MUCHA, A. - Au quartier Latin.

This image also appears on the Christmas cover of the magazine in 1900. This is the version before the magazine boilerplate was added, but "this black-and-white version shows that at this time, the line was the most impressive design element in Mucha's work, with which he could form an impressive composition. The color had only secondary importance as a supplement to the expression" (Darmstadt p. 144).

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was one of the most important decorative artists working in Paris at the turn of the century. His distinctive and original posters and his decorative panels in le style Mucha became almost synonymous with French Art Nouveau.
At the height of his career as a decorative artist, he became convinced that art should serve ideas, he became chief artistic and cultural adviser to the interwar Czech government, and he completed a major and controversial fresco cycle, the Slav Epic, as well as portraits and large symbolic paintings.