A Fantastic
Vintage Poster
Just Oozing with Charm and Nostalgia
A collage of 20
"Cries of Dublin"
First published in 1773.
See
below
Blank on
reverse
This decorative art
poster is from this period - it is NOT a recent copy.
This paper
poster came from the collection of a retired "Bord Failte"
photographer.
In 1955 Bord
Fáilte Éireann was created under the Tourist Traffic Act. (Now Fáilte
Ireland)
The cries in question were the
cries of hawkers as they peddled their wares through the streets of the city.
The best-known Dublin hawker was the probably fictitious Molly Malone who
wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow and ended up with a
prestigious monument, wheelbarrow and all, at the bottom of Grafton Street. Most
cities of a certain size in Ireland and Britain and even on the continent had
their own distinctive cries and a practice developed of making card-size
portraits of the various hawkers, with captions naming their trades and
recording their cries, ensembles of say a dozen or twenty such portraits being
published on broadsheet-sized paper. Such an ensemble of twenty Dublin
cries was published about 1773. The figures representing the different
trades tended to be quite stylised, all of them well-dressed, but the small size
of the portraits tended to diminish their usefulness as a guide to what the
various hawkers actually wore.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, the original begetter
of the cries now before us, was born in Crow Street, Dublin in December 1740. He
studied drawing under Robert West in the Dublin Society School in George’s Lane,
now South Great George’s Street. He was primarily a portrait painter, who,
having practised his art for some years in London, went to Italy in 1779 and did
not return to his native city until the 1790s. He died in 1810. He is recognised
as one of the more considerable Irish artists of the eighteenth
century.
However, it has to be said
that many of the personages presented in this collage are far too well- dressed
and well-fed to accord with reality. In particular the beggarwoman is a total
contradiction of all that has been written about the state of degradation -
which was the lot of such unfortunate people. It may be that some of the
subjects had advance notice that they were to be sketched and posed before
Hamilton all dressed up in their Sunday best.
THE ART
OF THE POSTER (Ireland)
Posters
are the frequent tool of advertisers, propagandists, protestors and other
groups trying to communicate a message.
They aim to seduce, to exhort, to sell, to educate, to convince, to
appeal, to grab the attention of those who might otherwise pass them
by. They are involved in the everyday cultural, political and
commercial issues. Posters can be
typographic, or pictorial or both.
Their impact should be emotional rather than intellectual, and so they
have evolved their own visual grammar, evoking ordinary forms of familiar
speech, making this new language a part of everyday life.
The art of the poster really began at the end of the
19th century. Up until
then, printers had a reliance on the primitive woodcut, but the discovery of
lithography opened the way to refinements of colour, tone and graphic treatment
never before attained in quantity.
The era of the multiple image had begun. These coloured lithographic posters were
the most powerful vehicles for commercial advertising in existence until the
advent of commercial radio, and later television and the illustrated press. The poster was a hybrid medium where
painting, drawing and typography came together in new ways, influencing each
other in the process. They were
unambiguous, simple, and usually had economy of image. Many were serious art objects with
ingredients of everyday life, which explains why collectors often sponged and
peeled them off hoardings to take home as trophies.
Political posters have a long history in Ireland, many having a
vision and vigour, which has been unequalled since. Our most famous poster is the 1916
Proclamation. Revolutions took
their posters seriously, so also did some of the larger commercial companies in
the early history of the state……….Bord Failte, The Railway Companies, Guinness
etc. These images serve as
documents of social history, expressing not only their own particular themes,
but also the underlying attitudes and values of their time.
So posters can been seen as
historical, artistic and social documents. They are full of nostalgia,
and eminently collectable.
Measures: 16.00" X 20.00"
Condition:
Very Good Unused - blank on reverse
PLEASE NOTE WORLD WIDE SHIPPING RATE
IF YOU LIVE
ON THE ISLAND OF IRELAND
DIVIDE THE RATE BELOW IN HALF.
Allow $8.00 for
insurance, packing and shipping.
Good
Luck!
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