DOI Heft:
No. 109 (April, 1902)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: The art of M. Lucien Simon
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19875#0170
Lucien Simon
THE ART OE M. LUCIEN SIMON. It follows that his work is marked by complete
BY GABRIEL MOUREY. unity and a clear and logical spirit. In composing
his pictures his first thought has been to simplify
Among our modern French artists and to balance; exceptional spectacles do not
there are, to my thinking, few who display more concern him at all. His main object has always
conspicuously than M. Lucien Simon certain of been to produce a strong and deep impression of
those qualities which may be regarded as the nature and of life, with exactness and precision,
most precious a modern painter can possess : As for the artist—his joys and sorrows, his mode
clearness, striking independence of vision, spon- of life, his moral self—you will look in vain for any
taneity and truly prodigious freedom of execution trace of such things in these canvases. He keeps
—in a word, the gifts of plastic perception and himself absolutely apart;—one might almost say
expression in all their fulness. Not one of his absent—from them; the more deeply to move us
canvases but reveals an absolute unity between the he hides his emotions. Unlike so many others
eye of the artist and the hand of the executant, the who, by design or by accident, or because they
closest cohesion between the feeling of the man cannot do otherwise, make a parade ot their
and the technique of the painter. sensibility, he studiously conceals his inner self.
M. Lucien Simon is a masterly realiser. Pre- For this reason his art appears to me as impersonal
cise and sober, energetic and sane, he knows as that of Gustave Flaubert.
exactly what he desires, and whither he is going ; His portraits, his studies of bourgeois life, his
one imagines him armed with a firm will, ever Bohemian scenes, are all absolutely authentic
conscious and conscien-
tious, ever master of him-
self. He is one of the
strong : strong in his por-
traits, as in his scenes de
maurs, strong in his types
and his characters, in every-
thing passionately devoted
to truth, simple and direct.
He is endowed with the
courage that enables him
to look Nature in the face,
and to confront life as it is,
immediate contact with
reality having no terrors
for him. He knows no-
thing of the languors from
which so many artists suffer
nowadays; he is proof
against the seductions of
those complexities which
work such ravage among
his fellows, and he has pre-
served himself from all
contagion of the sort by
patiently studying his own
faculties, while keeping
strictly aloof from external
influences. The glamour of
easy success has failed to
lure him from the path his
heart and brain had chosen;
and for this he must be ad-
mired and congratulated. "vieille" from a water-colour by lucien simon
XXV. No. iog.—April, 1902. 157
THE ART OE M. LUCIEN SIMON. It follows that his work is marked by complete
BY GABRIEL MOUREY. unity and a clear and logical spirit. In composing
his pictures his first thought has been to simplify
Among our modern French artists and to balance; exceptional spectacles do not
there are, to my thinking, few who display more concern him at all. His main object has always
conspicuously than M. Lucien Simon certain of been to produce a strong and deep impression of
those qualities which may be regarded as the nature and of life, with exactness and precision,
most precious a modern painter can possess : As for the artist—his joys and sorrows, his mode
clearness, striking independence of vision, spon- of life, his moral self—you will look in vain for any
taneity and truly prodigious freedom of execution trace of such things in these canvases. He keeps
—in a word, the gifts of plastic perception and himself absolutely apart;—one might almost say
expression in all their fulness. Not one of his absent—from them; the more deeply to move us
canvases but reveals an absolute unity between the he hides his emotions. Unlike so many others
eye of the artist and the hand of the executant, the who, by design or by accident, or because they
closest cohesion between the feeling of the man cannot do otherwise, make a parade ot their
and the technique of the painter. sensibility, he studiously conceals his inner self.
M. Lucien Simon is a masterly realiser. Pre- For this reason his art appears to me as impersonal
cise and sober, energetic and sane, he knows as that of Gustave Flaubert.
exactly what he desires, and whither he is going ; His portraits, his studies of bourgeois life, his
one imagines him armed with a firm will, ever Bohemian scenes, are all absolutely authentic
conscious and conscien-
tious, ever master of him-
self. He is one of the
strong : strong in his por-
traits, as in his scenes de
maurs, strong in his types
and his characters, in every-
thing passionately devoted
to truth, simple and direct.
He is endowed with the
courage that enables him
to look Nature in the face,
and to confront life as it is,
immediate contact with
reality having no terrors
for him. He knows no-
thing of the languors from
which so many artists suffer
nowadays; he is proof
against the seductions of
those complexities which
work such ravage among
his fellows, and he has pre-
served himself from all
contagion of the sort by
patiently studying his own
faculties, while keeping
strictly aloof from external
influences. The glamour of
easy success has failed to
lure him from the path his
heart and brain had chosen;
and for this he must be ad-
mired and congratulated. "vieille" from a water-colour by lucien simon
XXV. No. iog.—April, 1902. 157