Divan Japonais
Divan Japonais (café-concert, Paris)1893
Divan Japonais is an 1893 lithographic poster for Divan Japonais.
See the original
The line
Divan Japonais, 75 rue des Martyrs
Why it works
Hired by Édouard Fournier to fill his newly redecorated Montmartre café-concert, Toulouse-Lautrec advertised the Divan Japonais by advertising its audience. The dancer Jane Avril, a sweep of flat black silhouette, sits in the foreground beside the critic Édouard Dujardin while the necks of the orchestra's viols jut up between them and the stage. Up there the singer Yvette Guilbert is cut off at the neck, recognisable only by her famous long black gloves. That abrupt crop, which MoMA links to Japanese prints and photography, trusts viewers to complete the star themselves. The poster is also studied for its celebrity logic: the Milwaukee Art Museum points out that neither woman performed at the Divan Japonais at the time, yet featuring them so prominently implied you might see them there. It was made at the height of the 1890s poster boom, when better colour printing and looser bill-posting laws filled Paris with lithographs, and is held by MoMA, the Met and Milwaukee.
Techniques
- Testimonial and endorsement Prominently featuring the dancer Jane Avril and singer Yvette Guilbert implies you might see such stars there, though neither then performed at the venue.
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