[Original]
[Original]
are posters to all intents and purposes, and would take their places on a hoarding quite admirably. The subjects are most happily chosen; who, better than Chéret, could symbolize, in manner light and fantastic, music, comedy, pantomime, and dancing? The designs gain immensely, insomuch as they are not disfigured with a legend, for, in spite of the fact that the disposal of the lettering is of the very essence of a poster, Chéret, for some reason known only to himself, leaves that detail of his work to another designer, with results by no means uniformly fortunate. Before leaving Chéret, it is only just to him to point out that his work loses more than that of almost any other artist, in the process of reproduction in black and white. It is impossible to convey any idea of his amazing colour by means of a halftone block, and therefore, fewer reproductions of his designs are included in these pages than might be expected. Needless to say, he suffers greatly from more or less unskilful imitators. For this reason, combined with the fact that he is engaged on a series of decorations for the Paris Hôtel de Ville, his excursions into the art of the hoarding will be less frequent than has been the case hitherto.
To turn from Chéret to Eugène Grasset, is to turn to an artist in whose art career the poster is merely an incident. Grasset is a paragon of versatility; there are literally no bounds to his comprehensiveness. Besides being a painter of distinction, he has designed everything, from stained glass to book-covers, from piano-cases to menus. Unlike Chéret, he has been profoundly impressed by the work of old decorative designers; he has certainly not disdained to borrow; his borrowings, however, have been at once legitimate and intelligent. The Japanese, the old Italians, and in a less degree, the ancient Greeks, have been laid under contribution, with results which, if not amazingly original, are at least delightful. It would be idle to pretend that, from the standpoint of the advertiser, Grasset is the equal of Chéret. His sense of beauty, his passion for decoration, make it impossible for him to achieve the daring and victorious colour which is so effective in the work of Chéret. A panel of his posters, side by side with a panel of those of Chéret, is as a beautiful and somewhat quiet-hued wall-paper to a cascade of flowers of every conceivable colour. While, however, this is an important matter from the advertiser's point of view, it is of little moment to the collector, whose primary object is to fill his portfolios with things of beauty. At times, indeed, Grasset does achieve irresistible advertisement; nobody, for instance, could overlook the superb representation of Sarah Bernharct as "Jeanne d'Arc," standing with splendid disdain amidst a forest of spears
