[Original]
CHAPTER X.—IN COUNTRIES NOT ALREADY DISCUSSED
That the picture poster was an incident of the ancient civilizations of China and Japan; goes without saying. The scope, however, of this book does not embrace the Far East; the illustrated placard in the Orient would, indeed, be a subject in itself. In the matter of applied art it is difficult to conceive anything which the Chinese and the Japanese have not attempted. They seem, from the earliest days, to have been consumed with a passion for decoration; nothing which by any chance admitted of ornament was left undecorated. It behoves the societies which are formed for the purpose of illustrating the artistic antiquities of these wonderful countries to concern themselves with the dawn and history of the pictorial poster in the East. Certain it is that the illustrated advertisement abounded, as it abounds today, in the cities of both the nations now being discussed. It is, indeed, found in the less advanced civilization of Burma, and of the various principalities which form our Indian Empire. To pass from Asia to Spain is to travel a long way. In Spain, at the present moment, the illustrated placard is receiving no small attention at the hands of artists who, however discouraged and ill-paid, are determined to do all that in them lies to raise the country which produced Murillo to the position she once held among art-producing nations. A recent writer in the "Sketch" grows enthusiastic over the Spanish affiche. "Spanish posters," he tells us, "are a delight. Well drawn, vividly but truly coloured, and perfectly printed, they shine down from walls and hoardings, attracting all passers-by. They depict the glories of coming fairs and bull-fights, and are couched in terms calculated to draw money from a stone. The announcement that a famous matador will kill, or assist to kill, Seis Escogidos Toros, throws the Spanish reader into a state of frenzy. Not infrequently some incident is depicted with frank realism. A bull standing over a dead horse gives an opportunity to the artist to draw the unfortunate horse disembowelled and lying on blood-stained sand, while the bull's hide shows the marks of the lance-thrusts, and his horns are likewise stained with blood. Colour-printing is so good in these regions of perpetual sunlight that nearly every detail of a matador's costume can be given. The poster artists are splendid when they depict
