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It is not for a moment to be pretended that the artists with whom this chapter deals are in any sense members of a single school: they have, indeed, many more points of difference than of similarity. I deal with them together, because, speaking roughly, their designs are saturated with the spirit of the day: their decorations are realistic, rather than fantastic or picturesque. They lean towards Lautrec, rather than towards Chéret or Grasset, but they are in no sense his imitators; some of them, indeed, are actually his predecessors.

Willette is an artist of such astonishing facility and variety, that he has, comparatively speaking, devoted little time to the affiche, and save in one or two conspicuous instances, he has failed to achieve compelling advertisements. And yet his artistic personality is so curious and so powerful that his posters are nearly all interesting to the