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kneeling woman is remarkably impressive, while the irises amidst which she kneels are beautifully drawn. The lettering of this poster is most original, and the designer has evidently taken great pains with it. It is a lithograph in two colours, and measures forty-two and a half by thirty-one and a half inches. Schwæbe's larger poster, the "Salon Rose + Croix," is in one colour only, and is a good example of his work. So far this curiously-gifted artist has confined himself to advertising a concert and a picture show; it is not to be expected that he will ever condescend to soap or extract of beef. Another of the Rose + Croix men, Aman-Jean, has done a poster for the Salon which rivals in curiosity the productions of Schwæbe himself.
A little advertisement which had, it may well be, some influence on the poster movement in England, was that by which André Sinet advertised an exhibition of his own works held at the Goupil Gallery in 1893. This was an attractive little bit of design of which the colour was very agreeable. In addition to it, Sinet has done the inevitable poster for Yvette Guilbert. Another painter of talent who has made an advertisement for an exhibition of his own work is H. Guérard. It represents a group of ravens and is in poker work. It would appear to be rare, as it is quoted in none of the catalogues. A copy, exhibited at the Aquarium in 1894, is in the collection of Mr. Ernest Hart. Still another artist who
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has, I believe, done only one poster, is Goissaud. His design was to advertise the "Société des miniaturistes et enlumineurs de France," and is a lithograph in one colour. Among the Salon des Cent series we have, besides the admirable posters of Grasset and Ibels already alluded to, a very grotesque and effective little design by Jossot. It represents an amazing old gentleman of weird aspect, in cocked hat, paying his franc for admission to the exhibition. Of its kind it is effective enough. Another, by Cazoly, with a curious portrait of Paul Verlaine is reproduced here.
It is certainly with no view to hurt the feelings of those artists whose names do not head this chapter that they are represented by a mereet cetera. It must be understood that one of the least polite of contractions, in this case, involves no discourtesy whatsoever.
For example, I may instance such able work as Grün's "Le Carillon: cabaret artistique." Few posters are more vivid or more actual than this. The price of it is a matter of pence, and it should certainly not be neglected by those whom it amuses to collect theaffiche illustré. Grün, in addition to "Le Carillon," has produced "Poléon-Revue: Décadent's Concert," and in addition a design for an insurance company. One of the most charming of the more recent French posters is one by H. Gray, dealing with "La Prétentaine," a play produced some time ago at the Nouveau Théâtre. In addition he has advertised "La Bonita" at the Cirque d'Eté, "Les Mousquetaires," at the same place, "Les Saltimbanques" at the Cirque d'Hiver, and thebal masquéat the Théâtre de l'Opéra. The last is perhaps the best known of hisaffiches. Among others, Bac has done a poster for Yvette Guilbert at the Horloge, which is signed and dated 1892. The bicycling craze has called into existence a perfect torrent of posters, and Bac, together with Gray, Guillaume, Lunel, and Paleologue, have produced posters of more or less interest. A gentleman who is sufficiently modest not to state his name, did a design which called forth the wrath of the authorities. Whereupon an artist called Lepur designed anaffichebearing the significant legend, of which this is a translation: "Grand choice of vine-leaves (fig-leaves) of all sizes for posters, as demanded by the virtuous journals, the 'T(emps '), the 'G(aulois '), and the 'D(ébats ')."
The following is a list, with the names of typical examples of their work, of some other French artists of distinction who have designed posters: Barbizet ("La branche cassée"), Bouisset (F.) ("Bazar de l'Hôtel-de-Ville," "Exposition de jouets," "Chocolat Menier"), Desicy (H.) ("Un héritage, roman"), Dutriac ("Ambassadeurs: Danseuses Espagnols"), Faria ("Ba-ta-clan: [Illustration: 0189] Paulus"), Dufay ("Portrait,") ("Les Rey Nol's)," Galice (G.) ("Concert parisien: Esther Lekain," "Fête des Fleurs," "Paulan Brébion," "Scala: Jeanne Bloch"), Guydo ("Eldorado: Aimée Eymard"), Honer ("Concert parisien: Bonnaire"), Hope ("Gaieté: Tour de Nesle"), Huvey ("Gras-side"), Lamy (L.) ("Le capitaine Henriot, opéra comique," "Théâtre national lyrique"), Lebégue (L.) ("Bals travestes et tableaux vivants"), Lefèvre (L.) ("Cacao lacté," "Electricine," "L'hiver à Nice"), Levy (E.) ("Châtelet Michel Strogoff," "Cirque d'Hiver: Caravane dans le désert," "Folies Bergère: Vue de la salle," "Petit national: Le prince Mouffetard"), Meunier (G.) ("Papier à cigarettes Job," "Parfumerie Edéa," "Le Sahara à Paris: Champ de Mars"), Truchet (A.) ("Cabaret des Quat'z' Arts," "Eldorado: Alice Berthier.")
It will have been noticed already how great apart the music-hall and thecafé chantantplay in the history of the pictorial poster. Yvette Guilbert has been the cause of a baker's dozen ofaffiches; Anna Thibaud (that charming singer of the songs of Béranger); Anna Held, with her curious manner, and still more curious appearance; Irène Henri, of intense personality; Jane Avril, and May Belfort; to say nothing of Aristide Bruant, of Caudieux, of Paulus, and the rest of the school who have made the music-hall stage of France a matter of no small importance
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in her social life, have been favourite subjects of the designers of posters. It has always been held that the career of an actor, in consideration of its evanescence, is not
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without a certain pathos. It is true that we remember, through the gossip of their friends, Garrick and Mrs. Siddons, Talma and Rachel, but even these are uncertain phantoms lingering in the haze of memory. Only yesterday they were intensely actual, to-day they are not more real than Burbage and Betterton. After all, the history of the actor's art is not without its immortals. Macaulay's schoolboy could doubtless have related the compliment of Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Siddons: the latest escapade of the great Sarah is the joy of the paragrapher. The music-hall, however, has still no artist in any country (save, perhaps, the unforgettable Yvette) who has much chance of permanent remembrance. But when the toil and moil of existence is ended, when the singer has sung his last song, it may chance that he will be remembered because some collector of such unconsidered trifles as picture posters has placed in his portfolio a work of Chéret or of Lautrec.
To turn from the music-halls to the great railway companies is an emphatic transition, and yet the former, no less than the latter have done much to encourage the artist to apply his talent to theaffiche. The Great Western Railway Company have illustrated at their stations and in their carriages, by means of photography, all that is romantic and interesting in the country through which their line runs. And, again, the great lines of the United States have brought into vogue vast systems of pictorial advertisement. Their opportunity was undoubtedly a magnificent one. For subject
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matter they had some of those vast natural developments which appeal to mere man as absolutely terrific. The waterfall, splashing itself into luminous dust, the immense and silent mountains, the lakes which are seas, the vasty canons which occur in different parts of the States, inevitably appeal to the imagination. It is therefore not wonderful that the great lines of America have preferred literal and exact illustration to fantastic delineation. The railways of France, on the other hand, have employed to no inconsiderable extent the artist to figure the beauties of the places at which they have stations. Amongst the most important French designers who have worked at the railwayafficheare:-Fraipont (G.): ("Chemin de fer de l'Etat: Bains de mer de Royan": "Royan sur l'Océan," "Chemin de fer d'Orléans: Excursions en Tou-raine": "Excursions en Touraine et aux châteaux des bords de la Loire," "Chemin de fer de l'Ouest: Argenteuil à Mantes," "Cie de l'Ouest et de Brighton: Fleurs, fruits, primeurs à destination de Londres," "Paris à Londres (L'Angleterre et l'Ecosse)" "Chemin de fer du Nord: Excursions à la mer," "Chemin de fer de l'Est: Royat," "Chemin de fer de l'Ouest: Bretagne, Normandie," "Normandie et Bretagne," "Chemin de fer de l'Ouest à Brighton: Paris à Londres," "Chemin de fer du Nord: Anvers, Exposition universelle.") Ochoa: ("Club Train," "Méditerranée," "Express (Cie Int. des wagons-lits)," "Orient-Express," "Peninsular-Express"). Hugo d'Alési (affichessimili-aquarelles): "Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Algérie," "Genève," "L'hiver à Nice," (two subjects), "Lac de Thoune," "Mont Revard," "Le Mont Rose," "Le Puy," "Tunisie," "La Turbie," "Uriage-les-Bains," "Chemin de fer du Midi: Pyrénées," "Chemin de fer d'Orléans: Excursions en Auvergne" (1894), "La Creuse et l'Indre," "Chemin de fer de l'Ouest: Dieppe," "L'Auvergne (Orléans)." Lefèvre (L.): "Nord. Eté a Cobourg," "Orléans Excursions aux Pyrénées," "Bains de mer du Golfe de Gascogne," "Ouest Excursions sur les côtes de Normandie, en Bretagne, et à l'île de Jersey." Among other designers for French railway companies and watering-places may be named Orazi, whose "Trouville" poster is reproduced on p. 181, Balzer, Baylac, Japhet, and Ogé.
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While the pictorial poster undoubtedly existed in England previous to the production of Fred Walker's "Woman in White," its artistic qualities were conspicuous by their absence. No body of artists who designed posters, such as that of which Ga-varni was one in France, is to be met with in the history of English art until the present day. While, as Mr. Spielmann reminds us in a recent magazine article, Mr. Godfroy Durand and Mr. Walter Crane had both attempted the artisticafficheprevious to Walker, the efforts of neither made a pronounced impression, nor were they productive of permanent results. The work of the first of these three artists announced the appearance of the then newly-founded "Graphic," and that of Mr. Walter Crane proclaimed the merits of a brand of lead pencils. It is interesting, as an example of Mr. Crane's immense versatility in decorative design, that he should be among the pioneers of the poster movement in this country. That his early effort was overshadowed by Walker's very imposing work is not a matter of surprise. From the first, Walker appears to have been deeply impressed by the possibilities of the hoardings as a free art gallery. To use his own words, as quoted by Mr. Spielmann: "I am impressed on doing all I can with a first attempt at what I consider might develop into a most important branch of art." How Walker's view has been realized the mere existence of this book is sufficient to prove. This design, which was done to advertise Wilkie Collins's novel, "The Woman in White," represents a magnificently-draped female figure stepping through a door out into the night. With one hand she opens the door, with the other she imposes silence on some person unseen. This was cut on wood by W. H. Hooper, who also engraved the small block we are permitted to reproduce here from "The Magazine of Art." The design is in black and white, and has the limitations from the advertising point of view of black and white work; but, apart from this, it is in every way a work which could not fail to impress the passer-by. "The Woman in White" is, unfortunately, Walker's sole essay in the art of the poster; on the other hand, Mr. Walter Crane has produced a series which, we may hope, has yet to close. It would seem that over ten years elapsed between his first and second attempts in the art of the poster. We meet with him for the second time in a design in blue and yellow
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which advertised the Covent Garden Promenade Concerts given in 1880. This has become extremely rare, and the artist himself does not, I believe, possess a copy. Following the Covent Garden bill was one announcing the performances in London of the Paris Hippodrome Troupe. This is merely an enlargement on a vast scale of a classical drawing intended to adorn a book describing the show, but it is distinctly interesting, more so, it seems to me, than the pretty little coloured thing-a window-bill, rather than a poster-which advertises Hau's champagnes. Other posters by Mr. Crane deal with an exhibition of his own works, with various insurance companies, with the "English Illustrated Magazine" (an enlarged version of the cover), and the exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society. It will be seen that Mr. Crane's contribution to the art of the poster is a very substantial one, and if his designs do not always fulfil the sweet uses of advertisement, they are generally marked by fine taste. It is a matter of common knowledge that Professor Herkomer has left hardly any art or craft untouched, and it therefore goes without saying that he has left some of them unadorned. To succeed as painter, etcher, carver, musician, poet and playwright, lecturer, and actor is not given to mere man. Professor Herkomer's posters cannot, I think, be considered among his more fortunate performances. That done for "The Magazine of Art" does not lack a certain feeling for composition: the weird
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creature who told us that "Black and White" was coming seemed to me to lack both dignity and grace, and, moreover, to possess very few compensating qualities. Amongst other posters by Professor Herkomer is one for his own exhibition, and one for an exhibition of pictures recently held at Oxford.
It should be noted that while most of the mural decorations of Mr. Crane and Professor Herkomer are, strictly speaking, posters, in that they were designed for the hoardings and for the hoardings alone, a great many designs and pictures by eminent artists have been reproduced and posted contrary to the original intention of their designers. The most prominent of these is, of course, Sir John Millais' famous "Bubbles," on the reproduction of which enormous sums have been spent. The thing is pretty enough, but cannot compete as an advertisement with a really good poster properly so called. Of course the name of Sir John Millais was one to conjure with, and the success of the thing has been, doubtless, great. But it is not an experiment one cares to see frequently repeated. Messrs. Pears were more happily inspired in the commission which they gave to Mr. Stacy Marks to produce abona fideposter. His "Monks Shaving," seems to be most excellently conceived, and, indeed, to be the most interesting of Messrs. Pears
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gallery of illustrated advertisements. Art has certainly played a very prominent part in the battle of the soaps. Mr. G. D. Leslie used his gifts to insist on the merits of the Sunlight brand, while Mr. Burton Barber pleaded pictorially for the Lifebuoy brand. A curious bit of poster-making was the reproduction of a random sketch of a girl sitting on a champagne cork, by Mr. Linley Sambourne, which seems to meet us at every turning. Again, Mr. Harry Furniss's man who had used Pears' soap years back, "and since then had used no other," is an enlarged reproduction used for advertising purposes of a drawing in "Punch." On the other hand, the "Minerva," which Mr. Poynter designed for the Guardian Assurance Company, was actually devised for the purpose of a mural advertisement. It cannot be strictly called a poster, insomuch as it is never seen in the open air unless glazed. It is a classical design in several colours, and is of a very elaborate character. For the purpose of exhibition indoors, it is glazed and mounted on linen with rollers. Another contemporary English painter who has received very high official recognition and has done a poster is Sir James Linton, P.R.I. His subject was assuredly an attractive one, "Antony and Cleopatra," but it can hardly be maintained that, for an artist of so great repute, he has produced an especially memorable design. It is a lithograph in one colour, and measures fifty by fifty-two inches. Its date is 1874, so it is clear that Sir James Linton is among the little band who tried to do something for the pictorial poster in
England when it was held of no account. Mr. Charles Green, a member of the institution of which Sir James is president, produced a rather ingenious advertisement of an exhibition of works in black and white held some time ago in Mosley Street. It
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is not very large, and is a lithograph in one colour.
It will be observed that the artistic poster was in the air in England not very long after it began to develop in France. It does not, however, seem to have taken so great a hold on English artists or on the English public as on the artists and public of France. In England the artistic poster appears to have been received coldly or with indifference, and doubtless many designers who would have been glad to turn their attention to the poster were deterred therefrom by lack of public sympathy. But all this has happily been changed, and if the number of poster designers is to continue increasing at the present rate, the difficulty will be, not to find the artistic advertiser, but to find the thing to be advertised. A crowd of clever young men, actuated by the success which met the efforts of the designers dealt with in the next chapter, have rushed to the poster with results altogether important.
The English artists of established reputation with whom I dealt in the last chapter, were, as we saw, so anxious to inform their posters with aesthetic qualities, that for the most part, they overlooked the obvious fact that their work was vain unless it really fulfilled its primary purpose of advertising. It was left for the three men (all of comparatively recent reputation) whose names head this chapter, to give the right direction; to insist that not art, but advertisement, was the first essential. It is not for an instant to be pretended that their achievement equals in importance that of the three designers discussed in a corresponding chapter in the section of this book devoted to France. Quantity of production, it is true, is a small matter in art; and yet, in so far as quantity of production entails experience, one is forced to take it into consideration. The success of a man who has produced a hundred posters, or more, is scarcely to be expected of a designer, however ingenious, who is only making his first attempt. Moreover, to an artist accustomed to work on a small scale, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to appreciate, and when in the throes of production to keep in mind, the essentials of a design intended to be seen at a considerable distance, in the open air. He is apt to be tempted into pretty detail or subtle and harmonious colour, and therefore to forget that he should be simple almost to the point of crudeness. Under these circumstances, it is not less remarkable than it is encouraging, that Mr. Hardy, Mr. Beardsley, and Mr. Greiffenhagen in their earliest essays apprehended the situation at once, and produced posters which inevitably caught the eye of the beholder and created an impression which remained with him for a considerable time. Differing in all else, the first designs of these three artists were alike, in that they were admirable advertisements. From every hoarding in London, from the walls of every station on the Underground Railway, one was vehemently called upon to purchase a new weekly, or a new series of an old one, or to visit the Avenue Theatre. If the call was resisted, it was assuredly no fault of these artist-advertisers. To suggest that what they have done would have been impossible,
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or at least improbable, if France had not paved the way, is scarcely to discount their immediate and unequivocal success: even the greatest artist is unwise if he does not condescend to make use of the work of the past.
It is, I think, Mr. Dudley Hardy who, of the three artists named, owes most to France. He has made a variation, a very personal and alluring variation, be it said, of a theme essentially Gallic in its unrestrained gaiety, its reckless joyousness. There is something of Chéret, and there is even more of Jan Van Beers, in the end-of-the-century girl, elegant as she is impudent, whom Mr. Hardy depiéts with such amazing verve and abandon. She is too light-hearted, too irresponsible, to be a daughter of this land of grey and rainy skies; she takes nothing seriously, save perchance a detail of her costume. And yet she is stamped with Mr. Hardy's personality as thoroughly as are the charmingParisiennesof Chéret with the individuality of their inventor. Mr. Hardy began, and began wisely, by trusting for his effect to a single bold figure. Elaborate composition implies detail, and detail is one of the pitfalls of the designer of posters. Take, for example, the vast sheets which were employed to advertise one of the spectacles at Olympia. The overcrowding of small figures and closely-realized views either produced no impression whatsoever on the spectator, or at the most an impression due entirely to the immensity of the sheets. Mr. Hardy's series of posters commenced most auspiciously with that audacious young lady in a yellow dress, saucy hat, and flying black boa, who, not deigning to entreat, compelled the passer-by to rush to the nearest bookstall for a copy of Mr. Jerome's weekly "To-Day." Later, in similar vein, came the dashing girl in red, used by the manager of the Prince of Wales's Theatre to insist on the merits of "A Gaiety Girl." It may be doubted whether any more effective mural advertisement has ever been seen in London than that formed by half-a-dozen copies of this poster, arranged in the manner of a frieze in front of the theatre during the run of the piece. If the idea was that of the bill-sticker, the man was a genius of his kind: I cannot help suspecting, however, that the striking arrangement was due to Mr. Hardy himself. Or perhaps it was the happy thought of an outsider. In addition to the large "Gaiety Girl" poster, the two smaller bills which this artist designed to advertise the same play, full as they were of dash and go, must not be overlooked. To the collector they have a merit which he will not fail to appreciate. They are of manageable size, and this is more than can be said of most of Mr. Hardy's productions. It must not be thought, however, that
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Mr. Hardy can do no more than repeat with slight variety of detail thechicgirl to whom he first introduced us; already, notwithstanding the comparatively small number of his designs, he has shown a very commendable versatility. The proprietors of "St. Paul's," in the days when that journal regaled its readers on the portraits, not of dancing girls, but of right reverend prelates, commissioned Mr. Hardy for a large design appropriate to the semi-ecclesiastical character of their journal. The choice, in view of the "Yellow Girl," was a somewhat curious one; but the experiment justified itself. The artist rose to the occasion; on the hoardings of London there appeared a woman of austere, even saintly, demeanour, clad in sombre robes, and armed with a spike of the Madonna lily. In spite of the low scheme of colour, the design was very telling as an advertisement. It has become very rare; indeed, notwithstanding the fad; that the dealers quote it at various prices in their catalogues, it may be questioned whether it is to be procured at all. When the policy of "St. Paul's" was changed—when it stepped down from its shrine to join the multitude and be of the world, worldly—the art of Mr. Hardy was once more called in to introduce the paper in its new guise. For the first time, so far as I know, he attempted composition. His idea was a happy one. The poster represented a young lady, evidently light-hearted and of unquestionably fantastic costume, see-sawing on a quarter of the moon with a gentleman of slight intellect, but exceedingly smart clothes. Seen under certain conditions the composition is distinctly effective, but from a long distance it fails to assert itself as do Mr. Hardy's simpler designs. In his most recent effort he has returned to the single figure, and he has done nothing more striking than his bill for "The Chieftain," at the Savoy Theatre, which represents a man in picturesque costume on a red ground. The lettering of nearly all Mr. Hardy's posters is admirable. It is invented by the artist himself, and forms an essential part of the design. For the rest, it should be remembered that the poster is a mere incident in Mr. Hardy's art career. As an illustrator he is with us everywhere; as a painter he is held in deserved esteem. It is to be hoped, for the sake of the artistic poster in England, that he will continue to devote some of his time to a branch of art in which, in comparatively a short time, he has so greatly succeeded.
The art of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley has been so enthusiastically received, on the one hand, as a new revelation, and so passionately condemned, on the other, as the mere glorification of a hideous and putrescent aspect of modern life, that it is difficult to consider his work with calmness. One thing, however, is certain: an impression
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of some kind, whether agreeable or the reverse, it has undoubtedly left upon all who have seen it. It cannot be dismissed by stating that it is derivative rather than original; that to a large extent it is the outcome of Japan, and in a less degree of the old English school of caricaturists. Whether it be good or bad, the extraordinary impression it has made cannot be gainsaid. It is probable that the work of no young designer of recent times has called forth so much homage of imitation, so great an amount of that kind of caricature which is among the sincerest forms of flattery. Mr. Beardsley's eccentricities are so pronounced, that to parody his work was simply to do the obvious. From "Punch," august by reason of its fifty years of tradition, to the poorest comic rag produced to catch the errand-boy's spare halfpenny, is a far cry; and yet the former, no less than the latter, has treated its readers to a series of pictorial Beardsleyisms. It would have been wonderful, indeed, if Mr. Beardsley, who is nothing if not modern, had not attempted the artistic poster. His opportunity came when the Avenue Theatre was taken by an enthusiastic and courageous young actress for the production of plays by living English writers, which, whatever their fate from the commercial point of view, were at least to possess definite merits as pieces of literature. In order to advertise Dr. Todhunter's "Comedy of Sighs," and Mr. G. Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man," Mr. Beardsley excelled himself, and designed perhaps the most remarkable poster ever seen, up to that time, in London.
Nothing so compelling, so irresistible, had ever been posted on the hoardings of the metropolis before. Some gazed at it with awe, as if it were the final achievement of modern art; others jeered at it as a palpable piece of buffoonery: everybody, however, from the labourer hurrying in the dim light of the morning to his work, to the prosperous stockbroker on his way to the "House," was forced to stop and look at it. Hence, it fulfilled its primary purpose to admiration; it was a most excellent advertisement. The old theatrical poster represented, in glaring colours, the hero in a supreme moment of exaltation, or the heroine in the depths of despair. Mr. Beardsley did not condescend to illustrate, but produced a design, irrelevant and tantalizing to the average man, though doubtless full of significance to himself. In many respects the Avenue bill must be considered the best poster which so far has come from this artist's hands. The very graceful figure on a small poster for "The Yellow Book" speaks for itself. It is more vivid, more curious, than either of the two done for a London publisher. Most collectors, however, will treasure even more highly
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the charming design done by Mr. Beardsley to advertise the Pseudonym series of short stories. In it we meet with the artist in his less mordant mood. The sketch of the old bookshop in the background is quite delightful, and the whole design is less grotesque than most of Mr. Beardsley's productions. The arrangement in purple and white, which he did for the same firm, is a very striking performance in his later manner. Its importance as a poster is, however, seriously discounted by the fact that the design has nothing whatsoever to do with the text, which has been added in a manner almost inconceivably clumsy.
The success of Mr. Beardsley in the production of artistic posters has encouraged a host of imitators, so that it is quite within the bounds of possibility that he will found something in the nature of a school. Already, on the other side of the Atlantic, more than one artist has been inspired by him. The posters of Mr. Bradley, for example, with which I shall deal later, are unquestionably adaptations, at once skilful and intelligent, of Mr. Beardsley's decorative manner. Again, to return to England, the pleasant arrangement in red and white, designed by Mrs. Dearmer to advertise a recital recently given by her in London, proves that she has been affected by the simplicity and directness which are so conspicuous among the merits of Mr. Beardsley in his essays in the art of the hoarding. Of his many parodists only one, I think, has actually attempted the poster. The essay in question was made by Mr. J. Hearn, under the signature of "Weirdsly Daubery," and the result was very fantastic and amusing. The design was done for some amateur theatricals at Oxford, and it was curious to
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meet this atom of the so-called decadence flaunting itself, with strange incongruity, in every nook and corner of "the sweet city of the dreaming spires."
The case of Mr. Maurice Grieffenhagen is similar to that of Mr. Dudley Hardy, insomuch as both have been well known for some time to the public as painters and as the producers of very accomplished work in black and white. At present Mr. Grieffenhagen, as a designer of posters, can only be judged by a single production. It may be said at once that nothing more distinguished, nothing which is less imitative or derivative, has come from English hands than Mr. Grieffenhagen's advertisement for the "Pall Mall Budget." Admirable alike in colour and in pattern, the poster is entirely appropriate to its purpose of keeping before the eyes of the public a publication which escaped frivolity on the one hand and dulness on the other. All who watch the development of the artistic poster in England with interest, cannot but hope that the "Pall Mall Budget" poster will be the first of a series by the same artist equally delightful and original.
It is interesting to note that while we are still a long way behind the French in the matter of the artistic poster, the productions of the three artists with whom I have just dealt have received a cordial welcome at the hands of Parisian collectors. In the dealers' shops you may see Mr. Hardy's "Gaiety Girl" side by side with Lautrec's "Reine de Joie," while Mr. Grieffenhagen's young lady in red looks with demure surprise at the antics of her more frivolous sisters, as depicted by Jules Chéret. There is, again, a steady demand for anything by Mr. Beardsley, who, it would seem, has already become an established favourite with French connoisseurs. As we shall see in another chapter, the prices put in Paris upon English posters compare very favourably with those at which the works of the ablest French designers are valued. In matters of art, few cities are more insular and intolerant than the French metropolis; and those English artists who are devoting themselves to the poster, should be encouraged by enthusiastic recognition where enthusiasm was least to be expected.
Since this book was commenced as the companion, rather than the rival, of that of M. Maindron, English designers of the poster have multiplied in a degree altogether phenomenal.
Up to the time in question, as we have already seen, the English artist who attempted the poster was exceptional. The famine, which was prevalent only a year or two ago, has become the abundance of today, so that where one expected a dearth of subject matter, one has in fact an excess. It seems to me that, apart from the English pioneers, whom we have already considered, the brothers Beggarstaff, in reality Messrs. Pryde and Simpson, two young artists, are entitled to the first place among the makers of the English artistic poster. They have best appreciated the essence of their business: less than almost any native designers, they are innocent of any homage of imitation. They have imitated neither Chéret nor Lautrec: it may well be that they have had the wisdom to take a hint here and there from both of these masters of the art of theaffiche. As yet the hoardings of London are screaming with the vulgar designs of the advertiser's hack. The admirable art of the Beggarstaffs is, up to now, infrequently met with. Their curious advertisement for Sir Henry Irving's production of "Becket," was eclipsed by that done for the same manager's "Don Quixote," while the latter has to give place to one intended to announce a special issue of "Harper's Magazine." All of these force themselves on the collector's attention. They are at once striking and artistic; they cry their wares well, and they are a delight to the eyes. The lettering in the Harper poster is beyond all praise. Of its kind, it is the most beautiful English lettering of which I know. At the Aquarium Exhibition the Beggarstaff's showed four posters which advertised Nobody's Blue, Nobody's Candles, Nobody's Niggers, and Nobody's Pianos. If each "Nobody" is not rapidly converted into "Somebody," the various manufacturers and proprietors of the articles mentioned above must be very stupid people. All were excellent; that which advertised Nobody's Pianos was a most curious and à most original performance. It seems to me that the Beggarstaffs have few serious rivals in England, and not very many in France. Their works should help very
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considerably in the task of revolutionizing the English pictorial poster. The
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impression created by their designs on Frenchmen, who are past masters in the art of the hoarding, is most favourable.
It will be remembered that when Mr. Sickert took it into his head to depict the Sisters Lloyd in their music-hall habit, the critics fell out greatly. Even the young ladies in question had, it is said, scant affection for a design in which everything was suggested and nothing declared.
They had, it is true, the recompense of advertisement, and that, to a music-hall singer, is a very sweet recompense. It was characteristic of Mr. Sickert that he should go to the music-halls for a subject. The "New English Art Club" is devoted to things which are