The liver. Patent medicine. Greek mythology. Advertising. The illustrator’s art. All together now.
In the hands of French illustrator Charles Lemmel (1899 – 1976), the task of devising a poster to advertise a hepatical (a patent medicine for maladies of the liver) somehow fixed on the myth of Prometheus, punished by Zeus (for having stolen fire from Olympus and given it to humans) by being chained, naked, to the side of a mountain and subjected to endless hepatophagy: every day, Zeus’s eagle feasts on the Promethean liver, which then regrows for the next day’s torture.
Not, you might have thought, an ideal theme for a medicine ad; but look what Lemmel did with the idea in the poster (from the 1930s):
(#1) Lemmel presents Hepatior as a rest and relief from the pain of hepatic ailments, a pain like that of Prometheus’s aquiline torment; meanwhile, he elevates the real-life sufferer by depicting the suffering Prometheus as a hot hot muscle-hunk and also a curly black-haired Greek dude — who is smiling and winking at us through the ordeal, reassuring us that it’s all a joke
That’s quite an artistic performance, also soft porn at several levels (extravagant body display, proud masochism). I happen to think it’s deeply silly, but enjoyable in its crudeness.
Prometheus and the eagle. From my 7/25/23 posting “Prometheus and the eagle: the statue”, about a Reinhold Begas statue in which
The eagle looks threateningly at the chained Prometheus, who shrinks back in terror, anticipating the eagle’s next feasting on his liver.
The customary view of these mythological doings.
Advertising posters. Lemmel’s was the generation of poster artists after the first great generation, in which the illustrator Leonetto Cappiello (1875 – 1942) was the major figure; see the section on Cappiello in my 1/7/22 posting “Royal Melchior”.
Two more Lemmels. First, a poster for the aperitif Bonal, advertised as being associated with highly masculine sports:
(#2) In this case, boxing — and stylized muscular brutality
Then, for Vivor, a fruity soft drink:
(#3) Two military buddies share their appreciation of the extravagant femininity of their waitress
A great many of Lemmel’s posters can be read as exercises in highly stylized gender presentations — with absurdly masculine men and feminine women; even the housewives tend to look like the waitress in #3, and there are legions of fashionable women in high heels and barely clad slinky sirens.
April 26, 2024 at 6:47 pm |
Lemmel’s Hepatior ad came to me in a Pinterest mailing this morning, triggering a breathless O. M. G. response and moving me to write this brief posting.