"Musée d'Orsay hosted an exhibit last year called "Art is in the Street," which cataloged "the spectacular rise of the illustrated poster in Paris during the second half of the 19th century." The prints were lithographs - drawings made on limestone with greasy pencils, which were then exposed to water and inverted onto sheets of paper. Typically, each color got its own stone. The finished product was a firework of oily yellows and reds."
"I visited last May and tried to take in as many of the 230 posters as I could. A couple times, I had to remind myself that these were ads - they were quiet now, framed and under the same roof as the likes of van Gogh and Renoir - but they'd once filled the dark-green Morris columns throughout the city, caterwauling at passersby."
"These posters anticipated Parisians' needs, and invented desires they hadn't dreamt of. But consumerism was too green a concept for people to feel targeted. As the Musée d'Orsay put it, these Belle Époque street ads gave voice and color to the "fantasies and realities" of Parisian life, such as sports, cabaret and even anarchist cries for social upheaval. They attracted artists of the hour, most notably Jules Chéret, and provided a rare visible platform for bohemian concerns, while helping build the middle class."
An exhibition cataloged the spectacular rise of the illustrated poster in Paris during the second half of the 19th century. The prints were lithographs made on limestone with greasy pencils, exposed to water, inverted onto paper, and often required a separate stone for each color. The finished posters produced intense oily yellows and reds. Two hundred thirty posters once filled dark-green Morris columns and loudly confronted passersby with ads for bicycles, travel, entertainment, and goods. The posters anticipated needs, invented desires, amplified Belle Époque fantasies and realities, attracted artists like Jules Chéret, gave bohemian causes visibility, and helped build the middle class.
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