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Gil Blas Illustre
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The end of the nineteenth century, particularly in France, was one of the liveliest eras in the history of high-quality illustrated magazines. Among the most celebrated was Gil Blas Illustré, one of the regular weekly supplements of the popular daily newspaper Gil Bias, named after the picaresque titular hero of Alain-René Lesage's classic eighteenth-century novel. The formal first issue of Gil Blas Illustré, after it had appeared for a few tentative weeks as a mere "Supplément," was that of June 28, 1891. The first "year" ended with the last 1891 issue; from January 1892 on, the magazine year (referred to as "volume" in the captions of the present book) corresponded to the calendar year.
Supplied free with the 15-centime newspaper, the magazine was also sold separately for five centimes up to May 1896, ten centimes thereafter. In the course of 1897 the quality and character of Gil Blas Illustré began to decline slowly (although Steinlen's contributions maintained their high level as long as he worked for the periodical), and the faithful director René Maizeroy - also one of the literary contributors —departed. Steinlen, the chief artist, remained until the end of 1900. The last issue appeared on August 21, 1903, with a serialized story cut off abruptly in the middle.
Before its demise, however, Gil Blas Illustré had known much glory. From the start, its eight quarto pages were divided about equally between text and pictures. The magazine printed stories and pqems as well as songs from the poetic cabarets, revues and music halls that were then flourishing. Among the authors represented were Maupassant, Zola, Verlaine, Daudet, Mirbeau, Anatole France, Villiers de lisle-Adam and other giants of the period. Artistic contributors included Balluriau and Guillaume, both represented frequently; from time to time Forain, Leloir, Chéret, Léandre, Poulbot, Gottlob and Grun, masters of fin-de-siècle book illustration and poster art; and, near the end of the run, some young artists making a living as cartoonists before their days of fame as painters: Van Dongen and Jacques Villon.
The pictures in Gil Blas Illustré were reproduced by chromotypogrhy, a novel method at the time and one that allowed great fidelity to the original drawings. Many of the pictures were printed in color. Up to September 15, 1895 only two colors were used, black and a pinkish red; beginning with September 22, 1895 four colors were used. Though limited in range, and generally quite muted as a accents they remain a vibrant and compelling glimpse into the Belle Epoque worlds of Steinlen and his contemporaries.
Text Source:
-Theophile-Alexandre Stainlen: Steinlen’s Drawings – Plates from “Gil Blas Illustre”. New York; Dover, 1980.
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