Alphonse Mucha: non-fantasy fantasy artist

I don’t know art, but I know what I like. Today Google reminded me that it is the birthday of Alponse Maria Mucha, a Czech artist born 150 years ago.

I discovered Mucha not all that long ago. When I have an NPC coming up in my games, especially a female, I tend to do general searches online looking for particulars (young-girl-brown hair-flowing dress, etc.) that match my image of the NPC to show players. Unfortunately, I personally can barely draw the proverbial straight line. So that is how I found his stuff.

Mucha’s most prolific time was in the late 1800’s, and they for sure have that classic time’s style. But what struck me is how lots of his images seemed to be women dressed in a sort of timeless quality. I know some Ren Faire hippy girls who look and dress a lot like some of these ladies from Mucha’s art (give you another idea why I still work Faires and hang in the World folk music scene). And the look of so much of the art fits my vision of parts of my fantasy world, from English derived societies to far flung foreign lands. Queens, princesses, ladies of the court, peasants, gypsies, serving wenches, sorceresses. So many of the drawings could have multiple meanings.

Hey, don’t take my word for it, Bratty! Just Google him, look under images, and fall in love. Let me know what you think.