Page:Historical paintings of the Slavic nations by Alfons Mucha (1921).pdf/7



HE gifted and versatile painter of the pictorial epic of the Slavic nations here exhibited, is a typical Czech in his traditions, his aspirations, and his artistic achievement. Alfons-Marie Mucha, to give him his full name, was born July 24, 1860, at IvančicieIvančice [sic], in Moravia. Some beneficent Víla must have blessed him at birth with the fame of art, for his earliest impressions were of form and colour. Before he could speak or walk, he remembers lying in his capacious wooden cradle and gazing rapturously at the shimmering lights of the family Christmas tree. He grew up a bright eyed, curly haired youngster, possessed of irrepressible vivacity and a pronounced taste for drawing. As a child he was frequently left in charge of his grandmother Malý, who delighted in his talent and often rewarded his juvenile efforts with judicious gifts of sweetmeats. His mother, however, wished him to become a priest, so he was sent at the age of ten to Brno, the capital, where he was for a time a choir boy in the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Yet the aspiring Alfons clung tenaciously to the idea of becoming an artist, and at sixteen we find him attending the College of Brno, and caring more for his drawing lessons than for all the other courses combined. Possessing but modest means, he was obliged to share his room with a student, poorer even than himself, and from about the middle of each month, when their united resources were exhausted,