L'Amant des danseuses: roman moderniste par Félicien Champsaur

During Middle Ages, Church considered dance as a sin and condemned it. Records of Medieval dance are fragmented and limited, but a noteworthy dance reference from the medieval period is the allegory of the Danse Macabre. During the Renaissance, dance experienced growing popularity. Country dances, performed for pleasure, became distinct from court dances, which had ceremonial and political functions. In Germany, originated from a modified ländler, the waltz was introduced in all the European courts. The 16th century Queen of France Catherine de' Medici promoted and popularized dance in France and helped develop the ballet de cour. The production of the Ballet Comique de la Reine in 1581 is regarded by scholars as the first authentic ballet. In the 17th century, the French minuet, characterized by its bows, courtesies and gallant gestures, permeated the European cultural landscape.

Prior to the introduction of lithography, primary poster printing techniques included the Wood Block technique and the Intaglio technique. Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Germany in 1796, but not utilized until the mid-to-late 1800s until the introduction of “Cheret’s three stone lithographic process.” Three stones were used to create vibrant posters with intense color and texture. The stones used were typically red, yellow or blue, which enabled the artist to produce a poster featuring both graphics and text using any color of the rainbow. The main challenge was to keep the images aligned. This method lent itself to images consisting of large areas of flat color and resulted in the characteristic poster designs of this period. The first “Art Nouveau” poster was made by Chezch artist Alphonse Mucha who worked in Paris. Art Nouveau and Belle Epoque dominated Paris until about 1901. In 1898, a new artist took Paris by storm, who would later be donned the father of modern advertising – Leonetto Cappiello.