Verdol, dentrifice vert oxygéné 1911

This is a poster by Leonetto Cappiello, who painted it sometime before 1942, and it’s all about selling this green toothpaste. What strikes me first is the way the background melts into this forest-y, dream-like space, all created with these swooping, gestural brushstrokes. Cappiello's using color here not just to represent, but to create a mood, a feeling. Look at the way the greens blend and bleed, creating a kind of hazy, otherworldly atmosphere. There's this pale figure, almost floating. Her dress? Is it her body? I like that you can’t quite tell what’s going on. She gestures to her face as if to say "my breath smells divine!" Cappiello reminds me a bit of Toulouse-Lautrec, another artist who blurred the lines between commercial and fine art, using loose brushwork to capture the energy of Parisian life. Ultimately, Cappiello reminds us that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists across time and space, each building on what came before.