Alphonse Mucha Essay

I own a portrait called, “Night’s Rest”, made by Alphonse Mucha. The style known as “Art Nouveau” is a modernized and popularized style. The portrait has many components that makes it unique, such as the style, artist, and how it was made. Alfons Maria Mucha, Anglicised to Alphonse Mucha, used a wide variety of materials. This artist from the Czech Republic is a self taught artist who “designed labels for champagne, liquors, biscuits, perfume, even cigarette paper” (Alphonse Mucha). He studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts from 1885 to 1887, and later moved to Paris to study. When he was in Paris, he shared a studio with Paul Gauguin, an impressionist artist. “Mucha became famous with a commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Bernhardt” in December 1894. Mucha’s art style spreaded quickly. From 19094 to 1921, he traveled back and forth to the United States to take commissions and teach art at academies in New York and Chicago (Wanczura). Mucha was recognized for how his artwork is made which was through lithography. Lithography is “the art or process of producing a picture, writing, or the like, on a flat,specially prepared stone, with some greasy or oily substance, and

The border is softened by the floral components, and the brighter colors come out with the border decal. The pastel blue and greens of the background contrasts to the foreground to the pale colors of her white dress and fair skin. Everything is organic in shape except for the gothic border. The border is also vertically symmetrical. Mucha shows the gathering of the woman's dress by closeness of the lines to show movement and lightness in the fabric. The main focal point is the woman because she is right in the center of the portrait. She is also posed in a relaxed position to show more fidelity. The difference of the colors and the lines shows contrast within the