CHAPTER IV.—IN FRANCE: THE WORK OF WILLETTE, FORAIN, STEINLEN
ANQUETIN, BONNARD, IBELS, VALLOTON, DE FEURE, AND McTIVET
It is not for a moment to be pretended that the artists with whom this chapter deals are in any sense members of a single school: they have, indeed, many more points of difference than of similarity. I deal with them together, because, speaking roughly, their designs are saturated with the spirit of the day: their decorations are realistic, rather than fantastic or picturesque. They lean towards Lautrec, rather than towards Chéret or Grasset, but they are in no sense his imitators; some of them, indeed, are actually his predecessors.
Willette is an artist of such astonishing facility and variety, that he has, comparatively speaking, devoted little time to the affiche, and save in one or two conspicuous instances, he has failed to achieve compelling advertisements. And yet his artistic personality is so curious and so powerful that his posters are nearly all interesting to the collector,-more interesting to the collector, it may well be, than satisfactory to the advertiser. Willette is master of several manners. He can be realistic to the point of brutality, symbolical, graceful; while now and then he is almost austerely classical. There are, happily, few posters so impregnated with race hatred as the anti-Semitic bill intended to forward the artist's candidature at the Elections législatives of the 22nd of September, 1889. The design is ugly in the last degree, but it is, nevertheless, strangely powerful. Very different and very much more pleasing is the lithograph in black-admirably composed and executed—which advertised the successful pantomime, entitled L'Enfant Prodigue. The design is at once graceful and dramatic, and it is not surprising that a proof before letters is one of the gems of a collection of the posters of Willette. No more interesting souvenir of an experiment which fascinated both Paris and London can be conceived. Again, the bill advertising the International Exhibition of Commerce and Industry, held some time ago at the Champs de Mars (an unlettered proof of which commands no less than two pounds), is very desirable. The little bill in colours bearing the legend,
"Ainsi qu'un papillon volage,
A qui passe aujourd'hui, demain sera passé.
Laisse-toi cuellir au passage
Papillon d'Actualité,"