From the Streets: Postermania and French Color

Lithography Posters of the Belle Époque

Jillian Kruse

Submitted as a partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Philosophy

Public History and Cultural Heritage

School of Histories and Humanities

Trinity College Dublin

Supervisors:

Dr. Angela Griffith (History of Art)

Dr. David Dickson (History)

ii

I hereby declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at

this or any other university and that it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this

thesis in the university’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do

so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library

conditions of use and acknowledgement.

Jillian Kruse

iii

Abstract

From the Streets: Postermania and French Color Lithography Posters of

the Belle Époque

Jillian Kruse

In the late nineteenth century, striking illustrated posters covered the hoardings of

Paris for the first time and the images they depicted soon became synonymous with

the decadence of the Belle Époque. Though commercial advertisements, illustrated

posters were designed by talented and popular artists such as Alphonse Mucha (1860-

1939) and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) who pushed the color lithographic

medium to new heights. The aesthetic quality of the designs resulted in a collection

frenzy, known as postermania, which altered the way in which color lithography

posters were both produced and perceived. In the 1890s, the aesthetic appeal and

popularity of the illustrated poster saw it increasingly associated with art, which

resulted in a confused identity for the illustrated poster as a new form of visual culture

between art and advertisement. This study traces the development of the illustrated

poster and analyzes the impacts of postermania on the perception of color lithography

posters both at the time and in the present day. It attempts to go beyond traditional art

historical discourses on color lithography posters in order to situate the illustrated

poster and postermania in the contexts of technological, cultural, and social history as

well as public history and the study of visual culture.

Keywords: color lithography, print collecting, mass consumption, poster art,

postermania, advertising, public history, visual culture.

iv

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my profound gratitude to Angela Griffith for pushing me to

work outside of my comfort zone and for her constant advice and support. I would

like to acknowledge the kind support and direction of David Dickson who advised

and encouraged me throughout the dissertation process. Many thanks to Anne Hodge,

Curator of Prints & Drawings at the National Gallery of Ireland, for introducing me to

the world of prints and for helping me to cultivate an appreciation and understanding

of print media. Acknowledgement should also be given to the kind and helpful staff of

the National Art Library in London, the Prints & Drawings Department at the Victoria

& Albert Museum, and Early Printed Books at Trinity College Dublin. Finally, I

would like to thank my friends and family for their unwavering love and support.

v

Author’s Note

All translations from French source material are my own unless otherwise noted.

Translations from other languages are strictly the work of other scholars and are

referenced accordingly. In order to avoid confusion and in keeping with the standard

at the time of production, I use the term “color lithography” when describing original

lithographic designs in color and “chromolithography” when referring to reproductive

lithographic designs in color.

vi

Table of Contents

Page

Title Page…………………………………………………………………………..i

Declaration………………………………………………………………………...ii

Abstract…………..……………………………………………………………….iii

Acknowledgements………….…………………………………………………....iv

Author’s Note……………………………………………………………………..v

List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………vii

Introduction……………………………………………………………………….1

Literature Review……………………………………………………………........6

Methodology………………………………………………………………….......9

Chapter one: A changing world………………………………………………….11

Chapter two: The Illustrated Poster and Postermania………………………........21

Chapter three: From the streets......……………………………………………....31

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….42

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..45

Appendix:

Illustrations………………………………………………………………………54

vii

List of Illustrations

Page

Figure 1.1 Spanish Entertainment: Bulls of Bordeaux, 1825 54

Figure 1.2 Sir Henry Irving, 1899 54

Figure 1.3 Vin Mariani, 1894 55

Figure 1.4 Registration mark, Vin Mariani, 1894 55

Figure 1.5 Lac Du Lowerz; Album Chromolithographique, 1837 56

Figure 1.6 The Blue Lights, 1852 56

Figure 1.7 Champagne Ruinart, 1896 57

Figure 2.1 Gismonda, 1894 57

Figure 2.2 Orphée aux enfers Bouffees Parisiens, 1866 58

Figure 2.3 Théâtre Nationale de l’Opéra, Françoise de Rimini, 1882 58

Figure 2.4 L’Amant des danseuses, 1888 59

Figure 2.5 Le Pays de Fées, 1889 59

Figure 2.6 Les Coulisses de l’Opéra, 1891 60

Figure 2.7 Folies-Bergère: La Loïe Fuller, 1893 61

Figure 2.8 France Champagne, 1891 62

Figure 2.9 Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, 1891 62

Figure 2.10 Preventative stamp, La Trappistine, 1897 63

Figure 2.11 La Trappistine, 1897 63

Figure 2.12 Reverie, 1897 64

Figure 2.13 F. Champenois, 1898 64

Figure 2.14 Papiers à Cigarettes Job, 1895 65

Figure 2.15 Job, 1897 65

Figure 2.16 Les Fleurs, 1898 66

Figure 2.17 La Plume Almanac, 1898 66

Figure 2.18 Menu Card, 1900 66

Figure 3.1 Illustrated Cover of La Plume no. 197, July 1897 67

Figure 3.2 La Revue Blanche, 1894 67

Figure 3.3 La Revue Blanche, 1895 67

Figure 3.4 Salon des Cent, 1896 68

Figure 3.5 Salon des Cent, 1897 68

Figure 3.6 Confetti, 1894 68

viii

Figure 3.7 Divan Japonais, 1892 69

Figure 3.8 Posters, Victoria & Albert Museum (Photo) 69

Figure 3.9 Fashion display poster, Victoria & Albert Museum (Photo) 69

1

Introduction

Walk along the banks of the Seine between the Pont des Arts and Notre Dame

or pop into a souvenir shop in Montmartre or the Quartier Latin and one will

undoubtedly encounter cheaply-made reproductions of well-known color posters on

magnets, key-chains, compact mirrors, coffee mugs, postcards, metal panels, or small

commercially produced prints. These images, taken from the commercial posters of

Théophile Steinlen (1859-1923), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Alphonse

Mucha (1860-1939), and others, have long since become synonymous with the Belle

Époque when ‘Gai Paris’ was the capital of culture, fashion, and art. Despite their

continued popularity, the original posters, from which these images are drawn, were

never meant to last. They were printed using the respectively inexpensive printing

method of lithography and, from the 1880s onwards, they were printed on mass-

produced commercial paper that was not particularly durable.1 Furthermore, their

subject matter was not considered to belong to high culture, but rather was seen as a

part of popular ‘low’ culture. These posters advertised the products, fashions, and

amusements of the time, trends that often faded away as quickly as they appeared.

The nature of the commercial poster should have guaranteed its disappearance, yet

these images persist more than one hundred years later. The endurance of the

otherwise ephemeral designs can largely be attributed to the poster craze that

developed in the 1890s.

The last decade of the nineteenth century in Paris saw the popularity of the

affiche illustrée (illustrated poster) reach new heights. Striking color lithographs,

often featuring sensuous women, covered the hoardings of Paris encouraging the

public to buy cigarettes, to attend the café-concerts of Montmartre, and to experience

the theatrical talents of stage stars such as Sarah Bernhardt, the Divine Sarah, as

Gismonda, Hamlet, or Médée at the Théâtre de la Renaissance. The illustrated poster

had become so characteristic of the age that one critic, alarmed at the emergence of

what he called “l’age de l’affiche” (the poster age) asserted that more than anything

else the “violent modernity” of these multi-hued posters would have astonished the

seventeenth-century Parisian transported forward in time to the 1890s.2 Much like

1 Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths. From Manet to Toulouse-Lautrec: French Lithographs 1860-

1900, Catalogue of an exhibition at the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum,

1978. (London: The British Museum, 1978), 20. 2 Maurice Talmeyr. “L’Age de l’affiche,” Revue des Deux Mondes (1 septembre 1896): 201.

2

their imaginary time-traveling counterparts, many fin-de-siècle Parisians were

simultaneously astonished and fascinated by the illustrated poster. Color posters were

pasted along the boulevards of Paris from the mid-nineteenth century onwards,

however, it was not until 1890s that the fashion for the affiche illustrée really came

into vogue. Popular magazines and art journals were filled with commentaries,

critiques, and reproductions of the illustrated poster. Collectors emerged snatching

them from the hoardings, bribing the bill-posters to obtain their wares, and

encouraging publishers to issue special limited edition prints on Japan paper and silk,

and poster artists such as Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Alphonse

Mucha became celebrities. Affichomanie,3 the insatiable poster craze that would last

roughly from 1891 to 1900, had arrived.

The development of postermania in the 1890s was no mere coincidence, but

rather the result of a combination of factors merging together to create the artistic and

cultural climate necessary for the illustrated poster to emerge triumphant. The printing

process used to produce the affiche illustrée was not brand new, nor was the poster

itself a recent invention. Lithography, the process of printing from stone and the

primary medium used to produce poster art, celebrated the centenary of its foundation

during the poster craze and lithographic printing in color first appeared in the 1830s.4

In Paris the first posters, composed primarily of text, materialized during the

Revolutionary period of the 1780s.5 Rather than completing a natural progression in

the development of either the poster or lithographic printing, the poster designs of fin-

de-siècle Paris were distinctly different from what had come before. In order to

understand the emergence of the illustrated poster and of postermania, we must,

therefore, look beyond the process and the form to the wider context surrounding its

development. The advancement of print technology certainly played a central role,

however, it was only one of a number of factors that enabled the affiche illustrée to

materialize. In the period leading up to the 1890s, the evolution of mass consumption

3 French art critic and poster collector Octave Uzanne (1851-1931) first coined the term affichomanie,

or postermania, in his article “Les collectionneurs d’affiches illustrées,” Le Livre Moderne (10 avril

1891): 194. 4 Domenico Porzio. “Invention and Technical Evolution,” in Lithography: 200 Years of Art, History

and Technique, ed. Domenico Porzio and trans. from the Italian by Geoffrey Culverwell. (London:

Bracken Books, 1982), 31. It is unclear exactly when color printing in the lithographic medium first

occurred, however, it is generally agreed that Godefroy Engelmann was the first to develop the process

in the 1830s. 5 Max Gallo. The Poster in History. Trans. from the Italian by Alfred and Bruni Mayer. (1972 London:

WW North & Company, reprint 2000), 17.

3

that occurred with the expansion of the bourgeoisie and changes in art exhibition

practices, along with advancements in print technology formed the elements that

merged creating a cultural climate ripe for the emergence of the illustrated poster.

While these factors set the stage for the development of the affiche illustrée,

the plays of color and line would not have been acted out if the primary actors never

took the stage. The emergence of a number of graphic artists during this period cannot

be denied. Before Jules Chéret (1836-1932), known widely as “the father of the

modern poster,” refined the three-color printing process in the late 1880s, commercial

posters and lithographic printing in color were notorious for their mediocre design,

poor quality, and crude use of color. The striking contrast between the derisively

termed “chromolithographs” of the mid-nineteenth century and the illustrated poster

of the late-nineteenth century led to the introduction of a new term, “color

lithograph,” in order to differentiate between the two.6 The distinctive “new” medium

of color lithography pioneered by Chéret would be explored and innovated by the

likes of Eugène Grasset (1845-1917), Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Alphonse Mucha,

and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Offering a distinctive contrast to Chéret’s designs,

Eugène Grasset’s detailed medievalism was generally admired by critics, particularly

by those who struggled with the “modern” style of Chéret and other poster artists. The

lithographic work and distinctive style of the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha in

particular helped to give rise to a new artistic movement, Art Nouveau, sometimes

identified as “le style Mucha”, which coincided with a renaissance of the decorative

arts. Meanwhile the experimentation of “fine artists” such as Pierre Bonnard and the

aristocratic Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec earned them instant recognition and their

lithographic work remains highly regarded in art circles to this day. The quality of

work produced by these ‘masters of the poster’ transformed the street into an open-air

gallery of art, a “museum for the masses,” which exhibited the art that would define

the age.7

The illustrated poster, however, was not “pure” art. It was not art for art’s sake

or for truth or even for beauty. It was commercial art, it was made to persuade the

consumer to buy certain products or brands or to see certain plays or entertainments

6 Pat Gilmour. “Cher Monsieur Clot…August Clot and his role as a colour lithographer,” in Lasting

Impressions, ed. Pat Gilmour (Canberra: Australian National Art Gallery, 1988), 137. 7

Mary Weaver Chapin. Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec & His Contemporaries. (London:

Delmonico Books, 2012), 17.

4

featuring the stars of the day, and it was a profitable business. Enterprising publishers

and ambitious businessmen (and women) were anxious to capitalize on that fact.

Firms such as Lemercier, Chaix, and Champenois produced countless reproductions

that ranged from ‘fine art’ prints on Japan paper and silk to calendars and menus all

designed by the graphic artists of the day. The position of the affiche illustrée as

something between quite fine art and commercial advertisement complicated its

relationship with the art world. Critics, confronted with the quality of the work and its

public popularity, were unable to ignore what they often saw as a lesser, industrial

art.8 The emergence of limited and special editions with the offending commercial

text removed further complicated this relationship. Could these color lithographs be

considered fine art, art for art’s sake, if all signs of their commercial nature were

removed? Did the mere fact that posters were sought after by collectors rid them of

the taint of the commercial? These are questions that have plagued the commercial

poster since its inception and which have not been adequately addressed in academia

to date.

As with most fashions and crazes, the affichomanie of the 1890s began to

dissolve almost as quickly as it materialized. Although artistic posters continued to be

produced and collected throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, the

movement had lost its fervor.9 With the death of Toulouse-Lautrec in 1901, the

movement was deprived of one of its most innovative and experimental graphic

artists. Meanwhile, the other key figures of poster art, Chéret, Bonnard, and Mucha,

all turned their attention away from graphic art towards the fine art of painting. With

the coming of the Great War, posters moved away from the decadence of the Belle

Époque and became an essential vehicle for the nationalistic propaganda of war.10

No

longer were posters a medium for artistic experimentation treading the fine line

between the artistic and the commercial. A new age had dawned creating a new type

of poster less concerned with decoration and sensual imagery and more with emotive,

visceral imagery meant to prompt the public into action.11

Although the production of

artistic poster had all but disappeared at the end of the Belle Époque, interest in and

collection of these works persists to the present day. As recently as 2014, a single

8 Color lithography was considered an industrial art partly because of it mechanical process and partly

because it was used for commercial purposes and not made as art for art’s sake. 9 Chapin. Posters of Paris, 38.

10 Gallo. The Poster in History, 180.

11 Maurice Rickards. The Rise and Fall of the Poster. (Oxford: Newton Abbot, 1971), 25.

5

Mucha poster (Zodiac, 1896) fetched $10,000 at auction12

and a set of his decorative

panels (Les Étoiles, 1901), an offshoot of Mucha’s poster work,13

sold for over

$214,000 in 2011.14

Despite extensive interest in these artistic posters and the artists

who made them, the history of postermania and of the study of the color lithographic

poster remains underdeveloped.

12

“Sale 3406, Lot 652: Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939): ‘Zodiac’, 1896.” Christie’s: The Art People,

date accessed 28 June 2015. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/prints-multiples/alphonse-mucha-

zodiac-1896-5858760-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5858760&sid=c38ab7fc-e0a3-

47c1-a1fe-9af43a02d980 13

Although Mucha’s decorative panels were not actually posters, they were a direct offshoot of his

poster work and the postermania phenomenon. They will be discussed in more detail in chapter two. 14

“Sale 1000, Lot 77: Alphonse Marie Mucha (1860-1939): ‘Claire de Lune’, ‘L’Étoile Polaire’,

‘L’Étoile du Matin’, et ‘L’Étoile du Soir’, 1901.” Christie’s: The Art People, date accessed 28 June

2015. http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5404295

6

Literature Review

Although numerous studies have been made regarding the affiche illustrée, the

history and influence of this graphic art requires further exploration. Studies regarding

the French artistic poster of the 1890s tend to fall into two categories: exhibition

catalogues or academic monographs in which fin-de-siècle posters are a minor feature.

The position of the illustrated poster as a form of expression caught between fine art

and advertising means that any study of this medium is likewise complicated by the

duality of the subject. It is therefore rather surprising that to date few studies have

been made regarding the dual nature of the artistic poster. Nor has the development or

impact of the postermania of the 1890s been treated with necessary detail in the

English language. The study of reactions from both art critics and the public of the

time rarely go beyond mere anecdotes and the position of the artistic poster in

contemporary history is completely disregarded despite an increasing number of

exhibitions featuring color lithograph posters since the 1990s.15

Many exhibition catalogues touch briefly on the history of affiche illustrée in

the 1890s, however, these publications tend to be more narrowly focused on one artist

in particular whose work makes up the majority of the exhibition. The popularity and

artistic reputation of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec ensures that the innovative artist

features prominently in any number of exhibition catalogues. This should not be

altogether surprising as exhibitions are meant to attract visitors and the exhibition

catalogues are sold as souvenirs to exhibition visitors. The name of a popular and

well-recognized artist is guaranteed to attract attention. Even catalogues that delve

more deeply into the postermania of the 1890s, such as Mary Weaver Chapin’s

Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec & His Contemporaries, put forth Lautrec as the

greatest of all poster artists resulting in the marginalization of many his

contemporaries.16

With the exception of Chapin’s catalogue, the postermania is used

only as an amusing anecdote to illustrate the popularity of a particular artist’s work in

English language literature regarding the color lithography posters. The exhibition

15

There has been a resurgence in the popularity of the late-nineteenth century French illustrated poster

since the late 90s. Color lithograph posters have been shown with increasing frequency since 2005 in

exhibitions such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre (National Gallery of Art, DC and The Art

Institute of Chicago, 2005), Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Laturec & His Contemporaries (Milwaukee

Museum of Art, 2012), Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril (Couthauld Gallery, London, 2011), Paris

1900 (Petit Palais, Paris, 2014), Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty (Russell-Coates Art Gallery and

Museum, Bournemouth, 2015). 16

Mary Weaver Chapin. Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec & His Contemporaries. (London:

Delmonico Books, 2012).

7

catalogues for the 2011 Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge

exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London17

and the Jules Chéret: Artist of the

Belle Époque and Pioneer of Poster Art exhibition held at the Villa Stuck in Munich

attempt to give further context to development and the popularity of the illustrated

poster.18

The literature in French is, not surprisingly, more developed than in English.

Alain Weill’s catalogue for the 1980 exhibition entitled L’affichomanie at the newly

established Musée de l’Affiche (Museum of the Poster) in Paris traced the history of

postermania by looking at the different roles of the print-sellers, exhibitions, and

publications devoted to the illustrated poster as well as the posters themselves.19

Likewise the accompanying catalogue for the Salon de la Rue exhibition, put on by

the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (Museum of Modern and

Contemporary Art of Strasbourg), delves more deeply into the history of the

illustrated poster and postermania.20

The exhibition catalogue, which features works

from the museum’s large collection of late-nineteenth century illustrated posters, pays

particular attention to the variety of consumer products advertised by the illustrated

poster as well as to the role of the illustrated poster as visual culture. That these

works, meant to be as ephemeral as our modern advertisements, are still displayed and

exhibited not on the street, but in galleries, museums, and auction houses necessitates

further study.

No single academic monograph regarding the poster craze of the 1890s has

been published in English to date. A number of monographs explore the technological

history of both monochrome and color lithography including Michael Twyman’s

impressive tome, A history of chromolithography: printed colour for all, which maps

out the technological innovations of color lithography since the 1830s.21

While the

technological innovation that occurred in the medium is staggering, it remains a rather

generalized approach to the study of color lithography and its impact on art as well as

17

Nancy Ireson (ed). Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge. (London: The

Courthauld Gallery and Paul Holberton Publishing, 2011). 18

Michael Buhrs (ed). Jules Chéret: Artist of the Belle Époque and Pioneer of Poster Art. (Munich:

Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2011). 19

Alain Weill. L’affichomanie: Collectionneurs d’affiches – Affiches de collection 1880-1900. (Paris:

Musée de l’Affiche, 1980). 20

Maire-Jeanne Geyer and Thierry Laps. Le Salon de la Rue: L’affiche illustrée de 1890-1910.

(Strasbourg: Musée d’art Modern et Contemporain de Strasbourg, 2008). 21

Michael Twyman. A history of chromolithography: printed colour for all. (London: The British

Library, 2013).

8

print culture. The artistic poster also appears in a number of monographs regarding

the history of consumption such as Rosalind H. William’s Dream Worlds: Mass

Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France22

and H. Hazel Hahn’s Scenes of

Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century.23

However,

these studies primarily see illustrated posters as examples of increased consumption

as well as the tastes of the developing bourgeoisie ignoring the posters as products of

consumption themselves and attribute the rise of the illustrated poster to the

Haussmannian re-organization of Paris and the creation of the grands boulevards.24

Finally, few studies regarding the history of the illustrated poster have been

undertaken to date. Max Gallo’s The Poster in History, which charts the history of the

poster from the late eighteenth century and into the twentieth century, acts as a

general survey each section of which merits further study.25

Perhaps the most

developed analysis of the illustrated poster is Ruth E. Iskin’s The Poster: Art,

Advertising, Design and Collecting, 1860s-1900s, which attempts to contextualize

both the illustrated poster and postermania as new manifestations of visual culture.26

Although this project will address similar topics explored in previous studies, they

will be considered and developed in ways not yet thoroughly investigated.

22

Rosalind H. Williams. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France.

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 23

H. Hazel Hahn. Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century.

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 24

Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine from 1853 to 1870, undertook a vast program of urban

planning that included the clearing of narrow and congested medieval streets to make way for the grand

boulevards that characterize Paris today. 25

Max Gallo. The Poster in History. Trans. from the Italian by Alfred and Bruni Mayer. (1972

London: WW North & Company, reprint 2000). 26

Ruth E. Iskin. The Poster: Art, Advertising, Design and Collecting 1860s-1900s. (Hanover, NH:

Dartmouth University Press, 2014).

9

Methodology

The aim of this project is to address a lacuna in the study of the French color

lithography posters of the 1890s as a form of public art. It will attempt to situate the

illustrated poster within the context of print technology, art collecting, and public

history. This study will be structured into three chapters. The first chapter will consist

of an analysis of the factors that led to the development of the illustrated poster and

the subsequent poster craze of the 1890s. It will attempt to address why poster art

reached its pinnacle during this period and will access the importance of lithography

as a printing process to this development. It will consider the technological

advancements in lithographic print technology that lent this particular print technique

to the production of the artistic poster. Technical manuals detailing the lithographic

process as well as chromo and color lithographs from the period will be used in order

to chart the development of the color lithographic poster. It will trace the emergence

of mass consumption and the need for effective. Finally, the chapter will investigate

of the changing role of the art and the art establishment in this period. This chapter is

meant to give context to the development of postermania in the 1890s.

Chapter two will delve into the poster craze and look at the designers of the

color lithographic posters themselves as well as the changes that occurred in the color

lithography during postermania. While the work of several posters artists will be

considered, the works of Jules Chéret and Alphonse Mucha will be developed in

greater detail. The decision to delve more closely into the work of Chéret derives

primarily from his status as the pioneer of the illustrated poster, while the decision to

look more closely at Mucha stems from his distinctive style and popularity (both in

the 1890s and in the present day) as well as his deeply conflicted feelings about his

commercial work. This chapter will seek to answer questions regarding the

development of the illustrated poster and postermania as well how the collectors

altered how posters were designed, produced, and marketed.

Chapter three will look more deeply into public interaction with color

lithographic posters. It will discuss the changing nature of these works and their move

from the public to the private sphere. Particular attention will be paid to the reception

of the designs and the medium in the period. This study will accomplish this task by

investigating contemporary art criticism along with exhibitions of color lithographic

posters ranging from the period of production to the present day. In doing so, this

10

project attempts to further understand the position of color lithographic posters within

the realms of fine art and advertising.

11

Chapter One: A changing world

Before the illustrated poster could burst onto the scene in the Paris of the Belle

Époque, a series of technological and cultural developments needed to occur in order

for this to happen. The development and evolution of the lithographic print medium

along with the growth of mass consumption and changing attitudes towards art

provided favorable conditions for the development of the affiche illustrée. The first

allowed for large prints to be produced at a relatively low cost and acted as a medium

for artists to experiment with printmaking. The second created a need for advertising

and brand-promotion that would be met, at least in theory, by the illustrated poster.

Furthermore, as will be argued here, the annual Salon’s resistance to new, more

modern forms of art meant that talented artists turned to other mediums and other

forms of exhibition in order to exhibit their works. Although other factors, such as

improved quality of paper and ink or stylistic developments in the history of art, were

certainly influential in the emergence of the affiche illustrée, the key factors remained

the printing methods, the intended audiences, and the changing attitudes towards art.

From its initial invention in 1798 by Alois Senefelder (1771-1834),

lithography was envisaged as an inexpensive and efficient method of printing. Before

the development of lithographic printing, the would-be printmaker was limited to

either relief or intaglio processes of printing, which could be both expensive and

labor-intensive.27

Lithography, or the “chemical method” as its inventor called it, was,

however, a more accessible printing process.28

Lithography itself was developed

largely out of necessity. Senefelder, a budding playwright, began experimenting with

stone when he found that he lacked the skill to engrave his own works and that he

could not afford the expense of the materials to do so.29

With lithography, Senefelder

replaced the labor-intensive processes of cutting into wood or metal with the principle

of the chemical repulsion between oil and water. In place of the tools and metal plates

of intaglio methods, he utilized homemade chemical inks—the simplest of which was

made of beeswax, soap, and lampblack30

—and inexpensive blocks of limestone.31

The

27

For a more general history and study of relief and intaglio printing see Antony Griffiths. Prints and

Printmaking: an introduction to the history and techniques. (London: British Museum Press, 1980) and

Richard Benson. The Printed Picture. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2008). 28

Alois Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography. Trans. from the German by A.S. (London: R.

Ackermann, 1819), 13. 29

Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography, 2-3. 30

The different formulas for making chemical inks proposed by Senefelder span an entire chapter in A

Complete Course of Lithography.

12

result of his experiments was the new planographic print technique known as

lithography.

Despite the economic circumstances surrounding its inventor, lithography was

not to become merely the poor-man’s print medium. The increased number of

impressions made from a single stone, the rapidity of impressions, and the relative

ease of creation lent lithography to commercial uses such as the production of

ephemera and the reproduction of paintings, before artists took it up as a means of

original expression. The thickness of the limestone, which varied in proportion to the

size of the stone, was not apt to wear as quickly under the pressure of the press as the

thin metal plates (roughly one to two millimeters thick) utilized in intaglio printing.

The thinness of the metal plates, the need to wipe the plate after each successive

impression, and the extreme pressure exerted on the plate in printing wore down the

image with repeated use. 32

The images printed from lithographic stones, however,

remained locked in the porous surface of the stone and withstood the pressure more

easily, remaining sharp even in large-scale printings.33

The durability of lithographic

stone ensured that the new chemical printing was an integral part of the industry of

mass and commercial printing which, towards the end of the following century, would

include the illustrated poster.

Durability, however, was not the only advantage afforded by Senefelder’s

invention. While not as expeditious as it would become after the invention of the

steam press, early-nineteenth-century lithography was still a quicker method of

printing than either relief or intaglio. Executed using a hand-operated press, the

inventor claimed that as many as fifty impressions could be made in an hour by his

lithographic method.34

The advantage of such rapid impressions was not lost on the

likes of Napoleon, who pressed lithography into service as a means of speedy

communication during his military campaigns.35

Napoleon, however, was not the only

31

Senefelder also devotes a chapter to the selection of limestone (favoring stones from Kellheim in

present day Germany) for lithography. 32

Antony Griffiths. Prints and Printmaking: an introduction to the history and techniques. (London:

British Museum Press, 1980), 34. 33

From Sarah Bernhardt’s lawsuit against the printers Lemercier & Cie, we know that 4,000

impressions of Alphonse Mucha’s design for Gismonda (1894) were ordered by the tragedienne. The

case is reproduced in full in the journal L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 8 (octobre 1897): 207-209, and

will be discussed in further detail in chapter two. 34

Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography, 264. 35

Domenico Porizo. Lithography: 200 Years of Art, History and Technique. Trans. from the Italian by

Geoffrey Culverwell. (London: Bracken Books, 1982), 7.

13

one who saw the usefulness of lithography. The rapid rate of impressions achievable

with the lithographic print medium also opened it up to different, more commercial,

uses including the publication of music, plays, ephemera, and advertisements. Indeed,

Rudolph Ackerman, Senefelder’s London publisher and a budding lithographer,

asserted in the preface to the English translation of A Complete Course of Lithography

that there was “scarcely any department of art or business in which Lithography will

not be found of the most extensive utility.”36

While the efficiency of lithography was

attractive to the commercial market, it was not the primary concern of those artists

who experiment with the process at the time. Indeed, very few artists took up the print

technique until after Francisco Goya (1746-1828) illustrated lithography’s artistic

potential in his Bulls of Bordeaux series (see Figure 1.1) in 1825 and even Goya’s

prints reached a limited audience.37

Although the efficiency of lithographic printing

was not paramount to earlier artists, the commercial nature of the affiche illustrée of

the 1890s meant that an efficient as well as artistic print technique was essential to its

success.

Senefelder’s final argument in favor of the usability of his new invention was

the ease it afforded in creation. In his own attempts to print his works, Senefelder

found that he lacked the skill necessary to undertake the laborious process of

engraving.38

With Senefelder’s new chemical method, the lithographer did not

necessarily need to undertake extensive training to become skilled as an engraver,39

the lithographer simply needed to be able to write or draw. According to its inventor,

in lithography “every person who with common ink can write on paper, may do the

same with chemical ink, and by the transfer to stone, it can be multiplied ad

infinitum.”40

The lithographer, therefore, was not required to perfect the art of writing

in “the inverted sense” as was required by other printing methods, but rather he was

able to transfer his own writing to the stone utilizing the “transfer or tracing

36

Rudolph Ackerman. Preface to A Complete Course of Lithography, by Alois Senefelder, trans. from

the German by A.S. (London: R. Ackermann, 1819), iii. 37

Hyatt A. Mayor. Prints & People: a social history of printed pictures. (New York: The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 1971), 406. 38

Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography, 3. 39

In Prints and Printmaking: an introduction to the history and techniques, Antony Griffiths notes that

engraving, particularly in the eighteenth century, was considered to be a highly skilled craft requiring

extensive practice generally in the form of a lengthy apprenticeship. 40

Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography, 256.

14

method.”41

In this method, the drawing or writing is previously prepared on paper in

chemical ink. It is then transferred to the stone by placing the paper on the stone and

artificially dissolving it, only the inked areas remained, thereby inverting the image so

that in printing the original design is recovered. Senefelder believed this to be the

most important feature of his invention as it was a process that neither intaglio nor

relief methods were easily capable of replicating.42

The transfer method increased the

facility of creating lithographs and opened up the medium to a wider spectrum of

potential creators.

Not only did lithography facilitate ease of creation in printmaking, but it also

lent itself artistically to the production of graphic art. The transfer process as well as

the use of chemical ink, in both liquid and solid form, allowed the artist to work much

as they would when painting or drawing. Solid chemical ink in the form of chalk,

sometimes called crayon, was considered to be similar to “Spanish or French chalk”

frequently utilized in drawing.43

In its liquid form, the chemical ink could be used in a

similar fashion to paint or pen ink by using different sized brushes or pens.44

This

gave lithography the advantage of being able to show the artist’s unmediated hand as

never before in print media. Additionally, lithography could, in the hands of a master

technician, imitate a diverse array of print techniques including woodcuts, engravings,

etchings, aquatints, and mezzotints. This can be seen in prints such as the lithographic

editions reproduced after Sir William Nicholson’s (1872-1949) popular original

woodcut designs of the late nineteenth century (see Figure 1.2). The adaptation of

styles offered by the lithographic medium lent itself to the experimental approach of

avant-garde printmakers such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Henri

de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), and later the most

famous artist working in the lithographic medium, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). It was

the painterly quality of lithography as well as its ability to retain the artist’s hand that

attracted artists to this medium. These artistic qualities also made lithography

particularly suitable as the medium of creation for the illustrated poster.

If lithography was particularly suited to the illustrated poster, why then did it

not appear earlier? Although the print technique was first pioneered at the end of the

41

Senefelder. A Complete Course of Lithography, 256. 42

Ibid. 43

Ibid, 125. 44

Ibid, 203.

15

eighteenth century, the affiche illustrée did not actually appear until the second-half of

the nineteenth century and postermania itself did not develop until that century’s final

decade. How can this gap be explained? A number of factors contributed to the

delayed development of the illustrated poster. Lithography, though a significant

innovation, still required refining and further technological innovation before it could

produce the works of graphic artists such as Chéret or Toulouse-Lautrec.

Additionally, the culture of mass consumption necessary for the creation of

commercial advertisements was not yet fully developed at the time of Senefelder’s

invention. France was still reeling from the consequences of the Revolution (1789-

1799) and the consumerism and decadence that characterized the Belle Époque

remained far off in the future. Lastly, the state-sponsored Salon, opened to artists

outside of the Academy in 1789, continued to act as the primary space for artists to

exhibit their work.45

Its position as the guiding-hand of French Art had not yet

faltered and still guaranteed the primacy of painting as the highest form of artistic

expression thus giving fine artists little reason to try their hand at lithography. These

factors, along with the absence of graphic artists working in color, prevented the

affiche illustrée from coming to fruition earlier in the nineteenth century. 46

When it was first pioneered at the end of the eighteenth century lithography

was highly innovative, however, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that

further technological advancements allowed for the expansion of this printmaking

technique. The invention of the steam-powered printing press in the 1860s improved

efficiency and allowed for an even greater output of lithographic impressions.47

The

increased efficiency of the mechanical steam-powered press over the hand-powered

press also cemented lithography’s relationship with the commercial world:

inexpensive facsimiles could be reproduced faster than ever before resulting in an

increased output of ephemera and advertisements.48

Mechanical printing, however,

was not the only technological innovation in lithography that was developed during

the nineteenth century. Although Senefelder had experimented with color lithographic

45

Patricia Mainardi. The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic. (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1993), 9. 46

The emergence of lithographic printing in color will be discussed below and the graphic artists who

created the affiche illustrée will be discussed in chapter two. 47

Michael Twyman. A history of chromolithography: printed colour for all. (London: The British

Library, 2013), 185. 48

Laura Ann Kalba. “Images, Technology, and History. How media were made: chromolithography in

Belle Époque France,” in History and Technology 27, n. 4 (December 2011): 443.

16

printing in concurrence with his experiments in monochrome, his attempts were

limited. Others had flowed suit, but again with limited success.

It was not until the Godefroy Engelmann (1788-1839) patented his

chromolithographie (chromolithography) printing method in 183749

that lithographic

printing became the preferred medium for color printing in Europe.50

Engelmann’s

patented chromolithographic method utilized a different stone for each color51

as well

as a system of registration marks (see Figures 1.3 and 1.4).52

The use of different

stones allowed for the overlaying, or superimposition, of a few primary colors, some

translucent, in order to create a variety of hues. The registration marks aided the

printer in “registering” the placement of the paper when printing multiple stones. This

process enabled Engelmann to reproduce “in the most ingenious and simplest manner,

all the colors and nuances of painting […] lithographs of every kind: landscapes,

flowers, interiors, portraits…” (see Figure 1.5).53

In the period following Engelmann’s

patent and up until the late 1860s and early 1870s, when Jules Chéret first started to

experiment with color lithography, chromolithography was used primarily as a means

of making inexpensive reproductions of paintings by artists such as Turner (see Figure

1.6) as well as for trade cards and other ephemera that catered to the growing

bourgeoisie.54

Although Engelmann’s technological innovations would become

significant to the development of color lithography as an artistic medium for some

later artists, the moniker “chromolithograph” soon became synonymous with

inexpensive facsimiles considered to be of poor quality. The association of the term

chromolithograph with cheap facsimiles55

led poster artists (and many critics) of fin-

de-siècle Paris to prefer the term “color lithograph” (lithographie en couleurs) to

49

Twyman. A history of chromolithography, 653. 50

The Japanese in particular had been printing in color from multiple woodblocks since the 17th

century. See Eilis Tinios. Japanese Prints: Ukiyo-e in Edo 1700-1900. (London: British Museum Press,

2010). For the influence of Japanese color woodcuts in France see Colta Ives. The Great Wave: the

influence of Japanese woodcuts on French prints. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

1974). 51

Initially four colors were used: blue, red, yellow, and black. 52

Twyman. A history of chromolithography, 101. 53

Comité des Beaux Arts de la Société Industrielle de Mulhouse. “Extrait du rapport du comité des

beaux arts de la Société industrielle de Mulhouse lu dans la scéance du 29 Mars 1837,” reproduced in

Godefroy Engelmann. Traité théorique et pratique de la lithographie. (Mulhouse, Engelmann Père et

Fils, 1839), 49. 54

Kalba. “Images, Technology, and History,” 443. 55

Stephen Bann. “Is Lithography an Art?” in The Art of Lithography by Stephan Bann and Jon Kear

(eds). (Canterbury: University of Kent Press, 2010), 34.

17

describe the illustrated poster though the technique remained the same.56

Despite

negative connotations associated with the term chromolithography, Engelmann’s

innovations would enable the posters artists of the 1890s to produce vibrant, graphic

advertisements that captured the spirit and decadence of the Belle Époque.

Much as the illustrated poster depended on the technological developments of

monochrome and color lithography, so too did it depend on the growing culture of

mass consumption to provide products to sell and consumers to whom these products

could be marketed. Following the Revolution of 1789, the French bourgeoisie

expanded rapidly. The loss of power experienced by the aristocracy as well as the

expansion of industry associated with the Industrial Revolution increased the number

of respectable and profitable professions open to the bourgeoisie. 57

This allowed for a

higher degree of prosperity and social mobility than had previously been possible

under the Ancien Régime of monarchist and aristocratic France. At the same time, the

innovations of the Industrial Revolution resulted in the expansion of mass-production,

which encompassed almost every industry. Products that had been formerly produced

in the home, such as soap, were suddenly produced in factories.58

Concurrently,

products, that had been luxuries of the aristocracy and produced by highly skilled

artisans, such as perfume, suddenly became less expensive and more accessible to the

well-to-do bourgeoisie under mass-production.59

The range of these new products

available for consumption can be seen in the variety of subject matter depicted in the

affiche illustrée. These items included chocolate, perfume, champagne, cigarettes, and

the newly invented bicycle (see Figure 1.7). The author and journalist Maurice

Talmeyr (1850-1931) perhaps best illustrates the variety of consumer products

available in his contemporary essay L’Age de l’Affiche (The Poster Age), in which he

lists the ‘temptations’ advertised by the illustrated poster of Paris, a city that he

considered to be the new Gomorrah. His list is worth quoting at length:

56

Michael Twyman in A history of chromolithography: printed colour for all chooses to employ the

term chromolithograph for both lithographic commercial reproductions as well as the illustrated posters

in color arguing that there was in fact little technical difference between chromolithographs and color

lithographs. 57

Rosalind H. Williams. Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth Century France.

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 47. 58

Ellen Garvey Gruber. The Adman in the Parlour: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer

Culture, 1880s to 1910s. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 17. 59

Hazel H. Hahn. Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century.

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 125.

18

It [the illustrated poster] whispers to

us: ‘amuse yourself, treat yourself,

nourish yourself, go to the theatre, to

balls, to concerts, dance, read novels,

drink good beer, buy good broth,

smoke good cigarettes, eat good

chocolate […] perfume yourself, take

care of your laundry, your clothes,

your teeth, your hands…’60

Never before had so much been available for the prosperous to purchase and to

indulge themselves.

In addition to the growing number of consumer products available, luxury

items could also be bought for the first time in one place: the grands magasins

(department stores). The first French department store, Le Bon Marché, opened in

1852 and quickly established itself as a “palace of consumption” where shoppers

(notably women) could spend an entire day.61

Others followed in quick succession

including Printemps, which opened in 1865. Indeed, the department store had become

so ubiquitous by the late nineteenth century that the realist author Emile Zola (1840-

1902) set his 1883 novel Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies’ Paradise) in an

imaginary department store of the same name.62

These new palaces of consumption

flooded the market with countless options of what the would-be consumer could buy

forcing them to decide what to buy and where to make their purchases. For

manufacturers, consumer tastes now needed to be developed and influenced in order

to recommend their products and buy consumer loyalty. Under these conditions the

advertising industry was born. The illustrated poster with its large format and vibrant

colors was particular suited to fill this need and soon the decadence of the grands

magasins was reflected on the hoardings of the Belle Époque.

Although posters and poster advertisements existed before the poster craze of

the 1890s, few were considered to be works of art, graphic or otherwise, until the

emergence of the affiche illustrée. For the Parisian of the early and mid-nineteenth

century, accepted art still resided in the annual Salon.63

It was certainly not to be

60

Talmeyr. “L’Age de l’affiche,” 208-209. 61

Gruber. The Adman in the Parlour, 17. 62

In Au Bonheur des Dames, the protagonist, Denise Baudu, starts work as a sales girl at a department

store shortly after arriving from the countryside. Through her work, Denise acts as a witness to the

rapid expansion of the store and the growing culture of mass consumption without having the means to

consume herself. 63

Mainardi. The End of the Salon, 9.

19

found in advertisements and certainly not on the street. The inability of the Salon to

cope with new forms of artistic expression associated with the avant-garde and

modernity pushed artists to look to new platforms for exhibition and less traditional

forms of expression. The Salon had been the authority on French Art since it first

opened in 1699, and, with the exception of the Universal Exhibitions, exhibiting

works outside of the Salon was unheard of before Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) held

the first independent exhibition in his Pavilion du Réalisme (Pavilion of Realism) in

1855.64

After Courbet, however, artists whose work did not belong to the academic

tradition began to look for alternative spaces in which they could exhibit their works

and an increasing number of independent exhibitions were born.65

The most famous

of these independent exhibitions were those organized by the Impressionists in the

1870s and 1880s.66

Others followed and by onset of the poster craze in 1891,

exhibitions of modernist works were regularly being held in the independent salons

and newly developed private galleries.67

It is no coincidence that the artists exhibiting

outside of the Salon were of the avant-garde. Since its inception, the Salon tended

towards tradition and conservatism, namely art in the academic style.68

The rejection

of works by avant-garde artists was not uncommon, and, when the diversity of artistic

styles expanded in the late nineteenth century the Salon refused to adapt itself to

accommodate the variety of modernity. Instead it chose to accept only works that

were considered to be artistically “pure”69

leading some forward-thinking art critics to

find little “worthy of note” at the annual Salon70

. Even as late as 1897, the French

avant-garde critic André Mellerio (1862-1943) complained that, in regards to prints,

the Salon “contain[ed] nothing but works in black” noting regulations prohibited

engravings and lithographs in color from being accepted.71

For many, innovation now

lay distinctly outside of the Salon, and, for some, it lay increasingly in new forms of

64

Fabrice Mansanès. Gustave Courbet. (Cologne: Taschen, 2006), 52. 65

Academic art was firmly grounded in ideals of art for art’s sake and was distinctly non-commercial.

History painting was considered the highest form of artistic expression and was meant to glorify French

civilization through its composition and beauty. 66

Mainardi. The End of the Salon, 44. 67

Patricia Leighten. The Liberation of Painting. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013.), 18. 68

Mainardi. The End of the Salon, 1. 69

Ibid, 115. 70

Gabriel Mourey. “The Salon of the Champs de Mars,” The Studio 8 (1896), 17-26. 71

André Mellerio. “La Lithographie,” L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 2 (15 avril 1897): 90.

20

visual culture, such as color lithography, that were free from the academic control of

the Salon.72

Attitudes towards the purpose of art were also changing. No longer was art

only to be “art for art’s sake,” or to glorify the nation but was increasingly considered

to be an essential tool in the improvement of the lives of the French masses. This new

decorative or “social art,” which began to appear in the 1880s, was meant to bring art

and therefore beauty out of the aristocratic world of the Salon and into the everyday

lives of the bourgeoisie and the lower classes. Social art was meant to “allow all

thinking beings to participate in the noble emotions provoked by seeing works of art”

and “to enrich their humbles lives” in doing so.73

Inspired by the Arts and Crafts

movement in Britain, the French movement attempted to blend art with life and to

form a new “decorative art” by applying the beauty of art to everyday items of utility

such as clothing, furniture, and advertisements.74

In doing so, the proponents of the

decorative arts were questioning the academic tradition of art for art’s sake. In

addition to being beautiful, the supporters of the decorative arts movement believed

that art had a higher, social purpose outside of the Salon and the homes of the wealthy

aristocracy. The movement of art into the everyday lives of the French people

contributed to its appearance on the hoardings of Paris, which would in turn become

known as the “museum for the masses.”75

The immense technological, social, and cultural change that took place over

the course of the nineteenth century prepared the ground for the emergence of the

illustrated poster. The developments made in monochrome and color lithography

created a print medium particularly suited to commercial uses. Meanwhile the

changes in the art world and perceptions about art allowed for the transfer of artistic

principles to the production of everyday useful objects. Finally, the advancing tide of

mass consumption created a need to develop customer tastes and loyalty through

advertisement. As the century approached its twilight, the stage was set for the

illustrated poster to emerge.

72

Maire-Jeanne Geyer and Thierry Laps. Le Salon de la Rue: L’affiche illustrée de 1890-1910.

(Strasbourg: Musée d’art Modern et Contemporain de Strasbourg, 2008), 23. 73

Anatole France. Preface to l’Art Social by Roger Marx. (Paris: Bibliothèque Charpentier, 1913). 74

Williams. Dream Worlds, 162. 75

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 17.

21

Chapter Two: The illustrated poster and postermania

On 1 January 1895, Alphonse Mucha’s affiche illustrée, depicting Sarah

Bernhardt in the title role of Victorien Sardou’s Gismonda (Figure 2.1), appeared for

on the hoardings of Paris. It caused a sensation. The strange name of this mysterious

artist, Mucha, was suddenly on everyone’s lips and eager collectors snatched

Gismonda off the hoardings.76

When Jules Chéret’s first colour posters, La Biche au

bois and Orphée aux enfers (Figure 2.2), graced those same hoardings in 1866, they

made him famous.77

In 1890 Chéret received the Légion d’Honneur (the highest

decoration awarded by the French government) for his “application of art to

commercial and industrial printing”78

and, by 1896, he was already widely known as

“the creator of the illustrated poster.”79

Yet, few of Chéret’s pre-1880 posters ever

made it into public or private collections. In the approximately thirty years that

separated Chéret’s Orphée aux enfers and Mucha’s Gismonda, a change had occurred

in the public’s perception and attitude toward posters.

The emergence of Chéret as a poster artist marked the beginning of a new art

form that would culminate in the polychromatic and expressive forms of Mucha and

other poster artists of the 1890s. No longer were posters composed primarily of text,

no longer were they purely commercial. In the depths of these new, brightly colored

advertisements, these affiche illustrée, the potential for art suddenly seemed to exist

where before it had not. The improved quality of poster design pioneered by Chéret in

the 1880s along with the increasing number of talented artists working in commercial

lithography were essential to this transformation. Chéret trained as a commercial

lithographer in Paris and London and first began producing commercial posters in

color in 1866.80

These first posters, however, were not yet affiches illustrées. They

lacked the complexity of color of his later work.

76

Jiří Mucha. Alphonse Mucha: His life and art by his son. Translated from the Czech by William

Heinmann. (London: Heinmann, 1966), 131. 77

Ségolène Le Men and Réjane Bargiel. “Jules Chéret – Street and Salon Artist,” in Jules Chéret:

Artists of the Belle Époque and Pioneer of Poster Art, ed. Michael Buhrs (Munich: Arnoldsche Art

Publishers, 2011), 41. 78

Alain Weill. Introduction to Masters of the Poster 1896-1900: Les Maitres de l’Affiche, by Jack

Rennert, Roger Marx, and Alain Weill. Reprinted and translated by Jack Rennert and Alain Weill

(London: Academy Editions, 1977), 4. 79

Talmeyr. “L’Age de l’affiche,” 202. 80

Le Men and Bargiel. “Jules Chéret – Street and Salon Artist,” 41.

22

Throughout his oeuvre, Chéret used a three-color printing method with the

addition of a keystone color of either black or royal blue for definition. 81

It was this

decision to minimize the variety of colors used in printing and the artist’s refinement

of the three-color method that enabled Chéret’s work to stand out on the hoardings.

Although Chéret’s posters were more artistic than other poster designs, with less text

and a greater focus on images, from the very beginning, it was the use of color in his

mature work of the 1880s and 1890s that would transform the commercial poster into

the affiche illustrée. In Chéret’s early work such, as Orphée aux enfers (Figure 2.2) or

Théâtre Nationale de l’Opéra (Figure 2.3), red, black, and green figured prominently

and gave the works an almost somber quality absent in the illustrated poster. Though

red remained an important color in Chéret’s compositions, black and green became

less prevalent as Chéret turned to yellows and blues which brought a new brightness

and freshness to his work that easily caught the eye. In the 1880s, Chéret continued to

use black as the keystone color in posters such as L’Amant des danseuses (Figure. 2.4)

and Le Pays des Fées (Figure 2.5), however, in the 1890s, he began to employ royal

blue instead of black in posters such as Les Coulisses de l’Opéra (Figure 2.6)

softening the outlines and brightening his designs even further.82

The bold new colors

of Cheret’s poster work both shocked and delighted critics of the Belle Époque.

Writing in 1893, the English art critic and poster enthusiast Charles Hiatt stated that

“the audacious colour” of Chéret’s designs “rarely fail[ed] to bring the man in the

street to a standstill.”83

The streets of Paris had never seen anything quite like it.

Chéret’s audacity in colors was matched by his mastery of color lithographic

printing techniques. From the 1889 onwards, Chéret increasingly blended translucent

colors by superimposing yellow, red, and blue to produce new shades of orange and

purple not seen in his earlier work. Superimposition, or overlaying, of colors was a

key element of color lithographic printing and had been used by Chéret since the

beginning of his career, however, never before had it been used to such an effect. In

his poster Les Coulisses de l’Opéra (Figure 2.6), designed in 1891, the varying hues

of purple and blue of the dancers in the background created shadows and worked to

highlight the typical Chéret girl, or chérette, dressed in yellow. Here, the overlay of

81

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 24. 82

Ibid. 83

Charles Hiatt. “The Collection of Posters. A new field for connoisseurs, ” The Studio 1, no. 2 (May

1893): 63.

23

two primaries (red and blue) in the creation of a complimentary color (purple) works

to provide striking visual contrast with the primary not being used (yellow). In Folies-

Bergère: La Loïe Fuller (Figure 2.7), printed in 1893, the superimposition of primary

colors and the resulting complimentary colors recreated the movement of the

infamous “serpentine” dance of Loïe Fuller.84

While the superimposition of color had

been used since the invention of color lithographic printing in the 1830s, this mastery

of color application and balance was not something that was commonplace in graphic

design before Chéret. In color lithographic printing, each color was printed from a

different stone requiring lithographers to “separate colours in their mind’s eye” to

determine how they would blend and change with the printing of each subsequent

stone.85

This was a task that required a great deal of experience and a keen

understanding of the technical processes of lithographic printing.86

Chéret, who had

been working in color since 1866, had years of technical experience.87

Chéret’s

mastery of and creativity in color put his work in a different class from other

commercial work being produced before 1889 and gave rise to the illustrated poster

that would be the focal point of the poster craze of the 1890s.

Following in Chéret’s footsteps, other poster artists, many of whom were

commissioned either by advertisers or printing firms, began to produce these new

illustrated posters in 1890s. In 1891, the first color lithograph posters by Pierre

Bonnard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, in the form of France Champagne (Figure

2.8) and Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (Figure 2.9), appeared on the hoardings of Paris.

Although these designs could not be confused with those of Chéret, both men’s

designs owed something to Chéret. Both Bonnard’s and Lautrec’s posters are

pictorial, a type of poster that did not exist before Chéret, and draw the viewer’s focus

towards the image rather than the text. Additionally, in Bonnard’s France

Champagne, the smiling (and tipsy) female figure is reminiscent of one of Chéret’s

chérettes. After Chéret, more artists turned their talents to poster work either to

84

The serpentine dance was an elaborate performance in which changing colored stage lights

illuminated the dancer’s flowing white gown as she danced. Loïe Fuller originated the dance and it

made her a star. The dance was also the subject of a hand-colored Lumière Brother’s film in 1896. 85

Twyman. A history of chromolithography, 28. 86

Domenico Porzio. “Invention and Technical Evolution,” in Domenico Porzio (ed). Lithography: 200

Years of Art, History and Technique. Trans. from the Italian by Geoffrey Culverwell. (London:

Bracken Books, 1982), 32. 87

Martijn Le Coultre. “Jules Chéret and the World of Design,” in Jules Chéret: Artists of the Belle

Époque and Pioneer of Poster Art, ed. Michael Buhrs (Munich: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2011), 141.

24

supplement their incomes or as an outlet for new modern forms of expression free

from the restrictions of the art establishment. The aesthetic quality of the posters

improved and the public’s enthusiasm for them increased. It is difficult to pinpoint

exactly when the poster craze started. People had been collecting posters and other

ephemera for decades,88

however, the new poster craze was on a different scale

entirely. Collecting was concentrated on a specific type of ephemera, the illustrated

poster, and, for the first time, on works designed by specific artists working in poster

design such as Chéret, Bonnard, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mucha. By April

1891 poster collecting, though in its infancy, had reached new heights causing the art

critic and poster collector, Octave Uzanne, to coin a new term to describe the

collection frenzy: affichomanie (postermania).89

Affichomanie extended beyond the simple act of collecting posters. The

collecting impulses and tastes of collectors created and shaped a cultural climate

obsessed with the illustrated poster, which in turn changed the way that the

commercial posters were produced and marketed.90

In the early days of poster

collecting, poster enthusiasts such as French art critic Arsène Alexandre simply

“peel[ed] them off the walls” themselves, however, in doing so they risked “being

caught in the act” and “soundly fined” by the police or ripping the poster as they took

them off the walls leaving them with “only a thing of tatters.”91

The other option open

to early collectors was to bribe the billposters before they put the posters up on the

hoardings. As an attempt to ward off theft or illicit sales, some printing firms added

preventative stamps,92

with warning such as “this poster can neither be given away

nor sold” and that “the possessor will be prosecuted” as being in receipt of stolen

goods (see Figure 2.10 and 2.11).93

To avoid such risks and to guarantee posters in

pristine condition, collectors soon began to purchase their posters from enterprising

print-dealers, such as Edmond Sagot, who “arrang[ed] with proprietors of the posters”

88

Gruber. The Adman in the Parlour, 27. 89

Octave Uzanne. “Les collectionneurs d’affiches illustrées,” Le Livre Moderne (10 avril 1891): 194. 90

Ernest Maindron. Les Affiches Illustres (1886-1895) Ouvrage orné de 64 lithographies en couleur et

cent deux reproductions en noir et en couleur d’après les affiches originales des meilleurs artistes.

(Paris: G. Boudet, 1896), 3. 91

Arsène Alexandre. “French Posters and Book-Covers,” Scribner’s Magazine 17, no. 101 (May

1895): 612. 92

Alain Weill. L’affichomanie: Collectionneurs d’affiches – Affiches de collection 1880-1900. (Paris:

Musée de l’Affiche, 1980), 2. 93

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), La Trappistine, 1897. Imprimerie F. Champenois (Paris). Color

Lithograph. The Mucha Foundation (Prague).

25

to put aside a number of impressions “reserved for amateurs.”94

Print-dealers in both

Paris and London produced catalogues listing the illustrated posters they had available

for sale. Some of these posters cost upwards of twenty francs even in the early years

of the craze.95

A veritable market, a bourse, in posters was beginning to take hold.

The lucrative potential in selling posters to collectors was not lost on the

famous tragedienne Sarah Bernhardt. In 1897, the actress filed a lawsuit against

Imprimerie Lemercier, the printers of Mucha’s Gismonda (Figure 2.1), for non-

delivery of 550 posters plus 5,000 francs in damages.96

While a lawsuit for non-

delivery may not immediately appear related to profits made from selling posters to

collectors, the ruling, reprinted in full in the October 1897 issue of L’Estampe et

L’Affiche (Prints and Posters), elucidates Bernhardt’s business savvy and participation

in the growing illustrated poster market. In July 1895, seven months after it caused a

sensation, Sarah Bernhardt ordered an additional 4,000 copies of Mucha’s design for

Gismonda to be supplied on demand.97

These 4,000 copies were meant, at least in

theory, to be used in the promotion of additional performances of Gismonda both in

France and abroad. Over the course of 1895 and 1896, Lemercier delivered 3,450

copies of Gismonda to the actress, however, when Bernhardt demanded the remaining

550 in 1897, the firm was unable to supply them. Instead, they offered either to return

the 467.50 francs already paid or to reprint the remaining 550 copies.98

Bernhardt

refused both offers. For the Divine Sarah, 467.50 francs was insufficient to cover her

losses as the posters were of an “artistic nature,” “limited in number” and “had

increased in value.” 99

Any additional run of Gismonda, she insisted, would have

“decreased the value” of the posters and Bernhardt’s profits with them.100

From the

figures supplied in the court case, it can be deduced that the posters were produced for

around .85 centimes each, while Bernhardt’s demand for 5,000 francs in damages

showed an increased value of approximately 9.09 francs (an increase of almost

970%!). Although Bernhardt was known for her theatrics both on and off the stage,

this figure may be exaggerated. However, it must be remembered that print-dealers

94

Alexandre. “French Posters and Book-Covers,” 613. 95

Charles Hiatt. Picture Posters: A short history of the illustrated placard, with many reproductions of

the most artistic examples in all countries. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1895), 362. 96

“Jurisprudence,” L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 8 (octobre 1897): 207-208. 97

“Jurisprudence,” 207. 98

Ibid. 99

Ibid, 208. 100

Ibid.

26

such as Sagot were selling posters for as much 25 francs.101

The judge in Bernhardt’s

lawsuit did not award her 5,000 francs in damages, but 500 in addition to the

restitution of the 467.50 francs she had paid for the undelivered posters.102

Though

Bernhardt was not awarded the 5,000 francs she wanted, the case demonstrates the

increasing value of posters during the period and the profitability of selling them. The

influence of affichomanie had extended beyond its position as a cultural phenomenon

and had become an economic one as well.

The poster industry developed even further as the 1890s progressed and

complicated the relationship of posters to both the commercial and the art worlds. In

addition to the sale of individual posters, soon special reproductions of the original

designs were being made to sell to collectors. The cumbersome size of many posters

made them difficult to collect and preserve while the lettering on these posters

literally advertised their commercial nature. For the art critics and bourgeois

collectors of the illustrated poster, the commercial lettering served as a reminder that

the illustrated poster was designed to make money for the advertiser and not as fine

art and the nobler cause of truth or beauty. Both the unmanageable size and the

offensive commercial lettering, however, were soon addressed by the fledgling poster

industry. From 1896 until 1900, Imprimerie Chaix produced a monthly poster

publication, Les Maîtres de l’Affiche (Masters of the Poster), edited by art critic Roger

Marx. In Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, they hoped “to offer a poster reduced to the size of

a print, in every respect faithful to the original, easy to handle, suitable for frequent

and quick examination and concurrent enjoyment.”103

In these monthly editions, four

posters were reproduced and could be purchased by either annual or monthly

subscription on low-quality commercial paper or high-quality Japan paper. In France,

an annual subscription (including twelve “poster prints”) could be purchased for 27

francs on commercial paper or for 80 francs on Japan paper. For collectors in Algeria

and Tunisia the price increased to 28 francs on commercial paper and 81 francs on

Japan paper. For collectors in other countries subscriptions could be purchased for 30

101

In his introduction to the 1977 reprinting of Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, Alain Weill, the director of

the Musée de l’Affiche (now Musée de la Publicité) from 1978 to 1983, stated that the maximum price

set for a poster in the 1890s was 25 francs for Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge: La Goulue mounted. 102

“Jurisprudence,” 209. 103

Roger Marx (ed). Preface to Les Maîtres de l’Affiche Volume 1 (1896) in Jack Rennert, Roger

Marx, and Alain Weill. Masters of the Poster 1896-1900: Les Maitres de l’Affiche. Reprinted and trans.

by Jack Rennert and Alain Weill (London: Academy Editions, 1977), 11-12.

27

francs and 83 francs respectively.104

Imprimerie Chaix also used Les Maîtres de

l’Affiche to promote the work of its most famous poster artist, Jules Chéret. One out

of every four posters reproduced was a design created by Chéret who was then the

Artistic Director of Imprimerie Chaix.105

The publication of Les Maîtres de l’Affiche,

however, was not strictly economic in nature. The editor, Roger Marx, was a

passionate advocate for the applied arts and for the illustrated poster who saw the

endeavor as a platform to safeguard “so much charming production from oblivion”106

and who pushed for the development of a Musée de l’Affiche (Museum of the Poster)

in 1897.107

Nonetheless, Les Maîtres de l’Affiche acted as an additional product to

market to print collectors and as a promotional tool for Imprimerie Chaix.

In addition to reproducing the finest poster designs of the age, many of the

reproductions in Les Maîtres de l’Affiche were special avant la lettre (before lettering)

editions, which de-emphasized the commercial aspect of the poster in this smaller

“print” form. They also issued monthly “bonus decorative prints” that were designed

exclusively for Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, often by Chéret, and not for any specific

advertiser.108

Imprimerie Chaix was not the only printing firm to issue special edition

avant la lettre and “decorative prints.” The printer F. Champenois published

numerous designs avant la lettre that were issued before their commercial posters and

with different titles. One of the most popular was the design that Mucha made for the

“print” Reverie (see Figure 2.12) and the commercial poster F. Champenois (see

Figure 2.13). Avant la lettre “prints” were also generally more expensive, sometimes

almost twice the price, than their commercial counterparts. This trend also affected

the way in which posters were designed resulting in posters that were not altogether

successful as advertisements. As early as 1894 an anonymous correspondent of the

English art journal The Studio referred to illustrated posters as “advertisements that do

not advertise.”109

Although this statement is perhaps an exaggeration, as the decade

progressed more and more posters were becoming less successful as

104

Roger Marx, ed. “Subscription Notice,” Les Maîtres de l’Affiche 2 (1897) in Jack Rennert, Roger

Marx, and Alain Weill. Masters of the Poster 1896-1900: Les Maitres de l’Affiche. Reprinted and trans.

by Jack Rennert and Alain Weill (London: Academy Editions, 1977), 9. 105

These works were generally not ‘fresh’ designs as Chéret’s production of posters slowed by the

time the first edition of Les Maîtres de l’Affiche went into publication. 106

Roger Marx (ed). Preface to Les Maîtres de l’Affiche 1 (1896), 11. 107

Weill. L’Affichomanie, 1. The proposition for a Musée de l’Affiche will be discussed further in

chapter three. 108

Weill. Introduction to Masters of the Poster 1896-1900, 5. 109

“From Gallery and Studio with Illustrations,” The Studio 4, no. 21 (December 1894): 97.

28

advertisements.110

Take for example two different poster designs made for Job

Cigarette Papers. In Jules Chéret’s 1895 design (see Figure 2.14) the company as well

as its product is advertised in large eye-catching letters on a white background making

them easily legible from a distance. In Alphonse Mucha’s 1897 design, however, the

“macaroni hair” of the ‘”Mucha girl” partially obscures the company name and the

product, cigarette papers, no longer appears in lettering but is reduced to the cigarette

in the Mucha girl’s hand. 111

Even in Chéret’s design, however, the lettering is less

prominent than in his earlier posters. It is important to note that the posters made for

the demi-monde entertainments such as those at the Moulin Rouge and for the

bourgeois theatrical productions rarely appeared in avant la lettre editions. Mucha’s

posters featuring Sarah Bernhardt were immensely popular and were widely collected,

yet they were never printed without the lettering. This can perhaps be explained by

the fact that these posters were not selling material objects but popular entertainments

more closely with culture than with advertising. Nonetheless, the production of avant

la lettre editions and designs that obscured the commercial nature of the illustrated

poster can be seen as part of the a wider trend in which printers and posters artists

increasingly marketed their designs as art to specialist collector markets thus creating

a confused identity for the illustrated poster as a design somewhere between

commerce and a new art form of the modern age.

Yet, despite these attempts to conceal the commercial nature of the illustrated

poster, it was at a very basic level commercial. Poster artists were creating designs

commissioned and paid for by advertisers or printing firms and some poster artists

even had exclusive contracts with printing firms. Jules Chéret created designs for

Imprimerie Chaix and from 1896 Alphonse Mucha worked exclusively with

Imprimerie F. Champenois.112

These contracts were meant to be mutually beneficial

to printer and to artist increasing the business of the printer through exclusive rights to

a specific artist meanwhile guaranteeing compensation for the artist. Although we do

not know how much money Mucha’s designs made for F. Champenois, we do know

that when Mucha signed a contract with the printing firm in 1896, he was guaranteed

110

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 31. 111

In criticism of the period (both positive and negative), the flowing hair and sensuous women

characteristic of Mucha’s designs were regularly referred to by these terms. 112

Le Coultre. “Jules Chéret and the World of Design,” 134.

29

a minimum of 30,000 francs a year.113

Mucha’s relationship with the printing firm F.

Champenois is an interesting one and worth looking at in greater detail as it illustrates

how commercial color lithographic remained throughout postermania.

After the triumph of Gismonda, Mucha first signed a contract with Sarah

Bernhardt to design posters, costumes and sets for her theatrical productions,114

then

when the tragedienne decided to transfer her poster commissions from Imprimerie

Lemercier to Imprimerie F. Champenois in 1896, Mucha followed.115

Mucha

remained under contract with F. Champenois until 1904 when he moved to America

in hopes of escaping his established reputation as a commercial artist in Europe and of

painting society portraits of the American Nouveau Riche.116

Under contract with F.

Champenois, Mucha churned out poster designs as well as designs for decorative

panels, calendars, and even menu cards (see Figures 2.16 - 2.18). These products were

intended to promote F. Champenois and Mucha’s work, and, in the case of the

decorative panels, they were specifically designed as marketable “art prints” to

decorate interior spaces of collectors homes.117

Despite the fact that these decorative

panels were marketed as “art prints” and were available on Japan paper and silk, they

were still commercially produced in large editions by an artist under exclusive

contract to a single printing firm.

Towards the turn of the century, the large volume of commissions generated

by the popularity of Mucha’s designed caused the artist to feel an increasing sense of

dissatisfaction with commercial work. He began to see his contract with F.

Champenois as a form of “slavery”118

and yearned to be able to create art that would

benefit the Slavic people of his homeland.119

Indeed, his move to the United States

was meant to free him from his commercial lithographic work in order to pursue

portrait and history painting. His commercial work, however, was immensely popular

113

Jiří Mucha. Alphonse Mucha: His life and art by his son. Trans. from the Czech by William

Heinmann. (London: Heinmann, 1966), 171 . 114

Mucha. Alphonse Mucha, 133. 115

Ibid, 146. 116

Ibid, 290-291. 117

Hiatt. Picture Posters, 34. 118

Mucha, Alphonse Mucha, 171. 119

Ibid, 231. Mucha was proud of his Slavic heritage and desperately wished to contribute to the

empowerment of the Slavs. His Slav Epic, a series of 20 large paintings, depicted scenes from Slavic

mythology and history and was gifted by Mucha to the city of Prague in 1928. Mucha also designed,

usually for free, stamps and banknotes for Czechoslovakia as well as posters for youth and art

organizations in Prague.

30

across the Atlantic and Mucha struggled to escape requests for new posters and

decorative panels.120

Although F. Champenois and other printers continued to create

new ways to sell the illustrated poster and decorative panels as “art prints,” the artists

who created them were increasingly moving away from commercial work in color

lithography. Many did not see themselves as commercial artists and returned to

painting or drawing as soon as they were able. As celebrated poster artists began to

tire of commercial work, the public did as well. By the time Mucha left for America

in 1904, postermania was waning.121

When World War I started in 1914, the days of

poster collecting and the decadence of the Belle Époque were already a thing of the

past. It seems a wonder that with the destruction of what was to follow in Europe that

the illustrated posters and decorative panels of the Belle Époque were not simply

discarded or forgotten as a passing fad. In reality, affichomanie had not just

transformed the way that posters were produced or marketed, it had also transformed

how they were perceived. It was this change in perception, not simply its popularity,

which ensured the survival of illustrated poster to this day.

120

Mucha was lauded by the newspapers as “the greatest of poster artists” on his arrival in the United

States in April 1904 and a Mucha design even graced the front page of the color section of the

Washington Times on 3 April 1904. The influence of Mucha and other poster artists abroad will be

discussed in chapter three. 121

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 38.

31

Chapter Three: From the streets

When Jules Chéret’s first poster was pasted onto the hoardings of Paris in

1866 its purpose was well defined. The commercial poster was an outdoor

advertisement meant to persuade the growing masses of bourgeois consumers in

France to develop loyalty to specific brands, to shop in the new department stores, and

to attend the various entertainments popping up all over Paris. This purpose, however,

became increasingly unclear as the nineteenth century progressed and with the onset

of postermania in the 1891 it was altered entirely. The upsurge in the aesthetic appeal

and popularity of the illustrated poster that defined the poster craze brought the

commercial poster into the contemporary discourse on art and led it away from the

street and into new domestic interior spaces where it would be display, not as a purely

commercial advertisement, but as something more akin to art. The increased presence

of French posters abroad and the global appeal of French poster artists further

contributed to the ambiguity of the illustrated poster today. The transformation that

occurred in the 1890s made the affiche illustrée into something that was no longer

solely advertisement and altered the way in which we understand the color

lithography poster of the 1890s in the present.

With the onset of postermania in 1891, the posters that had been mere

commercial advertisements unworthy of critical notice a decade before were suddenly

written about with regularity in art journals and popular magazines both in France and

abroad. Writing in the English journal The Studio in 1895, the art critic Arthur Fish

commented that “much has been written and said of late about the poster” and this

was by no means an exaggeration.122

The caliber of the designs and the popularity of

the illustrated poster in the 1890s forced the art world into an international discussion

of the illustrated poster. The discussion covered the pages of journals such as The

Studio in England or Art et Décoration in France and of popular magazines such as

Scribner’s or Harper’s in America. Articles focusing on the artistic poster, such as

‘L’Estampe Murale’ (The Wall Print),123

‘French Posters and Book-Covers’,124

‘Another Word on the Poster’,125

and ‘L’Age de l’affiche’ (The Poster Age),126

began

122

Arthur Fish. “Another Word on the Poster,” The Studio 5, n. 30 (September 1895): 215. 123

Raymond Bouyer. “L’Estampe Murale,” Art et Décoration 4 (juillet-decembre 1898): 185-191. 124

Arsène Alexandre. “French Posters and Book-Covers,” Scribner’s Magazine 17, no. 101 (May

1895): 603-614. 125

Fish. “Another Word on the Poster,” 215-216. 126

Maurice Talmeyr. “L’Age de l’affiche,” La Revue des deux mondes (1 septembre 1895): 201-216.

32

to appear in print and even began to filter into art and design articles not specifically

about the poster. For the first time, poster exhibitions were reviewed, the works

displayed and the stars of the illustrated poster were quickly marked out. Chéret was

frequently written about, as were Grasset and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Although a great deal was being written about the illustrated poster, the

discourse was by no means uniform. Never before had art critics been called upon to

discuss the merits of the illustrated poster, whose primary purpose was not artistic, but

commercial. However, the unprecedented aesthetic quality and popularity of the

affiche illustrée meant that it deserved critical attention. No standard idiom existed to

facilitate the task. As a result, critics began using a mélange of commercial and art

terms as well as newly invented words to describe the illustrated poster. Critics

simultaneously wrote about the poster as “poster art,”127

“applied art,”128

“industrial

art”129

or “special art”130

and the person who made the illustrated poster as

“créateur,”131

“illustrator”132

or “artist.”133

The variety of terms used to describe the

poster can to some extent be attributed to the different critic’s personal enthusiasm or

aversion to the poster. However, doing so does not give an accurate picture of the

difficulty art critics faced in classifying the illustrated poster. Indeed, a number of the

critics who were poster enthusiasts and collectors themselves, such as Octave Uzanne,

struggled to define what exactly the illustrated poster was. Despite his enthusiastic

support of the artistic poster, Uzanne uses industrial terms such as “industrial art,”

“applied art,” and “special art” to define Grasset’s work in an 1894 essay on Grasset

and the decorative arts.134

This inability to define where the poster belonged in

relation to art and industry also led critics to invent new terms such as “auto-

lithograph,” meaning an original design rather than a reproduction,135

and

127

André Mellerio (ed.). “Programme,” in L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 1 (15 mars 1897): 3. 128

“The Lay Figure at Home,” in The Studio 4, no. 20 (November 1894): xvi. 129

Octave Uzanne. “Eugene Grasset and Decorative Art in France,” The Studio 4, no. 20 (November

1894): 44. 130

Uzanne. “Eugene Grasset and Decorative Art in France,” 45. 131

Talmeyr. “L’Age de l’affiche,” 202. 132

Alexandre. “French Posters and Book-Covers,” 611. 133

H. Fierens-Gevaert. “Petite Psychologie de l’Affiche,” reprinted from the Journal des Débats in La

Plume no. 197 consacré à Alphonse Mucha (1 juillet 1897): 92. 134

Uzanne. “Eugene Grasset and Decorative Art in France,” 44-45. 135

The Studio laid claim to being the first to use the term in “From Gallery, Studio and Mart. with

Illustrations,” The Studio 3, no. 15 (June 1894): 85.

33

“lithographie en couleurs” (color lithograph),136

in order to differentiate between the

mass-produced trade reproductions of popular paintings from the mid-nineteenth

century (see Figure 1.6) and the purpose-made original designs for the illustrated

poster.137

Even if the contemporary critics did not yet know exactly where the

illustrated poster belonged, from the 1890s onwards it became clear that the poster

was not simply a commercial advertisement.

The creditably gained by the illustrated poster through its presence in art

journals led to the development of publications devoted to the poster. Additionally, a

number of literary journals consistently promoted poster artists and their work. In the

course of the 1890s numerous journals—including Les Maîtres de l’affiche (The

Masters of the Poster, 1895-1900), L’Estampe et L’Affiche (Prints and Posters, 1897-

1899), The Poster (1898-1900), and The Poster Collector’s Circular (1899)—were

devoted to the poster and were established in the throes of postermania. Although all

of these publications promoted the illustrated poster in one way or another, even they

were split along artistic and commercial lines struggling to define the place of the

affiche illustrée. While Les Maîtres de l’affiche was concerned with stressing the

artistic value of the illustrated poster and worked to promote it, the journal was

nonetheless published by Imprimerie Chaix, which benefited from the exposure.138

In

terms of the economic value of poster art, The Poster Collector’s Circular, published

by the London print-dealer P.G. Haurdel & Co., was accompanied by a bourse

(summary of poster market values) which listed the prices and availability of English

and foreign posters in their print shop.139

Indeed, in its first issue the editors of The

Poster Collector’s Circular insisted their object was not to deal “with the Poster in its

relation to Art,” but to help the poster collector “to form some idea as to whether or

not any particular Poster is likely to prove a desirable acquisition.”140

By endeavoring

“to save people the trouble of making a selection”141

Les Maîtres de l’affiche and The

Poster Collector’s Circular aided poster collectors to develop their collections and, in

136

Although it is not certain when the term color lithography was first used, it was certainly

commonplace by the end of the 1890s as seen in Raymond Bouyer. “L’Estampe Murale,” Art et

Décoration 4 (juillet-decembre 1898): 191. 137

Pat Gilmour. “Cher Monsieur Clot…August Clot and his role as a colour lithographer,” in Lasting

Impressions, ed. Pat Gilmour (Canberra: Australian National Art Gallery, 1988), 137. 138

As noted in chapter two, one out of every four posters reproduced in Les Maîtres de l’affiche

belonged to the printing firm’s Artistic Director, Jules Chéret. 139

See for example “Bourse,” The Poster Collector’s Circular 1, no.1 (January 1899): 15-16. 140

The Editors. “Our Object,” The Poster Collector’s Circular 1, no. 1 (January 1899): 3. 141

Marx (ed). Preface to Les Maîtres de l’Affiche 1 (1896): 11.

34

doing so, they emphasized their own businesses. L’Estampe et L’Affiche and The

Poster, on the other hand, devoted themselves to “the study [of the poster] in the quiet

of the home or studio”142

and the propagation of taste “for the poster by the

publication of all that is related to it.”143

Although the popularity of the illustrated

poster guaranteed an audience (and therefore sales) of these publications, they did not

sell posters themselves and strove to improve the standing of what they deemed to be

“an important branch of art.”144

Likewise, the literary journals La Plume (1889-1914)

and the La Revue Blanche (1889-1903) promoted the color lithographic work of

poster artists through special editions devoted to the poster145

and poster artists such

as Mucha (see Figure 3.1),146

through the distribution of free small reproductions of

illustrated posters with their journals, and through commissions to make promotional

posters for the journals themselves (see Figure 3.2 and 3.3).147

All of these journals,

whether looking for commercial gain or promoting what they considered to be art (or

doing both simultaneously), worked to widen the discussion revolving around the

illustrated poster and helped to further its ambiguous position in regards to industry

and art. Although a consensus regarding the illustrated poster as art had not been

reached, it had at least become evident that its value was no longer uniquely

commercial.

If the poster was not purely commercial, what then was it? There were

certainly those who considered it to be so and whose enthusiasm for the illustrated

poster pushed it further away from its commercial beginnings. While a number of

posters still made it onto the hoardings to fulfill their primary function, many of them

were moved from the streets into new specialized exhibitions devoted to the

illustrated poster and the work of poster artists. Indeed, at least one advertiser,

Chocolat Mexicain, commented that the illustrated poster designed by Grasset for

their product was seen more frequently in exhibitions than on the streets.148

While this

quip might have been nothing more than a wry comment, it was nonetheless telling of

the number of posters being shown in interior spaces rather than on the hoardings.

142

M. Yendis. “Concerning Ourselves,” The Poster 1, no. 1 (June 1898): 4. 143

André Mellerio (ed.). “Programme,” in L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 1 (15 mars 1897): 3. 144

Yendis. “Concerning Ourselves,” 4. 145

Léon Deschamps (ed). La Plume, no. 110 consacré à l’affiche illustrée (15 novembre 1893): 475-

508. 146

Léon Deschamps (ed). La Plume, no. 197 consacré à Alphonse Mucha (1 juillet 1897): 1-92. 147

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 21. 148

Weill. L’affichomanie, 5.

35

The first of these exhibitions in France, organized by poster enthusiast and historian

Ernest Maindron, was held as part of the Paris Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair)

of 1889 as a “History of the French Poster.”149

As the popularity of the illustrated

poster began to grow and the number of artists working in color lithography increased

so too did the number of exhibitions. In February 1894, Léon Deschamps, the editor

of the literary journal La Plume, launched the first Salon des Cent (Salon of the One-

hundred) exhibiting works by avant-garde artists working in a range of mediums.150

The first of the monthly exhibitions included the commercial and non-commercial

work of poster artists such as Eugène Grasset and Jules Chéret alongside paintings,

drawings, and pastels made by lesser-known artists.151

The Salon des Cent exhibitions

frequently featured posters, and poster artists were commissioned to create original

designs to advertise the shows (see Figure 3.4). The Salon des Cent also held solo

shows devoted to the entire oeuvre of individual artists known primarily for their

poster work. In June 1897, one such show was put on featuring the work of Mucha

and included commercial works such as posters, proofs, preparatory sketches,

calendars, theatre programs, journal covers, decorative panels and stained glass

alongside examples of fine art in the form of drawings, genre, and history paintings.152

Mucha designed the poster for this exhibition (see Figure 3.5) as well as the cover to

the corresponding special number of La Plume devoted to his work (see Figure 3.1).

The exhibition of posters and other commercial works alongside paintings and

drawings in the Salon des Cent attempted to legitimize both the poster artist and the

poster as art rather than advertisement. The staging of the Centenaire de la

Lithographie (Centenary of Lithography) at the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine

Arts) in 1896 gave further creditability to those who argued that original color

lithography, unlike chromolithography, was not just a commercial process but also an

artistic one. 153

These exhibitions also worked to divorce the illustrated poster from its

primary commercial purpose. By moving the poster from the streets into the

149

Maindron. Les Affiches Illustres (1886-1895), 4. 150

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 25. 151

Léon Maillard. “Le Salon des Cent,” in La Plume, no. 116 (15 février 1894): 59-63. 152

Léon Deschamps. “A. Mucha,” La Plume, no. 197 consacré à Alphonse Mucha (1 juillet 1897): 8-

15. 153

André Mellerio. “La Rénovation de L’Estampe, premier article, L’estampe en 1896,” L’Estampe et

L’Affiche 1, no. 1 (15 mars 1896): 6.

36

exhibition hall, the context of what it was advertising was altered and the beauty of

the poster itself was highlighted.

The dissociation of the illustrated poster from the commercial products it

advertised as well as its increasing critical promotion as art became even more

pronounced as it travelled abroad. Outside of France, the French products and

entertainments illustrated in French poster designs were not accessible to the public

who saw them. The average Englishman or American could not patronize, at least not

without travelling to France, the grands magasins or café-concerts of Paris nor were

they likely to see posters advertising French products in the streets of London or New

York.154

Yet there were many in England, the United States, and elsewhere who saw

these French illustrated posters.155

As their fame increased French poster artists also

received commissions from abroad. Toulouse-Lautrec designed posters for Harper’s

magazine as well as for the London print-dealer Edward Bella (see Figure 3.6)156

and

Mucha was commissioned to make posters for The West End Review, Nestlé, and his

designs were reused by Sarah Bernhardt for her American tours.157

Despite these commissions, the majority of the artists’ illustrated posters were

not seen on the hoardings as commercial advertisements, but rather outside of their

original context in exhibitions dedicated to the illustrated poster. As the decade

progressed, poster exhibitions became increasingly popular in continental Europe,

Britain, and America.158

An exhibition was held in St. Petersburg by the Imperial

Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in 1897.159

French illustrated posters were

often the main feature of these exhibitions as they were considered to be far superior

in quality to what was being produced elsewhere.160

Indeed, the works featured in the

first poster exhibition in the United States, held at the Grolier Club in New York City

in 1890, were “entirely French imports.”161

The first poster exhibition in London,

organized by the poster enthusiast and print-dealer Edward Bella, was held at the

154

Some French theatrical and dance troupes did travel to other countries, but not with any regularity. 155

Fierens-Gevaert. “Petite Psychologie de l’Affiche,” 92. 156

Weill. L’affichomanie, 8. 157

Mucha. Alphonse Mucha, 145-148. 158

Weill. L’affichomanie, 30-32. 159

Société Impériale d’Encouragement des Arts. Catalogue: Exposition Internationale d’Affiche

Illustrées. (St Petersberg: 1897), 29-43. 160

“Literature & Art,” Weekly Irish Times, March 30, 1895, 4. 161

Neil Harris. “American Poster Collecting: A Fitful History,” American Art 12, no. 1 (Spring 1998):

13.

37

Royal Aquarium in 1894-1895, and featured over two hundred English and French

posters supplied from the personal collections of the organizers.162

Though Bella was

a print-dealer, the works on display in the first exhibition were not for sale and were

exhibited as examples of “artistic originality, beauty and excellence of technique” and

were also considered to be “records of daily life and interests of the age.”163

The

exhibition, to which Mucha’s Gismonda (1895) was added,164

went on to be

remounted in Dublin by the Dublin Arts Club at 6 Stephen’s Green in April 1895.165

There “a lady,” writing for the Weekly Irish Times, noted that at the Dublin exhibition

the illustrated poster was to be viewed as art. The article, uncommonly forthright

regarding the status of the illustrated poster, is worth quoting at length:

But the things advertised are, for the

visitor to the present exhibition, of but

little or no value, as it is principally

with the posters as works of art that

one is concerned: the instances in

which the figures (which are present in

almost every one) correspond with the

thing advertised are few, though they

are strikingly done.166

By bringing these posters off the streets of Paris and into new contexts in exhibitions

worldwide, they were effectively cut off from their original commercial purpose and

were often seen by exhibition-goers as excellent examples of international art and

design production rather than advertisement. The growing disconnect between the

designs and the product being advertised, as pointed out by “a lady” and in chapter

two of this study, further contributed to the estrangement of the illustrated poster from

merely economic and commercial concerns.

Yet, despite the treatment it received in journals and exhibition halls, the

illustrated poster was not fully accepted by the art establishment. Color lithography

162

Edward Bella (ed). A Collection of Posters: the Illustrated Catalogue of the First Poster

Exhibitions 1894-1895, Royal Aquarium, London. (London: Strangways, 1894), 13. 163

Joseph Thatcher Clarke. Preface to A Collection of Posters: the Illustrated Catalogue of the First

Poster Exhibitions 1894-1895, Royal Aquarium, London by Edward Bella (London: Strangways,

1894), 8. 164

Gismonda, which was not printed until the last week of December 1894, did not appear in the 1894-

1895 catalogue of the Royal Aquarium exhibition. However, it is mentioned by name in the Weekly

Irish Times as being part of the Dublin exhibition. See A Lady. “Talk of Town,” Weekly Irish Times,

April 6, 1895, 5. 165

“Artistic Poster,” The Irish Times, May 28, 1895, 6. 166

A Lady. “Talk of Town,” Weekly Irish Times, April 6, 1895, 5.

38

had still not been granted entry into the official Salon.167

Nor were color posters being

acquired by public (state-sponsored) art galleries and museums. Indeed, the refusal of

the French government to acquire illustrated posters for their public galleries and

museums led the art critic Roger Marx in 1898 to call for the establishment of an

official Musée de l’Affiche (Museum of the Poster) in order “to save that which the

action of time and the folly of men has left to survive as a faded artwork” and to

develop a “documentary collection” that would “bear witness to the art and the life of

our time.”168

Despite Marx’s impassioned pleas for a Musée de l’Affiche, one was not

established until 1978 when it was created under the auspices of the state-run Union

central des arts décoratifs (Central Union of Decorative Arts), now the Musée des

Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts).169

Those within the art establishment

were not the only ones who were unsure of the poster’s place within the public gallery

or the museum. Indeed, when Marx first proposed a Musée de l’Affiche in 1898, there

were those among the ardent supporters of the illustrated poster who had doubts

regarding an institution of this kind. They questioned who should select the works,

how would they be displayed, and whether or not the poster should be “incarcerated

in an enclosed space.”170

While many of the age were ready to acknowledge that the

illustrated poster had surpassed its original purpose and its growing popular appeal,

they did not necessarily think that it should be accepted into the state’s public

collections or that it should be considered a “fine art” equal to painting. Being neither

purely commercial nor purely artistic the illustrated poster belonged to both worlds

and to neither. It was “a hybrid creation that merged art and advertising” and it was

impossibly modern, irreconcilable with the contemporary definitions of advertising

and art.171

Rather than belonging either to art or to advertising, the illustrated poster

was part of a new visual culture combining the beauty of artistically designed with

images representative of the new popular and consumer culture that characterized the

age.

167

André Mellerio. “La Lithographie,” L’Estampe et L’Affiche 1, no. 2 (15 avril 1897): 90. 168

Roger Marx. “Un Musée de l’Affiche,” L’Estampe et L’Affiche 2, no. 12 (15 décembre 1898): 265. 169

The Musée de l’Affiche was established under the direction of Alain Weill in 1978. It has since

been renamed the Musée de la Publicité (Museum of Advertising). See Alain Weill. L’affichomanie:

Collectionneurs d’affiches – Affiches de collection 1880-1900. (Paris: Musée de l’Affiche, 1980). 170

La Revue. “Un Musée de l’Affiche,” L’Estampe et L’Affiche 2, no. 12 (15 décembre 1898): 264. 171

Chapin. Posters of Paris, 13.

39

Yet, the illustrated poster of the 1890s can today be found in art museums and

auction houses around the world. Indeed, French color lithograph posters are housed

in a variety of institutions including the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert

Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art

in New York, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) and the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France) in Paris.172

The first

illustrated posters to enter into public collections were given to the Union centrale des

arts décoratifs in 1901 by the poster collector Georges Pochet.173

Pochet’s gift, along

with a bequest made by the poster collector Roger Braun in 1941, were the basis of

the collection for the Musée de l’Affiche (now Musée de la Publicité) when it was

opened in 1978.174

The illustrated posters in many museum collections today are

overwhelmingly the result of gifts and bequests from collectors whose personal

collections were compiled during the years of postermania. In 1921, the Victoria &

Albert Museum received a substantial bequest from the wife of Joseph Thatcher

Clarke that included works by Bonnard,175

Grasset,176

Toulouse-Lautrec,177

and

Mucha.178

Clarke was an ardent poster collector as well as one of the organizers of the

First and Second Poster Exhibitions at the Royal Aquarium in London in 1894-1895

and 1896.179

These gifts and bequests by poster collectors became integral parts of

two of the largest repositories for French color lithograph posters from the 1890s

172

This information was found through searching the online collections of the various institutions.

While the majority of these institutions include information regarding provenance of the works in the

individual records for each poster, it is worth noting that the Bibliothèque Nationale de France does

not. Additionally, works that were transferred from the Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs (Library of

Decorative Arts) to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs are recorded as being of "unknown provenance". See

for example “Scala. Arlette Dorgère (Numéro d’inventaire 17026),” Les Arts Décoratifs, date accessed

14 August 2015, http://opac.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/fiche/scala-arlette-dorgere 173

Le Men and Bargiel. “Jules Chéret – Street and Salon Artist,” 40. 174

Weill. L’affichomanie, 1. 175

“France Champagne (Museum Number E. 150-1921),” Victoria and Albert Museum, date accessed

14 August 2015, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O133516/france-champagne-poster-bonnard-pierre/ 176

“Jeanne d’Arc. Sarah Bernhardt (Museum Number E. 190-1921),” Victoria and Albert Museum,

date accessed 14 August 2015, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O138313/jeanne-darc-sarah-

bernhardt-poster-grasset-eugene/ 177

“Moulin Rouge, La Goulue (Museum Number E.223-1921),” Victoria and Albert Museum, date

accessed 14 August 2014. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O136269/moulin-rouge-la-goulue-poster-

toulouse-lautrec-henri/ 178

“Gismonda: Bernhardt, Théâtre de la Renaissance (Museum Number E. 261.1921),” Victoria and

Albert Museum, date accessed 14 August 2015. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O137555/gismonda-

bernhardt-theatre-de-la-poster-mucha-alphonse/ 179

Clarke wrote the preface to exhibition catalogue for the 1894-1895 Poster Exhibition at the Royal

Aquarium. See Edward Bella (ed). A Collection of Posters: the Illustrated Catalogue of the First

Poster Exhibitions 1894-1895, Royal Aquarium, London. (London: Strangways, 1894).

40

(Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Victoria & Albert Museum) and helped to ensure

the survival of the illustrated poster into the present.

Despite the presence of the illustrated poster in museum collections

worldwide, it is not entirely free from the ambiguous “hybrid” status established in

the 1890s. There is no standard way in which the French illustrated poster is

exhibited. In the Victoria & Albert Museum alone Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1892 Divan

Japonais (see Figure 3.7) is exhibited in two different contexts with two different

labels citing the medium once as “colour lithograph on paper”180

and later as

“lithographic ink on paper.”181

In Room 101 (Europe & America 1800-1900), which

also features examples of nineteenth-century decorative art furniture, the poster is

exhibited with a number of others (including ones by Chéret and Mucha) as a

decorative art object (see Figure 3.8). In the museum’s Fashion Galleries (Room 40),

however, the poster is used to give historical context to one of the fashion pieces

being displayed and to place the item in the visual culture of the age (see Figure 3.9).

Meanwhile in a recent exhibition (1 April 2015 – 27 September 2015) put on by The

Mucha Foundation and the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth

(United Kingdom), Mucha’s illustrated posters were displayed as part of a fee-paying

art exhibition entitled Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty, which included three

thematic sections that characterized Mucha’s oeuvre: ‘Women – Icons and Muses,’

‘Le Style Mucha – A Visual Language,’ and ‘Beauty – The Power of Inspiration.’182

Although the majority of the works displayed were color lithographs commissioned

either by advertisers (such as the illustrated posters) or by Mucha’s printer F.

Champenois (such as the decorative panels), the commercial nature of Mucha’s work

is downplayed. Instead his devotion to beauty, the traditional pillar of fine art, is

emphasized along with his distinctive style and his depictions of women. In these

examples, the affiche illustrée is exhibited simultaneously as a decorative art object, a

historical artifact, and, arguably, as fine art. This can perhaps be explained by the

180

The label in question is for the poster attached to this record. “Divan Japonais (Museum Number

CIRC.272-1964),” Victoria and Albert Museum, date accessed 14 August 2015,

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74624/divan-japonais-poster-toulouse-lautrec-henri/ 181

It is worth noting that both posters are classified as "colour lithograph" in their records for the

V&A’s online collection. The label in question is for the poster attached to this record. “Divan Japonais

(Museum Number CIRC.549-1962),” Victoria and Albert Museum, date accessed 14 August 2015,

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O143598/divan-japonais-poster-toulouse-lautrec/ 182

“Featured Exhibition: Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty,” Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and

Museum, date accessed 14 August 2015, http://russellcotes.com/event/alphonse-mucha-in-quest-of-

beauty/

41

status of the illustrated poster as a hybrid. As the illustrated poster entered public

collections the inconvenience of its commercial past meant that it could not be placed

directly into fine art museums alongside paintings and sculpture.183

Yet, the artistic

quality and the historical value of the works necessitated, in the eyes of men such as

Roger Marx and Joseph Thatcher Clarke, that they be preserved.184

Thus the affiche

illustrée, having introduced the principles of both fine art and decorative arts to

advertisement, entered the public collections primarily through decorative art

museums and are displayed both as Roger Marx saw them (as a manifestation of

decorative or “social art”)185

and as Joseph Thatcher Clarke saw them (as visual

records of the age).186

Meanwhile, works that remain in private hands, such as those

held in trust by The Mucha Foundation, continue to be exhibited in the manner

determined by the owners either as decorative art, as a visual historical artifact or

visual culture, or as “pure” artworks made “in quest of beauty” rather than as

commercial advertisements. 187

The evolution of the illustrated poster from commercial ephemera destined to

disintegrate on the hoardings of Paris to an object worthy of both collection and

conservation in public and private museum collections worldwide is noteworthy.

While the aesthetic appeal of the original designs created for the illustrated poster was

superior to what had been produced by the color lithographic printing process up until

that time, it was not the beauty of the designs alone which ensured their survival to

the present. The popularity of the illustrated poster in France and abroad as well as the

quality of the designs allowed them to break free from the shackles of their

commercial beginnings and to enter into new realms of discussion and exhibition that

in turn changed the ways in which they are perceived, presented, and preserved to this

day.

183

It is worth nothing that original fine art prints were not accorded the same status as painting or

sculpture or readily accepted into the art establishment. The production of commercially produced

prints, such as posters, made it even more difficult for the fine art print to gain acceptance. See Antony

Griffiths. Prints and Printmaking: an introduction to the history and techniques. (London: British

Museum Press, 1980). 184

Clarke. Preface to A Collection of Posters, 8. 185

Roger Marx. L’art social. (Paris: E. Fasquette, 1913). 186

Clarke. Preface to A Collection of Posters, 8. 187

The Mucha Foundation is a non-profit charity founded by Mucha’s son, Jiří Mucha, and run by

Mucha’s grandson, John Mucha. Their aims are to "preserve and conserve the Mucha Trust Collection"

and "to promote the work of Alphonse Mucha." See “About: Mucha Foundation,” The Mucha

Foundation, date accessed 14 August 2015. http://www.muchafoundation.org/about/mucha-foundation-

42

42

Conclusion:

The history of the affiche illustrée is a complex one. It does not belong solely

to the history of art and design or to that of advertising, but it crosses into the domains

of technological, cultural, and social history as well as public history and the study of

visual culture. This study sought to consider the illustrated poster beyond the confines

of the contexts in which it is traditionally studied, and, in doing so, contribute to the

understanding of postermania and of how it influenced the way in we understand the

illustrated poster today. Through the analysis of the wider context surrounding the

development of the illustrated poster and postermania, of the manifestations of poster

craze, the contemporary discussions surrounding it, and its exhibition history from the

1890s to the present, this study determined that the technological and cultural

developments of the nineteenth century and the postermania of the 1890s were more

significant to the history of the illustrated poster than had previously been

acknowledged.

The emergence of the illustrated poster was dependent on a number of factors

that materialized during a period of immense technological and cultural change. The

technological developments in printmaking made through the medium of lithography

created an environment where it became mechanically possible for the richly colored

and compositionally complex illustrated poster to be created. Meanwhile, the

emergence of a culture of mass consumption generated a need for attractive and

arresting advertising to effectively influence consumer tastes. Furthermore, changing

attitudes towards art and design and its purpose within society brought on by the

emergence of new “modern” styles informed by contemporary fine and decorative art

movements. It also led to the expansion of artists working outside of the established

Salon and to the application of elements of fine art design to objects of utility

including posters. These developments were essential to the creation of the conditions

necessary for the emergence of the illustrated poster at the end of the nineteenth

century.

The innovations made to graphic design by Jules Chéret in the medium of

color lithography were crucial to the improvement of the poster and resulted in the

creation of new aesthetically pleasing advertisements in the form of the illustrated

poster. The improved aesthetic appeal and quality of these designs made the public

take notice, and, as they began to collect, their tastes informed further productions of

the illustrated poster. The result was the development of special edition poster prints

43

and decorative panels that minimized the more commercial aspects of the illustrated

poster. As printing firms, print-dealers, and advertisers began to understand the

lucrative potential to be found in producing and selling color lithographs made by

popular poster artists, the illustrated poster became a commodity in its own right. It

was the improved aesthetic quality of the illustrated poster that ensured its popularity

with collectors, which led to the increasing disassociation of commercialism with

designs and to a shift in the public’s perception of the place of the illustrated poster.

As the illustrated poster moved away from its original purpose as a

commercial advertisement, it entered the contemporary discourse on art. The

increased critical discussions, exhibitions, and internationalization of the illustrated

poster that occurred during postermania changed its purpose and thus reconstructed a

new identity, one that was no longer purely commercial. The increased association of

the illustrated poster with art intensified when it came off the streets and into

exhibition halls in France and abroad. Yet, neither critics, nor the art establishment,

would forget the poster’s commercial beginnings or accept it into the canon of fine

art. Instead, the illustrated poster was marked out as something that was neither purely

commercial nor strictly art, but a hybrid of industry and art. As a result, illustrated

posters were not initially acquired by public institutions, but were preserved and later

gifted to museums by influential adherents of postermania. These influential

supporters were essential to the survival of the affiche illustrée. The ways in which

the illustrated posters are exhibited in public institutions today are a result of the dual

identity constructed during postermania.

By considering the illustrated poster in new contexts and by delving more

deeply into postermania, it was discovered that this episode was a more significant

chapter in the history of the illustrated poster, or of art and design as a whole, than

had previously been recognized. As an analysis of the overall history of the illustrated

poster and postermania, this analysis does have its limitations. This study, largely due

to constraints of both time and space, has been confined to the French illustrated

poster and to a small number of poster artists working primarily in Paris. There were,

however, a number of illustrated posters created and produced outside of France—

namely in Belgium, Britain, Germany, Spain, and the United States—that met with

similar popular acclaim and that found their way into the hands of collectors

worldwide. Additionally, French illustrated posters were not confined to the streets of

Paris, but were also seen in the other major urban centers of France as well as in the

44

French colonies of North Africa. The study of the illustrated poster outside of

France’s main metropolis is, however, largely non-existent. The development of the

French illustrated poster, both outside of Paris and beyond the borders of France,

though beyond the scope of this study, merits further analysis. Furthermore, while

focusing on a more generalized history of the illustrated poster and of postermania fit

the objectives of this study, the chapters presented here could easily be the basis of

individual studies of greater length and detail. In particular, the role of printing firms

and print-dealers in the propagation of postermania deserves greater attention than the

present study has been able to undertake. Finally, this dissertation did not take a

theoretical approach and chose instead to create a narrative in order to explore the

impacts of postermania in the wider context. However, the study of the illustrated

poster would benefit from the further analysis within the context of gender studies,

post-modernist theory, Marxist theory, media studies, and visual culture. Indeed, the

possibilities for further study in this area are limitless. The conclusions made here

should, however, be taken into account and new methodologies that cross disciplinary

boundaries should be considered.

45

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47

Mourey, Gabriel. “The Salon of the Champs de Mars,” The Studio 8 (1896): 17-26.

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53

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http://www.muchafoundation.org/about/mucha-foundation-42

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Polaire’, ‘L’Étoile du Matin’, et ‘L’Étoile du Soir’, 1901.” Christie’s: The Art

People, date accessed 28 June 2015,

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1896-5858760-

details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5858760&sid=c38ab7fc-e0a3-

47c1-a1fe-9af43a02d980

54

Appendix - Illustrations

Figure 1.1 Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Spanish Entertainment: Bulls of Bordeaux,

1825. Crayon lithograph and scraper. 42.2 x 53 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

(New York).

Figure 1.2 Sir William Nicholson, Sir Henry Irving, 1899. Color Lithograph. 22.5 x

23.2 cm. Brian Lalor Collection, The National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin).

55

Figure 1.3 Lithographic reproduction of Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Vin Mariani,

Imprimerie Chaix (Paris), 1894. Color Lithograph in Ernest Maindron. Les Affiches

Illustrées (1886-1895). Paris: G. Boudet, 1896.188

Figure 1.4 Registration mark (Photo) on right-hand corner of lithographic

reproduction of Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Vin Mariani, Imprimerie Chaix (Paris),

1894. Color Lithograph in Ernest Maindron. Les Affiches Illustrées (1886-1895).

Paris: G. Boudet, 1896. Photo Credit: Jillian Kruse

188

The one hundred color lithographic posters reproduced in Les Affiches Illustrées were executed by

the lithographic printing firm Imprimerie Chaix (Paris) whose artistic director was Jules Chéret.

56

Figure 1.5 Godefroy Engelmann (1788-1839), Lac Du Lowerz; Album

Chromolithographique, Engelmann Père et Fils (Mulhouse), 1837. Chromolithograph.

26 x 35.4 cm. The British Museum (London).

Figure 1.6 Robert Carrick after J.M.W Turner (1775-1851), The Blue Lights, 1852.

Chromolithograph. 56.7 x 75.3 cm. The British Museum (London).

57

Figure 1.7 Figure 2.1

Alphonse Mucha (1864-1939) Alphonse Mucha (1864-1939)

Champagne Ruinart, 1896 Gismonda, 1894

Imprimerie F.Champenois (Paris) Imprimerie Lemercier (Paris)

Color Lithograph Color Lithograph.

55 x 35 cm. 263 x 75.3 cm.

Victoria & Albert Museum (London) Victoria & Albert Museum (London)

58

Figure 2.2 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Orphée aux enfers Bouffees Parisiens,

Imprimerie Lemercier (Paris), 1866. Color Lithograph. 75 x 96 cm. Bibliothèque

Nationale de France (Paris).

Figure 2.3 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Théâtre Nationale de l’Opéra, Françoise de

Rimini, 1882. Imprimerie Chaix (Paris). Color Lithograph. 77 x 56 cm. Bibliothèque

Nationale de France (Paris).

59

Figure 2.4 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), L’Amant des danseuses, 1888. Imprimerie

Chaix (Paris). Color Lithograph. 128 x 93 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France

(Paris).

Figure 2.5 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Le Pays de Fées, 1889. Imprimerie Chaix

(Paris). Color Lithograph. 83 x 57 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris).

60

Figure 2.6 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Les Coulisses de l’Opéra, 1891. Imprimerie

Chaix, (Paris). 220 x 85 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris).

61

Figure 2.7 Jules Chéret, Folies-Bergère: La Loïe Fuller, 1893. Imprimerie Chaix

(Paris). Color Lithograph. 123.8 x 87 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum (London).

62

Figure 2.8 Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), France Champagne, 1891. Ancourt & Cie.

(Paris). Color Lithograph. 80 x 60 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum (London).

Figure 2.9 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, 1891.

Color Lithograph. 195 x 122.5 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum (London).

63

Figure 2.10 Preventative stamp (Photo) on Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), La

Trappistine, 1897. Imprimerie F. Champenois (Paris). Color Lithograph. 206 x 77 cm.

The Mucha Foundation (Prague). in Alphonse Mucha: In Quest of Beauty, exhibition

at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK (1 April 2015-27

September 2015). Photo Credit: Jillian Kruse.

Figure 2.11 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), La Trappistine, 1897. Imprimerie F.

Champenois (Paris). Color Lithograph. 206 x 77 cm. The Mucha Foundation

(Prague).

64

Figure 2.12 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Reverie, 1897. Imprimerie F. Champenois

(Paris). Color Lithograph. 72.7 x 55.2 cm. The Mucha Foundation (Prague).

Figure 2.13 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), F. Champenois Imprimeur, 1898.

Imprimerie F. Champenois (Paris). Color Lithograph. 65.2 x 49.53 cm. Victoria &

Albert Museum (London).

65

Figure 2.14 Jules Chéret (1836-1932), Papiers à Cigarettes Job, 1895. Imprimerie

Chaix. Color Lithograph. 125 x 88 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris).

Figure 2.15 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Job, 1897. F. Champenois (Paris). 62.1 x

76.4 cm. Victoria & Albert Museum (London).

66

Figure 2.16 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Les Fleurs, 1898. F. Champenois (Paris).

Individual panels 103.5 x 43.5 cm. The Mucha Foundation (Prague).

Figure 2.17 Figure 2.18

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939)

La Plume Almanac, 1898 Menu Card, 1900

F. Champenois (Paris) F. Champenois (Paris)

Color Lithograph. Color Lithograph.

64.77 x 48.25 cm. 21.9 x 14.9 cm.

Victoria & Albert Museum (London). Victoria & Albert Museum (London).

67

Figure 3.1 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), Illustrated Cover of La Plume N. 197 consacrée

à Alphonse Mucha (1 juillet 1897). Color Lithograph. Bound 18.5 x 25.5 cm. National Art

Library (London).

Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3

Pierre Bonnard Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

(1867-1947) (1864-1901)

La Revue Blanche, 1894 La Revue Blanche, 1895

Imprimerie Ancourt (Paris) Imprimerie Ancourt (Paris)

Color Lithograph Color Lithograph

81.3 x 62.0 cm. 129.6 x 93.2 cm.

Victoria & Albert Museum (London). The Metropolitan Museum of

Art (New York).

68

Figure 3.4 Figure 3.5 Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939),

Salon des Cent, 1896. Salon des Cent, 1897.

F. Champenois (Paris). F. Champenois (Paris).

Color Lithograph. Color Lithograph.

64 x 42.3 cm. 66.2 x 46 cm.

Victoria & Albert Museum (London). The Mucha Foundation (Prague).

Figure 3.6 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Confetti, 1894. Imprimerie Bella

& de Malherbe (London & Paris). Color Lithograph. 57.1 x 39.1 cm. Victoria &

Albert Museum (London).

69

Figure 3.7 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Divan Japonais, 1892.

Imprimerie Ancourt (Paris). Color Lithograph. 81.3 x 61.9 cm. Victoria & Albert

Museum (London).

Figure 3.8 Figure 3.9

Posters (Photo) Fashion display poster (Photo)

Europe & America 1800-1900 Fashion Galleries

Room 101 Room 40, Case CA6

Victoria & Albert Museum Victoria & Albert Museum

(London) (London)

Photo Credit: Jillian Kruse Photo Credit: Jillian Kruse