Swiss National Exhibition Bern

«This is the highlight of the exhibition, this horse in the skin of a rainbow trout, with rhinoceros legs and elephant feet! It can be anything you want, except a real, honest horse.» Contemporary comments on the poster designed by Emil Cardinaux for the Swiss National Exhibition in Bern were dripping with ridicule, malice, and dismay. You might find that narrow-minded. Or perfectly understandable, because on the eve of World War I, the «Landi» was intended to strengthen the sense of identity and belonging. Green horses were not necessarily something the Swiss wanted to identify with. It was also considered scandalous that Cardinaux was awarded 2000 Swiss francs (around 22’000 francs today) for his first-prize-winning design.

The daring design was chosen was chosen by a progressive competition jury, which included Ferdinand Hodler, among others. The indignant comments must have seemed all too familiar to him, as barely a decade earlier he had been considered by many experts to be a dirty fellow and a traitor to his country.

So Cardinaux’s attempt to promote progressive tendencies through a Landi poster failed completely (he was careful not to repeat such experiments), so Plinio Colombis’ much more conventional depiction of the cloud-covered Jungfrau, which won second prize, was also printed, mainly for use abroad. This calmed things down somewhat.

On the other hand, it showed that a poster could become a topic of national discussion, confirming the view at the time that posters were the «art of the street» and a «means of public education». This in turn strengthened the importance of posters in Switzerland and supported their development into a position of international prominence.