Art Nouveau in France
Grasset and Cheret only initiated art nouveau in France. During the 1880’s Eugene Grasset was a regular at a nightclub in France, which became a gathering place for artists and writers. This is where he met and shared his enthusiasm for color printing with young artists such as Georges Auriol, Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec and fellow Swiss artist Theophile- Alexandre Steinlen. Even the father of poster design, Cheret, admitted that Lautrec’s 1891 poster of Moulin Rouge broke new ground in poster designs .It had a dynamic pattern of flat plains, black spectator silhouettes, yellow ovals for lamps and stark white undergarments of the notorious cancan dancers. All of this moved horizontally across the center of the poster. In front of this is a profile of a dancer called “the boneless one” because of his amazing flexibility. During this milestone of poster design, simplified dynamic shapes and dynamic spatial relationships form expressive and communicative images. Henri de Toulou...