International studio (15.1901/1902(1902))

G. Dupuis

nasse. “ Why can’t I dress like you ? ” exclaimed
the dental apprentice. “It rests with yourself
alone,” replied the painter. “ Take me to see
your father, and I guarantee I’ll persuade him to
let you come to Paris.”

The Toreador cape and the velvet waistcoat,
together with the persuasive force which naturally
comes to the wearer of such a costume, overcame
all opposition, and six months later Dupuis
took the train for Paris, in charge of the young
man with the soft felt hat. He was then just
seventeen.

During his first year in Paris he attended the
classes at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, but the
consciousness of the futility of his work, added to
his growing love for the real life around him, soon
caused him to discontinue his studies here. Mean-
time he had to live. For a period of four years,
thanks to stray work for unknown publishers—
illustrations, book-covers, and vignettes — he
managed to make both ends meet; but he
frankly admits that the things he did were
commonplace enough. This joyless work soon
produced a feeling of deep discouragement.
Better to give up art and try business. Accordingly,
with the 2,000 francs he had contrived to save he
bought a stock of artists’ materials, which he sold
to his friends, thus enabling them to paint their
pictures, while he was waiting for the opportunity
to do his own. At Salon time he also had the
opportunity of assisting his customers to finish
their canvases, and this brought him in more
money than he could earn by working on his own
account. He passed his nights nailing canvases
on to their frames, grinding colours, and cutting
rolls of drawing paper; while on Sundays he
would go away into the country, out into the
open air to drink his fill of Nature and of light,
becoming an artist once again for a few hours each
week.

At last fortune smiled on him. His offer to
illustrate the “ Dimanches d’un Bourgeois de
Paris ” was accepted, and, as we have seen, he at
once claimed attention. Since then—that is to
say, during the past few months—M. Dupuis
has been in a position to work as he pleases,
and to be what for twenty years he had striven
to be — an artist, with the right to say what
he has to say in his own fashion. In the two
works which he is at present engaged in illustrating
—“Florise Bonheur,” by M. Adolphe Brisson,
and a new edition of M. Jules Claretie’s “Amours
d’un Interne ”—we shall be able to see the pro-
gress made by his supple and forceful talent.

The first-named of these two books afforded the
artist an opportunity to study more closely than he
had hitherto done, and with a definite object in
view, the popular and working-class centres of
Paris ; while the second brought him into contact
with the unhappy creatures who drag their soul-
less bodies through the gardens and rooms of Fa
Salpetriere. How fully he has succeeded in
realising the various dolorous types of imbecility
may be judged by the drawings now reproduced,
which form part of the series. The artist’s
technique is steadily broadening, and daily becom-
ing more and more free from all contemporary
suggestion. With delightful frankness M. Dupuis
admitted to me how greatly he had been inspired
by the work of Steinlen.

“ I hope,” he added, “ to rid myself entirely of
his influence. This does not mean that my
admiration of this great artist, to whom I owe so
much, will be in any way lessened; but I want,
by dint of patient, conscientious study and
careful observation, to be absolutely and entirely
myself.”

I then inquired who were the artists for whom
he had the greatest reverence.

“ Among the modern men, Daumier first of all,
for he is the master of us all, the master of all
those who endeavour to express the realities around
them, to depict the manners of to-day. Among
the ancients I most admire the ‘ primitives ’;
they have told everything in perfect form, and with
unequalled expression.”

Such are M. Dupuis’ opinions, but he did
not express them so categorically as I have
done, for he is sincerely modest, one may almost
say diffident. As for his contemporaries, he
knows very little about them. He avoids private
exhibitions and salons alike, not because he
despises them, but because, being still young, he
is afraid his enthusiasm might bring him under
some foreign influence. Thus there is no vanity
in this voluntary isolation, he is simply waiting
to be more certain of himself before mixing
freely in the modern art world. Far be it from
me to condemn this well-considered resolution.
Really powerful work is produced by the artist in
solitude.

M. Dupuis has but little to show as yet, but
all the work signed by his monogram—black
and white and coloured drawings, and painted
studies—bears the impress of a real personality,
of which a great deal should be heard in the
future.

Gabriel Mourey.

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