painters and have greatly raised the art of illustration. This title
illustrator, despised by the official painters, should be given them as
the one which has secured them the best claim to fame. They have
restored to this title all its merit and all its brilliancy and have
introduced into illustration the most serious qualities of painting. Of
these four men the first in date is M.J.F. Raffaëlli, who introduced
himself about 1875 with some remarkable and intensely picturesque
illustrations in colours in various magazines. He gave an admirable
series of _Parisian Types_, in album form, and a series of etchings to
accompany the text of M. Huysmans, describing the curious river "la
Bièvre" which penetrates Paris in a thousand curves, sometimes
subterranean, sometimes above ground, and serves the tanners for washing
the leather. This series is a model of modern illustration. But, apart
from the book, the entire pictorial work of M. Raffaëlli is a humorous
and psychological illustration of the present time. He has painted with
unique truth and spirit the working men's types and the small
_bourgeois_, the poor, the hospital patients and the roamers of the
outskirts of Paris. He has succeeded in being the poet of the sickly and
dirty landscapes by which the capitals are surrounded; he has rendered
their anaemic charm, the confused perspectives of houses, fences, walls
and little gardens, and their smoke, under the melancholy of rainy
skies. With an irony free from bitterness he has noted the clumsy
gestures of the labourer in his Sunday garb and the grotesque
silhouettes of the small townsmen, and has compiled a gallery of very
real sociologic interest. M. Raffaëlli has also exhibited Parisian
landscapes in which appear great qualities of light. He excels in
rendering the mornings in the spring, with their pearly skies, their
pale lights, their transparency and their slight shadows, and finally he
has proved his mastery by some large portraits, fresh harmonies,
generally devoted to the study of different qualities of white. If the
name "Impressionist" meant, as has been wrongly believed, an artist who
confines himself to giving the impression of what he sees, then M.
Raffaëlli would be the real Impressionist. He suggests more than he
paints. He employs a curious technique: he often leaves a sky completely
bare, throwing on to the white of the canvas a few colour notes which
suffice to give the illusion. He has a decided preference for white and
black, and paints very slightly in small touches. His very correct
feeling for values makes him an excellent painter; but what interests
him beyond all, is psychologic expression. He notes it with so hasty a
pencil, that one might almost say that he writes with colour. He is also
an etcher of great merit, and an original sculptor. He has invented
small bas-reliefs in bronze which can be attached to the wall, like
sketches or nick-nacks; and he has applied his talent even to renewing
the material for painting. He is an ingenious artist and a prolific
producer, a roguish, but sympathetic, observer of the life of the small
people, which has not prevented him from painting very seriously when he
wanted to, as is witnessed among other works by his very fine portrait
of M. Clemenceau speaking at a public meeting, in the presence of a
vociferous audience from which rise some hundred of heads whose
expressions are noted with really splendid energy and fervour.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who died recently, insane, leaves a great
work behind him. He had a kind of cruel genius. Descended from one of
the greatest families of France, badly treated by nature who made him a
kind of ailing dwarf, he seemed to take a bitter pleasure in the study
of modern vice. He painted scenes at café-concerts and the rooms of
wantons with intense truth. Nobody has revealed better than he the
lowness and suffering of the creatures "of pleasure," as they have been
dubbed by the heartrending irony of life. Lautrec has shown the
artificiality of the painted faces; the vulgarity of the types of the
prostitutes of low origin; the infamous gestures, the disorder, the
slovenliness of the dwellings of these women; all the shady side of
their existence. It has been said that he loved ugliness. As a matter of
fact, he did not exaggerate, he raised a powerful accusation against
everything he saw. But his terrible clairvoyance passed for caricature.
This sad psychologist was a great painter; he pleased himself with
dressing in rose-coloured costumes the coarsest and most vulgar
creatures he painted, such as one can find at the cabarets and concerts,
and he enjoyed the contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice
and poverty; Lautrec's two great influences have been the Japanese and
Degas. Of the former he retained the love for decorative arabesques and
the unconventional grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmanship,
expressive in its broad simplification, and one might say that the pupil
has often been worthy of the masters. One can only regret that Lautrec
should have confined his vision and his high faculties to the study of a
small and very Parisian world; but, seeing his works, one cannot deny
the science, the spirit and the grand bearing of his art. He has also
signed some fine posters, notably a _Bruant_ which is a masterpiece of
its kind.
Degas's deep influence can be found again in J.L. Forain, who has made
himself known by an immense series of drawings for the illustrated
papers, drawings as remarkable in themselves as they are, through their
legends, bitterly sarcastic in spirit. These drawings form a synthesis
of the defects of the _bourgeoisie_, which is at the same time amusing
and grave. They also concern, though less happily, the political world,
in which the artist, a little intoxicated with his success, has thought
himself able to exercise an influence by scoffing at the parliamentary
régime. Forain's drawing has a nervous character which does, however,
not weaken its science: every stroke reveals something and has an
astonishing power. In his less known painting can be traced still more
clearly the style and influence of his master Degas. They are generally
incidents behind the scenes and at night restaurants, where caricatured
types are painted with great force. But they are insistently
exaggerated, they have not the restraint, the ironical and discreet
plausibility, which give so much flavour, so much value to Degas's
studies. Nevertheless, Forain's pictures are very significant and are of
real interest. He is decidedly the most interesting newspaper
illustrator of his whole generation, the one whose ephemeral art most
closely approaches grand painting, and one of those who have most
contributed towards the transformation of illustration for the
contemporary press.
Jules Chéret has made for himself an important and splendid position in
contemporary art. He commenced as a lithographic workman and lived for a
long time in London. About 1870 Chéret designed his first posters in
black, white and red; these were at the time the only colours used. By
and by he perfected this art and found the means of adding other tones
and of drawing them on the lithographic stone. He returned to France,
started a small studio, and gradually carried poster art to the
admirable point at which it has arrived. At the same time Chéret drew
and painted and composed himself his models. About 1885 his name became
famous, and it has not ceased growing since. Some writers, notably the
eminent critic Roger Marx and the novelist Huysmans, hailed in Chéret an
original artist as well as a learned technician. He then exhibited
decorative pictures, pastels and drawings, which placed him in the first
rank. Chéret is universally known. The type of the Parisian woman
created by him, and the multi-coloured harmony of his works will not be
forgotten. His will be the honour of having invented the artistic
poster, this feast for the eyes, this fascinating art of the street,
which formerly languished in a tedious and dull display of commercial
advertisements. He has been the promoter of an immense movement; he has
been imitated, copied, parodied, but he will always remain inimitable.
He has succeeded in realising on paper by means of lithography, the
pastels and gouache drawings in which his admirable colourist's fancy
mixed the most difficult shades. In Chéret can be found all the
principles of Impressionism: opposing lights, coloured shadows,
complementary reflections, all employed with masterly sureness and
delightful charm. It is decorative Impressionism, conceived in a
superior way; and this simple poster-man, despised by the painters, has
proved himself equal to most. He has transformed the street, in the open
light, into a veritable Salon, where his works have become famous. When
this too modest artist decided to show his pictures and drawings, they
were a revelation. The most remarkable pastellists of the period were
astonished and admired his skill, his profound knowledge of technique,
his continual _tours-de-force_ which he disguised under a shimmering
gracefulness. The State had the good sense to entrust him with some
large mural decorations, in which he unfolded the scale of his sparkling
colours, and affirmed his spirit, his fancy and his dreamy art. Chéret's
harmonies remain secrets; he uses them for the representation of
characters from the Italian comedy, thrown with fiendish _verve_ upon a
background of a sky, fiery with the Bengal lights of a fairy-like
carnival, and he strangely intermingles the reality of the movements
with the most arbitrary fancy. Chéret has also succeeded in proving his
artistic descent by a beautiful series of drawings in sanguine: he
descends from Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard; he is a Frenchman of pure
blood; and when one has done admiring the grace and the happy animation
of his imagination, one can only be surprised to see on what serious and
sure a technique are based these decorations which appear improvised.
Chéret's art is the smile of Impressionism and the best demonstration
of the decorative logic of this art.
These are the four artists of great merit who have created the
transition between Impressionist painting and illustration. It would be
fit to put aside Toulouse-Lautrec, who was much younger, but his work is
too directly connected with that of Degas for one to take into account
the difference of age. He produced between 1887 and 1900 works which
might well have been ante-dated by fifteen years. We shall study in the
next chapter his Neo-Impressionist comrades, and we shall now speak of
some illustrators more advanced in years than he. The oldest in date is
the engraver Henri Guérard, who died three years ago. He had married Eva
Gonzalès and was a friend of Manet's, many of whose works have been
engraved by him. He was an artist of decided and original talent, who
also occupied himself successfully with pyrogravure, and who was happily
inspired by the Japanese colour-prints. His etchings deserve a place of
honour in the folios of expert collectors; they are strong and broad. As
to the engraver Félix Buhot, he was a rather delicate colourist in
black and white; his Paris scenes will always be considered charming
works. In spite of his Spanish origin, the painter, _aquarelliste_, and
draughtsman Daniel Vierge, should be added to the list of the men
connected with Impressionism. His illustrations are those of a great
artist--admirable in colour, movement and observation; all the great
principles of Impressionism are embodied in them. But there are four
more illustrators of the first rank: Steinlen, Louis Legrand, Paul
Renouard and Auguste Lepère.
Steinlen has been enormously productive: he is specially remarkable for
his illustrations. Those which he has designed for Aristide Bruant's
volume of songs, _Dans la rue_, are masterpieces of their kind. They
contain treasures of bitter observation, quaintness and knowledge. The
soul of the lower classes is shown in them with intense truth, bitter
revolt and comprehensive philosophy. Steinlen has also designed some
beautiful posters, pleasing pastels, lithographs of incontestable
technical merit, and beautifully eloquent political drawings. It cannot
be said that he is an Impressionist in the strict sense of the word; he
applied his colour in flat tints, more like an engraver than a painter;
but in him too can be felt the stamp of Degas, and he is one of those
who best demonstrate that, without Impressionism, they could not have
been what they are.
The same may be said of Louis Legrand, a pupil of Félicien Rops, an
admirably skilful etcher, a draughtsman of keen vision, and a painter of
curious character, who has in many ways forestalled the artists of
to-day. Louis Legrand also shows to what extent the example of Manet and
Degas has revolutionised the art of illustration, in freeing the
painters from obsolete laws, and guiding them towards truth and frank
psychological study. Legrand is full of them, without resembling them.
We must not forget that, besides the technical innovation (division of
tones, study of complementary colours), Impressionism has brought us
novelty of composition, realism of character and great liberty in the
choice of subjects. From this point of view Rops himself, in spite of
his symbolist tendencies, could not be classed with any other group, if
it were not that any kind of classification in art is useless and
inaccurate. However that may be, Louis Legrand has signed some volumes
resplendent with the most seductive qualities.
Paul Renouard has devoted himself to newspaper illustration, but with
what surprising prodigality of spirit and knowledge! The readers of the
"Graphic" will know. This masterly virtuoso of the pencil might give
drawing-lessons to many members of the Institute! The feeling for the
life of crowds, psychology of types, spirited and rapid notation,
astonishing ease in overcoming difficulties--these are his undeniable
gifts. And again we must recognise in Renouard the example of Degas and
Manet. His exceptional fecundity only helps to give more authority to
his pencil. Renouard's drawings at the Exhibition of 1900 were, perhaps,
more beautiful than the rest of his work. There was notably a series of
studies made from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, an
accumulation of wonders of perspectives framing scenes of such animation
and caprice as to take away one's breath.
Finally, Auguste Lepère appears as the Debucourt of our time. As
painter, pastellist and wood-engraver he has produced since 1870, and
has won for himself the first place among French engravers. It would be
difficult to recount the volumes, albums and covers on which the fancy
of his burin has played; but it is particularly in wood-engraving that
he stands without rival. Not only has he produced masterpieces of it,
but he has passionately devoted himself to raising this admirable art,
the glory of the beautiful books of olden days, and to give back to it
the lustre which had been eclipsed by mechanical processes. Lepère has
started some publications for this purpose; he has had pupils of great
merit, and he must be considered the master of the whole generation of
modern wood-engravers, just as Chéret is the undisputed master of the
poster. Lepère's ruling quality is strength. He seems to have
rediscovered the mediaeval limners' secrets of cutting the wood, giving
the necessary richness to the ink, creating a whole scale of half-tones,
and specially of adapting the design to typographic printing, and making
of it, so to say, an ornament and a decorative extension for the type.
Lepère is a wood-engraver with whom none of his contemporaries can be
compared; as regards his imagination, it is that of an altogether
curious artist. He excels in composing and expressing the life, the
animation, the soul of the streets and the picturesque side of the
populace. Herein he is much inspired by Manet and, if we go back to the
real tradition, by Guys, Debucourt, the younger Moreau and by Gabriel de
Saint-Aubin. He is decidedly a Realist of French lineage, who owes
nothing to the Academy and its formulas.
It would be evidently unreasonable to attach to Impressionism all that
is ante-academical, and between the two extremes there is room for a
crowd of interesting artists. We shall not succumb to the prejudice of
the School by declaring, in our turn, that there is no salvation outside
Impressionism, and we have been careful to state repeatedly that, if
Impressionism has a certain number of principles as kernel, its
applications and its influence have a radiation which it is difficult to
limit. What can be absolutely demonstrated is, that this movement has
had the greatest influence on modern illustration, sometimes through its
colouring, sometimes simply through the great freedom of its ideas. Some
have found in it a direct lesson, others an example to be followed.
Some have met in it technical methods which pleased them, others have
only taken some suggestions from it. That is the case, for instance,
with Legrand, with Steinlen, and with Renouard; and it is also the case
with the lithographer Odilon Redon, who applies the values of Manet and,
in his strange pastels, the harmonies of Degas and Renoir, placing them
at the service of dreams and hallucinations and of a symbolism which is
absolutely removed from the realism of these painters. It is, finally,
the case with the water-colour painter Henri Rivière, who is misjudged
as to his merit, and who is one of the most perfect of those who have
applied Impressionist ideas to decorative engraving. He has realised
images in colours destined to decorate inexpensively the rooms of the
people and recalling the grand aspects of landscapes with a broad
simplification which is derived, curiously enough, from Puvis de
Chavannes's large decorative landscapes and from the small and precise
colour prints of Japan. Rivière, who is a skilful and personal poetic
landscapist, is not exactly an Impressionist, in so far as he does not
divide the tones, but rather blends them in subtle mixtures in the
manner of the Japanese. Yet, seeing his work, one cannot help thinking
of all the surprise and freedom introduced into modern art by
Impressionism.
Everybody, even the ignorant, can perceive, on looking through an
illustrated paper or a modern volume, that thirty years ago this manner
of placing the figures, of noting familiar gestures, and of seizing
fugitive life with spirit and clearness was unknown. This mass of
engravings and of sketches resembles in no way what had been seen
formerly. They no longer have the solemn air of classic composition, by
which the drawings had been affected. A current of bold spontaneity has
passed through here. In modern English illustration, it can be stated
indisputably that nothing would be such as it can now be seen, if
Morris, Rossetti and Crane had not imposed their vision, and yet many
talented Englishmen resemble these initiators only very remotely. It is
exactly in this sense that we shall have credited Impressionism with the
talents who have drawn their inspiration less from its principles, than
from its vigorous protest against mechanical formulas, and who have
been able to find the energy, necessary for their success, in the
example it set by fighting during twenty years against the ideas of
routine which seemed indestructible. Even with the painters who are far
removed from the vision and the colouring of Manet and Degas, of Monet
and Renoir, one can find a very precise tendency: that of returning to
the subjects and the style of the real national tradition; and herein
lies one of the most serious benefits bestowed by Impressionism upon an
art which had stopped at the notion of a canonical beauty, until it had
almost become sterile in its timidity.
IX
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM--GAUGUIN, DENIS, THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE--THE THEORY OF
POINTILLISM--SEURAT, SIGNAC AND THE THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC
CHROMATISM--FAULTS AND QUALITIES OF THE IMPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT, WHAT WE
OWE TO IT, ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL--SOME WORDS ON
ITS INFLUENCE ABROAD
The beginnings of the movement designated under the name of
Neo-Impressionism can be traced back to about 1880. The movement is a
direct offshoot of the first Impressionism, originated by a group of
young painters who admired it and thought of pushing further still its
chromatic principles. The flourishing of Impressionism coincided, as a
matter of fact, with certain scientific labours concerning optics.
Helmholtz had just published his works on the perception of colours and
sounds by means of waves. Chevreul had continued on this path by
establishing his beautiful theories on the analysis of the solar
spectrum. M. Charles Henry, an original and remarkable spirit, occupied
himself in his turn with these delicate problems by applying them
directly to aesthetics, which Helmholtz and Chevreul had not thought of
doing. M. Charles Henry had the idea of creating relations between this
branch of science and the laws of painting. As a friend of several young
painters he had a real influence over them, showing them that the new
vision due to the instinct of Monet and of Manet might perhaps be
scientifically verified, and might establish fixed principles in a
sphere where hitherto the laws of colouring had been the effects of
individual conception. At that moment the criticism which resulted from
Taine's theories tried to effect a _rapprochement_ of the artistic and
scientific domains in criticism and in the psychologic novel. The
painters, too, gave way to this longing for precision which seems to
have been the great preoccupation of intellects from 1880 to about 1889.
Their researches had a special bearing on the theory of complementary
colours and on the means of establishing some laws concerning the
reaction of tones in such manner as to draw up a kind of tabula. Georges
Seurat and Paul Signac were the promoters of this research. Seurat died
very young, and one cannot but regret this death of an artist who would
have been very interesting and capable of beautiful works. Those which
he has left us bear witness to a spirit very receptive to theories, and
leaving nothing to chance. The silhouettes are reduced to almost
rigorously geometrical principles, the tones are decomposed
systematically. These canvases are more reasoned examples than works of
intuition and spontaneous vision. They show Seurat's curious desire to
give a scientific and classic basis to Impressionism. The same idea
rules in all the work of Paul Signac, who has painted some portraits and
numerous landscapes. To these two painters is due the method of
_Pointillism_, _i.e._ the division of tones, not only by touches, as in
Monet's pictures, but by very small touches of equal size, causing the
spheric shape to act equally upon the retina. The accumulation of these
luminous points is carried out over the entire surface of the canvas
without thick daubs of paint, and with regularity, whilst with Manet the
paint is more or less dense. The theory of complementary colours is
systematically applied. On a sketch, made from nature, the painter notes
the principal relations of tones, then systematises them on his picture
and connects them by different shades which should be their logical
result. Neo-Impressionism believes in obtaining thus a greater exactness
than that which results from the individual temperament of the painter
who simply relies on his own perception. And it is true, in theory, that
such a conception is more exact. But it reduces the picture to a kind of
theorem, which excludes all that constitutes the value and charm of an
art, that is to say: caprice, fancy, and the spontaneity of personal
inspiration. The works of Seurat, Signac, and of the few men who have
strictly followed the rules of Pointillism are lacking in life, in
surprise, and make a somewhat tiring impression upon one's eyes. The
uniformity of the points does not succeed in giving an impression of
cohesion, and even less a suggestion of different textures, even if the
values are correct. Manet seems to have attained perfection in using the
method which consists in directing the touches in accordance with each
of the planes, and this is evidently the most natural method. Scientific
Chromatism constitutes an _ensemble_ of propositions, of which art will
be able to make use, though indirectly, as information useful for a
better understanding of the laws of light in presence of nature. What
Pointillism has been able to give us, is a method which would be very
appreciable for decorative paintings seen from a great distance--friezes
or ceilings in spacious buildings. It would in this case return to the
principle of mosaic, which is the principle _par excellence_ of mural
art.
The Pointillists have to-day almost abandoned this transitional theory
which, in spite of the undeniable talent of its adepts, has only
produced indifferent results as regards easel pictures. Besides Seurat
and Signac, mention should be made of Maurice Denis, Henri-Edmond Cross,
Angrand, and Théo Van Rysselberghe. But this last-named and Maurice
Denis have arrived at great talent by very different merits. M. Maurice
Denis has abandoned Pointillism a few years ago, in favour of returning
to a very strange conception which dates back to the Primitives, and
even to Giotto. He simplifies his drawing archaically, suppresses all
but the indispensable detail, and draws inspiration from Gothic stained
glass and carvings, in order to create decorative figures with clearly
marked outlines which are filled with broad, flat tints. He generally
treats mystic subjects, for which this special manner is suitable. One
cannot love the _parti pris_ of these works, but one cannot deny M.
Denis a great charm of naivete, an intense feeling for decorative
arrangements and colouring of a certain originality. He is almost a
French pre-Raphaelite, and his profound catholic faith inspires him
nobly.
[Illustration: THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE
PORTRAITS OF MADAME VAN RYSSELBERGHE AND HER DAUGHTER]