United States, and one of his posters--"Four Years in the Fight"--aiming to provide houses of cheer for the women of France, is reproduced in illustration No. 68. We cannot, however, too often reiterate the fact that it is not enough to have a pronounced conviction and a definite purpose in doing things of this kind to do them well. The best poster artists--and here again we may instance Steinlen, Brangwyn and Pryse--are generally craftsmen of the highest order, having a very true sense of the historical development, and a perfect acquaintance with the mechanism and technique, of their art. This knowledge counts enormously, and is visible in the whole structure of the work produced. The bureaucrat who sits in his office conducting a hurried campaign on the telephone, and patronising art when at length it proves necessary to the community, fails on account of his ignorance of the real roots of the matter. The nation needed posters, so the American bureaucrat, like his brother in Whitehall, issued orders for posters to be designed--in much the same way as the British Food Controller ordered bacon to be provided, without a staff of provision experts to see that it was first properly cured. It is, perhaps, a pity that Mr. Joseph Pennell's book on his own Liberty Loan poster[3] was not written as a textbook for the use of Government Departments earlier in the day. The writing of an elaborate treatise on a single war poster may seem at first sight to be giving altogether disproportionate importance even to an admirable example of this type of art, and it is in danger of placing the exponent under the accusation of appreciating his own labours at an excessively high value. But when all things like this have been said, the fact remains that the volume is a serious and dignified exposition of a fine poster by a craftsman who considers that due weight should be given to all that pertains to its actual production, from the original conception of the design to the satisfactory register and inking of the final stone. It should act as a wholesome corrective of the usual slipshod treatment accorded to the artist. Mr. Pennell is at least an enthusiastic lithographer. He knows the business right through; and his little series of essays should leave his reader convinced that a poster grows in power and influence upon the spectator just in accordance with the genuine craftsmanship displayed in it.