Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) - In Quest of Beauty

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There were a couple of surprises at this exhibition in Valletta, Malta. 

I expected the exquisite decorative posters, adverts and objets d'art- the figures on the posters are life size and the limitations and imperfections of the lithographic print process make them  actually more vibrant and believable. 

Sketches from Mucha studies

 As often with many artists the studies and initial sketches are almost as interesting as the final work and I made a  few sketches from his studies and photographs.

Mucha had a brief 15 years or so of phenomenal success and fame and then suddenly became unfashionable as Art Nouveau faded and I had no idea what happened to him. Having made his fortune, following the 1st World war, he then returned to his newly established native nation of Czechoslovakia. He designed the postage stamps, currency and national emblem, then devoted himself to his Slav Epic a series of monumental murals charting the history and mythology of the Slav nations. 

The Epic is a bit too Dungeons and Dragons for me, but the real discovery was his pastels. They are so much more uncontrolled, brooding and dark than his other work. Yet he didn't take them any further. Some of the figures reappear in his paintings but highly finished and, to a contemporary eye, sanitised.  

The Slav Epic and his more domestic paintings of the 20's and 30's are very much an extension of his early decorative work. The colour palette is similar and they all have a 'staged' composition, reflecting his mythical intent. It seems a pity that he did not build upon the more experimental mood and technique of his pastels, but all his finished work is extraordinarily beautiful and I came to the conclusion that he just liked painting that way, and why not?

As a Slav nationalist he was very vulnerable and, like many artists, writers and musicians, was seen as a challenge to the Aryan hegemonic ideology of the Nazis following the German invasion. As an old man he died in 1939, following a brutal interrogation. A sad and strange but not ignoble end for the creator of the iconic image of Sarah Bernhardt as La Dame aux Camelias.