Page:The illustrators of Montmartre.pdf/44



strikingly unusual, Very rarely is a figure drawn in its entirety; the margin cuts off part of it, otherwise the design would have been too conventional for him,

'The artiste Caudicux zig-zags across a stage seen in violent perspective, while down in a corer is a worried member of the orchestra studying the coming bars. Caudieux's head is full of life and pent-up strength, and the whole movement of this quaintly placed figure is striking in the extreme.

Jane Avril's poster shows an anemic-looking artiste doing a high kick on the stage. The foreground is occupied by a monster hand holding the head of a 'cello in the orchestra.

The poster for the "Divan Japonais", on the other hand, shows us a lady and gentleman in the audience listening to a singer on the stage, behind an orchestra, Of the singer we see monster black gloves, and everything but the head; of the orchestra we are shown two 'cello heads, and, of the conductor, the arms alone. The lady in the foreground — who looks as though she always turned night into day — is wonderfully depicted, as is her companion, the dissipated, bearded swell. Perhaps his most graceful work in the poster line is that advertising "Elles".

Finally in the poster for "La Gitane", an unsavoury actress, arms akimbo, who comes right out of the design in the left hand foreground, smiles over her shoulder at the bold bad brigand who strides, in