CHAPTER VII.—IN ENGLAND: THE WORK OF DUDLEY HARDY, AUBREY BEARDSLEY
AND MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN
The English artists of established reputation with whom I dealt in the last chapter, were, as we saw, so anxious to inform their posters with aesthetic qualities, that for the most part, they overlooked the obvious fact that their work was vain unless it really fulfilled its primary purpose of advertising. It was left for the three men (all of comparatively recent reputation) whose names head this chapter, to give the right direction; to insist that not art, but advertisement, was the first essential. It is not for an instant to be pretended that their achievement equals in importance that of the three designers discussed in a corresponding chapter in the section of this book devoted to France. Quantity of production, it is true, is a small matter in art; and yet, in so far as quantity of production entails experience, one is forced to take it into consideration. The success of a man who has produced a hundred posters, or more, is scarcely to be expected of a designer, however ingenious, who is only making his first attempt. Moreover, to an artist accustomed to work on a small scale, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to appreciate, and when in the throes of production to keep in mind, the essentials of a design intended to be seen at a considerable distance, in the open air. He is apt to be tempted into pretty detail or subtle and harmonious colour, and therefore to forget that he should be simple almost to the point of crudeness. Under these circumstances, it is not less remarkable than it is encouraging, that Mr. Hardy, Mr. Beardsley, and Mr. Greiffenhagen in their earliest essays apprehended the situation at once, and produced posters which inevitably caught the eye of the beholder and created an impression which remained with him for a considerable time. Differing in all else, the first designs of these three artists were alike, in that they were admirable advertisements. From every hoarding in London, from the walls of every station on the Underground Railway, one was vehemently called upon to purchase a new weekly, or a new series of an old one, or to visit the Avenue Theatre. If the call was resisted, it was assuredly no fault of these artist-advertisers. To suggest that what they have done would have been impossible,
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