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The poster "Tropon est aliment le plus concentr�" (Tropon, the most concentrated food supplement) was designed by Henry Van de Velde and made for Tropon Werke Company.
The company manufactured a product to improve public health, which was a protein developed from egg white. In 1898, Tropon's general manager appointed Henry van de Velde as the firm's director of advertising and graphic design. In this poster, Van de Velde depicts egg whites separating from the yolks and flowing around the words "est L'Aliment le plus concentr�" in a highly original abstract composition. The sinuous treatment of the line and the manner in which the colours, forms, and lettering are integrated and arranged expresses the Art Nouveau graphic style at its height. Van de Velde's graphics and packaging for Tropon received the respect and admiration of the entire graphic design community - the poster appeared in four publications that year.
An example of his aesthetic theory, from an unpublished manuscript called the Manuscript on Ornament (1916-18), sheds light on his composition for Tropon. Taking his cue from the recently publicized Paleolithic linear cave drawings in Altamira, Spain, Van de Velde argued that line, rather than geometry, was the basic component of all art because it was an instinctive manner of visual description and the creative carrier of human energy. He referred to the line as the "creative force."
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