Alphonse Mucha: The Soul of Art Nouveau

by Patrick Bade, Victoria Charles

Born in 1860 in a small Czech town, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was an artist on the forefront of Art Nouveau, the modernist movement that swept Paris in the 1910s, marking a return to the simplicity of natural forms, and changing the world of art and design forever. In fact, Art Nouveau was known to insiders as the “Mucha style” for the legions of imitators who adapted the master’s celebrated tableaux. Today, his distinctive depictions of lithe young women in classical dress have become a pop cultural touchstone, inspiring album covers, comic books, and everything in between. Patrick Bade and Victoria Charles offer readers an inspiring survey of Mucha’s career, illustrated with over one hundred lustrous images, from early Parisian advertisements and posters for Sandra Bernhardt, to the famous historical murals painted just before his death, at the age of 78, in 1939.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History, Reference

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2005

Reviews

[♥ℳelody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just got this in the mail and it's stunning!

[Christy Foley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about Mucha's art and life in this small book, full of his art. I wish that the pieces of art would have gone along with the dialog on the page though. I will be attending an immersive art show of his work soon, so I enjoyed seeing many of his art pieces featured in the book.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loads of Mucha's work but the book is discombobulated. The text feels smashed in with the art with no thought to showing the right pieces with the proper passages. Also I'd love to see the specific works of other artists that the author references as influences.

[Betül · Rating 4 out of 5]

art nouveau dendiğinde akla gelen ilk isimlerden olan Mucha, özgün stiliyle sanat tarihinde önemli bir yere sahip.

serinin diğer kitaplarında olduğu gibi Mucha'da da bahsedilen sanat eserinin yazı ile aynı sayfada olmaması okumayı zorlaştırıyor.

[Juliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
I'm a huge fan of Art Nouveau and I enjoyed Mucha's artwork.
This book was well done we learn about Mucha's journey and his artworks thanks to the pictures. I quite liked the fact that we have the testimony of his son it gives more credibility.

[Thomas Dewis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Needs better art reproduction

For an art boot, the pictures were reproduced ridiculously small. Maybe better as an actual book, but terrible as an e-book

[Åshild · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice book about the wonderful Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha. It contains a lot of great pictures of his works, but they are quite small (due to the format of the book). I'm glad I borrowed this book from the library before buying it, as I'm now convinced there has to be better books about Mucha. The book has some informative text, but never in relation to the picture on the following page(s). Most of the pictures are not mentioned at all in the text. A lot of other artists and their works from the same period are compared to Mucha and his art, but if you want to see these you'll have to search elsewhere (I used Google a lot while reading this book). I also believe that some of the information given in the book is wrong. It claims that Mucha was born on 14 July 1860, while the muchafoundation.org says 24 July. I trust the Mucha Foundation over this mediocre author.

[Athena Shardbearer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 2.5 Stars

Review to come

[Ellie Man · Rating 4 out of 5]

In love with Mucha's painting when I travelled at Vienna for the first time, where I visited the museum there. I read this through Kindle book. Although it is black and white, I still love that

[Mille · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short read, but rather exhaustive. I would have liked for the text and pictures to correlate, but other than that the layout was delightful.

[Kerry]

This book is light on info and not set up for Kindle use. It's a fine introduction to Mucha, but you will have to go elsewhere for detailed information and analysis.