Revisiting Alphonse Mucha
On a February day of some years ago, I was roaming the near zero-degree streets of Prague. As I am wont to do, I was ambling without a map because I take the phrase “losing oneself” literally. The excitement of discovering what there is and what goes on in the narrower, darker, less frequented corners of a city is matched by the itchiness of my fingers on the camera’s shutter button. I even kept my chilblain-prone fingers uncovered so that I could more easily snap sides of the city which never make it into the guide books, no matter how “rough” these guides claim to be.
I stumbled onto the place. A museum. The prospect of some warmth and a pee break. So what if the name of the artist was unfamiliar to me. Alphonse Mucha mightn’t have rung any bells at the time but the paintings certainly filled a gap in my memory. I realized that I had seen some of these exquisite pieces before; possibly also works by other artists in the Art Nouveau style, of which Mucha is synonymous with.
Now that the late Mr Mucha is visiting the city of Valletta, taking up temporary residence at the Museum of Archeology, I just had to pop in and say hello to this creator of beauty. Why don’t you do the same?
