Posters, the era of Jules Cheret and lithography


Lithography and Jules Chéret
Perhaps it can be argued that the use of posters as an "advertising" medium to convey a message was first utilized some 40,000 years ago as our ancestors "told" their stories in their cave-art, and later by biblical and other scholars in their manuscripts but the poster as we now know it was not truly conceived until technology had advanced to the stage whereby man was able to produce printed matter in quantity. This came about with the invention of a printing process known as lithography. Lithography was invented in 1801 by Aloys Senefelder but at first it was too slow and expensive for use in poster production. At that time posters were wood block or metal engravings with very little color or design.
This all changed around 1860 when Jules Chéret introduced color to lithography with his "three stone lithographic process". This breakthrough allowed artists to achieve true color in posters as they did in their paintings. Although the process was difficult it was nevertheless mastered to a degree which produced posters with a remarkable intensity of texture and color previously impossible. This, then, was the true beginning of the modern poster industry.	Aloys Senefelder German Inventor of Lithography Born in Prague Giclee Print

back : next : top

to purchase posters from this site click here

Lithography and Jules Chéret