Standing at a stupendous round table, twenty or so
corpulent, white-bearded men in black tuxedos
raise a toast to their shared and well-deserved
entitlements in this Arko Liqueurs advertisement
from pre-WWI Vienna, the poster a frothy
caricature that cuts, the illustrator puncturing
the gathering’s bourgeois self-esteem while
slyly pedaling their privileges for a product;
the jolly men and keen satirist—if in opposite
ways—each sure they know—back on the eve
of the war to end all wars—
the way of the world.
