The National Identity from Images of Alphonse Mucha's Posters

Abstract

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) known as an important artist and poster designer in Art Nouveau style he was from the Czech Region nowadays Czech Republic but developed his career in Paris Modern Paris had the most updated technology and arts in that period which was the attraction for artists to go while Czech was left behind The temporary tangency of Art style included exotic interest therefore Eastern European artists promoted traditional peasant culture through their works to support Czech National Revival and Pan-Slavism Mucha was one of the artists promoting this tendency He focused on producing posters about Slav events instead of commercial products even after the Art Nouveau period of Fin de Siecle Mucha’s career can be divided into three stages: i) Book illustrator during his early years in Paris; ii) Famous commercial poster designer of Art Nouveau style for 10 years in Paris; iii) Painter of the ‘Slav Epic’ upon his return to Prague Although these phases are distinct from one another his motivation and creativity coming from his national concern and his continuous study of Czech history and folk art are a constant throughout them This treatise compares Mucha’s commercial posters from his career in Paris with the ones he made while he was painting the ‘Slav Epic’ Showing the development of his skills to embed his national spirt and concern in his poster works

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Yi-Fang Wu (Supervisor)