the movement was strongly influenced by czech artist alphonse mucha. mucha produced a lithographed poster as an advertisement for the play "gismonda" by victorien sardou, starring sarah bernhardt. the poster appeared on 1 january 1895 in the streets of paris. it was an overnight sensation, and announced the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of paris. initially called the "style mucha", this soon became known as "art nouveau".