Alphonse Mucha Quotes

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Alphonse Mucha was an inspiration to many, with his personal quotes also helping us to learn more about the personality behind such an extensive output of beautiful paintings and illustrations.

Look below for some well known quotes from artist Alphonse Mucha which have been sourced from a variety of print and web media. Many more potentially remain untranslated from his native tongue but those included below are sufficient to give us a reasonable insight into the man himself.

Famous Quotes by Alphonse Mucha

Art exists only to communicate a spiritual message.

Every nation has a palladium of its own embodying past and future history. Ever since my boyhood I felt and saw in the architectural lines of St. Vitus Cathedral built so close to the castle, a powerful interpretation of our national symbol.

Exterior form is a language which appeals to the senses as the art of music, which to give pleasure, should be harmoniously directed to the different nerves of hearing, avoiding all combinations of sound that tire these organs. Similiarly, the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, being addressed to the eyes, should fulfill the conditions which are most agreeable to them.

Mucha describing his time in Paris

If we wish to emphasise its character as a straight line we have to augment equally its expression of direction and its width. We can arrive at this result in several ways. First, by parallel lines harmoniously disposed, or by curved lines which are at different intervals touch or come near to it.

I used to kneel for hours as an acolyte in front of Christ's grave. It was in a dark alcove covered with flowers heavy with intoxicating fragrance and wax candles were burning quietly all round with a sort of sacred light which illuminated from below the martyred body of Christ, life-size, hanging from the wall in utmost sadness... How I loved to kneel there with my hands clasped in prayer. No-one in front of me, only the wooden Christ hanging from the wall, no-one who would see me shutting my eyes and thinking of God-knows-what and imagining that I am kneeling on the edge of a mysterious unknown figure.

I was happy to be involved in an art for the people and not for private drawing rooms. It was inexpensive, accessible to the general public, and it found a home in poor families as well as in more affluent circles.

I will be able to do something really good, not just for the art critic but for our Slav souls.

Describing his upcoming Slav Epic series

The purpose of my work was never to destroy but always to create, to construct bridges, because we must live in the hope that humankind will draw together and that the better we understand each other the easier this will become.

To talk in my own way to the spirit of the nation, to its eyes which carry thoughts most quickly to the consciousness.

What is it, Art Nouveau?... Art can never be new.

Quotes about Alphonse Mucha by Art Historians and Fellow Artists

His art is a sumptuous art, floral, astral, feminine; it reflects with tender nonchalance the fluid beauty of form and the delicately veiled secrets of the soul.

Christian Brinton