Kveta Pacovska, a Czech grandmother, is a picture writer whose work always shines with an abundance of childish fun and bright innocence. Born on July 28, 1928 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Kovy Bakovsky graduated in 1952 from the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague under Professor Emil Filla, specializing in free-image art, painting, conceptual art and books. Between 1961 and 2000, she held nearly fifty solo exhibitions, and in the 1960s she began to develop illustrated books of physical three-dimensional artwork. Her large-scale paintings and graphic sculptures have been exhibited in art museums and galleries around the world, and her writings have been translated into various national languages. It was not until she was 50 years old that she began to illustrate children's books, starting with Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. Later, she turned to picture books, utilizing the medium to interact with children. Her picture books have won numerous international awards, including The Golden Apple at Bratislava in 1983, The Catalonia Grand Prix at Barcelona in 1988, The German Children's Literature Prize in 1991, and The German Children's Literature Prize. TheGermanChildren'sLiteratuerAward) in 1991, and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1992.

Kovi Bakovsky lives and works as an artist in Prague.

Style and Technique:

Kovi Bakovski's style is a cross between graphic art and illustration. She has an in-depth study of color, and she is good at using pure red, green, blue, yellow and other bright flat colors with her exaggerated and distorted designs. She is good at using bright colors such as red, green, blue and yellow with her exaggerated and distorted designs, which makes her characters or animal shapes produce strong visual effects. Due to her deep professional background in art, her long experience in pure art creation and her understanding of modern art painting trends, she is able to clearly grasp the form of expression that is suitable and necessary for her. Her heartfelt emotions and rich imagination are revealed through her amazing creations. In addition to her vivid and strong color qualities, Kovi Bakowski often combines other materials (such as collages of various types of paper) and monochromatic line strokes to bring out the richness of her imagination in an incredible variety of works. These combined forms of expression form her unique romantic personal style with a childlike sense of humor. Looking at these lively, colorful and original works, it is hard to imagine that they are the work of an "old woman" who is now 71 years old.

Author's own words:

"I made this series of books, I call them 'touch and feel', which is an important attempt for me, because it is not only to see with the eyes, but also to touch with the hands, to feel the shape of a number or a letter, and it can be used to play games, so it's not just for the eyes, but for the hands to touch and feel the shape of a number or a letter. It can be used to play games, so you can also say that you can feel it with all your senses."

"Every color is the best for me, and in one of my books, a snail complains because he has no colors, and he yells and screams to find them, and he ends up finding a whole bunch of colors, and discovers, along with the people who are reading the book, how the dull colors and the bright colors create the sensation of day and night. "

About the work:

The major works of this artist with a child's heart include "The Little King of Flowerland," "The Midnight Theater Opens," "The Wonderful Alphabet," and many more.

The painting above is called "The Little Match Girl" (LittleMatchGirl) for Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale works, by Bakowski with his unique painting style again to give a new interpretation, let us see the infinite possibilities of the analysis of masterpieces with picture books.

The relationship between painting and commercial illustration

Painting is a very broad category, mainly referring to graphic visual art works.

Illustration is a classification of painting, but because illustration has a strong content, such as book illustration, advertising illustration, so it is separated from painting to become a separate category.

Commercial illustration is another classification of illustration, mainly based on the demand for painting, and is mostly used in commercial purposes, such as advertising, publicity and so on, including nowadays common film and television, games.

Here do not want to mention these kinds of painting whether there is a difference between the expensive and the cheap, because as long as there is a certain aesthetic significance, to express the content of the work of art clearly, all have their own value. Good works and money are not necessarily linked, do not scoff at commercial illustration, the Czech illustrator living in France, Alphonse Mucha is a very good commercial illustrator, but his work is very fresh and elegant, with a high level of aesthetic.

Painting works are divided into different categories due to their different uses, and there is no difference in price between these categories, and what makes them "expensive" is that some viewers have misunderstandings about art categories. As an illustrator, you don't need to have any psychological baggage about this, as long as the author reasonably exerts his artistic creativity, commercial illustrations can be excellent paintings. can be excellent paintings.

As far as painting is concerned, it is mainly a traditional art category, and the materials used are often traditional painting tools, such as drawings, watercolors, prints, oil paintings and so on.

Illustration is still derived from traditional art painting, and the material is basically the same as traditional art.

But after many years of development, commercial illustration has been expanded from traditional art techniques to high-tech art techniques, which is often referred to as CG illustration, the author can be completed traditional art method of drawing works into the computer for modification into a CG picture, you can also use the computer software directly to draw, and directly complete a CG illustration. At present, many fields need CG illustration, especially foreign film and television industry, need a lot of film and television screen concept design, these illustrations are mostly completed using CG, its artistic style diversity, the artist is also very solid, the work is quite outstanding, so many people in the industry (including myself) like to collect some excellent CG illustrator's conceptual design of the manuscript as a collection, used to learn from the study.

Spring Mulberry: The Artistic Style of Alphonse Mulberry 丨Mulberry and the Art Nouveau Movement

Even if you haven't heard of Alphonse Mulberry, you've seen his paintings before.

The paintings are rich in elegant and fresh colors, decorative wreaths, flying hair and intricate botanical motifs, all of which are rich in naturalistic ornamentation and abstraction, presenting a combination of metaphor, symbolism and realism.

The paintings are also a great source of inspiration for the artist's work, as they are a great example of how the artist's work can be used in a variety of ways.

For example, this series of flower lithographs titled Iris, Lily, Dianthus and Rose is a favorite of many art lovers.

The use of the artist's works

Alphonse Mucha is well known as a master of Czech art who was active at the end of the 19th century.

Both Mucha's contemporaries and his descendants, who regarded him as the standard-bearer of the Art Nouveau movement, agreed that Mucha's time had made him what he was.

Because he was lucky enough to meet Ms. Sarah Bernhardt, one of the biggest stars of the Parisian art world at the time, and because the fine plastic arts of posters contributed to his success.

Lithograph of the Day of Sarah Bernhardt

Team Phene, 1896

If one is to interpret Mucha's flamboyant and delicate artistic style, then one should start with his posters.

Praise of Beauty

The boom in poster art began at the end of 1894 with the publication of "Gismonda," a two-meter-high color lithograph poster.

Sarah Bernhardt in "Gismonda," Photograph

No Meteorite Ripped by the Masked Bitch, 1896

"Gismonda" was printed in a vertical format, which not only showed the whole body of the character, but also naturally showed the tallness of the image of Gismonda.

Flatness is one of the characteristics of this work, Mucha does not pursue the depth of space, and therefore uses visual effects to push the heroine in the picture to the audience.

The poses of the characters in the poster are inspired by representative scenes from the play.

In the Easter parade, Githy Munda is dressed in a fancy dress, holding a palm leaf in her hand, in a solemn and dignified manner.

Guismonda, lithograph

1894

The embroidered fur shawl hangs straight down, making her shoulders look broad and contrasting with the dancing motifs on the hem of her dress, which occupies the bottom half of the poster.

The only figure is in the center of the image, while the top and bottom of the poster are painted with text containing the name of the show, the lead actress and the venue.

The arches in the image seem to give the heroine a halo, further emphasizing her stately, white face, an expression that appears several times in Mussia's later works, where the decorative motifs refer to Byzantine mosaic tessellations in gold leaf.

In this way, realism and the emulation of traditional styles appear together in a single work, blending seamlessly to create a new sense of beauty.

Sarah Bernhardt, "The Lady of the Camellias"

Photograph, 1880

Both Sarah herself and the critics and audiences were impressed by Mucha's posters, and Sarah and Mucha hit it off so well they collaborated a second time on "The Lady of the Camellias".

These are the first posters to be published in the United States.

Poster for The Lady of the Camellias, lithograph

Foundation Mucha, 1896

Much more comfortable with the creation of The Lady of the Camellias, Mucha adopted the composition of Gismonda, except that the palm fronds had been replaced by camellia branches. The female protagonist's facial expression is frozen, but her white skirt flutters.

It is worth noting that the decorative aspect of this work lies not in the dress of the figures, but in the poetic background.

The roses form a dome in the sky, the picture is filled with silver stars, and the white figure of Marguerite Gautier jumps off the page.

The Rhythm of Lines

If you've seen Moussia's work at the exhibition, you'll be impressed by the decorative motifs that surround the soft body, the thick, flowing strands of hair, and the wide or dense pleats on the lightweight dresses that make up her pictorial language.

Dreams, decorative plate, lithograph

Foundation Mussia, 1897

Mussia created a world of decorative art with an Arabian flavor by creating a sense of vitality and fluidity through exaggerated lines, utilizing pre-existing images of women and elements of the botanical world.

The treatment of women's hair in decorative patterns became the hallmark of his work and became a major success.

In 1897, the magazine Le Feuille, which had given Mucha great support, commissioned him to draw an annual calendar.

So Mucha created an Oriental girl of the utmost delicacy and beauty: her slender figure, resembling a sultan's princess, sits quietly on the threshold of the golden halls of Mizapur or Golconda.

Constellations, lithographic calendar

1897

The young woman is half-length, turned on her side, wearing a lot of oriental jewelry, and the symbols of the twelve signs of the zodiac surround her face.

Moussia depicts the fictional beauty's long hair in shifting curves that become more and more exaggerated at the ends, and has painted a botanical frame.

This richly decorative, poetically sensual work outshines all of Mucha's previous work.

The use of flowing hair strands transformed into arabesques also led the way for commercial posters.

It appeared, for example, on Mussia's 1897 JOB cigarette paper, a commercial poster that was considered a masterpiece from the moment it was released.

Poster for JOB Cigarette Paper, lithograph

Foundation Mussia, 1897

Mussia painted a bust of a woman looking listless, hiding behind intricate strands of hair.

The hair forms a decorative net, and smoke rises from the cigarette in the woman's hand, both of which are intertwined with the Byzantine mosaic background.

Musha was the first to show the function of a consumer product in such a sensual way.

Among other merchandise posters, Mussia returned to the form of the posters designed for Sarah, full of symbolism and imagery.

If it weren't for the letters on the poster, it might be difficult to understand the message.

From Monaco to Monte Carlo poster, lithograph

Foundation Mucha, 1897

For example, this poster, From Monaco to Monte Carlo, was commissioned by Mucha for the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean Railway Company and was created in 1897.

At the turn of the century, the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean Railway Company was synonymous with "going on vacation".

The mountains in the background hint at the destination of the train, the C?te d'Azur, which occupies only a small part of the picture.

The young woman gazing upward, chin in hands, is mesmerized by the view, and she clearly represents spring.

However, if one looks further, one finds details that convey the advertising message.

For example, the large botanical wreaths on the diagonal of the poster, with their spinning, dynamic forms resembling the wheels of a train traveling at full speed on the tracks, fit the theme of the railroad company.

History and Idealistic Pathos

As a poster designer, Mussia excels at highlighting the silhouettes of people and objects, and using subtle, bright colors that simplify the image.

Selfie by Mussia

1896

However, he left this type of work behind for a while when he was offered a unique opportunity to design the wall decorations for the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion at the 1900 Paris World's Fair.

The pavilion was an idyllic village-like building, Turkish in style, with dark gray towers, red roofs, projecting arabesque window grilles, vaulted corridors, and blue walls with inlaid motifs, a unique color scheme that fascinated.

Through this opportunity, Mussia took his artistic talents to a wider place, and his paintings of historical subjects reached almost the highest level of excellence in history.

Mural in the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina (part)

Paris Exposition 1900, tempera on canvas

Tu, Musée d'Orsay

He completed his first design in just a few days:

"The main body of the wall decorations consists of three scrolls, which cover the entire wall of the hall. wall of the hall. The lower one is filled with floral motifs, the one in the center is wider and tells the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the one above is based on Bosnian legends."

Frescoes from the Pavilion of Bosnia and Herzegovina (part)

Paris Exposition 1900, tempera on canvas

Slaughter, Musée d'Orsay

This historical scroll of 12 paintings begins with three paintings reflecting prehistoric civilizations, and concludes with three groups of figures reflecting Bosnia's many religious beliefs. This group of paintings reveals the richness of Mursia's inner world and provides a glimpse into his passion for his people.

Much has been made of the fact that Mursia's large-scale painting "Slavic Epic" is associated with the decorative murals in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion because they are also based on historical past and reality.

Muscha was working on the sixth work of the Slavonic Epic

The Crowning of the Serbian King Etienne Dushan as Emperor

1924

In fact, however, the Slavonic Epic has nothing to do with the "Mussia style".

The "Mussia style" refers to the use of arabesques to depict people and plants, and the blending of the two.

This style is clearly not suited to narrative painting, as it conveys a vague meaning that not everyone can understand.

The aesthetic approach must therefore be abandoned in order to make the narrative of the picture clear and understandable.

The Slavic People in their former land, oil and tempera on canvas

The first work of the Slavic Epic

Foundation Mussia, 1912

Mussia's approach to the Slavic Epic was a blend of realism, romanticism and symbolism, even though he was aware of the fact that aesthetically it would be difficult for viewers to accept the work as a series of paintings on the same subject. A series of paintings on the same subject, this classical approach was not well received by modern art.

"Introducing the Slavic Liturgy to the Great Moravian Empire"

"Slavic Epic," No. 3

1912, Mussia Foundation

"I wanted to have something lofty here, something that would reverberate under the dome like the melody of a pipe organ."

This conviction guided Mucha.

Work on the Slavonic Epic began in 1910, at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and continued throughout World War II, completing it in 1928 for the 10th anniversary of Czechoslovakia's **** and statehood.

The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia, oil and tempera on canvas

The 19th work in the Slavic Epic

Foundation Mussia, 1914

The entire group consists of twenty gigantic paintings, in which Mussia recalls the Slavs' history through a series of historical figures and events.

In order to complete this magnificent creation, Moussia relied heavily on photography, traveling throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe, making field trips to study Slavic history, culture, and dress, and documenting them with photographs.

They formed a rich documentary material library, which provided a great help in the design of characters, costumes and decorations.

Models posing for "The Oath of Orlandina under the Slavic Lime Tree"

Foundation Mussia, 1925-26

Some of the photographs were taken in studios, where the scenes for the images were set up, while others were taken in strict accordance with the traditional methods of the academy.

Through the performance of the male and female models, Mucha not only captures the body language of the main characters, but also observes their emotional expressions, and they bring the images to life.

The Oath of Olandina under the Slavic Lime Tree, oil and tempera on canvas

The 18th work in the Slavonic Epic

In 1926, the Mussia Foundation

The Slavonic Epic was the work of Mussia's heart, who aspired to unite spiritually with his Slavic compatriots, believing in the power of the art's inspirational power to promote the advancement of the human nature.

Mucha and Art Nouveau

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the Art Nouveau style that was all the rage in Paris, Alphonse Mucha was the most sought-after artist.

His large-scale frescoes, posters of famous artists, and gorgeous illustrations were all highly personal, with elegant lines, rich colors, and sweet characters. As a result, Mussia deservedly became a pioneer of the Art Nouveau movement.

In this informative and beautifully illustrated book, Philippe Thiébaud looks back on Moucha's amazing career in paintings, posters, illustrations, furniture and jewelry, as well as on his relationship with the Art Nouveau artists of the time.

Mucha and Art Nouveau

[French]Philippe Thiebaud

February 2020

Hua Zhong University of Science and Technology Publishing House - A Book of Beauty

_An Interesting Book on Mucha and the Art Nouveau Movement

Czech national artist Mucha is the first of eighteen artists to be published in this book, with more than one hundred paintings and drawings. "The Art Nouveau movement is an immersive experience of "new art" for a new era, with 18 master artists, led by Czech national treasure Mussia, and more than 100 full-color classic works.

_French art historian and curator

The former director of the Musée d'Orsay is the author of this book, which is a review of Mucha's creative career in the categories of paintings, posters, illustrations, furniture, and jewelry, and vividly recreates the ups and downs of the master's life.

__A skillful blend of biography + art appreciation

Detailed documentation to ensure academic significance, the content of the all-encompassing, reproducing the source of inspiration, an overview of the pioneering experiments in modern design.

_To the lovers of Western art and Mussia

16 hardcover portable pocket book, anytime and anywhere to draw art nutrients, echoing the popularity of Mussia exhibitions across the country, the new art movement enthusiasts of the perfect primer.