A Visit to the Mucha Museum
I love visiting museums and exhibits around a single artist. You can see the progression of how the artist becomes who he or she is. The raw materials were always there, but like the moral of Art & Fear’s story about the quality vs. quantity ceramics class, an artist needs to throw them together, again and again, to make work that sings.
I did not know Alphonse Mucha by name before visiting the Mucha Museum in Prague. In fact, it took a subway ad for me to link the artist with the Czech Republic at all. Mucha is most famous for his Art Nouveau posters and advertisements featuring women with flowing hair. His art became synonymous with what I like to call the “Moulin Rogue” era of Paris (aka the early 1900s).
Mucha’s Style
It’s clear that Mucha saw art everywhere. According to museum’s quotes from those who knew him, Mucha was the type that was always doodling — on menus, the back of napkins, and any odd bits of paper. He was one of the first artists to dabble in photography as an art form, and his sketchbooks featured everything from furniture to cookie tin designs (more on that in a bit).
While his work varied somewhat in his later years, the prolific artist remained remarkably consistent. Mucha’s work is often vertically oriented and features a single woman with long, flowing hair that almost looks as if it is underwater. The woman is often mythological or depicted with symbols that reference larger themes; for example, many of them hold flowers that signify other meanings (ex. a lily to represent France). Their heads are often in the upper third of the painting and are haloed. His palate is often muted, which contrasted with the typical brightly colored posters during the late 1800s/early 1900s. When typeface is necessary, his lettering is usually flowing and ornamental, as if it is part of the design itself. The museum features a few deviations from this design; for example, Mucha’s The Seasons series illustrates how the artist experimented with more 3-dimensional figures before returning to flatter figures.
One element that seems universal in Mucha’s work is a certain three-quarters-of-a-circle shape. Yes, it may appear odd to fixate on something as broad or essential as a shape. But this incomplete circle/pseudo-spiral occurs so frequently that I can’t help but wonder if this shape inspired him to create in the first place. Notice how it appears across his work.
What if following that simple line and iterating on it, again and again, gave birth to not just an artist, but an entire art movement? It’s a fascinating question to think about.
Mucha’s Rise in the Art World
Mucha was determined to be an artist. According a popular legend told in the museum, Mucha was drawing before he could crawl; his mother was rumored to carry a pencil around her neck for the baby to sketch with. While the museum obviously doesn’t have proof of the Mucha baby genius story, it does display The Crucifixion, a painting of a long-haired, haloed Jesus by the artist at age 8.
This obsession to create art continued throughout Mucha’s life. After failing to gain admission to the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, he worked on theater sets in Vienna until gaining admission to art school in Munich. Afterwards, he relocated to Paris to become a book and magazine illustrator. Mucha’s obsession about his work led to his first big break. Because he was the only artist in the office on the day after Christmas, he was the only person available to accept a commission from Sarah Bernhardt, a famous actress at the time. His 1894 Gismonda poster was so popular that Parisians cut it off the walls to display in their own households. The work spurred a six-year contract with Sarah Bernhardt and launched “le style Mucha.”
Mucha and the Idea of “Art for Everyone”
Mucha believed it was his duty as an artist to help make everyday life more beautiful and encourage ordinary people to have art in their homes. When his theater posters weren’t being torn off the walls, he sold other works cheaply to the public. He was one of the first artists to mass-produce decorative panels, or pânneaux décoratifsm specifically for ordinary people. Mucha described the process of mass production in his own words, saying, “I was happy to be involved in an art for the people and not for private drawing rooms. It was inexpensive, accessible to the general public, and it found a home in poor families as well as in more affluent circles.” These panels were often a series of female figures that represented a different iteration of one theme: The Seasons (1896), The Flowers (1898), The Times of the Day (1899), The Precious Stones(1900), and The Moon and the Stars (1902). One highlight, The Arts (1898), features music, poetry, painting, and dance. While my favorite is the dance panel, if you look closely on the music panel, you can see the halo is full of tiny hands picking harp strings.
Not content with just printing affordable panels, Mucha extended his commitment to bringing art to everyone even further. Mucha created, in his words, a “handbook for craftsmen.” The Documents décoratifs, published in 1902, contained instructions on how to make everyday objects more beautiful according to the Art Nouveau style. The book featured designs for silverware, furniture, fabrics and jewelry with instructions for working with metal, leather, glass and lace. The handbook was so popular that he also published a sequel three years later.
Mucha‘s Commercialized Work
Mucha’s desire to bring beauty to the mundane complemented his many commercial partnerships. He created newspaper advertisements, event posters, cookie tins, and advertisements for champagne. One of his most famous works is an advertisement for the Joseph Bardou Company (JOB) cigarette papers company. See if you can spot all the (very subtle) brand name references in these posters.
In a partnership that any top advertising agency would approve of, Mucha also created advertisements for champagne companies, including Moet & Chandon. Talk about 20th century Parisian glamor.
You can see more of Mucha’s various advertisements in the hyperlinked gallery from the Mucha Foundation.
Mucha’s Shift to Czech Nationalism
While Mucha is well-known for his posters and advertisements today, it seems that years of French commercial culture unsettled the artist. He left France for the United States in the mid-1900s and then ultimately, returned to his Czech homeland in 1910. Even though his previous works often featured hidden Czech symbols and depictions of beauty, his latter works became much more nationalistic and laden with symbolism. He created The Slav Epic, a series featuring twenty large oil paintings of the history of the Slav people.
It’s unclear whether this shift in originated from a broader disillusionment with commercialism, or merely shifting priorities with age. It did not help that many found his previous works out of fashion after the height of the Art Nouveau movement (1890–1905). However, despite Mucha’s shift in subject matter and style, he remained committed to using art to support everyday people. When Bohemia became Czechoslovakia, Mucha helped designed the currency for the new country and used his artistic prowess to promote nationalism. He created multiple posters for local cultural events, such as choral concerts and also built a stained-glass window in Prague’s famous St. Vitus Cathedral.
Conclusion
It’s easy to admire a person who had such a singular vision and was determined to share it with the world. Mucha’s story could teach aspiring artists a number of lessons. Iterate on themes that speak to you. Share knowledge with the community. Find beauty in the everyday. Use art to support causes that you care about. I never would have guessed that an exhibit on one artist, one famous for advertising no less, could convey so much. Check out the Mucha Museum if you are ever in Prague or take a virtual trip through Mucha’s work through the Mucha Foundation or The Art Story.
