Art journey 5 of Art bead scene studio focuses on the gemstone paintings of Alphonso Mucha. For those of you who are new here, an Art journey is a jewellery challenge where ABS invites jewellery bloggers/makers to create a piece of jewellery inspired by the given inspiration. The pieces must use an art bead or component that is handmade either by the jeweller or bought from another artisan. Mass produced handmade pieces are not considered artisan components. You can find my previous ABS entries here. In this post, I invite you to take a look at my Mucha style floral necklaces. Read more about this month’s inspiration here.
Artwork Analysis
- Name of the painting/artwork : Precious stones
- Artist | Year | Description: Alphonso Mucha | 1900| The four decorative panels of “The Precious Stones” each personify a different gemstone- Topaz, Emerald, Ruby and amethyst.
- Visual categorisation & style – Art nouveau period | Beautiful women swathed in luxurious fabrics of muted colours. As with other paintings of Mucha which were used for advertisements, the foreground and background are heavily detailed with exotic patterns. This was also sometimes referred to as “Mucha Style.”
Mucha style floral necklaces
I have chosen to interpret 2 of the four paintings in the quartet. They represent the Emerald and Amethyst panels respectively.
Emerald
- Colour palette – emerald, sage green, moss, greenish black, copper and antique brass.
- Shapes and forms – The paintinghas circular and organic forms. Motifs such as medallion, leaves, flowers, woman in a strapless dress, snakes, rope with tassels and chair with animal (snake/gargoyle head) are seen.
- My ideation – I chose to do a simple looped bead necklace with of beads of glass and agate in emerald, moss, leaf green, light green and ink green.
- Art bead/component – Green polymer clay pendant with yellow flowers by Andrew Thornton.
Due to the yellow flowers in the pendant, the necklace looks bright. As a result the overall mood is less romantic more chirpy. While it isn’t exactly what I had in mind, I like the necklace the way it is.
Amethyst
- Colour palette – amethyst, copper red, red violet, pink, cream, copper and antique brass. I used a more pinkish amethyst colour, pink, copper, cream with dash of green as the accent.
- Shapes and forms – The painting has circular and organic forms. Motifs and objects such as mosaic medallion, leaves, flowers, woman in a halter neck dress with a jewelled triangular focal and a wooden chair are seen.
- Feeling and Mood- I found a sense of dark romance in the picture despite the visible glow.
- My ideation – I used the words “darkness and glow” as my anchor points and chose beads that have a AB finish or a foil lining. Since I do not use human figures in my work, I have used the second hero element of the painting- a flower as my focal. I found the flowers drooping and slowly withering and hence my flower too resembles one that is plucked from the plant and is shriveling slowly.
- Art bead/component – Coloured copper flower pendant by me
Long before the extended lockdown happened in India, I was collecting copyright free images of Alphonso Mucha’s paintings for use in my Festive 2020 collection. But I couldn’t print them out for decoupage as the shops were closed. I was feeling bad about not being able to use them when this challenge began. But then, I read the fine print on the challenge post which deterred people from using the same artwork in their designs. I wanted to do long necklaces with tassel but for the sake of using art components stuck to flowers and floral necklaces.
Both these Mucha style floral necklaces are for sale. Email/message me on social media to buy. Do tell me in the comments what you think of my attempt.
I hope you found it interesting
Cheers
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