Chick cigarettes de Virginie pures et sans adultération 1925

Jean d’Ylen's poster design for Chick cigarettes uses color to create a mood, a feeling. The dark blue background makes that cool green dress pop. It’s an image built up with simple, flat areas of color, and the design feels modern, even now. Look how the artist has handled the dress – it’s not just green, but has all these subtle variations in tone, creating volume. And the smoke, it’s like the text and the smoke share a language, curling and twisting playfully. It gives the image such a sense of movement, a lightness that contrasts with the solid blocks of color elsewhere. I see echoes of Toulouse-Lautrec in the way he simplifies and stylizes the figure. But also, there's something about the flatness that reminds me of Alex Katz. And isn't that what art is all about? The constant remixing of ideas, each artist taking something from the past and making it new.