{ feuilleton }

Two of several cover illustrations by Hans Christiansen (1866–1945) for 1898 issues of Jugend magazine. I waited a long time for someone to put together a site devoted to Jugend and good as this one is I can’t help but wish it was as thorough as the Simplicissimus site. Jugend is a regular fixture in histories of Art Nouveau since it was the magazine’s promotion of the new graphic style which gave the movement a name in Germany, Jugendstil. The covers look strikingly advanced today in the way they vary their style and the presentation of the magazine title from one week to the next. The monotonous branding of contemporary magazines seems staid in comparison. Christiansen’s swirling title design shows why these covers had such an influence on the psychedelic poster art of the 1960s. You can see a larger copy of that cover here and a further 299 drawings and paintings by the artist here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Meggendorfer’s Blatter
• Simplicissimus