The birth of poster art in France dates back to the seventeenth century, when different colors of paper differentiated the announcements of various institutions; the comédie used red, the Opéra yellow, the Comédie-Française green, and the government white. Actual advertisements did not appear until the mid-nineteenth century, and the first lithographed poster came out in 1872 (Feinblatt 10).
The true father of the French poster was Jules Chéret (1836 - 1932). He had very little formal training; instead, he was apprenticed to a lithographer as a young teenager. Despite his humble artistic origins, his work reflects the strong influence of such Rococo artists as Watteau, Fragonard, and Tiepolo. During his lengthy career, he designed more than a thousand posters, and his lithographic talents garnered respect for the adolescent medium from prominent artists and art critics (Cate). Chéret’s posters typically exhibited bright, cheerful colors like pink and sky blue, with a particular emphasis on yellow, often included female figures (in fact, the generic and effervescently smiling women were so frequently seen that they were called chérettes), and an overall vivacious and cheerful quality (Bruce 40). Chéret’s eighteenth-century style was unique among France’s poster artists, but the subject matter of his works was highly influential to those who came after him. His poster Bal de Moulin Rouge (1889) inspired a younger generation of lithographers and poster artists; a photograph exists of Toulouse-Lautrec standing beside the poster, hat in hand, paying his respects (Cate).
Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859 - 1923) is best known as the creator of the famous Tournée du Chat Noir (1896). His artistic hallmarks were political activism (Steinlen was a passionate socialist) and the nearly constant presence of cats in his works (Davis 43). An active member of Montmartre society, Steinlen penned more than two thousand illustrations for various publications in the artists’ neighborhood. His friendship with Rodolphe Salis (owner of the Chat Noir) introduced Steinlen to Toulouse-Lautrec’s social circle, and the two artists quickly became rivals, competing over commissions from Aristide Bruant and Yvette Guilbert. Some of Steinlen’s posters reflect Toulouse-Lautrec’s influence, especially in the flat application of solid color and the characteristic use of red (Davis 44). However, Steinlen’s posters were more popular amongst the Parisian public than Toulouse-Lautrec’s, which they viewed as somewhat avant-garde (Cate). His Tournée du Chat Noir neatly displays both of these facts. The red-and-black scheme and solid coloration are reminiscent of Toulouse-Lautrec’s work, but the image is more realistic; it is both more detailed and less abstract, and thus more artistically accessible to the poster-viewing public.
Poster-making was a well-established and popular tradition in late nineteenth-century Paris, and there were several well-known and talented lithographers working at that time. Both Chéret and Steinlen, however, join Toulouse-Lautrec among the period’s most prominent and the world’s best-remembered poster artists.
IMAGES
Chéret, Jules. Bal de Moulin Rouge. 1889. Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Kurt J. Wagner, M.D., and C. Kathleen Wagner Collection.
Steinlen, Théophile-Alexandre. Tournée du Chat Noir. 1896. The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.