| Alphonse Mucha Figures Decoratives Art Gallery |
Alphonse Mucha Prints Art Galleries Pictures Images Alphonse
Mucha Illustrations
Illustrations and paintings of glamour art, art nouveau, and vintage
art from the artist Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Maria Mucha (24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939) was a Czech Art
Nouveau painter and decorative artist.
Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in the town of Ivančice, Moravia (today's
region of Czech Republic). His singing abilities allowed him to continue
his education through high school in the Moravian capital of Brno, even
though drawing had been his first love since childhood. He worked at
decorative painting jobs in Moravia, mostly painting theatrical scenery,
then in 1879 moved to Vienna to work for a leading Viennese theatrical
design company, while informally furthering his artistic education. When
a fire destroyed his employer's business in 1881 he returned to
Moravia, doing freelance decorative and portrait painting. Count Karl
Khuen of Mikulov 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 and Académie Colarossi while also producing magazine and
advertising illustrations. Around Christmas 1894, Mucha happened to drop
into a print shop where there was a sudden and unexpected demand for a
new poster to advertise a play starring Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous
actress in Paris, at the Théâtre de la Renaissance. Mucha volunteered
to produce a lithographed poster within two weeks, and on 1 January
1895, the advertisement for Gismonda appeared on the streets of the
city. It was an overnight sensation and announced the new artistic style
and its creator to the citizens of Paris. Bernhardt was so satisfied
with the success of that first poster that she entered into a 6 years
contract with Mucha.
Mucha produced a flurry of paintings, posters, advertisements, and book
illustrations, as well as designs for jewellery, carpets, wallpaper, and
theatre sets in what was initially called the Mucha Style but became
known as Art Nouveau. Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful
healthy young women in flowing vaguely Neoclassical looking robes, often
surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed haloes behind the
women's heads. In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used paler
pastel colors. The 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris diffused the
"Mucha style" internationally. He decorated the Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pavilion and collaborated in the Austrian one. His Art Nouveau style was
often imitated. However, this was a style that Mucha attempted to
distance himself from throughout his life; he insisted always that,
rather than adhering to any fashionable stylistic form, his paintings
came purely from within and Czech art. He declared that art existed only
to communicate a spiritual message, and nothing more; hence his
frustration at the fame he gained through commercial art, when he wanted
always to concentrate on more lofty projects that would ennoble art and
his birthplace.
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Alfons
Marie MUCHA : The
morning Poster Wall

Alfons
Marie MUCHA : "The
day"

Alfons
Marie
MUCHA
: "Chocolat
idéal"

Alphonse
Mucha The evening

Alphonse
Mucha The night
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