EENBACK SMOKE "GREENBACK" TOBACCO "HUNG UP WITH THE STARCH OUT. Na 14 Companion to No. 13. Reproduced by permission of Currier & Ives. and After" Poster. ever rose to the glorious promise of its posters? But it was not only the circus-poster that took hold on the heart of the country-folk of remote regions. Although the fondness for pictures was general in man, woman, and child, it was not quite openly avowed. Certain old Puritanical traditions moved the people to look upon such home decorations as idle vanities; and even had this prejudice been less general the sources of artistic supply were meagre in the extreme. Therefore the crude and costly printed posters of the circus, the travelling juggler, the Indian herb-doctor, the horsedealer, and, more often than the rest, the gaudy lithographs advertising agricultural implements and patent medicines, were welcome in the little towns and at the lonely cross-roads. They were not often allowed in the house; but their utilitarian character gave them a sort of right to a place on the walls of the barn; and it was here that the boys and the hired men between them would set up an art-gallery which was never quite complete until a sheet of considerable size was skilfully reft from the pictured pageant on the board fence. There is something pitiful in this attempt to satisfy a natural appetite with the very lowest forms of pictorial artifice; and a serious mischief sprang from DAYY CROCKETT Drawn by Matt Morgan for the Strobridge Lithograph Company. A Type of an Early Class Interesting and Truthful as Pictures yet Ineffective as Posters. Drawn by Robert Joste. Published by the Metropolitan Drawn by William H. Crane. Published by A. S. Seer. Print. Company. it in the damper it put on any develop- this country gave them facilities which they had never had before, they stuck to the primitive system of printing from roughly engraved wood-blocks, superimposing one cross-hatching of color upon another; the result attained being perhaps more hideous and incoherent than anything which could be done in any other way of color-printing. This absurd tradition practically checked all advance in poster designing until a score of years ago; and so far "Stock" posters are made on speculation by the manufacturers and sold as often as called for, the name of the star being inserted. GAPTAIN GUTTLE Drawn by Robert Joste for the Metropolitan Print. Company. An Example of the Coarsest Wood-engraved Theatrical Poster. as the theatrical people were concerned it is more than doubtful whether they would ever have got out of the rut they had got into, if it had not been that the commercial people crowded them out of it. I do not wish to imply that there were no exceptions to the rule of stupidity among the theatrical managers. A few self-respecting managers like Messrs. Palmer and Abbey and the late Lester Wallack made a number of brave and intelligent attempts to find graceful and dignified forms of pictorial advertising. But for the most part our actors and actresses allowed themselves Drawn by Joseph Baker for the Forbes Lithograph Company in 1879. An Example of the Extremely Finished Lithographic Theatrical Poster. (Interesting also as being the first poster ever produced representing Jefferson in character) to be portrayed on the bill-boards in a medium so grossly and unnecessarily offensive to good taste that the meanest mountebank might have blushed to find himself so set before the world. So dead was the poster-making art that serious dramatic and lyric artists had not even the resource of tasteful and appropriate decoration for their public announcements, but were obliged to use plain type-and type of designs of half a century old. It was at this point that the Genius of Patent Medicine came to the relief of Histrionic Art. Up to this time the Patent Medicine Designed and printed by the Strobridge Lithograph Company. poster had been the most pitiful of all forms of pictorial advertising. In conception it never aimed to be more than feebly instructive, and in execution it was as hideous as cheap work could make it. It was constructed upon one of a few simple formulas-simple to the point of idiocy. Of these the most in use was what was known as the "Before and After"-which was short for Before and After Taking. This involved the employment of two pictures, one of which represented a lean and haggard wretch of advanced years, destitute of teeth, and but sparsely provided I AIN'T YER FATHER. NELL. Drawn by Hugo Ziegfeld for the H. C. Miner-Springer Lithograph Company. with hair, who was apparently trying to present his physical disabilities to the beholder in the most unpleasant possible light. The other picture showed a sturdy, lusty person in the prime of life, with well-slicked hair and as many teeth as the artist could crowd into his mouth, which was always shown stretched open in a laugh of an impossibly large size. Those who gazed on this display were expected to believe that the miracle of transforming the aged wreck into an offensively healthy person of thirty-five had been accomplished by the use of three bottles of OLD DR. RIPLEY'S RESURGENT REINVIGORATOR OR IMBRICATED INDIAN TONIC. EARTH Drawn by E. Potthast for the Strobridge Lithograph Company. This was the favorite formula, but others pressed it hard. One that had considerable popularity showed a happy and precocious little boy with red striped stockings, yellow clothes, and, necessarily, red and yellow hair, rushing merrily into the room of his aged grandmother, and offering her a bottle of the good doctor's decoction. little boy was among the most useful of all poster-subjects; for if the advertiser wanted to spend money, he could have two pictures, in the first of which the grandmother sat paralyzed in her arm-chair with a crutch by her side This Drawn by Robert Joste for the Metropolitan Print. Company. Se ection of Modern Theatrical Posters. |