“Byzantine Heads: Blonde”
This post has been a long time coming!
“Byzantine Heads: Blonde” is a color lithograph by the Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha. It was first printed in the first few months of 1897 by F. Champenois of Paris, France. It is one of a pair of portraits known as “Byzantine Heads”, with the other titled “Brunette”.
In this print, a blonde woman is depicted in profile looking to the left. Her body and shoulders are cropped into a circle frame, with only her curly hair extending out of the frame. She wears a white dress and headband in the traditional Slavic style, an homage to Mucha’s roots. As the name implies, Mucha adds a Byzantine touch, with a dazzling jewelry headpiece eloquently adorned over her hair covered with gemstones and pearls.
“Blonde” has her portrait framed in a perfect circle, with the space around her head filled in with geometric designs. The circle is enclosed in a larger vertical frame, filled in with lines of arabesque floral designs. The outer decorations are light in color, drawing the viewer’s eyes right to the woman’s face.
Mucha’s imaginative decorative jewelry depicted on the “Byzantine Heads” drew the attention of the French jewelry designer, Georges Fouquet. So much so that Fouquet asked Mucha to help with his designs for the Exposition Universelle of 1900, the world’s fair that was held that year in Paris, France. Fouquet’s designs were beautiful, ornate, and popular and displayed an obvious Art Nouveau inspiration.
Mucha’s lithographs were the first of their kind. They allowed Champenois to mass produce Mucha’s work. This made owning art accessible to anyone who wanted it. This pair of lithographs was highly popular. Variants of the portraits were quickly designed and printed by Mucha, with different borders and decorative elements. Some were printed on different types of woven paper, and Mucha even had the images printed on collector plates. Today, printing houses will still print this set in the traditional methods for collectors.
Living and working in Paris, France, Mucha never forgot his roots. After 1896, Mucha purposefully started incorporating traditional Slavic elements into his art. He viewed the Byzantine culture, particularly the orthodox religious aspects, as essential to the spiritual nature of the Slavic people.
For more on Alphonse Mucha, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
