International studio (21.1903/1904(1904))

WALL I'AVER

HY FRANTZ JOURDAIN

gisch for painting; of MM. Gustave Michel, Fix-
Masseau, Camille Lefevre, Gasq, and Laporte-
Blairsy for sculpture; of MM. Lepere and Robbe
for engraving; and of MM. Plumet and Truchet
for architecture. Also there are a few critics—
MM. Rambosson, Sarradin, Huysmans, and Henri
Frantz. The foreign artists' delegate is M. Gro-
peano, 33 Rue Bayen, Paris.
Among the younger generation displaying de-
corative art at the National Society of Fine Arts,
several artists there are devoting themselves, with
a good deal of determination and a
praiseworthy logic, to the rejuvenation
and the embellishment of the house. In
this branch of art we have too often seen
artists of high ability—men like Dampt,
or Lalique, or De Feure, or Theodore
Riviere, or Delaherche—create objects of
art so costly as to be accessible only to
the rare But people of modest
means have likewise a right to that which
is beautiful, and it is the artist's duty to
strive to procure for them beauty com-
bined with Utility. It must be admitted
that there have been many meritorious
attempts in this direction during the last
few years For example, Felix Aubert
has created for the hotels of the Touring
Club de France an inexpensive apart-
ment to supersede the horrible rooms
to which one has hitherto been ac-
customed. Then again, under the ini-
tiative of Jean Lehor, the poet, there
is being founded a Society of Populär
Art, of which great things may be hoped.

In the last Salon M. Benouville exhibited a simple
and sensible set of furniture for a workman's
dwelling. In the same section, too, one saw the
wall-papers displayed by M. Frantz Jourdain and
M. Edouard Cousin. Two characteristic examples
are reproduced here.

It is by no means out of place to insist on the
talent of the artists I have just named. M. Jour-
dain has produced some lovely and life-like engrav-
ings in colour. The wall-papers are his first
attempts in this branch of art, and he certainly


A STUDY BY MME. R. DAVIDS
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