himself from throughout his life; he always insisted that rather than maintaining any fashionable stylistic form, his paintings were entirely a product of himself and Czech art
Culture of the Czech Republic
This article is about the culture of the Czech Republic.-Festivities and traditions:Czech people celebrate Christmas every year, beginning with a dinner on 24 December. The tables for this dinner can only be set for an even number of guests, because an odd number will bring bad luck...

. He declared that art existed only to communicate a spiritual message, and nothing more; hence his frustration at the fame he gained by his commercial art
Commercial art
Commercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...

, when he most wanted to concentrate on more artistic projects.

Marriage

Mucha married Maruška (Marie/Maria) Chytilová on 10 June 1906, in Prague. The couple visited the U.S. from 1906 to 1910, during which time their daughter, Jaroslava, was born in New York City. They also had a son, Jiří
Jirí Mucha
Jiří Mucha was a Czech journalist, writer, screenwriter, author of autobiographical novels and studies of the works of his father, the Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha.- Life :...

, (born 12 March 1915 in Prague; died 5 April 1991 in Prague) who later became a well known journalist, writer, screenwriter, author of autobiographical novels and studies of the works of his father. In the U.S., Alphonse expected to earn money to fund his nationalistic projects to demonstrate to Czechs that he had not "sold out".
He was assisted by millionaire Charles R. Crane
Charles Richard Crane
Charles Richard Crane was a wealthy American businessman, heir to a large industrial fortune and connoisseur of Arab culture, a noted Arabist. His widespread business interests gave him entree into domestic and international political affairs where he enjoyed privileged access to many...

, who used his fortune to help promote revolutions and, after meeting Thomas Masaryk, Slavic nationalism.
Alphonse and his family returned to the Czech lands and settled in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, where he decorated the Theater of Fine Arts, contributed his time and talent to create the murals in the Mayor's Office at the Municipal House
Municipal House
The Municipal House is a major civic landmark and concert hall in Prague, and an important building in architectural and political history in the Czech Republic. It stands on the Náměstí Republiky....

, and other landmarks around the city. When Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 won its independence after World War I, Mucha designed the new postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s, banknote
Czechoslovak koruna
The Czechoslovak koruna was the currency of Czechoslovakia from April 10, 1919 to March 14, 1939 and from November 1, 1945 to February 7, 1993...

s, and other government documents for the new state.

Le Pater

Mucha considered his publication Le Pater to be his printed masterpiece, and referred to it in The Sun Newspaper (New York) of 5 January 1900 as what he had "put [his] soul into". Printed on 20 December 1899, Le Pater was Mucha's occult examination of the themes of The Lord's Prayer and only 510 copies were produced.

The Slav Epic

Mucha spent many years working on what he considered his life's fine art masterpiece, The Slav Epic (Slovanská epopej), a series of twenty huge paintings depicting the history of the Czech and the Slavic people in general, bestowed to the city of Prague in 1928. He had wanted to complete a series such as this, a celebration of Slavic history, since he was young. Since 1963 the series has been on display in the chateau in Moravský Krumlov
Moravský Krumlov
Moravský Krumlov is a town in the Znojmo District, South Moravian Region, Czech Republic. It has about 6,023 inhabitants .The city is named Moravský Krumlov to differentiate it from Český Krumlov , which is further west.The castle of Moravský Krumlov is home to the series of paintings by Alphonse...

 the South Moravian Region
South Moravian Region
South Moravian Region is an administrative unit of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia, with exception of Jobova Lhota, that belongs to Bohemia. Its capital is Brno the 2nd largest city of the Czech Republic. The region is famous for its wine...

 in the Czech Republic.

Death

The rising tide of fascism during the late 1930s resulted in Mucha's works, as well as his Slavic nationalism, being denounced in the press as 'reactionary'. When German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 troops moved into Czechoslovakia during the spring of 1939, Mucha was among the first persons to be arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

. During his interrogation, the aging artist became ill with pneumonia. Though released eventually, he may have been weakened by this event. He died in Prague on 14 July 1939, of a lung infection, and was interred there in the Vyšehrad cemetery
Vyšehrad cemetery
Established in 1869 on the grounds of Vyšehrad Castle in Prague, Czech Republic, the Vyšehrad cemetery is the final resting place of many composers, artists, sculptors, writers, and those from the world of science and politics...

.

Legacy

At the time of his death, Mucha's style was considered outdated. His son, author Jiří Mucha
Jirí Mucha
Jiří Mucha was a Czech journalist, writer, screenwriter, author of autobiographical novels and studies of the works of his father, the Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha.- Life :...

, devoted much of his life to writing about him and bringing attention to his art. In his own country, the new authorities were not interested in Mucha. His Slav Epic was rolled and stored for twenty-five years before being shown in Moravsky Krumlov and only recently has a Mucha museum opened in Prague, managed by his grandson, John Mucha.

Mucha's work has continued to experience periodic revivals of interest for illustrators and artists. Interest in Mucha's distinctive style experienced a strong revival during the 1960s (with a general interest in Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

) and is particularly evident in the psychedelic posters of Hapshash and the Coloured Coat
Hapshash and the Coloured Coat
Hapshash and the Coloured Coat is the name of an influential British graphic design and avant-garde musical partnership between Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, producing psychedelic posters and two albums of underground music...

, the collective name for British artists Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, and Bob Masse
Bob Masse
Bob Masse is from Canada's west coast and has been producing concert posters since the 1960s. While attending art school in Vancouver, British Columbia, he began his career doing posters for the folk acts that came through town, in exchange for free drinks, tickets, and the opportunity to meet the...

ю

It is a strongly acknowledged influence for Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...

 painter Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey (artist)
Paul Harvey is a British musician and Stuckist artist, whose work was used to promote their 2004 show at the Liverpool Biennial. His paintings draw on pop art and the work of Alphonse Mucha, and often depict celebrities, including Madonna....

.

The Japanese manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 artist Naoko Takeuchi
Naoko Takeuchi
is a Japanese manga artist who lives in Tokyo, Japan. Takeuchi's works have a wide following among anime and manga fans worldwide. Her most popular work, Sailor Moon, rose to become one of the most recognized manga and anime products to date.-Early life:...

 released a series of official posters depicting five of the main characters from her manga series Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon
Sailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...

 mimicking Mucha's style. Another manga artist, Masakazu Katsura
Masakazu Katsura
is a Japanese manga artist who is best known for several works of manga, including Dream Fighter Wingman, Shadow Lady, DNA², Video Girl Ai, I"s, and Zetman. He has also worked on the character designs for Iria: Zeiram the Animation, which was based on the movie Zeiram.-History:He was born in the...

, has also mimicked Mucha's style several times. Comic book artist and former Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 Editor in Chief Joe Quesada
Joe Quesada
Joseph "Joe" Quesada is an American comic book editor, writer and artist. He became known in the 1990s for his work on various Valiant Comics books, such as Ninjak and Solar, Man of the Atom...

 also borrowed from Mucha's techniques for a series of covers, posters, and prints.

The band Soilent Green
Soilent Green
Soilent Green is a grindcore and sludge metal band that hails from Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.-Overview:Soilent Green was founded in 1988. Their début album wasn't released until 1995, when Pussysoul came out on Dwell Records...

 used a picture by Mucha for the cover art of their album Sewn Mouth Secrets
Sewn Mouth Secrets
Sewn Mouth Secrets is the second full-length album from Louisiana-based heavy metal band Soilent Green. It was released on September 22, 1998.-History:...

.

Mucha's work is also a visible influence on heavy metal cover artist/guitarist John Baizley.

One of Mucha's paintings, Quo Vadis or alternately Petronius and Eunice, was the subject of a legal dispute in 1986. The judgment by Richard Posner
Richard Posner
Richard Allen Posner is an American jurist, legal theorist, and economist who is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...

 describes parts of Mucha's life and work biographically.

Among his many other accomplishments, Mucha was also the restorer of Czech Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

.

On 1 January 2010, his published works went out of copyright and entered the public domain.

On 24 July 2010, he was honored with a Google Doodle in memory of his 150th birthday.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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