Alfons Mucha, God Mammon

Exhibit of the Month 7 / 2018

Alfons Mucha, God Mammon

1937

Oil on canvas

Regional Museum in Most, inv. no. UOM 0939

View the last large-format realization of Alfons Mucha from 1937. The painting that is associated with the end of his life.

The painting God Mammon, as the work was labeled upon its entry into the collection of the Regional Museum in Most, was created for the new building of the Czech Savings Bank on I. náměstí in Most, which began operations in April 1934. The painting reflects both the expression of the banking house's purpose and the environment for which the painting was created. Alfons Mucha captured both the locally typical clientele of the savings bank (for example, the figure of a miner) and the fact that the banking house, which operated in Most even before World War I, was one of the largest banks in the region during the First Republic. This allowed it to financially contribute to the support of cultural and social life and the education of the Czech community in Most, such as co-financing the construction of the Hus Memorial, a contribution to honor the 75th birthday of President T. G. Masaryk, or the establishment of the Karel Tichý Foundation, which supported Czech students.

In addition to supporting schools and education, the savings bank provided finances to various small entrepreneurs, as well as to poor Czechs living in the then Sudetenland. Since the shareholders and clientele of the savings bank were primarily Czech, the painting contains numerous references to this fact. A particularly eloquent expression of this fact is the map of interwar Czechoslovakia in the background.

The painting, at the beginning of a restless time, connects not only stylistically but also thematically to the cycle Slav Epic (1910-1928) and is one of the typical expressions of Alfons Mucha's relationship and devotion to his homeland. The so-called "Mammon," which should be interpreted in the context of the painter's work more as the Slavic god Veles (also Volos), thus expresses not only wealth in terms of material possessions but also the cultural wealth of the nation.

Prepared by Mgr. Jitka Šrejberová, Ph.D., Regional Museum in Most.