Although lithography was invented in 1798, it was at first too slow and expensive for
             poster production. Most posters were woodblocks or metal engravings with little color or
             design. This all changed with Cheret's three stone lithographic process, a breakthrough
             that allowed artists to achieve every color in the spectrum with as little as three stones -
             red, yellow, and blueprinted in careful registration.
             Although the process was difficult, the result was a remarkable intensity of color
             and texture, with sublime transparencies and nuances impossible in other media (even to
             this day). This ability to combine words and images in such an attractive and economical
             format finally made the lithographic poster a powerful innovation. Starting in the 1870s
             in Paris, it became the dominant means of mass communication in the rapidly growing
             In France especially, as the industrial age grew, the average person had more time
             for themselves. They became better educated. They were becoming readers, theatergoers,
             music, and art lovers. It seems as though the French developed a keener sense of art and
             style, ahead of everyone else. Paris became the center for culture and artistic excellence,
             during this period. These were changing times. The middle class started to have access to consumer
             goods. This new consumer-oriented economy created a need for a medium to reach the
             masses of people with product information. The poster filled this need. To reach the
             people they had to be loud, colorful, easy to read, and easy to understand. More
             importantly, they had to be inexpensive as they only lasted for such a short period of time.
             Jules Cheret pioneered color lithography as an economical means of advertising.
             His innovations with color and shading produced images that convey their message in a
             matter of seconds while still proving interesting more than one hundred years later with
             complex and subtle color harmon...