Lucien Simon
replete with force and expression. Most of
Flaubert’s landscapes, at once the most precise
and the most suggestive ever painted in the words
of the French tongue, are limited to a few lines;
all, nevertheless, are so typical that they remain
ineffaceably impressed in the memory. M. Lucien
Simon works in similar fashion. A few touches, put
in with the certainty and the discernment that only
the really great artist possesses, suffice to invest
his figures with the surroundings mo-t appropriate
to them ; they are at once in their milieu, and these
brush-strokes, these effects of “ values,” have the
conciseness and, at the same time, the magnificence
of the epithets which
flowed from the pen of the
most accomplished and
the most faultless of our
writers.
Such is the impression
made on me by the work
already considerable—of
this forceful artist. Since
1893 that is to say, since
his first appearance at the
Salon of the Societe Na-
tionale des Beaux-Arts—I
have followed him step by
step, watching his efforts,
curious as to his studies,
and fascinated by his sin-
cerity and his robustness.
It took me a certain time
to understand him, and a
still, further period to love
and admire him. Since
then I have seen again
the canvases he had pro-
duced before the period
just referred to, when he
was a member of the Societe
des Artistes Frangais—the
fine Portrait de Aline.
Aubry-Lecomte, wherein the
masterly iconograph of the
portraits in the Salon of
1901 was already visible,
and his earliest Breton
pictures — and I have
been able to realise the
development of his person-
ality. It has been quite
normal, quite symmetri-
cal. La Messe a Perguet
and I.e Lutrin contain the
germ of all those qualities, both of compositio11
and of execution, which give so much value 1°
works like the Cirque Forain, the Retour de ‘a
Afesse a Penmarch,* the Lattes dans le Fillisters
and, lastly, to that astonishing Procession,
which M. Lucien Simon made his entry last year
(last year only, after so many mediocrities had
figured there for years!) into the Luxembourg
Gallery.
And, their other qualities apart, M. Lucie11
Simon’s pictures are quite remarkable on. accouF
See “ Art in 1898,” page 18.
‘FEMME AVEC DEUX ENFANTS MALADES’1
FROM A WATER'
BY LUCIEN SIMON
-COL°
tin
164
replete with force and expression. Most of
Flaubert’s landscapes, at once the most precise
and the most suggestive ever painted in the words
of the French tongue, are limited to a few lines;
all, nevertheless, are so typical that they remain
ineffaceably impressed in the memory. M. Lucien
Simon works in similar fashion. A few touches, put
in with the certainty and the discernment that only
the really great artist possesses, suffice to invest
his figures with the surroundings mo-t appropriate
to them ; they are at once in their milieu, and these
brush-strokes, these effects of “ values,” have the
conciseness and, at the same time, the magnificence
of the epithets which
flowed from the pen of the
most accomplished and
the most faultless of our
writers.
Such is the impression
made on me by the work
already considerable—of
this forceful artist. Since
1893 that is to say, since
his first appearance at the
Salon of the Societe Na-
tionale des Beaux-Arts—I
have followed him step by
step, watching his efforts,
curious as to his studies,
and fascinated by his sin-
cerity and his robustness.
It took me a certain time
to understand him, and a
still, further period to love
and admire him. Since
then I have seen again
the canvases he had pro-
duced before the period
just referred to, when he
was a member of the Societe
des Artistes Frangais—the
fine Portrait de Aline.
Aubry-Lecomte, wherein the
masterly iconograph of the
portraits in the Salon of
1901 was already visible,
and his earliest Breton
pictures — and I have
been able to realise the
development of his person-
ality. It has been quite
normal, quite symmetri-
cal. La Messe a Perguet
and I.e Lutrin contain the
germ of all those qualities, both of compositio11
and of execution, which give so much value 1°
works like the Cirque Forain, the Retour de ‘a
Afesse a Penmarch,* the Lattes dans le Fillisters
and, lastly, to that astonishing Procession,
which M. Lucien Simon made his entry last year
(last year only, after so many mediocrities had
figured there for years!) into the Luxembourg
Gallery.
And, their other qualities apart, M. Lucie11
Simon’s pictures are quite remarkable on. accouF
See “ Art in 1898,” page 18.
‘FEMME AVEC DEUX ENFANTS MALADES’1
FROM A WATER'
BY LUCIEN SIMON
-COL°
tin
164