Friday, March 14, 2008

Alphonse Mucha Masterworks


I've just bought and started reading Alphonse Mucha Masterworks.

It is informative and a big hardcover book with quality color illustrations throughout. And I can't get over that the list price in the UK is only £20, with Amazon selling it for £14. How is this possible?

Mucha is one of the artists I admire most, in terms of technique. Man, how did he do all that precision decoration work? (If anybody knows...) I'd like to do something similar, but even on the computer it seems daunting.

(I would have included a link to high-quality scans of his work, but I didn't find much.)

Bert said:
"how did he do all that precision decoration work?"
I guess that part of the explanation is given by the picture on this page. He worked on large surfaces.

6 comments:

Bert said...

"how did he do all that precision decoration work?"

I guess that part of the explanation is given by the picture on this page. He worked on large surfaces.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Holy frig, that's big!

I still can't get over the patience some people have. I seem to have lost what little I had.

Bert said...

I often feel that we have become too easily scared of large endeavors. We have to reconquer that child thinking: you want to do it, then you just do. Get started, and work on it until you see the end of it.

But nowadays, children are entangled in our crazy schedules and cramped lifestyles, to the point that they learn very quickly that it's pointless to start something that can't be finished before dinner time (or whatever). And then they grow up wondering how it was that Eiffel could ever have conceived that tower on his own... or how Mucha could work in so many details. ;-)

Ashley said...

Glad to see you admire Mucha too. I was describing his work to someone just a couple of days ago.

Anonymous said...

I am a great admirer of this Czech artist's half commercial, half mystic oeuvre. Here are a few links to his work online:

www.artrenewal.org is a site devoted to realist art. And has 69 images online, some obscure, along with a few photos and letters.

http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=598

The Mucha Museum web site run by his grandson, John.

http://www.mucha.cz

For a one page overview see:

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mucha.htm

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thank you, Denis.