Slav Epic of Mucha
Visiting the Slav Epic of Mucha was the pinnacle of my experience in Prague (not to say there weren’t other pinnacles – I’ve blogged about a few others – but this was the top of the top). 20 large-scale paintings displaying Mucha’s history of the Slav peoples, from the Middle Ages to the modern age.
As I’ve mentioned previously, experiencing the full range of Mucha’s art during our time in Prague was a revelation for me. Before visiting Prague, I knew Mucha mostly for the Job cigarette posters and other Art Nouveau posters he created with gorgeous ladies in pastel colors. Seeing his work in the Municipal House, and then visiting the Mucha Museum opened my eyes to the breadth of his artistry – yes, there are lots more of those posters of lovely ladies (for example, the ones he created for Sarah Bernhardt’s shows), but there is much more.
Along the way, probably in the Mucha Museum, we read about the Slav Epic, and Therese and I discussed it. We wondered where it was, and whether it was completely on display. When I found out it was in a branch of the National Gallery, the Veletrzni Palace, which was conveniently accessible by another tram that left from right around the corner from our hotel, it became obvious that a trip to see the Epic would be the perfect start to one of our days in Prague.
Mucha worked on the Epic from 1910 to 1928. Ironically, he gave the works to the city of Prague with the stipulation that they build a permanent pavilion for the paintings, and that has still not happened. In fact, the paintings had not been on display in Prague as a complete unit since their completion until they were brought to Veletrzni Palace in 2012. Before then, they had been on display in the remote town of Moravsky Krumlov for nearly 50 years. Apparently, there has been some controversy over bringing them back to Prague, but I am so thrilled that they did, because it was just extraordinary to see this series of paintings.
Now, I can’t say that I am an expert on the subject matter, or on what is going on in each painting. I am happy to share with you some photos, so you can get an idea of what this series is like. Keep in mind that many of the paintings are, say, 20 x 25 feet in size. I have left people in some of the photos to give you a sense of the scale. And I have kept them in the correct order, with their titles (to learn more about the individual paintings in the Slav Epic, see the hyperlink in the third paragraph above).
After passing through several areas with individual paintings in groupings of three – one on each side wall, and one on a middle free-standing wall – you come to a triptych of paintings that deal with the Jan Hus and the Hussite movement. This massive three-painting sub-series is perhaps the centerpiece of the entire series (numbered 7, 8 and 9 in the 20 painting series, it is also almost at the chronological center of the series).
Master Jan Hus Preaching Triptych
So what was there to see after those first incredible 9 paintings? Oh, just 11 more amazing paintings, ho hum. Seriously, while (as I said) I retained little of the history being depicted on these various monumental canvases, I appreciated the opportunity to glimpse, if only for a moment, the incidents central to the culture of an entire swath of people about which I knew absolutely nothing.
When Therese and I visited Chartres Cathedral last spring, Professor Malcolm Miller told us, on his excellent guided tour, to consider the building as a book, upon which you could read all you would need to know of religion and history and so forth. I think the same thing can be said for Mucha’s Slav Epic. For those of us who know nothing of Slavic history, there is all you need to see here to lead you into an engagement with the subject.
At a time when modern abstract styles were coming into being, for Mucha to create these works of hyper-realism must have seemed incredibly conservative. For me, these works connect Mucha to the Renaissance and even Medieval art. For example, the way he has chosen to group people in the more active paintings, like “The Coronation of Tsar Stepan Dusan,” reminds me so much of Medieval paintings of similar subject matters.
Another feature of many of the paintings that I loved was Mucha’s use of eye contact. Which is to say, I loved the paintings where one (or more) figure looked directly at the viewer. For example, look at this grouping of two people from “The Printing of the Bible of Kralice.” While the old man on the left seems absolutely in bliss that the bible is being printed in his own language, the young man on the right has looked up to see us watching, and he looks a little intimidated.
Detail of the Printing of the Bible of Kralice
Another great example of this feature are the two figures at the bottom and front of “The Oath of Omladina.” Completely removed from the main action of the painting, they have their own minor adventure going on. The boy on the right is looking across at the girl on the left, who plays a harp and gazes at us mischievously. Apparently, Mucha’s son and daughter modeled for these two characters.
After bringing his history lesson up to the end of the nineteenth century with the abolition of serfdom in painting 19, Mucha concludes the series with the “Apotheosis”, a utopian vision of the Slavs triumphant over the trials of their past, overseen by a huge powerful-looking Christ.
Apotheosis of the Slavs
Before I close, I will say just a word or two about the building that currently houses the Epic. The Veletrzni Palace, a Soviet-era building with all the lack of grace and beauty that we expect from such an edifice, has several other galleries with lots of other art to be seen. The Slav Epic will remain there until some time in 2015, at which time it will go who knows where.
Veletrzni Palace
We left Veletrzni Palace and waited for a tram to take us to lunch. Across the street I noticed – what do you know? – that a building had a painting of Jiri of Podebrad on it, one of the Slav heroes to which I had just been introduced.
Building Decoration of Jiri of Podebrad
And looking north, I saw the Industrial Palace, a late-nineteenth century structure that plays host to exhibitions and various cultural events.
The Industrial Palace
Our way would take us in the other direction, to the south and west, back towards the Charles Bridge, where we would have lunch at the Vinograf Bar.
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