International studio (15.1901/1902(1902))

An Armenian Etcher

M. Chahine is Armenian, M. Steinlen is Swiss;
both, with equal honesty of purpose, discovered
Paris, and the shock produced within them by the
discovery gave a rare freshness to their impressions.
With Steinlen, this acute interest has been main-
tained, and I trust M. Chahine may also preserve
intact the same spontaneity of vision. There is
every reason to believe, I rejoice to say, that such
will be the case.

Recently I examined long and diligently prac-
tically the whole of his etchings; and collec-
tively they did not lose in my eyes any of the
merits which they appeared to me to possess
when I saw them separately as they appeared.
On the contrary, they rather gained by all being
seen together, the talent of this most original
artist impressing me more forcibly than ever.
Take those called Un Gueux, Dormeuses sur les
quais, Jeune Voyou, Tetes de Gueux, Place Clichy,
Au Chateau-Rouge, La Marchande des Quatre-
saisons, Le D'em'enageur, Chemineau, Campement
de Chiffonniers, Boulevard Ney, and Vieille mendiante
a Peglise—here are so many scenes taken sur le vif
in their sad or typical reality, scenes in which
the artist has thrown into relief in tones of rare
sincerity the profound humanity underlying them

one and all. A place apart must be reserved for
La Marchande des Quatre-saisons, Le Chemineau,
and Vieille mendiante d Peglise, for herein M.
Chahine’s characterisation is positively masterly.
With profound respect for the truth, he neither
exaggerates nor extenuates it; without fuss or
excess of any kind, and with the slightest possible
mise-en-scene—simply so much as is necessary to
create the milieu in which they move—he depicts
his characters just as they appear, just as they
really are. None of them has posed before him;
he has caught them “alive”—sur le vif. He
makes a rapid portrait, but is not content with
that alone; he has striven to sound the soul
within. Thus it is that his types, while quite
special, are at the same time quite general too.
His Marchande des Quatre-saisons, for instance,
suggests all the Marchandes des Quatre-saisons in
the world, yet you feel that she has a separate
individuality of her own, and is, indeed, just one
particular woman. So with the Chemineau, who
is the ideal tramp, the type of all tramps of
all times and all countries—those who trudge
along the white roads of “La douce France,” or
those one sees on the towing-paths of Russian
rivers.

portrait of Alfred Stevens (By permission of M. Ed. Sagot, Paris)

BY EDGAR CHAHINE

I92