commodity advertised at all, but a decoration which, completely harmonizing with its spirit, should yet attract by its independent originality and artistic beauty. "I am bent," he wrote at the time, "on doing all I can with a first attempt at what I consider might develop into a most important branch of art." A reproduction of this poster, engraved on wood (before the days of process) by the hand of the man who won Walker's high commendation for his cutting of the great original block, is shown on page 46, through the courtesy of the proprietors of the Magazine of Art. No immediate outcome, however, was to be recorded; but "The Woman in White" became the mother of the many admirable designs in blackand-white which since that time have occasionally dignified our hoardings. To these it may be convenient here to refer. When the Magazine of Art was started, Professor Herkomer, R.A., was appealed to to design a poster that should make the country talk, and

show at the same time the ground that the publication proposed to cover. The vast poster reproduced on page 45 was the result-with its suggestion of Art distributing the favors of the great painters and sculptors grouped en hemicyle behind, to the artist, the artisan, the student, and the passer-by who stands in front. It was sufficiently conventional, yet sufficiently pictorial to beunderstanded of the people, and the slight technical imperfection was forgiven for the sake of the success with which a difficult problem had been solved. Twelve years later, the present. writer commissioned the same hand to design the poster for Black and White (page 37)-at the cost, it was currently reported, of thousands of pounds!which for many weeks pleased the eye of the artist and worried the spirit of the Puritan of London. The lettersreceived on the subject of this seminude statuesque figure from narrowminded correspondents are among the curiosities of epistolary literature.

Mr. Walter Crane's advent into the field of poster-designing was the natural outcome of his artistic principles and activity. He began, in point of fact, before Fred Walker, as in 1869 he produced the poster for a lead-pencil manufacturer, and continued at Mr. Comyns Carr's request with a still-remembered design in blue and yellow for the Promenade Concerts of the Covent Garden Theatre in the early '80'sone of the best he ever executed, but unfortunately at this date absolutely unprocurable. In this poster Orpheus was shown harping to the beastsscant courtesy, it may be thought, to the public it was intended to attract. Then appeared the "Olympia" poster, which billed the town on the arrival of the French Hippodrome troupe that came over to astonish London (page 36); and though it was really intended as an illustration for the book issued in connection with the same entertainment, it attracted in its enlarged form all eyes to the hoardings by the quietness and distinction of its style and the beauty of its lines. Afterward came the poster of his own exhibition at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in 1891; the colored design for Hale & Co.'s Champagnes,

H. Herkomer, R.A., del.

SCOTTISH GATHERING

of the most effective of all Mr. Crane's disciples is Professor R. Anning Bell, whose admirable poster for the Liverpool Gallery of Art (page 35) was his first achievement in the University of that city.

played in their draughtsmanship and by the vigor of the arrested action of the Highland athletes. On the other hand, the classic dignity of the posters by Mr. E. F. Skinner (best known, perhaps, as a comic draughtsman) for the Hampton Club (page 37) and for the Star news

The great principle of posterdesigning-that it should be unconventionally conventional and decorative, and if possible original-has not always been accepted by artists, especially by picture painters, and even by illustrators in blackand white. The little shipwrecked lady who, by means of a cake of Cleaver's Soap, prettily "washed herself ashore," so far violated the rules of the game, that it did not count as an artistic effort at all, notwithstanding its great popularity; nor admirable and effective as are Mr. Lockhart Bogle's strong posters for the annual Scottish Gathering-"Putting the Shot" and " Throwing the Hammer (page 37)-did they attract so much attention by their aptness for poster design as by the ability dis

paper were perfect of their kind, and though through the practical absence of color they were not decorative in the fullest degree possible, they were among the most impressive and best-drawn of London posters.

Mr. Linley Sambourne, of Punch, too, has contributed for some years to the hoardings a lively drawing of a lady smoking a cigarette as she sits on a champagne cork-but this was an enlargement of a random sketch made, in accordance with the artist's pleasant custom, on a sheet of note-paper, while talking with a visitor. It was intended for a book. Similarly, Mr. Harry Furniss's filthy Casual, who used Pears's Soap years and years ago, "since when he has used no other," is simply an enlargement of a Punch cut. Nevertheless, they do their share in educating the public taste away from the horrors of 1850, and to prepare it for black-andwhite work such as M. Willette's lithograph-not entirely suitable for the position, it is true, but full of passion and tears--for "L'Enfant Prodigue." Far better adapted to its purpose, though too light and delicate in its lines for effective wall-treatment, was the admirable theatrical bill designed by Mr. Heywood Sumner for Mr. Benson's Shakespearian revivals.

While Walker and his followers were tempting popular taste away from Warren's Blacking, America through her theatrical posters was showing to England how much more could be done by lith

DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING

ography in the way of color than the old wood - block methods-in which the tint of a face was composed of diagonal red lines which fell into their places and became pink (through courtesy of the intermediate bars of plain white paper) when the spectator retired to a distance of ten or twenty yards. But, unhappily, this otherwise capital innovation was entirely in the direction of pictorial treatment; and the English manufacturers and traders, with characteristic perversity, seized upon it at once. The high finish delighted them; and encouraged by the example of theatrical managers- who were pleased to be able to rep

resent a play-scene upon paper with all the glories (and a good deal more) of its native colors-they proceeded to test it in the direction of picture-reproduction. Traders

bought popular paintings with their copyrights at sums which in themselves were bold advertisements, and had them reproduced with such additional effects and details as would proclaim their wares. Thus "Bubbles," of Sir John Millais, R.A.; "This is the Way we Wash the Clothes," of Mr. G. D. Leslie, R.A. (page 39); "Mariana," by Mr. J. J. Shannon; "A Dress Rehearsal," by Mr. Chevallier Tayler; Venetian genre scenes by M. Van Haanen; Landseer, Edouard Frère, even Rubens and Rembrandthave all in turn advertised articles of trade; and had not Fred Walker's "Bathers" been run up to $13,

125 at the Graham sale in 1886, it would now be in the service of soap, instead of reposing as a treasured gem in Mr. Cuthbert Quilter's picture-gallery.

Sir John Millais, R.A., del.