Alphonse Mucha is most often remembered for the prominent role he played in shaping the aesthetics of French Art Nouveau at the turn of the century. As a struggling artist of Czech origin living in Paris, Mucha achieved immediate fame when, in December 1894, he accepted a commission to create a poster for one of the greatest actresses of the time, Sarah Bernhardt. Though the printer was apprehensive about submitting Mucha´s final design because of its new unconventional style, Bernhardt loved it and so did the public. ´Le style Mucha´, as Art Nouveau was known in its earliest days, was born.
I think I may have mentioned before, my orginal design was supposed to be "Art Gnouveau" but someone else beat me to the name. I created the artwork with several elements from various artists from the time period that art nouveau was popular. One was Alphonse Mucha, who featured womens' faces, flowers, symbolism and use of negative space. As it turns out, Mucha was the one who started the movement and didn't like the expression "Art Nouveau" as he felt art was timeless. Now I am working hard to make this gnucha in le style Mucha.
Today I got quite a bit done on Moocha. (Nice to have a vacation day to play!) I am continually studying a book of Mucha's artwork for ideas to add elements of his to this work, but obviously there is going to be a lot of it in "le style Johnson" ... ! I wonder if Mucha would have ever painted on a cow... well, he did strive to bring fine art to everyday people in advertisements and posters... so why not?!
Still a work in progress, here is MOOcha today (click to enlarge)!
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