Vintage Posters

It must be confessed that, until within the last ten or twelve years, the book, now becomes so frankly coquettish in its costume, was rather carelessly dressed. On its frock of gray, yellow, blue, or pink paper — with even these tints neutral and subdued — were to be read the names of the author of the work and of the publisher, and that was all. Even this was an improvement on the primitive periods where the unbound book was simply re-covered with a sheet of plain or marbled paper, with a mean little label pasted on the back. I am only speaking, of course, of the current book, the popular book, the book which is bought to be read. It was only rarely that a modest vignette was printed on its cover ; a thin, black vignette, doomed to disappear before the binder's shears.

But it is not for nothing that we live in the age of advertising, and under the reign of the ad caplandum. There came to be publishers—crafty publishers—who said to themselves that a book might be so made as to be its own advertiser. It sported the most brilliant colors like a mountebank on parade ; it made its bid from the window of the bookshop and threw dust in the eyes of the credulous passer-by. Enclosed back and front between two designs, harmonious where it was possible, violently contrasted where harmony was not sufficient, the book became its own sandwich-man. The substance was inside, and the advertisement wrapped it as the silver coating wraps the pill. Thus the lie was given to an old French proverb which has been made to suffer countless persecutions, "Á bon vin pas d'enseigne."

But Heaven forbid that I should say anything derogatory of advertising, which is a necessity of our day and the very soul of business, especially in bookselling. I am only affirming that, though the cover of the book may have become an adornment, it was at all events at first an affiche. This is proved by the fact that book lovers were not at once persuaded that such covers ought to be preserved. It was only some little time after the fashion became general among the publishers that it became a custom to keep the cover under the binding, and that it thus became a permanent evidence of the taste of our epoch—good or bad, as the future may decide.

Another proof that it was rather a desire for advertising than an artistic intention which controlled the illustration of book-covers is that often the more insignificant and commonplace the book, the " louder " was the cover. There have been books which have been seized and persecuted by law on the evidence of too loud a cover ; but generally, if the cover was very risky it was safe to conclude that the inside was extremely prosy, not to say drowsy. It was like a circus booth, where the posters promise you the most exciting spectacles, and where the deluded spectators, once having entered, find nothing to look at for their two sous but a melancholy old monkey, or a seal uncomfortably confined in a tank which very imperfectly recalls the boundless ocean.

Whatever its cause, the vogue of the illustrated cover was started, somewhere about ten years ago, by a true artist — one of the most original and subtle of his time, indeed—Jules Chéret. And this was the way of it: Chéret was already known for his superb posters, which were sought by all collectors, and which were to be seen as wall ornaments in almost every painter's and sculptor's studio. There was extant at this same time an energetic, amusing, and odd personage — very well known to the youngsters among the artists and littérateurs—named Jules Lévy, whose name makes it unnecessary to say that he had considerable business faculty. He had a fairly important position in the celebrated publishing house of Hachette, but he was ambitious to set up a business on his own account. You can imagine that the house of Hachette, with its character and its class of publications, has commonly had rather a serious staff of employees, like the staff of a ministry or at least the membership of the Institute. All the same, there have been at least two exceptions to the rule, who turned out badly, one M. Émile Zola, and the other this M. Jules Lévy.

It was Jules Lévy who virtually invented the artistic-literary sect of the Incohérents; and in their exhibitions and balls he stirred up his associates to work out the most reckless notions their brains devised. In the exhibitions of the Incohérents were to be seen the most extraordinary charges d'atelier, and at their balls the most astounding costumes and performances. This remarkable Jules Lévy, with his long legs, his long arms, his big ears, his broad mouth, and his long nose, as soon as he found himself in possession of a sufficient celebrity, carried out his dream and established himself as a publisher. It was then that he noticed the analogy between the colored poster and the possible cover of the book of the future. He knew Chéret and his work, and he it was who first appealed to the designer of posters to cover and ornament the books he published. At first this was a little too much of a novelty, and Jules Lévy came to grief over it. His idea, which had been as simple as Christopher Columbus's egg, made him no money; and when he had to shut up his shop other publishers did not at once begin to decorate their publications. They came to it a little later, and timidly at first, but after awhile with an actual craze, and there was for a time and still is, as I have said, a large quantity of books whose sole reason for being was in their cover, and whose cover itself was a "fake."

On the other hand, it must be admitted that if the flag of illustration did not always cover a good cargo, and if to some extent it favored the launching of very commonplace performances, it made perhaps an additional opportunity of refinement for a truly beautiful book. Besides it has given us some very pretty prints, the work of our best artists, which, when struck off by themselves, are a pleasure to collectors.

Nearly all the celebrated painters have been approached by publishers, so that it would be invidious to cite the names of the Salon medallists and others who have adorned with a fleurette, a portrait, or a scene the front cover of a book. Among the illustrations of this article there is, for example, a graceful female head signed Dagnan-Bouveret. This enigmatical and elegant person is the author herself of "Le Voyage de la Princesse Louli," Mme Charles Laurent, the wife of a very well known journalist. In the same way, the Sar Joseph Péladan sometimes has his books modestly adorned with a drawing by Séon, depicting his own magian's face, with eyes the Greeks would have called "Boöpis," and his jovian hair, like the beard of the colossus of Korsabad.

But if I must mention the real masters of cover-design in colors up to the present time, let us pause especially at the names of Grasset, Chéret, Willette, and Georges Auriol. Grasset has signed some covers for stories and important publications, in which his forceful and somewhat severe manner appears distinctly. As to Chéret, the case is somewhat peculiar. Since the time when he worked for Jules Lévy, he has furnished covers more particularly for the works of his friends among men of letters, or of occasional unfortunate writers who have justly thought that one of his sparkling chromolithographs would be an attraction, and consequently a cause of increased sale. He has tired of his posters and that sort of work generally, and is devoting himself more and more to pastel and decorative painting, which he loves enthusiastically. Nowadays, therefore, he almost always begins by finding some pretext to refuse a request. He has urgent work on hand for three months; he hasn't a minute to himself; in three or four months he will see, etc.; but his friend returns to the charge: "Poor so-and-so has a sick wife and children. One of your covers would make his book sell;" and Chéret surrenders on the spot, bites his mustache, makes an effort to conceal his emotion, and finally says: "Oh, well, let so-and-so come in again in a fortnight, and his cover will be done."

But with Willette, who has published some of the most brilliant and elegant book decorations, it is quite another tune! If you can wait a year or two, perhaps you shall have your cover. But don't try to get it for any offer of money, if the book and its author do not please this capricious Pierrot. If your idea has attracted him, as did Jules Jouy's "Chansons de Bataille," or the present author's "L'Art du Eire," it need not be two years, nor one year, nor even a fortnight that you must wait. Some fine day, or rather fine night, he will set himself to work, and in the morning he will bring you the drawing for the same price that Chéret charges—that is to say for 0 francs, 00 centimes. Thus the poor chiefly enjoy Chéret's favors, and the independent those of Willette; or rather the poor and the independent secure from both of them things which millionaires or academicians would beg in vain. 

Georges Auriol, the third of those I named, has made a special place himself by covers in which flowers, which he understands thoroughly, play the principal part in the decoration. There are very pretty covers, too, by Steinlen, Caran d'Ache, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. And finally the Décadents and the Symbolists have made a specialty of singular covers with apparitions, cabalistic signs, symbols of mourning, or  treatment in pure white, which are a mixture of  subtlety and puerility —but very amusing all the same as a sign of the times. I hardly know what to say (to finish this part of my essay) is likely to be the future of cover illustration. But one thing is notable, and that is, that already certain publishers have found an opportunity to distinguish themselves by a novelty — by returning to covers that are entirely plain!  Such are the caprices of fashion! Books and women are going back to the simple batiste of our grandmothers —and with the same motive —coquetry!

If we turn to the covers of songs, pieces of music, and scores, and to the posters of the music publishers, we shall find a slightly different state of things. In the first place the cover - illustration of musical compositions is of much older date than that of books, and of a certain luxury and breadth. The romanze of the good old times—say of Louis Philippe — and the quadrilles our grandfathers danced, were almost always ornamented with lithographs (in black and white only, it is true). Some were of an audacious naiveté, and provoke a smile nowadays by the fidelity with which they preserve the costumes, tastes, and elegances of the period—especially their absurdities. What crinolines and alpine shepherdesses, what heart-conquering lancers, what superb gentlemen with long side - whiskers and watch-charms, what lovely sentimental beings with bands and ringlets!But there were masterpieces of romantic art, too, decorating simple contredanses; I need only recall the admirable lithographs by Célestin Nanteuil, which bring very high prices today. Many well-known artists signed (or drew without their signature) covers for songs : Daumier, Gavarni, Millet, Daubigny, Français, Ribot, and others. This decoration, therefore, is in no sense a novelty, and I should not dwell on it further, if there were not two rather important points to be noticed in connection with it.

One is, that of late years the attempt has been made to make true symphonies of music and painting, by securing a certain fitness in the choice of composer and illustrator relatively to one another. Thus Grasset, who is especially learned in old legend and archaic art, was asked to make the covers and posters for the works of Wagner, or for scores filled with the languors of the Orient. So, too, M. Besnard began the illustration of Beaudelaire's "Fleurs du Mal," set to music by M. Gr. Charpentier. One publisher, M. Biardot, went farther than his fellows, and had Willette illustrate, incident by incident, and almost phrase by phrase, the score of "L'Enfant prodigue."It was a tour de force and a bold venture, but in spite of its success the example has not been followed, perhaps from fear of being thought merely imitative. Still it is not unusual to find short musical fantasie diversified by scenes and sketches; and it will always be possible to make dainty little things of this sort when a bright composer and a spirituel draughtsman can be brought into collaboration. Some of the best experiments of the kind have been made by the firms of Hengel and Hartmann. Indeed, musical compositions, and especially the dramatic situations of the great operas, seem made to suggest pictures to a painter, like those with which "Lohengrin" and "Tannhauser" have inspired Georges Rochegrosse (published by Durand & Schoenewerk), or the "Valkyrie" Grasset. As for songs, we shall easily find among these the names of our customary illustrators, i.e., Willette, Auriol, Chéret, Steinlen, etc.

The second point is that art—and real art—has for a short time past been made to do duty in setting off the repertory of songs of the most vulgar order—the repertory of the cafés-concerts, to call it by its right name. Is this a sign of the times, and a proof that art is growing democratic, or democracy artistic, or neither? At all events, a sign of the times. The vulgar song of the beuglant, the absurdity made fashionable by some variety actor with a momentary vogue, the ridiculous nuisance in which rhyme and reason are both conspicuous by their absence, or even the suggestive song, all these have nowadays the most artistic dresses, attractive masks covering deceptive faces. But there is, after all, no reason to fear too greatly this vulgarization of pictorial art; if refined painting has taken a few steps toward a meeting with the poetry of the gutter, the poetry of the café-concert is itself tending toward a greater refinement and a true literary note, or what promises to become so.

It would need a considerable digression to show how certain little conclaves of poets and fantastics, like the Chat noir, the best known of all, have played the part of intermediaries between poetry worthy of the name—the poetry of those who are at least capable of originality, rhythm, and orthography— and poetry unworthy of the name, the more or less metrical platitude which has prevailed in the Parisian music-halls. It is enough to refer to this tendency, which perhaps deserves a more detailed study. Certainly, at the rate we are going on, if Alfred de Musset and Eugéne Delacroix were still alive, they would be working for the café-concert in a few years. Alfred de Musset would write songs for Yvette Gruilbert, and Eugéne Delacroix would make a beautiful cover for them. Lamartine himself would perhaps write a sentimental piece to be spoken and "represented" by Mme Judic, and the publisher would go fearlessly to ask M. Ingres for a cover design. We are clearly not far from such a state of things when writers and artists— some of the most highly esteemed among them —are little by little finding their way to the music-halls, where there is success and money.

Real artistic originality in the covers of music- hall songs began through the efforts of a publisher named Gr. Ondet, one of whose publications was, for instance, Les Montmartroises, words by M. Gondezki, one of the most audacious of the Chat noir songwriters, and with a lithograph in color by Gr. de Feure, a young Montmartre painter of Dutch birth—a man of vigorous if rather morbid talent. Ondet took a large risk in making this innovation (at first in connection with covers by M. H. Gr. Ibels), and for awhile his songs found no sale ; but he persevered  (luckier than Jules Lévy, whose story I told above), and thanks to Ibels, Steinlen, and Toulouse-Lautrec, his usual illustrators, he succeeded in setting this fashion for the publication of cheap music. To be quite exact, I ought to say that even before him Bruant, the song-writer of the Outer Boulevards, had had his songs illustrated by Steinlen ; but this was quite an isolated experiment.

There remains to be considered one final form of the poster, in its relations to artistic undertakings — that is, the poster designed for exhibitions, and especially for art exhibitions, general and individual.

The poster mania is a comparatively new disease—an excellent disease, by the way, for it furnishes material for some rich and curious collections; and one which has brought into being a whole branch of commerce and industry far from unimportant. In former days a few posters by E.Delacroix, Nanteuil, Dau-mier, Gavarni, Henri Monnier, and later Manet, made up the whole of this branch of art, and these few could be kept by a print-collector in a small portfolio. Then Chéret appeared. He produced hundreds of posters that were eagerly collected, especially as they were not very easily secured. Then everybody began, not only to collect posters, but to make them; every painter was ambitious to be a Chéret—but non licet omnibus.

The print-sellers, driven by the growing flood of demand, finally decided that it was worth while to arrange with the proprietors of the posters themselves, that a part of each printing should be reserved for amateurs ; and so the commerce in posters became a real profession, which dealers like Messrs. Kleinmann & Gagot practice on a large scale. There is in fact—and this is the captivating side of all real collecting— an actual bourse, an exchange, for posters. The philosopher may smile, but the collector will let him smile. Not only posters as such, but even (as in the case of the most valuable prints) different " states " of the poster are collected. Posters before letter, posters on common paper and paper de luxe, signed by the artist, or numbered in accordance with a rigidly limited numbering of copies. And why not, after all, since these lithographs have become true artistic prints ? There have been, and will be again, exhibitions of posters where the names of Chéret, Grasset, Willette, Toulouse -Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Louis Anguetin, G. de Feure, H. G. Ibels, and others are most highly valued. These posters are sought by amateurs and individual buyers for decorating apartments, halls, etc. There is even a small trade generated by the large trade —that of the mounter of posters ; a workman (sometimes a binder, sometimes a framer) who pastes posters on a fine cloth back with a roller at each end, like the Japanese kakimonos.

Perhaps it was a little beyond the reader's expectation to see this little matter of the Parisian kakimono touched upon. But it is the most curious and the least known part of the history of the artistic poster. It might be supposed that art exhibitions had furnished a pretext for the most remarkable posters of this sort, but this is not quite true. Some very commonplace posters have been made for very beautiful exhibitions. Besides, actual posters for art exhibitions have been comparatively rare; some painters have painted signs rather than post ers, to be put at the door of the place where they exhibited their works. But as these were compositions of which only a single example was painted, the souvenir disappeared as soon as the exhibition itself was finished.  M. Bodinier, manager of the Théatre d'Application, otherwise called the Bodiniére, where the most heterogeneous experiments in art and literature are gathered together — mixtures of talent and pretension, the whole résumé, in fact, of that art-madness which is just now carrying away the world of fashion—M. Bodinier has a most curious collection of these improvised posters. In his place several of the most remarkable exhibitions have occurred, notably those of Chéret, Ibels, Steinlen, and others, and each of these has furnished the subject of an interesting poster, especially that of Steinlen reproduced [here].

Another center of exhibition of a kind more vital and purely artistic is the gallery of the periodical La Plume. The Salon des Cent, as the Exhibition of La Plume is called, has each time called forth a very different genre of poster, from an elegant bit of parisiennerie like that of M. Graston Noury, to an austere piece of work like that of Grasset,  or a subtle study like that of M. G. de Feure.

Finally, it should be mentioned that some exhibitions organized at the École des Beaux-Arts have been advertised by Chéret's posters.  It is rather amusing to note this, Chéret's talent being not precisely academic.

If we glance back at this little essay, we shall notice that the artists who themselves make the posters have generally served their own interests less efficiently than they have those of the manufacturers, musicians, and novelists. Painters have not the reputation of being especially modest, and yet they have had least recourse of all to the advertising quality of the poster. They are like famous cooks, who only very rarely taste their own cooking.