Art: Slav Epic

In Czechoslovakia there has just been completed The Epic of Slavic History, a series of 20 paintings so enormous that Alfons Mucha, the artist, has been as busy with stepladders as with lexicons. For more than 18 years the work has been under way. The subjects range from earliest Slavic history to allegorical, exuberant prophecy. Sages, religious leaders, rulers appear in glorious pageantry. The most magnificent picture of the series, a canvas as large as the façade of a sizeable barn, depicts the liberation of Russian serfs by Tsar Alexander II in...

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