24.7. 1860 Alfons Mucha was born

Alfons Mucha is one of our most important painters. He is the author of the Slavic Epic, which is still disputed today. The turning point in his career came when his poster was commissioned by the then star Sarah Bernhardt.

He was born in Ivančice in Moravia. His father was Ondřej Mucha and his mother was Amálie, née Malá, with some Polish ancestral blood. In the paternal lineage, which can be traced back to the 15th century, the Muchas are mostly listed as winemakers. His father, however, made it as a local court servant.

"He had two interesting hobbies. The first was that he gave all his six children from two marriages a first name beginning with the letter A. This was not very helpful for my son Alphonse at the beginning of his French life. In the Parisian environment, this name was understood similarly to the silly Honza in our country," writes Helena Baková in her book Portraits of Historical Figures.

Until the age of ten, the future world-famous artist was surrounded by the peaceful atmosphere of Ivančice, an environment where art, and art art and art in particular, was not considered a solid livelihood, although Alfons Mucha did show exceptional aptitude from an early age.

"He was left-handed and drew before he could walk, he was interested in colours, light, shadow. He used not only pencil to draw, but also anything that produced a linear trace, such as chalk, charcoal or a nail. To the delight of his family, he liked to draw on the wall, on the wrapping paper from the merchant, and he even decorated the wings of an almara," Baková adds.

But he also had a talent for singing and earned a good living as a temple singer. However, he was not accepted to the Prague Academy. So he tried to make it in the theatre as a painter of decorations and posters. In 1885 he was accepted at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and then went to Paris to study. Fortune smiled on him in 1894 when he was commissioned to make a poster by the star of the time, Sarah Bernhardt.

Between 1912 and 1928, Mucha rented part of the Zbiroh castle, where he and his family occupied several rooms. He created his most famous cycle of paintings, the Slavonic Epic. He returned to the ideas of the Czech national revival and depicted the myths and legends of the Slavic peoples in the cycle. For example, the painting Oath of Omladina depicts a mighty sacred Slavic linden tree in whose rosette sits a priestess - the mother of Slavia. Before her kneels the youth, pledging loyalty to the nation and mutual unity.

Mucha died on 24 July 1939 in Prague, less than six months after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by fascist Germany. And from pneumonia.

Helena Baková, Portraits of Historical Personalities: Not Only a Graphological View, Marie Michlová, Death and Funerals of the Famous, Jiří Glet, What You May Not Know About the Pilsen Region, Radek Fiksa, Swastika and its History in Bohemia, www.wikipedia.org