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 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)
Young
Alphonse Mucha had a beautiful singing voice which enabled him to earn
his own secondary school fees in the Moravian capital Brno. However,
drawing continued to be his great passion and - aged 19 - he left for
Vienna where he worked as an apprentice draughtsman for a studio which
designed and decorated theater scenery. Upon his return to Moravin (in
what is currently the Czech Republic) his talent was spotted by the
wealthy Count Karl Khuen-Belasi, who enabled him to study at the
Akademie der Bildenden Kuneste in Munich. Mucha continued his studies
in Paris, the Mecca of the art world at the time. He made extra money
drawing illustrations for magazines and advertisements. Quite
unexpectedly this proved to be designed on the spot for the play
Gismonda starting the legendary Sarah Bernard. A few weeks later, Paris
was covered in posters and they were stolen en masse. Mucha instantly
became the most in demand illustrator of the Belle Epoque. The artist
was not entirely happy with the rapid triumph of Art Nouveau in the
decorative arts. He kept emphasizing that his art followed his Slavic
soul, not some fashionable trend. His inspirations were old religious
art, symbolism and Japanese prints with their stylized lines and clear
cut structure which had been rediscovered in the 19th Century.
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