The times., 1901-03-12
THE ART OF Sign PAINTING
The Pr0saic Work Done by Many
Atelier Students.
81 Ruling Spirit
Fifty Dollars Weekly Paid to the
Experts - Ideas borrowed From
French Posters and Publications.

Although the vivid advertisements of
the excenences of foods, ointments. cloth
ing, ali mechanical appliances known TO
man, and thousand other things never
dreamed of in the philosophy of hun
dred years ago, are continually catching
the eye, and possibly shocking the artis
tic sensbilities of the beholder, few of
the ordinary observers give a moments
question to the makers of advertise
ments. The advertising craze has grown
of late to such huge and unlovely pro-
portions that any brief account fails to
explain it's workings. The Office of a
large advertising concern is one of the
busiest places in town. Artists are con-
stantly appearing with designs for the
firm, a small army Of men with paint
pots and brushes are lowering about,
waiting to be sent out, and everywhere
are gay evidences of the results of all
this labor
who are the men that paint these he
roic' pictures one sees on unused walls
and lofty fences?" asked a reporter of
one of the men who keeps these subordi-
mates busy.
They are not the people you think
them, fancy, was the answer. Instead
of being daubers, with about the ability
necessary to WELD a whtewash brush,
our best men are real artists. BY this, /
mean that many of them have had years
of training in drawing and color work
Several Of them have studied abroad In
the ateliers of weIl-known men. a man
whom l saw painting a head on wall
the other day is a night instructor in a
New York art school. He had studied five
years in the Paris art schools"
i. I, ,.l-ps
The other doesn't pay. 1t is a case of
'commercialism in art They find that
they can't make the real thing pay so
they come TO this common calling. There's
money in it. Why. our star painters get
$50 a week. The qaubers who put in back
grounds don't earn more than SO or $l5
q week
The men who paint the designs in vari-
Gus inaccessible and conspicuous places
have with them small copies of the de-
signs to be reproduced. Long experience
makes them expert I'm accurately tracing
the design upon the chosen surface. Al
though the familiar advertisements scat
tered over the city seem exactly alike,
and one face seems the exact counterpart
OF another. yet closer inspection will show
various points of difference. In the case
of a very familiar picture which is dis
PLAYED from one end of the United States
to the other, when il was first brought
oct, one man was hired for the sole pur-
pose of painting that one design, and to
do this, he travelled from Maine To Cali
fornia.
Not the least of oar difficulties said
the advertising man, is finding places TO
put our signs. We hire mon wh) do noih-
ing else but go about and obtain peTmls-
sion from owners to put up billboards on
their premises. use vacant wall, or dec
crate a fence or ii roof II needS great
tact, TO do this. When there are obJec-
tions, they must be overcome; ana aittf
this is done. the owner often gets the idea
that his available space is worth thous-
ands of dollars to us and to him The eX-
periences OF advertising men among
farmers and tramps would make mighty
interesting book
why do you say tTamps2
oh the tramps are our worst enemies.
They build fires behind our billboards and
burn them, or else tear them down out
of sheer wantonnesS.
Advertising firms are liberal subscribers
to all art magazines, particularly TO those
French art periodicals which display the
newest drawings of the still-popular
poster. The ideas OF the foreign artists
are taken freely and converted into
gaudy designs for advertising the latest
song or new cigar without the least
COMPENSATION. since, as the advertisers
assert. American ideas are assimilated
abroad Just as unceremOniously.
Not all the large reproductions of hg-
lIres and faces on our streets and along
the roof-tops are hand-work. Many OF
them are machine-made BY a process
akin to that of making Autographs, ma
chimes have been invented to lay the
cOlors automatically. The finished prod
uct quite devoid of personality. presents
,cctlrateIv cOpy of the working design