POSTER. A sign, usually pictorial, intended to be affixed to a wall or board to convey some public announcement. The use of such signs is probably as old as civilization itself; but with the printing-press came in a class of signs more or less answering to the specific modern use of the word poster. In Paris in the seventeenth cen tury, posters printed on colored paper of one tone, such as yellow for the Opera House, green for the ComMie Francaise, and red for the Com edie Italienne, were generally used. The cus tom is continued in Paris of the nineteenth century. where white paper is reserved for gov ernmental posters, and even the great national educational establishments have to use another color, generally yellow. In Italy the play bills were more descriptive, and in the eighteenth cen tury they were often ornamented with cuts. :bow ing scenes and characters in the Opera. As early as 1836 in France Lalance made a poster for the book Comment meurent les femmes, and Raffet, Grandville, C. Nanteuil. Gavarni, Gigons, Vernet. Daumier, Tony Johannot, Frere, and Edouard Mallet designed `aftiches' or posters, but not in colors. The modern poster was the invention of Jules Cheret. He commenced his long series of lithographs in color in 1866, and since then the art of poster designing has reached a high devel opment. In France it has maintained a high standard, and the work of Cheret himself is notably clever and audacious. By the use of few colors in strong contrast, he produced the most fantastic pictorial effects. His subjects are ballet girls. clowns, or children, and his spon taneity, his engaging gaiety, and the aptness of his detail make him without an equal in his restricted domain. Less suggestive, less conquer ing in color, but more decorative if more subdued, is the work of Eugene Grasset An other more original poster maker is the often harshly realistic Toulouse-Lautree, a powerful draughtsman. The poster has kept pace with the impressionistic, the symbolistic. the realistic, and the romantic movements in literature and art. Willette, Forain, Guillaume, Auriol, Ibels, Stein len, Mucha. Reviere, Boutet de Nonvel, and Schwaebe, are only a few names among the many poster designers who have worked in one or more of these styles. Another interesting phase of the poster is seen in those designs which serve also for book-covers; the whole design, picture, letter ing, and borders, given first as a poster three feet by two, and afterwards reduced to the size of an octavo page. These were first made by
Client for -Jules Levy, the publisher, and the often artistic work done for the publishers of music. In England the first artistic poster was made by Fred Walker for the dramatization of Wilkie Collins's Woman in White (1871). After wards Herkomer, Van Beers, Walter Crane, Dud ley Hardy, and Grieffenhagen, among others, won fame iu this line. But the most original of Eng lish poster makers was Aubrey Beardsley, who influenced a crowd of imitators by his masterly exotic art. The • Begga rst a ff Brothers,' Pryde and Nicholson. with their grave artistic effects in black and brown. are the most interesting of the very modern designers. The growth of the poster in other European countries was rapid. especially during the years from 1895 to 1900. The Spanish posters. especially those announcing bull-fights and fairs, are models of brilliant coloring and vivid treatment. The first American posters ad vertised the circus and the stage, and one of the earliest of these poster makers was Matt Morgan, for some time head of a Cincinnati lithographing company. The makers of patent medicines then took it up, and from the lowest kind of pictorial art have lately done much effective work, In America bill posting has assumed enormous pro portions, but actually pictorial work, especially in colors, is not as common as in Europe. (See ADVERTISING.) The most artistic American post ers have been produced for the publishers in the form of enlarged marmzine covers, as stated above, together with for books, and calendars, and in these as in nearly all American art the main influence is French. It was not until ISS9 that the work of Louis plead became known, and along with him must be men tioned Penfield, Will Bradley, Carqueville, George Wharton Edwards, Parish. and Low. Although as a purely artistic production, a subject for col lectors and students. the poster has had its day, yet as a medium of advertisement and of politi cal appeal it may have a future. Consult: Main dron, Lcs affiehes illustrc'es (Paris, 1595) ; id., Les )(mitres de l'affiche (Paris, 15961 ; id., Lrs affiches etrangeres illustrees (Paris,I597) ; Hiatt, Picture Posters (London. 1895) ; Spielman and others, The Modern. Poster (New York, 189.5) ; Spouse!, Das modernt Plakat (Dresden, 1897) ; Bolton, The Reign of the Poster (Boston, 1893).