Page:Picture Posters.djvu/68

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48
PICTURE POSTERS.

bounds to his comprehensiveness. Besides being a painter of distinction, he has designed everything, from stained glass to book-covers, from piano-cases to menus. Unlike Chéret, he has been profoundly impressed by the work of old decorative designers; he has certainly not disdained to borrow; his borrowings, however, have been at once legitimate and intelligent. The Japanese, the old Italians, and in a less degree, the ancient Greeks, have been laid under contribution, with results which, if not amazingly original, are at least delightful. It would be idle to pretend that, from the standpoint of the advertiser, Grasset is the equal of Chéret. His sense of beauty, his passion for decoration, make it impossible for him to achieve the daring and victorious colour which is so effective in the work of Chéret. A panel of his posters, side by side with a panel of those of Chéret, is as a beautiful and somewhat quiet-hued wall-paper to a cascade of flowers of every conceivable colour. While, however, this is an important matter from the advertiser's point of view, it is of little moment to the collector, whose primary object is to fill his portfolios with things of beauty. At times, indeed, Grasset does achieve irresistible advertisement; nobody, for instance, could overlook the superb representation of Sarah Bernhardt as "Jeanne d'Arc," standing with splendid disdain amidst a forest of spears