The black background in advertising posters: some examples from the early decades of the 20th century

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, an important innovation appeared in European advertising posters. Until then, the background of a poster appeared as a logical consequence of the scene depicted, reflecting its compositional and chromatic characteristics. This was the case, for example, in the posters of Jules Chéret, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfons Mucha, Adolf Hohenstein and others. Leonetto Cappiello, an artist from Livorno who had moved to Paris, created an advertisement for Swiss chocolate 'Klaus', in 1903, radically revolutionising the concept of product communication. The artist introduced so many new features that the Chocolat Klaus poster is considered a real turning point in his career, which he described as 'the second stage of my evolution'. Cappiello was the first to realise that advertising posters had to stand out from the monotonous greyness of the wall on which they were displayed, imposing themselves on their surroundings and creating a 'visual shock' for the observer. The advertising poster must have a basic design and simple graphic language; its bright colours ensure that the observer is not distracted in the few moments when their attention is focused on the poster they are looking at. In the following years, Leonetto created numerous commercial posters applying the same compositional principles: figures drawn with simple lines, bright and contrasting colours, characters with cheerful and smiling expressions, and minimal text, most often limited to the name of the product being advertised. Above all, everything stands out against a black background. Few artists sporadically used black backgrounds in their posters during those years, for example, Marcello Dudovich and Leopoldo Metlicovitz; this limited use of dark backgrounds continued until the second decade of the 20th century, when Leonetto Cappiello's posters, now well known, widespread and appreciated, became a model and source of inspiration for other artists. By now, the black background solution was being used by many other important poster artists, including, for example, Giuseppe Magagnoli, known as MAGA, Achille Luciano Mauzan, Plinio Codognato and Severo Pozzati, known as SEPO, in Italy, and Jean d'Ylen, Adolphe Mouron, better known as Cassandre, Charles Loupot and Paul Colin in France. In this short article, we aim to show how Leonetto Cappiello's innovations, particularly the use of a black background in advertising posters, were so successful that they were adopted by the most important poster artists of the early 20th century within a few decades.