"Two young women with the symbols of manual labor (a shuttlecock and a washboard)
place a wreath around the cameo of Alessandro Volta (1754-1827), to indicate their
gratefulness for his electricity that liberates them from drudgery. The poster
is for an exhibition of electrical products being held in honor of the 100th anniversary
of the birth of Volta, the inventor of an instrument for measuring electricity
(voltmeter), and the man who defined a single unit of it, a volt, as "the electron
drive force which, when applied to the conductor with the resistance of one ohm,
produces a current of one ampere." That so impressed Napoleon that he made him
a count as well as a senator of Lombardy" (Rennert
PAI-XXXVI, 353) The poster advertises an exhibition celebrating the centennial
of the invention of the electric battery by Volta "Hohenstein can stand
as a father to the Italian poster…His figures were treated with impeccable
photographic realism, and colours with a palette of dazzling richness which plays
with the effects of light and shade. From the beginning, the boldness of his posters
left the French poster artists far behind…With all the flamboyance and excess
of the Italian temperament, he played with forms and colours…The virtuosity
with which he makes figures emerge from an overloaded frame…They (his posters)
all have the same freedom, the same richness of invention in layout and ingenuity
of the lettering"(Weill p.84) |
Gallery |
News |
History |
About Us |
Contact |
Links 
Search
»
