The Architect of Velocity: The Life and Legacy of Ernest Montaut In the twilight of the nineteenth century, as the rhythmic clatter of horse-drawn carriages began to yield to the mechanical roar of the internal combustion engine, a new visual language was required to capture the pulse of a changing world. Ernest Montaut (1878–1909) emerged as the definitive chronicler of this transition. A French poster artist whose career was tragically brief, Montaut did not merely document the dawn of the automobile age; he invented the very visual vocabulary used to express its exhilarating momentum. His…