HOARDING POSTERS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18236, 21 November 1924, Page 11

HOARDING POSTERS.

A PROTEST FROM MELBOURNE.

It is one of' th 6 disadvantages of summer,- says the Melbourne "Age!" editorially, that it makes people-' onco more specially familiar with the hideou:ne£3 of tho advertisement. poster. Throughout the winter, if the citizen has sense enough to close hi» c'ye3 while passing through our suburban stations, he may preserve his sight from tho poster eyesore with' which the platforms are fringed. But, when the finer weather tempts. to.take hi 3 wifo and family out into, the country to refresh their spirits with glimpses of its beauty, he is apt to return home feeling sorry. At the .-most unexpected and least-fitting places he is sure to find-some piece of advertising ugliness spoiling or obscuring Nature's loveliness. Outrages on the community's artistic taste aro so freely dotted along the most picturesque, and therefore freely patronised,, roads of the State that, at the commencement of another summer, tho community is entitled to protest against- this particularly needless and senseless form of.offence. It is claimed that a lavish use of the-'poster-is. profitable to the advertiser. Presumably: it is. j Otherwise it would be necessary to i conclude that the advertiser had as little sense as he obviously has artistic taste. If, a3 is alleged, hoarding-ad-vertising gives a good return for the | outlay involved,, it must be due to the pushfulnc'ss of the advertiser rather than to the persuasiveness of the poster. When advertisement posters take the form .of pictures they might, in most instances, have been intended as pri?es .in a particularly- ghastly-, dog show. -Ordinary observation- warrants, the generalisation that the average picture poster represents the utter degradation of. art". There is no reason whatever -why the public .should continue to- suffer. Advertisement hoardings should have no place in any community possessing, a shred of civic pride. In' many. American States the Hoarding is being consigned to the scrap heap; the public, bodies of Prance are seeking fuller powers to suppress what tho members of . that artistic race are recognising is' an insufferable nuisance. The übiquity of the poster is one of the most familiar themes of humour; its high priests have everywhere proved themselves bankrupt in tho finer. human feelings and in the ordinary, instincts of reverence. The advertising associations aro most commcndably- striving, to raise their :work to higher levels. They insist that, in advertising, the great essential, is truth. So it is. But do'they need to be of tho poet's dictum that "truth is beauty?'? In the hoarding poster it certainly is not. All along our roads - theso abominable structures are ' sot, up in ; delectable spots. The road maker is'relentlessly, dogged by the man with paste brush and poster; as soon as a- new highway is formed thero emerges the advertising fiend. • Our rural beauty ,is an asset which all citizens have a right to enjoy, and- which shiro councils everywhere arc; -under'a' moral obligation to protect. The pcoplo of Victoria will, be called .' upon' increasingly'- to 'contribute to the making and.maintaining: of the country : e roads'. ' Increasingly, therefore, they are entitled! to press 1 their opinion that 'these, roads'' shouldnot be turned into galleries of art van- : dalism. Every ..citizen .with, any. aes-< thetic ,senso will object to: the picture' provided :by. Mature , being: marred by; the inane and' vulgar , efforts 'of the man with his pos.tet picture; Oh this; subject Victorian' people-, are displaying- an .undue, .patience and;spirit of tolerance. 'ln tho course 'of each summer practically every nature-lover finds fresh signs'of. the Philistine's presence in some garish advertisement poster. And in .his; rightoous-.fury.'ho. wishes quite pardonably,' that 'the. advertiser might hang as high as his-poster. /