Will seize the doctor too.”
This exhibition of Signboards inspired by Hogarth was the first and most amusing of its kind. More than one hundred years later an “Exposition Nationale des Enseignes parlantes artistiques” was arranged in Brussels with one hundred and forty-one different signs, and in 1902 the Prefet de la Seine organized in the City Hall of Paris a great “Concours d’Enseignes.” Both represent serious and idealistic efforts to improve the artistic side of trade-signs, and by this means to ennoble the picture of the street so often disfigured by vulgar advertisements. Well-known artists, as the sculptors Dervé and Moreau-Vauthier, the painters Willette, Bellery-Desfontaines, Félix Régamey, and the popular collaborator of “Le Rire,” Albert Guilleaume, contributed to this exhibition and thus stimulated their colleagues to work for the Museum of the Street. Henri Détaille, the famous painter of battle scenes and pupil of Meissonier, was the spiritual author of the competition. In a letter to Grand-Carteret, the writer of a great, luxurious publication on the signs of Lyon, he had expressed the hope to educate and refine the artistic instinct of the masses through this medium of noble signs: “L’enseigne amusera la foule: rien n’empêche même qu’elle soit instructive tout en restant une très pure œuvre d’art.” He ends his letter with the following lines that give credit to his good heart and his sympathy for the common people: “Que les enseignes les plus belles les plus artistiques aillent surtout dans les quartiers pauvres, populeux et privés, de toute manifestation d’art.” If we reflect that indeed the posters often are the only touches of brightness in the gray monotony of the poor quarters, we will heartily join Détaille in the wish that these posters might be pure and noble creations of art. Certain German posters, lithographed by such artists as Cissarz, seem to approach this ideal. The recent German War-Poster, “Gedenket Eurer Dichter und Denker,” may find an honorable mention in this connection.
In England the advice Détaille gave to the artists “à reprendre la tradition” has never been entirely forgotten, and even to the present day well-known artists have not disdained to paint signs occasionally. But before we enter the amiable society of contemporary artists we will show due honor to the great master Grinling Gibbons, who, so to speak, is an honorary member of the Sign-Makers’ Guild. To no visitor of London is the name of this sculptor unfamiliar. His master-hand carved the choir stalls in St. Paul’s Cathedral and many elaborate wood-sculptures in royal castles. One of his works is the famous golden cock in “Ye Olde Cock Tavern” in Fleet Street. When the old house was torn down to make room for a branch office of the Bank of England, the noble bird was obliged to move across the street, where he now occupies the seat of honor in a large and rather dull room. I am sure he would prefer to roost in the little paneled room, up another flight, where Tennyson wrote the poem that made the creature immortal.
·THE·GOAT·IN·KENSINGTON·
Among the living English artists who painted signs we may mention Nicholson and Pryde, both experts in the art of the poster. Our illustration “The Goat,” which hangs out on High Street, No. 3, in London, is attributed to them, but even the greatest admirer of Nicholson’s woodcuts will not find it worth while to pay a visit to this unattractive ale-house. There is more charm in “The Rowing Barge,” a signed work of G. D. Leslie, member of the Royal Academy, in Wallingford on the Thames, where we found it in the neighborhood of the old Norman Church of St. Leonhard.
It took even two Academicians, Leslie and L. E. Hodgson, to produce the “George and Dragon” sign in Wargrave, a fascinating little place buried amidst the greenery of giant trees. The damp climate has effaced and darkened the sign considerably; the owner of the inn has therefore taken it in and placed it on the garden side of the house, under the protection of a balcony. Wargrave has a few other remarkable signs, such as the one of the “Bull Inn,” which seems to be inspired by the beautiful picture of young Potter.
But not the least beautiful among signs are the works of unknown artists. All the admirable signs in forged iron, from the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, in southern Germany, belong to this group. Benno Rüttenauer, to whom we are indebted in many ways, has praised these pure works of art in an article on “Swabian Tavern Signs”: “They are a joy to the eye and caress it as the melody of a folk-song caresses the ear.” From what invisible sources springs their beauty? we ask, just as we do before the great, miraculous flowers of Gothic cathedrals rising mysteriously from the plain cornfields of northern France. Simple artisans were their inventors and creators, men who dared to let their own ideas grow in the free play of glowing, flexible iron, not yet disturbed by pattern-books and school wisdom.
More beautiful still than these are the eternal signs with which Mother Nature, the only real teacher of all true artists, invites the weary pilgrim to rest: the moon, the gentle shining stars, and the blossoming trees under whose perfumed branches we sleep so sweetly. This is the oldest inn; the Germans call it “Bei Mutter Grün,” and the French speak similarly of “loger à l’enseigne de la lune”; “coucher à l’enseigne de la belle étoile.” Nobody has sung the charms of this natural inn more sweetly than the Swabian poet Uhland in his song, “Bei einem Wirte wundermild,” which we beg permission to quote in W. W. Skeat’s happy translation:—
“A kind and gentle host was he