Too Much-o Mucha?

 

I was a big fan of Mucha in my twenties. He seemed to be a bit more around in those days; better known perhaps than he is now. Maybe it was a zeitgeist thing. However that might be, I hadn't really thought about him for ages until I saw that Kelvingrove were doing an exhibition of his work and some friends were keen to go so we arranged to meet up and have a look.

 

It was interesting and fun, but there was a terrible sense of a talent neglected and wasted and worn away in a sort of fin de siècle commercialisation. People complain about Vettriano's lack of development as an artist, and I know where they're coming from, except that in his case I think perhaps he can't move on and I still love his work anyway because it all suggests a story.  With Mucha I got the impression that he could have moved on, but stayed where he was for the money. His work is delicate and detailed and actually all very same-y. Big dresses , circles of flowers, stylised backgrounds.

 

There were some sketches which were interesting, and a section on his great work The Slav Epic, a series of canvases depicting the history  of the Slav people, details of which you can see here, but even that is a bit 'stars and flowers' in places, and art had moved on from these monumental historical canvases well before Mucha started on these. There's more than a hint of Soviet realism' in the style at times too, well before Soviet Realism was a thing.

 

Of course I had to see the exhibition twice because the OH wanted to see it too. I can't say I was any more thrilled second time around, although I did try to take the time to examine more of the detail on some of the work.

 

It's not a Kelvingrove exhibition but a travelling one so if you're a fan, keep an eye out as it may be coming to a gallery near you. For myself by far the favourite canvas on show in it was this

 

 

which has nothing to do with Mucha really, but is Edward Burne Jones' The Tower of Brass. Burne Jones - now there was a man who could paint!