Life, 1896-09-03 · page 15 of 18
Life — September 3, 1896 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising**, not political satire. The main content consists of four commercial advertisements from circa 1896. The cartoon titled "An Idyl of Poster Land" (lower left) is the only satirical element. It mocks the absurd aesthetics of contemporary poster art through deliberately nonsensical color descriptions: "blue girl," "shrimp pink bank," "green sun," and "mauve thoughts." The accompanying poem's overwrought romantic language ("throb-bing undertoe") parodies the pretentious melodrama often found in artistic posters of the era. The satire targets the emerging Art Nouveau movement and poster designers' tendency toward gaudy, irrational color combinations and purple prose—critiquing them as divorced from reality. The caption "Poster Land" suggests this is fantasy rather than genuine artistic merit. The other ads (Armour's beef extract, Hartford tires, Burnett's cosmetics, and Searchlight lantern) are straightforward period marketing with no satirical intent.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
BURNETT’S KALLISTON. ‘Tue dry, parched feeling of the face, after a day spent on the deck of an ocean steamer, will be refreshed by an appli- ", cation or Burnott's Kalliston. For sale by all Druggists. Joscen Burncrr Co., Boston, Mass. Extracts BEEF, { We're sure to want it wherever we go.” {Overheard on “the Limited.”) PDN WW W)WY\] A A Cy, K The Standard Single-Tube Hartford Single-Tube Tires are the Standard tires. They have many imitators, but the Hartford Rubber Works Company has been making single-tubetires for six years, and ex- perience has taught them how to make the right kind of single-tube tire. IF IT'S A HARTFORD TIRE ips: RIGHT. THE HARTFORD RUBBER WORKS CO HARTFORD, CONN. New York. Philadelphia. Chicago. Z | Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z Z \ ] ] Z Z 7 Z Z Z Z 7 Z Z Z 7 Z | Z Wi‘iwéiffl MFI IN The only strictly firs Class bievcle lantern o the market AN IDYL OF POSTER LAND. A BLUE GIRL SAT ON A SHRIMP PINK BANK, WITH THE GREEN SUN SINKING LOW, AND SHE HEEDED NOT, AS HER MAUVE THOUGHTS RAN, THE THROBBING UNDERTOE, SEND FOR CIRCULAR No. 47- comicbooks.com