Praha Alfonse Muchy – Boněk Jan (2014)

When Alfons Mucha strolled along the Boulevard St. Michel in Paris, cars would stop and people would applaud him. His studio was a center of social life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was visited by world-famous personalities, including Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Paul Gauguin, and the Lumière brothers, inventors of the cinematograph. Particularly welcomed was the director of the Paris Observatory, parapsychologist, mystic, and esotericist Camille Flammarion, with whom Mucha discussed his favorite topics at least once a week: the mysteries of extrasensory perception and the essence of so-called automatic writing. He was wealthy, acclaimed in Europe and America – and yet dissatisfied. He was still searching for the meaning of his artistic life. In 1910, this creator of a unique artistic style returned to Prague. He wanted to fulfill his dream and serve his homeland. Upon his arrival, he was literally shocked: almost the entire Prague cultural community opposed his offer to participate in the decoration of the Representative House. His unique talent was a hindrance in Bohemia. However, Mucha pushed through his own vision and presented his most significant work in the Mayor's Salon. His artistic triumph, the twenty-part Slav Epic, became both a victory and a defeat for him when Josef Čapek, representing all the jealous ones...