For despite being static, the Parisian posters evoked a sense of frantic energy in their bright, contrasting colors, and beautiful, half-dressed women—elements that made them nearly impossible to ignore. There were always, of course, arresting sights to behold in art and nature. But the posters were commercial and scalable. “A master of blazing modernities,” as one critic called him, Chéret could print thousands of them, producing their mesmeric effects on millions of passersby. As such, his posters are the second milestone in the industrialized
