DOI Heft:
Nr. 107 (January, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The posters, paintings, and illustrations of John Hassall, R. I.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26961#0284
John Hass all
cannot believe that there is any greater tragedy
than that of falling to sleep too early in the evening
before the gay dining-table has yet yielded all its
pleasures to them. After all it is very doubtful if there
has ever been a poster artist who has more clearly
apprehended the demands of the Street in the way of
posters than Mr. Hassall. One must have a cheerful
art in the grey Streets and an amiable art. Any
attempt to impose high art, because it is high art, on
the people is always resented. It is not right to
put up these careful works of art, and then just
stick a label of words advertising something under-
neath. If advertising art is to be a living art, it must
receive all its impulse from advertisement: the artist
must for the moment be as anxious to force the
advertised wares down the throats of people as
the advertiser himself. Created underthis impulse,
advertisement art really becomes a thing to be
reckoned with, and a thing which must grow
in vigour, as seif-advertisement and push
become more and more the Salvation of the
tradesman, who in this manner masters fate,
and is not left at the mercy of a varying
market and coquettish fortune.
It is on these grounds we think that
posters claim recognition on the part of
all those who believe in that art which
is diverted into living channels and created
out of living uses, instead of being the out-
come of a cult. Mr. Hassall is not without
his limitations; but if poster art is to be eon-
sidered seriously, he always must be con-
sidered—perhaps more seriously than any
English poster artist, and for the reason that
his poster art has had the single ai'm of good
advertisement. So many men who have
been good artists have stooped with an air of
condeseension to advertisement, instead of
their art growing as a flower from this stränge
soil into which circumstances had forced it.
Artists who have had vitality have always
been careless ; they haven’t minded much
what shape their art took; they could throw
it into any shape for the sake of commis-
sions, and the nobler the demands made on
their art the nobler it has become; the
best artists have never shirked contact with
the populär work. In literature Balzac got
through any amount, and his position was
unaffected. In art it is the same : men of
rieh and various resources can afiford not to
husband their talents with miserliness. After
all, it was the man with one talent who
wrapped it in a napkin. Mr. Hassall has
206
understood poster work and its demands, and met
them in too serious a spirit for his work to have
degenerated from the fact of it being in populär
demand; but any man who is known to have ambi-
tions outside the work which provides him with an
income is often accused of not saving himself for
the best. We have inserted our opinion on this
matter; because, if the artist has lavished his
skill on things not of a very serious nature, the
work that has brought a man populär success has
often enough brought him to the discovery of what
he was really meant for.
Some day Hassall, the poster artist, may be for
a time forgotten in Hassall, the painter; but if this
should come to be so, we could never for long
forget his achievements in the former direction, and
every review of poster art in the future will renew
his reputation. T. Martin Wood.
‘VENUS ”
BY JOHN HASSALL
cannot believe that there is any greater tragedy
than that of falling to sleep too early in the evening
before the gay dining-table has yet yielded all its
pleasures to them. After all it is very doubtful if there
has ever been a poster artist who has more clearly
apprehended the demands of the Street in the way of
posters than Mr. Hassall. One must have a cheerful
art in the grey Streets and an amiable art. Any
attempt to impose high art, because it is high art, on
the people is always resented. It is not right to
put up these careful works of art, and then just
stick a label of words advertising something under-
neath. If advertising art is to be a living art, it must
receive all its impulse from advertisement: the artist
must for the moment be as anxious to force the
advertised wares down the throats of people as
the advertiser himself. Created underthis impulse,
advertisement art really becomes a thing to be
reckoned with, and a thing which must grow
in vigour, as seif-advertisement and push
become more and more the Salvation of the
tradesman, who in this manner masters fate,
and is not left at the mercy of a varying
market and coquettish fortune.
It is on these grounds we think that
posters claim recognition on the part of
all those who believe in that art which
is diverted into living channels and created
out of living uses, instead of being the out-
come of a cult. Mr. Hassall is not without
his limitations; but if poster art is to be eon-
sidered seriously, he always must be con-
sidered—perhaps more seriously than any
English poster artist, and for the reason that
his poster art has had the single ai'm of good
advertisement. So many men who have
been good artists have stooped with an air of
condeseension to advertisement, instead of
their art growing as a flower from this stränge
soil into which circumstances had forced it.
Artists who have had vitality have always
been careless ; they haven’t minded much
what shape their art took; they could throw
it into any shape for the sake of commis-
sions, and the nobler the demands made on
their art the nobler it has become; the
best artists have never shirked contact with
the populär work. In literature Balzac got
through any amount, and his position was
unaffected. In art it is the same : men of
rieh and various resources can afiford not to
husband their talents with miserliness. After
all, it was the man with one talent who
wrapped it in a napkin. Mr. Hassall has
206
understood poster work and its demands, and met
them in too serious a spirit for his work to have
degenerated from the fact of it being in populär
demand; but any man who is known to have ambi-
tions outside the work which provides him with an
income is often accused of not saving himself for
the best. We have inserted our opinion on this
matter; because, if the artist has lavished his
skill on things not of a very serious nature, the
work that has brought a man populär success has
often enough brought him to the discovery of what
he was really meant for.
Some day Hassall, the poster artist, may be for
a time forgotten in Hassall, the painter; but if this
should come to be so, we could never for long
forget his achievements in the former direction, and
every review of poster art in the future will renew
his reputation. T. Martin Wood.
‘VENUS ”
BY JOHN HASSALL