The depiction of the female
figure in a sensuous, idealized manner is another feature commonly found with
Mucha’s style. Although
Mucha would normally start
a work by photographing
models whom he had carefully posed in his studio, he
would beautify these images
when he transferred them
from photograph to paper.
An idealized female of this
type appears in Mucha’s
exhibition poster for Salon
des Cent (Figure 4). A strikingly beautiful woman, nude
from the waist up, seated and
resting her head dreamily on
her hand, while her voluminous, flowing hair cascades
down her torso, is captured
by Mucha. The elegant
flowing lines, asymmetrically arranged imagery, and
idealized female form with
sensuously exposed flesh, is
quintessentially Mucha.
Another important factor that had an impact on
Mucha was the philosophy
of the artists aligned with the
movement called Symbolism. The Symbolist movement, which included literature as well as art, was a
manifestation of the 19th and
early 20th century preoccupation with spiritualism and
the occult. Although Mucha
never claimed to be a Symbolist, a number of his Art
Nouveau prints have a distinct mystical appearance.
For example, with his design
for the magazine cover of the
1907 Christmas edition of
The Burr McIntosh Monthly
(Figure 5), he creates a scene
in which a pagan spiritual
ritual appears to be taking
place rather than an important Christian event. On the
cover, he shows a cloaked
woman, dramatically illuminated by candlelight,
with the fingers of her left
hand splayed out and turned
towards the front as if leading a séance. The combination of her arresting gaze,
Mucha’s use of dramatic
contrast of light and dark,
and the bold star motif conveys to the viewer a sense of
eerie mystery.
There were a number of
non-Western sources that
influenced artists working in the Art Nouveau style,
but none as profound as the
art of Japan. Principally, it
was the importation of Japanese woodblock prints by
OnV
i e w
Ma
g a z i n e
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c om
•
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MUCHA: Master Artist
of Art Nouveau
Figure 4 (opposite):
Alphonse Mucha,
Salon des Cent, 1897;
Collection of Patrick M. Rowe.
Figure 5 (below):
Alphonse Mucha,
The Burr McIntosh Monthly, ca. 1907;
Collection of Patrick M. Rowe.
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2015
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