The Slav Epic — Slavs in their Original Homeland

Alphonse Mucha spent 18 years painting a cycle of 20 monumental canvases about the history of the Slavic peoples. He funded it with his fees from Parisian poster commissions for Sarah Bernhardt. The first canvas shows a Slavic tribe hiding at night from a raid by Germanic invaders. In the foreground, a couple crouches — a man and a woman — staring out at the viewer, their eyes wide with terror. Mucha painted the pupils so that they follow the viewer no matter where you stand. The Slav Epic was mostly forgotten under Communism. It was finally shown in Prague in 2012. Now at National Gallery Prague, Prague @ngprague