History of vintage poster

Advertising is 20th century cave art.
Marshall Mac Luhan, 1988

☞ The origins

It is not easy to date the beginnings of Advertising...

While propaganda seems to be its oldest form, screaming is its most prehistoric form. Town criers announcing acts of the King and the Church, funerals or even found objects have long embodied advertising. If the history of the poster can be started in Antiquity, it was with the invention of the printing press that it began to take the form that we know today. In 1539, the ordinances of Francis I were placarded over boards: this was the start of the display. The revolution of 1789 then sparked an explosion in all areas of communication: speeches, newspapers, pamphlets and of course in billboards.

☞ The advertising poster

The poster has always held a large place in advertising, and especially in French culture. The main medium of communication and advertising since the early 1800s, its development coincided with the invention of lithography and the advancement of printing techniques. At the beginning of the 19th century, we witnessed a first significant development of the illustrated poster. This mainly concerns publishing and the romantic bookstore, and they are most often lithographed and simply printed in black. In the middle of the century, the Rouchon printing press started the ball rolling with large formats engraved on wood and… in color! In parallel with the growing importance of "advertising", research progressed and Jean-Alexis Rouchon then filed in 1844 and 1851 patents for "the application of printing on wallpaper to color printing. posters ".

☞ The impact of Jules Chéret

However, it was not until 1866 and Jules Chéret that the development of the lithographic poster really began. Decorator and lithographer, he founded his printing company in 1866 and we owe him more than a thousand creations. He learned to master chromo-lithography in London and after returning to Paris where he founded his printing company, he first created posters for the city's cabarets and theaters. Rightly regarded as the father of the modern poster, the latter will use his printing skills on the one hand, and his artistic creativity on the other. Chéret indeed contributes to the improvement of techniques, but above all he plays a key role in the aesthetic turning point of the poster thanks to his talents as a designer and colourist which will give all its importance to the part of creation. Wall art takes its form and becomes a pictorial art in its own right, elegant and alive, in the spirit of its time.

It was from the middle of the century that large-scale reproduction began to be brought under control. Lithography allows inexpensive mass production, and then sets off a real revolution in the field of communication. The walls of the city see themselves decorated with large format posters, and Art finds a great new opportunity to "appear" in the eyes of the general public!

☞ To be continued: from the Belle Époque to the First World War.