Japanese posters issued during the War attracted some attention, and favourable comment has been made from time to time upon their merits; but it seems probable that the quaint English inscriptions many of them bore, rather than their intrinsic qualities as posters, beguiled the critics into taking a genial and generous view of their worth. Such sentences as “The severe battle at the Kuragaw—German troops are extremely defeated,” “Our troops attack on Tsingau Retreat German Army and Affrighted,” and a very happy mis-spelling, “The Gritish Sydney forced the German Emden to fight and the sharp action that ensued,” are naturally attractive and amusing. The Japanese, in their colour-printing from wood blocks, invented the most perfect poster technique in the world for use on a small scale. The theatrical posters they produced in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries could not be surpassed. They contain in miniature all the qualities we most value in this branch of art, and are at the present day as fresh and enthralling as if they referred to matters of contemporary interest. The Japanese have proved themselves a wonderfully adaptable race: they have utilised our modern engines of war with an amazing application, and avoided errors, not always obvious, into which other nations have fallen. But while this has its admirable side in the mechanical things of life, imitation in the processes of art proves altogether a failure. The old Japanese spirit has departed. One is tempted to think that the Japanese understanding of their native art is on the wane. For their posters very little can be said. The curse of European influence is apparent in the modern cheap lithographs, crude in colour and design, which they have produced. We have not been fortunate in finding one that would worthily serve the purpose of an illustration.
Of the British Colonies, Australia, Canada, and South Africa produced posters of quite a high standard. The eminence attained by the artists of the Sydney Bulletin led one to expect some notable examples from New South Wales; but that province, noble as its achievements were through the fighting qualities of its sons, contributed little to poster art. The Canadian poster reproduced in illustration [74], simple in idea and design, with its fitting legend, shows what promise there is, and indeed attainment, among the Western children of our race. A poster from India (illustration No. [72]) is interesting, since it makes an appeal to the Marathas in their own tongue, and in what we are given to understand is tolerably good native verse. The designer, however, is an Englishman resident in India.
A few Russian posters made their appearance previous to the Revolution in that unhappy country. Others have occasionally been issued since, though we have seen none of any outstanding merit. We reproduce, in illustration No. [77], a poster which, when exhibited, was described as a “Bolshevist cartoon”; but there seems more reason to regard it as an example of German propaganda in Russia, of the period following the so-called Peace of Brest-Litovsk. Europe, a sad and worn woman, stands with a youth before an idol which bears the name “Anglia”; below is the inscription, in Russian characters: “How much longer shall we sacrifice our sons to this accursed idol?” It is at best a poor thing, and, if German, most carefully designed to bear the impress of a Russian product.
A series of six eminently successful posters was issued as an appeal to the Czecho-Slovak people in the United States. For consistent merit, alike in design, colour, and general conception, they take a high place among the posters of the War. The artist, V. Preissig, is a Bohemian living in America, who did the work for the sake of recruiting his fellow-countrymen there. Perhaps the best of them is that shown in our coloured illustration, No. [76], “Czecho-Slovaks! Join our free colours!” with its flags of the four Bohemian States as its main feature, carried by marching men whose heads come in dark silhouette along the bottom of the design. The poster is admirably planned, and the lettering on this and the whole series is simple and distinguished.
Many of us in England recall with amusement the various spy stories which went the rounds among otherwise perfectly reliable people in the early days of the War. We all seemed for a time to have an intimate friend or relation whose nursery governess, butler, or confidential clerk had been discovered in a wanton act of espionage. It was on the most unimpeachable authority. Happily it was left for Brazil to embody its attack of this spy-fever in the form of a poster. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut,” runs its legend. The poster shows representations of the different disguises under which spies are probably concealing themselves—as nursemaids, schoolboys, tramps, and so on—and warns the public to avoid them. Life in Brazil would doubtless be exciting for an innocent stranger whilst the mania lasted.
Holland, living in dangerous proximity to our principal enemy, sought generally to avoid material of an inflammatory nature in her posters. Very few of them are notable. We illustrate in colour, on Plate 73, the poster of an exhibition at Tilburg of the “Fraternelle Belge,” one of the most satisfactory examples of this class produced in the country. Such institutions as this and the Dutch Anti-War Society are typical sources of inspiration for their posters during the War. But a word must be said of the one exception, the Dutch artist whose force of character and definiteness of aim made him, though a neutral, a protagonist in the cause for which our country’s blood was being shed. Louis Raemaekers, cartoonist of the Amsterdam Telegraaf, fearless knight-errant for the sake of humanity, who toiled with a pencil of flame against the outragers and oppressors of prostrate Belgium, was worth an invincible battalion to the Allies. His posters were few, and not usually issued in Holland. It is by his cartoons that he will be remembered, a great universal figure, with an irresistible passion for freedom which found full expression in his numberless masterly drawings.