Alphonse Marie Mucha was born in 1860 in the Czechoslovakian province of South Moravia.

Born to a court usher and a former governess, muchas parents wanted him to find work in the priesthood or a job that, at the very least, paid well. As a young man he worked a job as a clerk but spent most of his free time drawing. Mucha excelled at his craft and was encouraged by his drawing teacher to apply for admission to The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His admission was denied. Over the years Mucha had jobs such as a set painter, painting frescos in the castles of counts, freelance illustrations and illustrations for the cover of a magazine. Muchas reign as a definitive art nouveau artist came as a need for a poster design for Sarah Bernhardt in 1894. The commission came in a hurry and the only artist employed at the printer available to complete the poster was Mucha. Sarah was thrilled with the look of the poster, and upon its display to the public, the feeling toward his work was mutual. From there forward, Muchas work was much in demand. He designed numerous posters and advertisements in his own unique style. Alphonse Muchas work defines what the art nouveau style is. His work followed so closely to art nouveau that works of that period were often referred to as being of the mucha style. It was muchas style that would inspire many artists, even one-hundred years later.

Over a century later Muchas work reached a girl from a small town in Connecticut and greatly inspired her work. Much like Mucha her work is in the highly decorative style of art nouveau. Although the new art style wasnt exactly new, Echo Chernik found a way to capture the essence of what art nouveau is and make it her own. Echo Chernik graduated from Pratt Institute in New York City in 1995, and began her career as an advertising illustrator. Echo
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loved drawing from a young age and used that love to propel herself to the forefront of her field. Although classically trained, Echo prefers to digitally render her work, and it is this method that gives her work her own unique style. Although separated by over a century both Alphonse Mucha and Echo Chernik have defined and redefined art nouveau respectively. In order to understand the differences and similarities between the works of Mucha and Chernik an examination of the style, use of their designs, and the materials and methods used to create them will be made.

Alphonse Muchas poster for JOB Cigarette Papers completed in 1896 sets the standard for what is referred to as the art-nouveau style. The poster is highly stylized and embellished. The border is extremely decorated and interacts seamlessly with the main content. The subject matter is a beautiful, sensual woman in a provocative pose. Her features are soft, skin is lightly rendered, and the details saved for her lips and eyes. Her abundant flowing hair exemplifies the signature look of the art-nouveau style that Mucha mastered. The heavy black outlines, reminiscent of what was known as the coloring book style (Meggs, pg 199), popular in the 1880s, helps define Muchas decorative design. Although the advertisement poster for JOB isnt of the same content as Muchas previous stretched portrait style play posters, he finds a way to lend a similar feel to the design. The O in the word JOB is similar to many of the round shapes Mucha places behind the heads of his women. The repetition of the JOB logo in the background helps provide the look of repeated shapes in his play posters.
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There is no doubt that Muchas JOB ad poster set the standard for every graphic artist that wished to explore the art-nouveau style.

Echos work entitled Bellagios Eve, created in 2006 for the Bellagio hotels New Years Eve invitations, was done in the style of artnouveau. The inspiration for the work came from a mocked up Mucha lithograph (Chernik, pg 49). Following the dimensions of many of

Muchas early play posters, the Bellagio Eve invitation is in a stretched portrait orientation. The heavy outline plays in to the decorative

background of the high art-nouveau piece. The colors of the piece, although vibrant in tone, maintain similar contrast giving the piece the classic muted feel of original art-nouveau pieces. Heavy black outlines embellish the work. The soft, low contrasted tones of the Eves skin give just enough detail to allow for the visual interpretation of her emotion while, at the same time, allowing the other elements of Cherniks work to come alive. The wispy overflowing locks of hair that flow from Eves head, down and over her shoulders give Cherniks work the same style that gave artnouveau the nickname The Spaghetti Style in the 1890s.

The actual content of Cherniks rendition of the Bellagios Eve invitation follows much in the footsteps of original art-nouveau pieces of the late 1800s. A beautiful, elongated figure of a woman with sultry features and long flowing hair is surrounded by highly decorative back and foreground imagery. Her dress is long and flowing, but to keep with modern style reveals
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in the right places. Her head is haloed by an image of a stained glass window. Her body is surrounded by beautiful flowers. Cherniks style could easily be confused with a piece by Mucha. If not for her subtle modernity, Chernik seems to effortlessly follow everything that Mucha defined as art-nouveau while maintaining her own grasp on the artistic style. By utilizing modern imagery, materials, and methods, Chernik captures Mucha s style.

With the invention of digital software used to create and render art and graphic designs, new techniques were are used every day to generate new styles. Echo Chernik uses this digital medium to bring new life to an old style. Proficient in a number of Adobe software programs Echo utilizes her knowledge in digital software combined with her classical skills in drawing and painting to create her own version of the art nouveau style. According to her book entitled Echo Nouveau, The Art and Life of a Working Girl: 1995-2010 Echo claims she has become primarily digital over the years. Working from references of photographs taken of models, echo first creates a hand drawn sketch of her designs. Those designs are then transferred to her computer via a scanner to be completed digitally. Echo generally starts painting her work in Adobe Photoshop and then moves to Adobe Illustrator to work on the vector based aspects of her design. Once the bulk of the image is complete she moves back and forth until the look she wants is complete. (Chernik, pg 10)

The upside to Cherniks use of the digital medium allows her to produce work quickly and also easily correct mistakes or unwanted aspects of her design in order to please her clients. She is also able to work closely with clients during the design process due to the ability
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to easily share her digital process as it develops. Having a digital version of her designs allows Chernik the ability to produce her designs over and over in numerous different sizes and on different mediums. Although the digital process of Echos work seems appealing in many aspects it lacks the hands on, physical aspect of Muchas work.

Although digital technology was more than half a century away, Alphonse Mucha created his work with the latest available technology of his time, but relied on his classical training to provide a solid foundation for his works. For the most part Mucha created his works using lithography; a common technique at the time used to create multiple copies of a work. Mucha started a work with a sketch and eventually moved to a larger medium to finish a completed design. As photography developed Muchas interest in it grew as well. Photography became an important hobby of Muchas. This hobby he used to help further his design work. His photographs of women were often used to as reference for poster and ad design. Sometimes he worked directly from photographs by using a grid which he utilized to directly transfer an image to his canvas. (Moucha, pg 12) Muchas finished works were physical; not in the way Cherniks are. Even though both were printed and could be touched, Mucha s work has physicality that can only come from paper touching inked stone. Depending on the viewer, this fact could be perceived as one that either aids or fails the work. Regardless of the methods used to produce the art of Mucha and Chernik, their works were made for a specific purpose, purposes that were certainly satisfied.

The reasons for art, in particular, graphic design, can vary greatly but in the style of art nouveau the purpose has generally been to advertise in the form of posters. Alphonse Mucha used his unique talent to create some of the most intriguing posters of his time. His use women in his posters gave them a feeling that transcended time, age and nationality. (Meggs, pg 205) In his 1896 poster for JOB cigarette paper his use of the female figure does just that. Recognizable even today his poster advertises the product flawlessly. His portrayal of the woman in the poster adds a sensual feeling to what it promotes. His stylized portrayal of the smoke from the cigarette in the womans hand compliments her abundant flowing hair and this feature alone sells the product. In a simplistic fashion he uses the repeated logo as a background to subliminally engrain the product name in the viewers mind. The main logo, rendered in much the same way as the decorative border compliments the work and adds to the effectiveness of what it is selling. Mucha uses art to sell ideas and products. He does this effortlessly and with the aid of the timeless beauty of the woman he portrays in his work. This idea of using art as a selling feature has set the standard for posters to come.

Echo Chernik also uses her artistic style to promote events and sell products. She uses the same sensually posed, beautiful women to convey a message. The gorgeous floral and stylized patterns lend themselves to the beauty of the woman in Cherniks posters and only aid in the effectiveness of their purpose. In her invitation for the Bellagio Casino s New Years Eve party she portrays an event and what it represents in a single image. The sultriness and taboo feel of the party is represented by a beautiful woman holding the forbidden fruit. The beautiful stained glass window and bright flowers let the viewer know in one look that the party will be
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of the highest class. Chernik uses all the attributes of the art nouveau style to effectively sell what she is designing for. She has also used her work, to not only create effective posters and advertisements, but also embellishes the outside of product packaging. Regardless of its purpose, whether promoting events or selling products, the art nouveau works produced by these two artists will stand alone as works of art.

The span between Mucha and Chernik might be filled with time, but thats all. The works of art they have produced will stand as timeless. Both artist used over stylized visions of women wearing long flowing dress and sporting an eccentric abundance of beautiful hair. Paired with an interactive, decorative border and thick black outlines the beauty of their art is revealed. The use of photography by both artists helps them vision a finished work, although the path to that end is much different for each. The purpose of the art nouveau poster hasnt lost itself with time, as both Mucha and Chernik use it effectively. After a closer look at the style, use and materials and methods used to create the works of Mucha and Chernik, there is a better understanding of the similarities and contrasting differences between them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Arwas, Victor, Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau. London: Academy Editions, 1985. Print. Chernik, Echo, and Lazarus Chernik. Echo Nouveau: The Art and Life of a Working Girl: 19952010. New York.Echo-X Inc. 2011. Print. Echo Chernik - Art Nouveau Illustration. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.echo-x.com/>. Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs History of Graphic Design. 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons,2006. Print. Moucha, Josef, and Ji apek. Alfons Mucha. Praha: Torst, 2000. Print.