Page:Picture Posters.djvu/206

self does not, I believe, possess a copy. Following the Covent Garden bill was one announcing the performances in London of the Paris Hippodrome Troupe. This is merely an enlargement on a vast scale of a classical drawing intended to adorn a book describing the show, but it is distinctly interesting, more so, it seems to me, than the pretty little coloured thing—a window-bill, rather than a poster—which advertises Hau's champagnes. Other posters by Mr. Crane deal with an exhibition of his own works, with various insurance companies, with the "English Illustrated Magazine" (an enlarged version of the cover), and the exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society. It will be seen that Mr. Crane's contribution to the art of the poster is a very substantial one, and if his designs do not always fulfil the sweet uses of advertisement, they are generally marked by fine taste. It is a matter of common knowledge that Professor Herkomer has left hardly any art or craft untouched, and it therefore goes without saying that he has left some of them unadorned. To succeed as painter, etcher, carver, musician, poet and playwright, lecturer, and actor is not given to mere man. Professor Herkomer's posters cannot, I think, be considered among his more fortunate performances. That done for "The Magazine of Art" does not lack a certain feeling for composition: the weird