The World of Mucha: A Journey to Two Fairylands: Paris and Czech

by Hiroshi Unno, Alphonse Mucha (Contributor)

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was a Czech graphic designer and decorative artist best known for his distinctive Art Nouveau style. He produced many illustrations, advertisements, postcards, packages and paintings throughout his life. The popularity of Mucha's distinctive style and demand for his beautiful works has continued to grow since the strong revival of interest in Art Nouveau during the 1960s. This book is the very best collection of Mucha's characteristic works, covering his entire career, from his beginnings in Paris to his final days in Czech after four years in the United States. His most representative works are featured, not only in the field of fine art but also in editorial design and graphic design. As a special feature, this book introduces more typography and package design works compared to other publications on Mucha's work. And, of course, Mucha's masterpiece the 'Slav Epic' is also covered in detail, along with an interpretation and its historical background. This beautifully-designed book will be a valuable reference for graphic designers and illustrators alike, and is sure to become a must-have book for Mucha's fans around the world to treasure.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History

358 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2017

About the author

Hiroshi Unno was born in 1939 in Tokyo. Unno writes on art, cinema, music, urbanism, novels, flower arranging and more. Unno recent titles released by PIE International – Avant-Garde Graphics in Russia, William Morris, Harry Clarke, Beautiful Book Design, The World of Mucha, A Thousand and One Nights – have gained recognition worldwide.

Reviews

[♥ℳelody]

GORGEOUS. Love it. What a special find. I can't believe I just discovered Hiroshi Unno's books and by happy accident no less on Amazon while looking for something else. lol Where have I been? I didn't even know about him until I saw his book on William Morris. So of course when I saw he did a book on Mucha, my favorite artist of all time, I had to get this. The layout of this book is so freaking beautiful and on point and the attention to details are insane. This guy or whoever designed the book definitely knows graphic design and layout composition. It's not just a curated book on an artist but stylized art itself if that makes sense. It honestly feels like Alphonse Mucha designed this book himself if he was alive. The text is mostly in Japanese but I don't mind at all. There are some parts translated in English and all the artworks have captions in English too. While I do wish some of the artworks weren't printed on matte finished paper because the richness of color gets a little lost and creates a fuzzy/soft looking effect but nevertheless, stunning overall. The dust jacket even has silver foil. So cool! His books are a bit on the pricy side but honestly very worth it. I managed to get this one and European Fantasy Art one. But I definitely have my eye on getting a few other ones in the future hopefully.

[Kirk]

Granted, most of the text is in Japanese (with separate English translations not always provided), so I was focused primarily upon the images, but I have to say that this collection is lavishly designed and thoughtfully arranged. From the glittery cover onward, the pages are beautiful to behold. Even the text is framed in Mucha's border designs. In terms of completeness, I give the the book a 4/5. Though very inclusive, it relegates his photography and jewelry to one page with four thumbnails apiece.

In terms of the scale of the images, most pages are fine, since the book is approximately 7x10 inches. Some pages, however, feature two or four images apiece, meaning that they are shrunk down to fit. That's a bit unfortunate, given the level of detail in Mucha's works. Inclusion is sometimes favored over visible detail. That being said, the book does include many full-page spreads in which to lose one's eyes. I've also seen more vibrant colors in other reproductions; whether that's owing to those other publishers' decisions or the colors of the originals themselves, I cannot say.

As I've been exploring Mucha's works recently, I've been trying to find that one book that I can add to my shelves which best presents his art. The World of Mucha just might be that book.

[Shannon (That's So Poe)]

If you like art nouveau, you should for sure pick this book up! I loved seeing all the gorgeous artwork that Mucha had created and learning a little about this life. Be aware, though, that this book is primarily in Japanese with only about 1/3 of the content (the main sections, but not the side sections) translated into English. It's still very much worth the read, though, since the images are the primary attraction of the book.

[Brandy]

While I do wish the book had been translated fully into English (I feel like I’m missing out on details behind the artworks), the reproductions are excellent, the background information is fascinating, and there’s quite a few pieces in here I’ve never seen.

[Noëmie N]

Acheté en Corée.

Le livre parle du parcours de Mucha, parti de Rép. Tchèque (naissance près de Brno), arrivé en France, détour par les USA et retour en Tchéquie.
Découverte du Jugendstil : Art Nouveau Allemand.
Mention de son travail avec Sarah Bernardt, qui l'a abandonné quand il a voulu partir aux USA (en termes de patronage).
Excepté dans certains livres illustrés par Mucha, je trouve que son style est reconnaissable dans tout ce qu'il a fait -posters, cartes postales, emballages...
J'aime beaucoup les séries de peintures qu'il a fait en s'inspirant de saisons, de pierres précieuses, d'étoiles ou de fleurs par exemple.

Mention spéciale pour les emballages Moët et Chandon, Ruinard, Flirt by LU (Lefevre-Utile) : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv....

Il a travaillé pour l'exposition universelle mais pour le pavillon autrichien à son grand regret (l'empire austro-hongrois avait alors la main sur la République Tchèque). Il a réalisé une fresque reprenant la vie des tchèques sous les différentes occupations. Le style ne plaisait pas car le public considérait qu'il s'agissait d'un style épique démodé.
J'étais étonnée qu'on reconnaisse autant la touche de Mucha dans un type d'art qui n'est pas son prédominant -> Prague City Gallery à visiter BTW

J'ai très envie d'acheter une de ses cartes postales ou récupérer un billet qu'il a dessiné !

[Sula]

Utterly gorgeous artwork, in a book that feels like a piece of art in itself! This is such a joy to flick through: the colour, pattern and detail in Mucha's art is like a kaleidoscope! This is incredibly comprehensive, and includes his 'Slav Epic' which I hadn't heard of and looks so different that on my first quick flick-through not totally following the translation I thought the book covered two artists.

I was torn on what to rate this though, so I'll settle on 4.5 stars. While in some ways it doesn't really matter (as I'm here for the artwork and not the history of Mucha's life) I wish they hadn't only translated parts of it. Strangely, instead of replacing the original Japanese text they kept it and have just added extra pages or text boxes with some of it in English. It feels a rather half-hearted attempt. Thankfully the titles of the art are all translated at least, although I would have liked to know the medium for each one. The only other minor niggle is that one or two of the images are a bit low-res. It is only a few of the hundreds of pages of artwork, and I understand high quality versions may not exist, but there's definitely sharper versions of 'Cycles Perfecta poster', and a quick internet search confirms this.

[Rachael Kosinski]

If you want a very aesthetically pleasing book with a lot of really top notch images of Mucha’s work, I would buy this. They even include photographs of makeup bottles and boxes that his work was on. Also there is a first-person narrator sometimes (due to the translation, I think?) which I’ve never experienced in a nonfiction book, which was oddly charming.