I saw this book at Borders and requested it from the library since I couldn't afford to buy it that day. It is an amazingly beautiful book with so many pictures. I love art books with lots of pictures, and this has many in colour as well as black and white. I recommend this book very highly. If you are a fan of art nouveau, Mucha, or just appreciate beauty, you will love this book.

This large and very handsome book, which presents itself as the catalogue for a 1998 exhibition, is a beautifully and intelligently presented anthology of the artist's very diverse career, capturing drawings and paintings, sculpture, posters, illustrations, decorative panels, and even jewelry design; the work of a master, all in excellent reproduction. Mucha was a fascinating man and an artist of considerable magnitude, and as the title claims, his work is the spirit of Art Nouveau, though no such label should limit the amazing body of achievment found here. I haven't collected other books of his work yet, but surely this volume will remain definitive for some time.

I have been looking for the picture "Lottery of the National Unity for Southwestern Moravia in Brno" ever since I saw the original this past summer in Prague, where the Mucha museum is located. If you have never heard of this picture, perhaps you can understand how MANY Mucha drawings, paintings, watercoulors and pastels are in here, to find such an obscure one. Not only does it have his known art, such as the 4 seasons, Laurel and Ivy, etc; But is also has his political art, THE ENTIRETY OF THE SLAV EPIC (Which is amazing), and many of his interior designs. How critics ever said Mucha wasn't one of the great masters of pen and ink, eludes me. This is one of the best books, and with Amazon's savings, it's even better. :)

I have been searching for this book for years. I didn't know the exact title. I kept thinking it was "big things can come in little packages" ;which is the moral of the story. I was given this book for my 7th birthday by a dear friend of my Mom's. I am know 27 and a 2nd grade teacher. I cannot wait to share it with my students. I only hope it will inspire them as it did me. Imagination is key!