Mu Xia's works have absorbed elegant descriptions of Japanese woodcuts on shapes and contours, colorful colors and geometric decorative effects of Byzantine art, and detailed and sensual descriptions of Baroque and Rococo art. He created a character image called "Mu Xia style" with perceptual decorative lines, concise contours and bright watercolor effects.
After his processing, all the female images appear sweet and elegant, with graceful figure, youthful vitality and sometimes elegant and soft hair. His pictures are often composed of young and beautiful women and decorative flowers with smooth curves.
Unlike other artists, Mu Xia is also a photographer. He uses photography technology to assist his creation. He asked the model to pose as he needed and take photos. Then, based on the photos, he arranged and processed the clothes and hair on the screen. After special composition and decoration of flowers and plants, he finally completed his creation.
Many of his posters are based on photos, and many of the posters he painted for bernhardt are also stills from artists or photos taken by artists themselves. Later, Mu Xia regarded photography as a creative auxiliary tool as important as sketching.
Extended information:
Posters: Mu Xia created a series of posters for sarah bernhardt and the "DeLaRenaissance" theater, which were brought to the United States with bernhardt's tour to the United States and influenced the style of American posters.
decorative group paintings: Mu Xia created many decorative group paintings called "Panneauxdécoratifs" (a complete set of four paintings created around the same theme, often printed on flexible paper or silk fabrics to decorate walls), including "Four Seasons" in 1896, "Four Flowers" in 1897, "Four Arts" in 1898 and "192".
Advertising paintings and commodity packaging paintings: Mu Xia also created a large number of advertising paintings and commodity packaging paintings (from biscuits and bicycles to soap and cigarettes), because the sweet female images and extremely exquisite details he painted were in line with the concept that beauty meant quality at that time.
- Alphonse Mucha, Mu Xia: When girls' cartoons and stories he has to tell are entered into the Pixiv search field commonly known as Station P, it will be found that most of the images of the search results have similar characteristics: the characters are placed in front of a symmetrical background composed of curves, circles or other geometric figures and plant textures, and the colors are gorgeous or bright. For example, Japanese illustrator Takumi's Miyazaki Hayao animation fan works, because of reinterpreting the fresh and simple characters in Miyazaki Hayao's animation, make readers find everything new and fresh. Coincidentally, the influence of Mu Xia's style can also be seen in the mainstream Japanese comic book market. For example, Aunt Clamp's Kuluo card, the series of illustrations of Magic Knight, and Akihiro Yamada's illustrations. AlphonseMucha's influence on Japanese comics seems to have become an accepted fact. So, who is he? Why can his style win the favor of mainstream girl cartoonists and form a label in Japanese cartoonists? Alfonce Muxia was born in a small town in the Czech Republic in the 19th century. As a teenager, he worked in drawing the stage background in Vienna, and spent his spare time studying in the design school at night. At the age of 25, under the patronage of Count Karl Kuhn, he began to study at Munich Art Institute and Julian Art Institute in Paris. However, although Mu Xia has a smooth road to study and has been engaged in art design, as an artist, he is undoubtedly a late bloomer. It was not until 1895, when he was 35 years old, that he really became an artist of Yu Xiao. It was none other than SarahBernhardt, the most famous French actress at that time, who gave him this precious opportunity. On Christmas Day in 1894, when all his colleagues were on vacation, he happened to take an urgent order to draw a poster for sarah bernhardt's new opera Gismonda. Posters spread all over the streets of Paris with the promotion of the new play. The dignified and beautiful heroine image, exquisite patterns in details, and the combination of naturalism and symbolism have won the hearts of Parisians. Therefore, Mu Xia has also become the representative of ArtNouveau and the new favorite of commercial propaganda. As the cradle of Mu Xia, "Art Nouveau Movement" was popular in the European world from 1895 to 195. Its most prominent feature was the use of curves, plants, insects and other elements, and the female image was often the main body of the picture. Interestingly, the "Art Nouveau Movement" not only inherited TheArts& Crafts Movement (The Arts &; The anti-industrialization and naturalism of the CraftsMovement were also influenced by the oriental aesthetics. As early as the early 17th century, China's decorative style was introduced to Europe, and the particularity of oriental aesthetics won the love of aristocrats for a time. Artisans in Britain, Italy and other countries began to follow suit, and gradually formed an artistic trend called "Chinese style". By the 19th century, American artillery fire opened Japan's doors, and a large number of Japanese furniture, lacquerware, printed matter and porcelain entered Europe. The ukiyo-e painting on the wrapping paper made the western art world feel a new aesthetic impact, which influenced a large number of European artists in terms of composition and color. The flat aesthetic of Ukiyo-e painting, which consists of color blocks and line drawings, has also been absorbed by the Art Nouveau movement. So, how did Mu Xia's style spread to Japan? I believe everyone is familiar with the Meiji Restoration Movement. In addition to the textbooks telling us that Japan has been influenced by the West politically and economically, it is also on par with the Western world in terms of culture and social life. In 19, Japan participated in the World Expo in Paris. Although it spread its own cultural characteristics, the most important thing was to bring back the western trend, including the design style of Art Nouveau. Mu Xia's style is naturally included. Alphonse Mucha, who became famous for his drama posters, was undoubtedly very suitable for the production of commercial posters because of his decorative and aesthetic style, which was soon discovered by Japanese illustrators. Hirofumi Kitano was an illustrator who was active in Meiji and Showa years. He integrated the techniques of western painting into the creation of Ukiyo-e, giving the original planarization of Ukiyo-e a three-dimensional sense. In 1911, the poster he drew for the export commodities exhibition in Kitagawa, Kobe, obviously borrowed the schema and style of Mu Xia's quadruple painting Art, which was created in 1898. Let's take a closer look at this poster. Kitano is set in the background of a pattern inscribed in a double circle, and the main body is a graceful female image. The clothing lines with a sense of entanglement and drooping highlight the femininity and charm of the female posture. The description of the background and characters is almost the same as that of Mu Xia's Art series, except that local elements are added to the details, such as the oriental appearance of the woman, the bouquet of cherry blossoms in her hand, and the scene of the beach in the background circle. At the same time, the literary and art circles also appeared to admire Mu Xia. In 19, Star, a literary magazine led by the poet and Xie Yekuan, was founded as an organ magazine of Tokyo New Poetry Society. The magazine is centered on romantic poetry, which brings together the literary works of Yosano Akiko, Hakushū Kitahara and Woodpecker Ishikawa. Cheng Mei was an illustrator who was frequently active in "Star" at that time. His illustrations had the characteristics of compromising Japanese painting and western painting, and his many creations had a very strong shadow of Mu Xia. MIYOJO can be said to be one of the most obvious works for Mu Xia to learn from. It was published twice as an illustration of Yosano Akiko's "Yan Lai Hong" and Nakahama's "Clearing Hatred" respectively. This work can be said to be exactly the same as the magazine poster that Mu Xia drew for sarah bernhardt in 1897, and there is no difference from the big composition to the way people curl their hair. It is not so much a reference as a direct copy. There are many such examples. If a beautiful reference is "blatant", Fujishima Takeji is much more subtle. The cover of Star, which was published for the first time, was written by Fujishima Takeji. The schema bears the shadow of Mu Xia's Zodiac, but it also retains its own style. Fujishima Takeji is different from Cheng Mei in that he self-digested the characteristics of Mu Xia's schema and re-created it with his own understanding and feelings. For example, the cover he painted for Yosano Akiko's "Random Hair" reset the composition on the Muxia style with curly hair, flowers and women as the main elements. Fujishima also wrote the illustrations of the whole collection of poems "Random Hair", among which the four seasons series will inevitably remind people of the four seasons series of Mu Xia, but Fujishima's four seasons have orthodox Japanese flavor in terms of content and form. Mu Xia's schema is closely related to the revolutionary literature in Meiji period, especially the female literature. For the reformist and romantic star poets, Mu Xia's schema without any ideology and pure aesthetic meaning seems to be very appealing to them. The star poets were out of tune with the militaristic atmosphere at that time. In 194, during the Russo-Japanese War, Yosano Akiko published an anti-war poem "Don't die" in the Star. While mourning his brother who died in the war, he also directly expressed his resistance by saying that "the emperor would not take part in the battle himself", which attracted militants to attack Yosano Akiko himself and even the Star. Yosano Akiko's other works, on the other hand, focus more on the expression of women's own moods and emotions, praising youth, love and freedom. In the history of Japanese manga, the first manga for girls was written by Osamu Tezuka, but it was just a story of a teenager's adventure in the skin of a girl, and then it was a fairy-tale manga for girls by Eiko Mizuno. Until the emergence of the "24-year group of flowers", girls' cartoons created by C-tail Wangdu, Takemiya Keiko, Yumiko Ooshima and others not only have strong literariness, but also pay great attention to the expression of characters' inner feelings. Japanese comic critic Hideyoshi Otsuka believes that the "24-year-old group of flowers" girls' comics are a revival of Yosano Akiko's emphasis on expressing the literary elements of women's hearts and bodies. On the other hand, in 197s, many members of the "24-year-old Flower Group" went to Europe for a long time, and their absorption and admiration for European and American cultures were undoubtedly presented in their works. Keiko Takemiya is one of the earliest authors who created cartoons on the stage of the European world. The aesthetic expression of the Art Nouveau movement, represented by Mu Xia, has become a corner of the Japanese art style through the integration of local styles by Japanese illustrators in past dynasties, or has been brought into the girl comics implicitly or obviously. The borrowing of schema is only superficial, and the far-reaching influence is that romantic elements such as flowers and curves have gradually become the established media for rendering atmosphere in girl cartoons, which has continued to this day. *，。 Characteristics of Mu Xia's works
Mu Xia's works have absorbed the elegant descriptions of Japanese woodcuts on the shape and outline, the colorful colors and geometric decorative effects of Byzantine art, and the detailed and sensual descriptions of Baroque and Rococo art. He created a character image called "Mu Xia style" with perceptual decorative lines, concise contours and bright watercolor effects.
After his processing, all the female images appear sweet and elegant, with graceful figure, youthful vitality and sometimes elegant and soft hair. His pictures are often composed of young and beautiful women and decorative flowers with smooth curves.
Unlike other artists, Mu Xia is also a photographer. He uses photography technology to assist his creation. He asked the model to pose as he needed and take photos. Then, based on the photos, he arranged and processed the clothes and hair on the screen. After special composition and decoration of flowers and plants, he finally completed his creation.
Many of his posters are based on photos, and many of the posters he painted for bernhardt are also stills from artists or photos taken by artists themselves. Later, Mu Xia regarded photography as a creative auxiliary tool as important as sketching.
Extended information:
Posters: Mu Xia created a series of posters for sarah bernhardt and the "DeLaRenaissance" theater, which were brought to the United States with bernhardt's tour to the United States and influenced the style of American posters.
decorative group paintings: Mu Xia created many decorative group paintings called "Panneauxdécoratifs" (a complete set of four paintings created around the same theme, often printed on flexible paper or silk fabrics to decorate walls), including "Four Seasons" in 1896, "Four Flowers" in 1897, "Four Arts" in 1898 and "192".
Advertising paintings and commodity packaging paintings: Mu Xia also created a large number of advertising paintings and commodity packaging paintings (from biscuits and bicycles to soap and cigarettes), because the sweet female images and extremely exquisite details he painted were in line with the concept that beauty meant quality at that time.
- Mu Xia