What the Franco-Russian artist had done was to reveal the alluring
possibilities placed at the command of the shadow-pantomimist by the
ingenious employment of perspective; and there remained only one more
step to be taken for the final development of the art to its ultimate
capacity. This was the addition of color; and this step was taken by an
associate of Caran d'Ache in the exhibitions given at the Chat
Noir--Henri Riviere. Color could be added in two ways. In the first
place, the outlines of lanterns and of battle-flags could be cut out,
and slips of appropriately tinted paper could be inserted in the
openings so that the light might shine thru. This relieved the monotony
of the uniformity of the sable figures, and added a note of amusing
gaiety. But this was an innovation of very limited scope; and it could
have been earlier utilized in the flat figures of Lemercier de Neuville,
for example, if he had happened to think of it. Far wider in its
artistic possibilities was the second of Riviere's improvements. For the
ordinary lamp which cast a steady glow on the white screen whereon the
profile figures appeared, he substituted a magic lantern, the painted
slides of which enabled him to supply an appropriately colored
background. Then he went further and employed two magic lanterns,
superimposed; and these enabled him to get the effect of "dissolving
views" whereby he could vary his background at will. The immediate
result of this ingenious improvement was that the artist could bestow
upon his shadow-pantomime not a little of the richness of color which
delights our eyes in the stained glass of medieval cathedrals.
Riviere was not only an inventor, he was also an artist, richly gifted
with imagination; and his imagination suggested to him at once the three
or four themes best fitted for treatment by his novel apparatus. One of
these was the 'Wandering Jew'; another was the 'Prodigal Son'; and a
third was the 'Temptation of Saint Anthony'--all legends of combined
dramatic and pictorial appeal. Yet the most effective of all the
experiments in this new form was due not to Riviere himself but to the
collaboration of two of his disciples, M. Fragerolle and M. Vignola.
This was the 'Sphinx,' in which the artists most adroitly combined all
the advantages of the original flat profiles, and of the long files of
figures in perspective such as Caran d'Ache had employed, with varied
backgrounds due to the aid of the magic lantern first utilized by
Riviere. Of all human monuments no one has had so marvelous a series of
spectacles pass before its sightless eyes as the Sphinx, reclining
impassive at the edge of the desert, and at the foot of the pyramids.
Race after race has descended into the valley of the Nile, and lingered
for a little space, a few centuries more or less, and departed at last.
Conqueror after conqueror has come and gone again; and the Sphinx has
kept its inscrutable smile.
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris_
The Sphinx III: Roman warriors in Egypt
From a shadow picture by Amedee Vignola]
M. Fragerolle composed the music and the words of the stately chants
which accompanied the exhibition of the figures passing before the
backgrounds, due to the pencil and the palette of M. Vignola. By the aid
of the magic lantern the gigantic visage of the lion with a woman's head
towers aloft, permanent and immutable, while the joyous procession of
Egyptian dancers and soldiers and priests celebrates the completion of
the statue itself. Then we are witnesses of the fierce invasion of the
Assyrians, with the charge of their chariots and their horsemen; and we
behold the rout of the natives while their capital burns in the
distance. Next we gaze at the departure of the Jews, led by Moses and
laden with the spoils of the Egyptians. After the Hebrews have gone,
Sesostris appears, to be greeted by a glad outpouring of the populace.
Yet soon the Persians descend on Egypt, with their castellated elephants
and their immense hordes of fighting men. Still the Sphinx looks down,
immovable and implacable; and the Greeks in turn take the valley of the
Nile for their own. One of their daughters, Cleopatra, floats past in
her galley by night; and in the morning she extends her hospitality to
the Roman, Caesar or Antony. And while the Latins are the rulers of the
land of Egypt, the Virgin and her Son with the patient ass that bears a
precious burden, skirt the sandy waste, and go on their way to the Holy
Land, leaving the Sphinx behind them as they journey forward in the
green moonlight. After long centuries the Arabs break in with their
brilliant bands of horsemen, and a little later the Crusaders come to
give them battle. More long centuries elapse and suddenly Napoleon
emerges at the head of the troops of the French Republic. Then we have
the Egypt of to-day, with the British soldiers parading before the feet
of the Sphinx; and finally the recumbent statue appears to us once more
and for the last time, when the light of the sun is going out, and the
world is emptied of its population again, and the ice is settling down
on the Sphinx, alone amid freezing desolation. And this last vision is
projected by the magic lantern, without the aid of any profile figures,
since man has ceased to be.
Here we have a true epic poem, simple yet grandiose, and possible only
to the improved shadow-pantomime of France at the end of the nineteenth
century--even if this art is only a logical evolution from the
gallanty-show of Seraphin. "This humble black profile," said Jules
Lemaitre, "which had been thought fit at best of a few comic effects to
amuse little children only, has been diversified and colored; it has
been made beautiful, serious, tragic; by the multiplication of the
devices it has been rendered capable of giving us a powerful impression
of collective life, and the artists who have developed it have known how
to make it translate to our eyes the great spectacles of history and the
sweeping movement of multitudes."
(1912.)
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris_
The Sphinx IV: The British troops to-day
From a shadow picture by Amedee Vignola]