The story of Alphonse Mucha
(or, how selling out can enable the artist within you)
You probably recognize this feminine style of art.
Mucha was one of the first artists to popularize Art Nouveau & he was etched into history as "the floral background guy."
In reality, he was more interested in religious iconography.
But Art Nouveau paid his bills.
Young Mucha was unknown & struggling. He designed portraits, posters, icons & tombstones.
But in 1894, he went viral.
He made a poster for the play Gismonda, featuring famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. She loved it.
She ordered 4,000 copies & plastered them around Paris.
This led to a sudden flood of commissions for Mucha.
Companies wanted the "Sarah Bernhardt style" to sell their products.
Art Nouveau was popularized to sell cigarettes, alcohol, and casinos.
From 1895-1904, Much was a one-trick pony, rendering women in gardens over and over.
Mucha finally found stability in his life & moved into a 3 bedroom apartment in Paris with a dedicated art studio.
He was featured in exhibits & magazines, and was known internationally as a pioneer of Art Nouveau.
But his personal art during this time was shockingly different.
"La Pater" featured 7 paintings; each one is a line of the Lord's Prayer.
It's radically off-brand: no color, and the pretty gardens are replaced with eerie visions of suffering, transcendence, and glowing-eyed demons.
When was this? 1899, the peak of "Le Style Mucha."
Mucha's "meme-self" (the floral background guy) enabled his real-self (the Pan-Slavic mystic) to come to life.
In 1904, Mucha stopped taking commissions. Instead of seeking more money & fame, he began an all-consuming passion project that would take him 18 years:
The Slav Epic.
Mucha used the money from his Art Nouveau work to buy 27-foot canvases.
His lifelong dream was to render epic scenes of Slavic mythology.
He said, finally, he'd be able to make something good, "not for the art critics, but for the Slavic souls."
Mucha created 20 of these masterpieces.
He became a figure in the Slavic independence movement, and was asked to design the currency of the new republic of Czechoslovakia.
These project are "off-brand" & unknown to the public.
But to Mucha, it was all that mattered.
Mucha's career was 100 years ago, but he gracefully straddled the line between commerce & visionary art.
What's the lesson?
- Double-down when you pluck a nerve
- Pursue off-brand explorations
- Know when to stop
- Don't lose sight of your purpose
I've been writing online for 3 years, and still feel the tension between writing for myself vs. my audience.
What is the "Mucha method" in today's Creator Economy?
Follow my Substack for an in-depth answer to this question.
(link in bio, out tomorrow)
twitter.com/david_perell/status/1671626757760319490