Alphonse Mucha: Original Ad Man
The mission of the artist is to encourage people to love beauty and harmony.
I prefer to be someone who makes pictures for people, rather than who creates art for art’s sake. Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Mucha gained an international reputation as a leading creator of the Art Nouveau movement; yet he remained, at his core, a proud Czech national. His country returned his embrace and, as a result, you will find his art in some of Prague’s most important buildings as well as in a dedicated museum. In his career he combined his international experience with his Slavic roots to create an aesthetic that become known as “le style Mucha”, which he promulgated through the rapidly evolving technology of printing.
Mucha was born in 1860 in the small town of Ivančice, Moravia, at a time when a Czech nationalist movement was beginning to flower. The Austro-Hungarian empire had all but eradicated Czech language and arts; however, the 1860s saw the introduction of Czech language newspapers, Czech arts organizations, and the building of the National Theatre in Prague. As a young artist in his hometown, Mucha began incorporating Slavic costume and native flora in his projects. In 1879, he left to pursue training and work, first in Vienna, then Munich, and eventually Paris. He lived and worked abroad until 1910 when he returned to Prague.
Mucha in his studio, c. 1899
Photo credit: By SiefkinDR - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73700259
In Paris Mucha became a commercial artist, working as a book illustrator. In 1895 Sarah Bernhardt, France’s leading actress, asked Mucha to design a poster to promote her latest production, Gismonda. Poster art was a relatively new medium, one with which Mucha had no experience. Still, the result—Bernhardt in costume with decorative, architectural framing—was a sensation in Paris. Bernhardt gave him a six-year contract during which he designed more posters, costumes, jewelry, and stage sets for her theatre.
Gismonda poster, 1896
Photo credit: © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Mucha’s poster commission from Bernhardt coincided with the dawn of the print and advertising age, fed by innovation in print technologies as well as increasingly literate population with enough wealth and leisure time to purchase the products advertised on hoardings and in magazines. After Gismonda, he received advertising commissions from a number of Parisian printers but signed an exclusive contract with F. Champenois Imprimeur-Editeur in 1896, ultimately executing 120 poster designs between 1895 and 1904.
Mucha soon developed a signature aesthetic characterized by the central figure of an idealized woman with flowing hair and gown, surrounded by decorative motifs drawn from nature. While today they simply appear as quintessential examples of the prevailing Art Nouveau style, Mucha based his images in theories that make him one of the original ad men. Although raised a Catholic, he became interested in concepts of symbolism that were circulating in Parisian art circles. In his posters, he honed his ability to communicate a message through his imagery. He incorporated new scientific theories on the psychological impact of aesthetics into his design strategy, believing certain lines and forms created a desired response. He believed that curvilinear forms and sinuous lines could cause responses in eye muscles that caused a pleasing effect on the viewer’s eyes. Thus, using circles and flowing forms in proper proportions would lead the viewer’s eye to the central point and communicate the desired message.
Arguably Mucha was one of the first ad designers to realize that that women had purchasing power and that sex sells. His idealized women were the posters’ focal points, with the product regulated to a secondary role. In his famous image for JOB cigarette papers, the cigarette is barely noticeable even as the smoke entwines with the smoker’s flowing tresses. While alluring, she is a thoroughly modern woman who is smoking in public. Her action appeals to other women while her sensuality attracts men. She is a symbol, an aspiration. In the ad it’s not the product that sells, it’s the desire to be like, or be with, this woman.
JOB cigarette papers poster, 1897
Photo credit: © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
During his contract with F. Champenois, the printer conceived of the idea of printing large decorative panels of Mucha’s work. The panels were sturdier than posters, which was more attractive to collectors, and the images could be replicated in calendars and postcards. Mucha executed several allegorical series for the panels including the seasons, flowers, and the arts, all featuring voluptuous women with flowing hair and sinuous robes framed with decorative elements. The rectangular and circular frames imposed a classical restraint on the exuberant images within.
Summer from the Seasons series, decorative panel, 1896
Photo credit: Art Renewal Center Museum, image 4425, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8879667
Although Mucha was proponent of the sinuous, asymmetrical style that is synonymous with French Art Nouveau, he was not comfortable with the ideas of “new” art or art for simply for art’s sake, detached from meaning and morality. Beauty was a core tenet of his philosophy, but he believed that the artist created beauty to send a message to the viewer and inspire “moral harmonies” like goodness and virtue. In these beliefs, he was aligned with William Morris who believed beauty could effect social change. In 1902, Mucha became an inaugural member of the Société Internationale de l’Art Populaire founded by Henri Cazalis in order to promote “beauty in life and the ennobling of the masses by culture and aesthetic beauty.” Other members included René Lalique, Emile Gallé, Eugène Grasset, and Victor Horta.
Mucha also pushed against the idea of “new art”, believing art was universal not subject to trends, saying “art cannot be new. The notion of ‘modern art’ as a passing fashion is an insult. Art is as eternal as man’s progress and its function is to guide man’s path with light. Therefore, art is in a continuous state of development and is always as few steps ahead of humanity.” There is, of course, a certain dissonance in Mucha’s high-minded opinion of art when considering his commercial success. Art may guide man’s path with light as long as that path sometimes leads to the theatre, cigarette papers, beer, and chocolate.
Bières de la Meuse poster, 1897
Photo credit: © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Mucha wished to return to his homeland to promote the independence movement. Before returning, he made five trips to the United States between 1905 and 1909 to teach and to raise funds for his personal project The Slav Epic. He received funding for the project from Charles Richard Crane, a wealthy Chicago businessman and Slavophile who was a friend of Tomáš Masaryk, the future Czechoslovak president. Mucha left Paris for Prague in 1910. While working on the Epic, Mucha undertook municipal projects that promoted Czech identity such as decorating the Lord Mayor’s room in the Municipal House, designing a stained-glass window for St. Vitus Cathedral, and creating posters promoting national events, employing local architecture and figures—usually female—in traditional Czech costume.
Mucha started The Slav Epic in 1908. He planned to depict 1,000 years of the history of all Slavic peoples across 20 enormous canvasses, the biggest measuring 6 by 8 meters. With the goal of inspiring the movement toward political independence, he was halfway finished when Czechoslovakia became a sovereign nation in 1918. On the 10th anniversary of independence, Mucha and Crane presented the completed project to the city of Prague. The canvasses were rolled and hidden during World War II only to resurface in the 1960s in a small Moravian town. They stayed until 2011 when an epic art battle erupted. Officials in Prague reclaimed the paintings, arguing that the city received the original gift and there a larger number of people would be able to see them. Prague won. The paintings went on display in a national gallery, but the space proved unsatisfactory for the enormous canvases. Meanwhile Moravia made a bid to get them back, and after several years of wrangling, Prague sent them back in 2019. Last year Prague City Council announced a project to build a gallery exclusively for The Slav Epic that will open in 2026.
Mucha at work on The Slav Epic, c. 1920s
Photo credit: http://www.radio.cz/fr/article/106478, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6341288
After presenting The Slav Epic to Czechoslovakia, Mucha and his work faded from attention in his country. The French had not forgotten him and mounted a retrospective of his work in 1936 at the Jeu de Paume. As a staunch Czech nationalist, Mucha was arrested by the Nazis soon after they invaded Prague in March 1939. He was released but his health was irrevocably harmed. He died of pneumonia a few months later in July 1939.
In a curious coda to his career, Mucha’s work, and that of other Art Nouveau artists, became the inspiration for the psychedelic illustrators of the 1960s. Concert posters for The Fillmore, San Francisco’s famous music venue, are the most recognizable examples of the trend. The designs echo the flowing, sinuous forms of le style Mucha, often incorporating figures whose hair styles explode with the roster of bands. Coincidentally, the concert goers were likely using plenty of cigarette papers while in attendance.
Girl with Green Hair. The Family Dog presents Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Big Brother and the Holding Company, Alton Kelly, 1966
Photo credit: © Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Eric Burdon and the Animals/ Hour Glass, Fillmore concert poster, Bonnie MacLean, 1967
Photo credit: SFMOMA Collection, © Bill Graham / Bonnie MacLean