Art is in the Street

La Rue, 1896
© Bibliothèque nationale de France
Posters transform the city
Paintings, drawings, prints and photographs all depict the proliferation of images that took over the smallest bit of empty space: walls and palisades of course, but newsstands, Morris columns, urinals and the metro as well, and even human beings, who turned themselves into sandwich men. Such supports constituted the exhibition walls of a new visual world that sought to catch the eye of passers-by. Transformed by imposing Haussmannian architectural works, cleaned up and well equipped, the “modern” street was also one of the key areas for political expression and social demands. Dangerous for the powers that be, this haven of advertising was, in the art critic Roger Marx’s words, “the teeming, ever bustling street, where universal suffrage is discussed and pronounced" (Masters of the Poster, 1895).
The avant-garde is in the street
In social, cultural and artistic fields alike, the street was a living environment and exhibition venue all in one, as well as a subject for depiction. The posters of the 1880s to 1900s carry within them the fantasies and realities of an era. The result of technical advances and the emerging consumer society, they were a sphere that gradua[1]lly attracted the interest of some of the time’s great artists. In the wake of Jules Chéret, whom the press nicknamed “the Poster King”, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Eugène Grasset, Alphonse Mucha, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and the Nabis Pierre Bonnard, Henri-Gabriel Ibels and Edouard Vuillard, along with Félix Vallotton, were hailed as masters of the genre. The critics took possession of the phenomenon, highlighting the visual qualities of the “modern poster” and its role in democratizing access to art. The poster also became a collector’s item and exhibition subject, and art lovers fell prey to “poster mania”. Rising to the rank of artwork, it entered a system similar to print dealing, with such dealers as Edmond Sagot specializing in the sale of posters.
The poster, social art
In the late 19th century, the emerging myth of a “Belle Époque” tended to gloss over the street of rioters and indigents, replacing it with an idyllic street of pleasure, entertainment and accessible consumption. The poster was the medium for assertion of newly liberalized practices, including: frequentation of cabarets, the rise of sport, and exacerbated femininity. Available to one and all due to its exhibition in the middle of the street, it could entertain social ambitions and become the preferred medium of “art for all”. Anarchist and libertarian circles played a key role in the appearance of the first political images on walls in the public space. Initially, they focused on advertising relating to the activist press. In the early <sup>20</sup>th century, such artists as Jules Grandjouan invented a mural language designed to impact public opinion in the public space. Breaking with the intimate vision provided by newspaper cartoons, this new form of rhetoric was to have a long-term effect on political messaging
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Exhibition artworks

La Rue, 1896
© Bibliothèque nationale de France

Bal du Moulin rouge, 1889
© Bibliothèque nationale de France

Colonne publicitaire dans la nuit, vers 1889
Musée d'Orsay
Don de la société des Amis du musée d'Orsay, 1989
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Alexis Brandt
See the notice of the artwork

La Charge, vers 1902
Musée d'Orsay
Achat, 1979
© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
See the notice of the artwork

Exposition d'affiches artistiques françaises et étrangères, modernes & Retrospectives. Entrée 1Fr au Cirque de Reims du 7 au 17 novembre 1896, 1896
© CC0 Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet Histoire de Paris