Another zodiac poster. Alphonse Mucha’s design was a calendar produced for arts review La Plume in 1896, and typically with Mucha great attention is paid to the decorative details. Close examination reveals a sunflower behind the sun symbol in the lower left while poppies accompany the symbol of the moon on the right.
Mucha was also commissioned for the Exposition Universelle four years later, with work including these designs promoting the Austrian exhibits. This seems surprising when it was his work in France which made his name but there was a great deal of national prestige at stake in 1900 and the French authorities wouldn’t have wanted a foreign artist involved with their official art. Mucha was also a foreigner to the Austrians, of course, but they regarded him with more benevolence, and their decorative arts exhibit included one of his carpet designs. If it was galling to be ignored by France he at least had the satisfaction of seeing many of the participating nations showing work in the Art Nouveau style which he’d done so much to evolve.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Le Palais de l’Optique, 1900
• Owen Wood’s Zodiac
• Palladini’s Zodiac
• Exposition Universelle films
• Exposition jewellery
• Exposition Universelle catalogue
• Exposition Universelle publications
• Exposition cornucopia
• Return to the Exposition Universelle
• The Palais Lumineux
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• Exposition Universelle, 1900
• The Palais du Trocadéro