Alphonse Mucha
Alfons Maria Mucha, known internationally as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. Living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, he was widely known for his distinctly stylised and decorative theatrical posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt. He produced illustrations, advertisements, decorative panels, as well as designs, which became among the best-known images of the period.
In the second part of his career, at the age of 57, he returned to his homeland and devoted himself to a series of twenty monumental symbolist canvases known as The Slav Epic, depicting the history of all the Slavic peoples of the world, which he painted between 1912 and 1926. In 1928, on the 10th anniversary of the independence of Czechoslovakia, he presented the series to the Czech nation. He considered it his most important work.
Early life
Mucha was born on 24 July 1860 in the small town of Ivančice in southern Moravia, then a province of the Austrian Empire. His family had a very modest income; his father Ondřej was a court usher, and his mother Amálie was a miller's daughter. Alphonse was the eldest of six children, all with names starting with "A".Alphonse showed an early talent for drawing; a local merchant impressed by his work gave him a gift of paper, at the time a luxury item. In the preschool period, he drew exclusively with his left hand. He had a talent for music: he was an alto singer and violin player. After completing Volksschule, he wanted to continue with his studies, but his family was not able to fund them, as they were already funding the studies of his three step-siblings.
His music teacher sent him to Pavel Křížkovský, choirmaster of St Thomas's Abbey in Brno, to be admitted to the choir and to have his studies funded by the monastery. Křížovský was impressed by his talent, but he was not able to admit and fund him, as he had just admitted another talented young musician, Leoš Janáček.
Křížovský sent him to a choirmaster of the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, who admitted him as a chorister and funded his studies at the gymnasium in Brno, where he received his secondary school education. After his voice broke, he gave up his chorister position, but played as a violinist during masses.
He became devoutly religious, and wrote later, "For me, the notions of painting, going to church, and music are so closely knit that often I cannot decide whether I like church for its music, or music for its place in the mystery which it accompanies." He grew up in an environment of intense Czech nationalism in all the arts, from music to literature and painting. He designed flyers and posters for patriotic rallies.
His singing abilities allowed him to continue his musical education at the Gymnázium Brno in the Moravian capital of Brno, but his true ambition was to become an artist. He found some employment designing theatrical scenery and other decorations. In 1878 he applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, but was rejected and advised to "find a different career". In 1880, at the age of 19, he traveled to Vienna, the political and cultural capital of the Empire, and found employment as an apprentice scenery painter for a company that made sets for Vienna theaters. While in Vienna, he discovered the museums, churches, palaces and especially theaters, for which he received free tickets from his employer. He also discovered Hans Makart, a very prominent academic painter, who created murals for many of the palaces and government buildings in Vienna, and was a master of portraits and historical paintings in grand format. His style turned Mucha in that artistic direction and influenced his later work. He began experimenting with photography, which became an important tool in his later work.
To his misfortune, a terrible fire in 1881 destroyed the Ringtheater, the major client of his firm. Later in 1881, almost without funds, he took a train as far north as his money would take him. He arrived in Mikulov in southern Moravia, and began making portraits, decorative art and lettering for tombstones. His work was appreciated, and he was commissioned by Count Eduard Khuen Belasi, a local landlord and nobleman, to paint a series of murals for his residence at Emmahof Castle, and then at his ancestral home in the Tyrol, Gandegg Castle. The paintings at Emmahof were destroyed by fire in 1948, but his early versions in small format exist. He showed his skill at mythological themes, the female form, and lush vegetal decoration. Belasi, who was also an amateur painter, took Mucha on expeditions to see art in Venice, Florence and Milan, and introduced him to many artists, including the famous Bavarian romantic painter, Wilhelm Kray, who lived in Munich.
Munich
Count Belasi decided to bring Mucha to Munich for formal training, and paid his tuition fees and living expenses at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. He moved there in September 1885. It is not clear how Mucha actually studied at the Munich Academy; there is no record of his being enrolled as a student there. However, he did become friends with a number of notable Slavic artists there, including the Czechs Karel Vítězslav Mašek and Ludek Marold and the Russian Leonid Pasternak, father of the famous poet and novelist Boris Pasternak.He founded a Czech students' club, and contributed political illustrations to nationalist publications in Prague. In 1886, he received a notable commission for a painting of the Czech patron saints Cyril and Methodius from a group of Czech emigrants, including some of his relatives, who had founded a Roman Catholic church in the town of Pisek, North Dakota. He was very happy with the artistic environment of Munich: he wrote to friends, "Here I am in my new element, painting. I cross all sorts of currents, but without effort, and even with joy. Here, for the first time, I can find the objectives to reach which used to seem inaccessible." However, he found he could not remain forever in Munich; the Bavarian authorities imposed increasing restrictions upon foreign students and residents. Count Belasi suggested that he travel either to Rome or to Paris. With Belasi's financial support, he decided in 1887 to move to Paris.
Studies and first success in Paris
Mucha moved to Paris in 1888 where he enrolled in the Académie Julian and the following year, 1889, Académie Colarossi. The two schools taught a wide variety of different styles. His first professors at the Académie Julian were Jules Lefebvre who specialized in female nudes and allegorical paintings, and Jean-Paul Laurens, whose specialties were historical and religious paintings in a realistic and dramatic style. At the end of 1889, as he approached the age of thirty, his patron, Count Belasi, decided that Mucha had received enough education and ended his subsidies.When he arrived in Paris, Mucha found shelter with the help of the large Slavic community. He lived in a boarding house called the Crémerie at 13 rue de la Grande Chaumière, whose owner, Charlotte Caron, was famous for sheltering struggling artists; when needed she accepted paintings or drawings in place of rent. Mucha decided to follow the path of another Czech painter he knew from Munich, Ludek Marold, who had made a successful career as an illustrator for magazines. In 1890 and 1891, he began providing illustrations for the weekly magazine La Vie populaire, which published novels in weekly segments. His illustration for a novel by Guy de Maupassant, called The Useless Beauty, was on the cover of 22 May 1890 edition. He also made illustrations for Le Petit Français Illustré, which published stories for young people in both magazine and book form. For this magazine he provided dramatic scenes of battles and other historic events, including a cover illustration of a scene from the Franco-Prussian War which was on the cover of the 23 January 1892 edition.
His illustrations began to give him a regular income. He was able to buy a harmonium to continue his musical interests, and his first camera, which used glass-plate negatives. He took pictures of himself and his friends, and also regularly used it to compose his drawings. He became friends with Paul Gauguin, and shared a studio with him for a time when Gauguin returned from Tahiti in the summer of 1893. In late autumn 1894, he also became friends with the playwright August Strindberg, with whom he had common interests in philosophy and mysticism.
His magazine illustrations led to book illustration; he was commissioned to provide illustrations for Scenes and Episodes of German History by the historian Charles Seignobos. Four of his illustrations, including one depicting the death of Frederic Barbarossa, were chosen for display at the 1894 Paris Salon of Artists. He received a medal of honor, his first official recognition.
Mucha added another important client in the early 1890s; the Central Library of Fine Arts, which specialized in the publication of books about art, architecture, and the decorative arts. It later launched a new magazine in 1897 called Art et Decoration, which played an early and important role in publicizing the Art Nouveau style. Mucha continued to publish illustrations for his other clients, including for a children's book of poetry by Eugène Manuel and for a magazine of the theater arts called La Costume au théâtre.
Sarah Bernhardt and ''Gismonda''
At the end of 1894, Mucha's career took a dramatic and unexpected turn when he began to work for the French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt. As Mucha later described it, on 26 December, Bernhardt made a telephone call to Maurice de Brunhoff, the manager of the publishing firm Lemercier, which printed her theatrical posters, ordering a new poster for the continuation of the play Gismonda. The play, by Victorien Sardou, had already opened with great success on 31 October 1894 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance on the Boulevard Saint-Martin. Bernhardt decided to have a poster made to advertise the prolongation of the theatrical run after the Christmas break, insisting it be ready by 1 January 1895. Because of the holidays, none of the regular Lemercier artists was available.When Bernhardt called, Mucha happened to be at the publishing house correcting proofs. He already had experience painting Bernhardt; he had made a series of illustrations of her performing in Cleopatra for Le Costume au Théâtre in 1890. When Gismonda opened in October 1894, Mucha had been commissioned by the magazine Le Gaulois to make a series of illustrations of Bernhardt in the role for a special Christmas supplement, which was published at Christmas 1894, for the high price of fifty centimes per copy.
Brunhoff asked Mucha to quickly design the new poster for Bernhardt. The poster was more than life-size; a little more than two meters high, with Bernhardt in the costume of a Byzantine noblewoman, dressed in an orchid headdress and a floral stole, and holding a palm branch in the Easter procession near the end of the play. One of the innovative features of the poster was the ornate rainbow-shaped arch behind the head, almost like a halo, which focused attention on her face; this feature appeared in all of Mucha's future theater posters. Probably because of a shortage of time, some areas of the background were left blank, without his usual decoration. The only background decoration was the Byzantine mosaic tiles behind her head. The poster featured extremely fine draftsmanship and delicate pastel colors, unlike the typical brightly colored posters of the time. The top of the poster, with the title, was richly composed and ornamented, and balanced the bottom, where the essential information was given in the shortest possible form: just the name of the theater.
The poster appeared on the streets of Paris on 1 January 1895 and caused an immediate sensation. Bernhardt was pleased by the reaction; she ordered four thousand copies of the poster in 1895 and 1896, and gave Mucha a six-year contract to produce more. With his posters all over the city, Mucha found himself quite suddenly famous.
Following Gismonda, Bernhardt switched to a different printer, F. Champenois, who, like Mucha, was put under contract to work for Bernhardt for six years. Champenois had a large printing house on Boulevard Saint Michel that employed three hundred workers, with twenty steam presses. He gave Mucha a generous monthly salary in exchange for the rights to publish all his works. With his increased income, Mucha was able to move to a three-bedroom apartment with a large studio inside a large historic house at 6 rue du Val-de-Grâce originally built by François Mansart.
Mucha designed posters for each successive Bernhardt play, beginning with a reprise of one of her early great successes, La Dame aux Camelias, followed by Lorenzaccio ; Medea ; La Tosca and Hamlet. He sometimes worked from photographs of Bernhardt, as he did for La Tosca. In addition to posters, he designed theatrical programs, sets, costumes, and jewelry for Bernhardt. The enterprising Bernhardt set aside a certain number of printed posters of each play to sell to collectors.