Mévisto, from Le Café-Concert 1893

Curator: Henri-Gabriel Ibels' 1893 lithograph, "Mévisto, from Le Café-Concert," captures a fascinating figure, currently held at The Art Institute of Chicago. Editor: The immediacy is striking. The hurried pencil strokes give it such a nervous, tense quality, as if he might turn around at any moment, ready for something wicked. Curator: It's part of a series depicting performers and personalities from the Parisian café-concert scene. Ibels was deeply involved in theatrical design and printmaking during the 1890s. He really engaged in those burgeoning urban subcultures, right? Editor: Absolutely. And look at this subject—the sharp profile, the way his hands are shoved in his pockets, that unsettling stare—"Mévisto" can’t be coincidental. Is he meant to evoke Mephistopheles, the tempter from the Faust legend? The whole era was captivated by decadence, so maybe Ibels hints at some kind of dangerous liaison or moral bargain. Curator: Given Ibels’s circle, the figure probably satirizes political corruption within the arts community. He likely used his poster art for theater to promote libertarian ideas at that time. Those countercultural references probably weren't as clear in the overall culture, like a visual password that he was passing. Editor: Perhaps a password of cynicism, which adds to that tense quality. But this symbol of a deal with the devil? The imagery is pretty hard, that connects very strongly to a broader unease from his time. Are we losing our souls to modernization, urbanization, mass culture? He just seems to distill that into one wary glance. Curator: It is easy to reduce Ibels' generation into nihilism and decadence. I think that they recognized these changing dynamics that shifted public tastes away from tradition and the historical, allowing newer artists to experiment further from that. It definitely opened spaces for his generation. Editor: Ibels captures a kind of permanent suspicion of what is to come, I feel as if I know his inner world. Thank you, Curator, for broadening my appreciation for this work! Curator: Thank you, Editor, for sharing this rich interpretation of Ibels' work. It offers much more than what first meets the eye.