a thousand items, and one which happily has yet to close. It is doubtless the conditions of his early life, the lessons learned while under the yoke of trade, that have enabled Chéret to appreciate to the full that the first business of an advertisement is to advertise. Avoiding, therefore, all subtle harmonies, he goes in for contrasts of colour, violent, it is true, but victorious in their very violence. Blazing reds, hard blues, glowing yellows, uncompromising greens, are flung together, apparently haphazard, but in reality after the nicest calculation, with the result that the great pictures, when on the hoardings, insist positively on recognition. One might as well attempt to ignore a fall of golden rain, as to avoid stopping to look at them; they are so many riots of colour, triumphant in their certainty of fascinating and bewildering the passerby.
As may be imagined, Chéret's skill has fullest scope when dealing with the lightest and gayest subjects: a cascade de clowns— to borrow a phrase of Huysman—an entrance of ballet girls; a joyous troupe of children, contented because toy-laden; these, and the like, are subjects most congenial to him. His style is essentially the outcome of the day. It possesses no decorative forerunners; it is not a thing derived; its parents are the gaieties of modern Paris. It is intensely actual, and in its actuality lies, it
