“The Slavs in their Original Homeland”, The Slav Epic No. 1
When one thinks of Alphonse Mucha, one thinks of beautiful women adorning lithograph poster art, with stylized dress, swirling hair, and decorative motifs. However, he is so much more. In the later years of his life, Mucha devoted his time to what he considered his life’s masterworks.
This large-scale oil and tempera on canvas painting is by the Art Nouveau Czech artist, Alphonse Mucha, from 1912. It is titled “The Slavs in their Original Homeland”. This piece is the first of 20 canvases in the series Mucha called The Slav Epic.
Mucha depicts a couple in the foreground cowering in the bushes while their village is burned to the ground, seen on the left part of the canvas. A wild nomadic hoard is stealing their cattle and their people, visible in the mid-ground. This horrible event causes a priest to ask for help, seen on the right. He is rising in the air on the right flanked by two youths dressed in clothes to symbolize war and peace.
Mucha considered his art to be a continuation of the Slavic folk art tradition by representing a visual history of the Slavic people. Through this series, Mucha was trying to focus his ambition and create a masterpiece that he could dedicate to his fellow Czechs and to the Czech nation. The paintings in this series have quite a history.
Mucha was a very sought after and popular artist in France at the turn of the twentieth century. So much so, that many people from his homeland thought of him as a sellout. In 1909, Mucha was asked to paint murals at the New Municipal House in Prague and many people were very upset by this.
This did not deter Mucha. In 1910, after moving his family to Prague, he began work on The Slav Epic series. He worked on this series throughout the Great War (WWI). In 1919, after the close of the war, Mucha’s first 11 canvases had been completed and were put on display in Prague. They were well received by the public but were reviewed poorly by the art critics. By 1928, Mucha had completed the series.
In 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Mucha was arrested and put in jail where he contracted pneumonia and ultimately died that same year. He was 78 years of age. Before he died, Mucha put in his will that The Slav Epic be donated to the people of Czechoslovakia, but they had to house all the pieces in the same pavilion to be on display for the public.
During World War II, the paintings were rolled up and hidden in storage rooms to prevent them from being stolen. After the close of the war, the Communist Party took control of the country. In 1950, the paintings were moved again for safekeeping, this time to Moravský Krumlov in the southern portion of the country. In 1963, the pieces were exhibited for the first time since the war and were put on display in a local castle.
In 1989, after the fall of the Communist Party, the paintings were to be brought back to Prague. However, the community from Moravský Krumlov, supported by the Mucha family, were opposed to it. In 2010, after several legal battles, Prague built a pavilion to house the entire series, as Mucha had asked. In 2011, five of the paintings made it to Prague. In 2012, the 15 remaining paintings were moved to Prague and the series was reunited.
“The Slavs in their Original Homeland” is currently in the collections of Prague City Gallery, in the Czech Republic.
For more on Alphonse Mucha, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
