DOI issue:
No. 136 (June, 1908)
DOI article:Frantz, Henri: The paintings of Gaston la Touche
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0288
Gaston La Touche
is equipped. To him Nature has been what
Delacroix desired it should be—a sort of dic-
tionary, to be “ turned up ” and studied again and
again, the result being that he has it by heart,
just as the musician has his harmony and his
counterpoint. Whether it be at Saint-Cloud, in his
famous atelier, or at Flers-de-l’Orne, in the heart of
Normandy, where the artist spends his summers
amidst all that is loveliest in Nature, the production
continues steadily day after day. In truth, La
Touche’s output is so rich, so abundant, that
prodigious energy and full tension at every
moment are required to bring it to perfection.
Every action of his life, indeed, has resolved itself
into labour. Even society or the theatre, which
for other artists furnishes a distraction more or less
vain, simply serves to provide him with a fresh field
of observation — that vast field
being continually renewed. In-
deed, it is in this very footlight
or salon atmosphere that La
Touche has found some of his
best colour effects.
Beyond all else La Touche is a
colourist, a great colourist. Very
personal, quite independent as to
his technique, the artist is not
closely allied to any “ master,”
yet one can find affinities between
him and some of his contem-
poraries— Jules Cheret, for in-
stance. With the one as with
the other we come across similar
flashes of light; but La Touche
remains attached to life and to
reality, while Cheret is ever soar-
ing into the realms of the fanciful
and the ideal. Then M. Mau-
clair considers—very justly—that
there is in La Touche, as it were,
a continuance of the spirit of
Monticelli, especially when one
remembers not those works in
which the facture is somewhat
obscured—as is the case with so
many of the productions of the
great artist of Marseilles—but
rather those brighter, clearer pages
which, with their festal decor,
bring before our eyes the brilliant
forms of the women of the Second
Empire. But as a matter of
fact, according to his manner—
I have no intention of instituting
268
comparisons — La Touche is carrying on the
tradition of the French artists of the 18th cen-
tury : the same care in choosing a rich, gay
setting, the same feeling for grace, and, in
many of his works, the same sense of the
decorative. I am thinking particularly at this
moment of a panel entitled Le Faune, wherein
one beholds near a statue, under trees, a group
of young women listening to a faun; and this
panel immediately brings back the memory of
Fragonard of Grasse. There is the same boldness
of drawing, the same successful arrangement in the
distribution of the groups, the same intoxicating
colour. Moreover, it seems to me as though
La Touche takes pleasure in emphasising this
kinship, as he does when he devotes himself to
certain decorative motifs which were in much
66 i^AIR ANCIEN BY GASTON LA TOUCHE
( The property of Mots. T.)
is equipped. To him Nature has been what
Delacroix desired it should be—a sort of dic-
tionary, to be “ turned up ” and studied again and
again, the result being that he has it by heart,
just as the musician has his harmony and his
counterpoint. Whether it be at Saint-Cloud, in his
famous atelier, or at Flers-de-l’Orne, in the heart of
Normandy, where the artist spends his summers
amidst all that is loveliest in Nature, the production
continues steadily day after day. In truth, La
Touche’s output is so rich, so abundant, that
prodigious energy and full tension at every
moment are required to bring it to perfection.
Every action of his life, indeed, has resolved itself
into labour. Even society or the theatre, which
for other artists furnishes a distraction more or less
vain, simply serves to provide him with a fresh field
of observation — that vast field
being continually renewed. In-
deed, it is in this very footlight
or salon atmosphere that La
Touche has found some of his
best colour effects.
Beyond all else La Touche is a
colourist, a great colourist. Very
personal, quite independent as to
his technique, the artist is not
closely allied to any “ master,”
yet one can find affinities between
him and some of his contem-
poraries— Jules Cheret, for in-
stance. With the one as with
the other we come across similar
flashes of light; but La Touche
remains attached to life and to
reality, while Cheret is ever soar-
ing into the realms of the fanciful
and the ideal. Then M. Mau-
clair considers—very justly—that
there is in La Touche, as it were,
a continuance of the spirit of
Monticelli, especially when one
remembers not those works in
which the facture is somewhat
obscured—as is the case with so
many of the productions of the
great artist of Marseilles—but
rather those brighter, clearer pages
which, with their festal decor,
bring before our eyes the brilliant
forms of the women of the Second
Empire. But as a matter of
fact, according to his manner—
I have no intention of instituting
268
comparisons — La Touche is carrying on the
tradition of the French artists of the 18th cen-
tury : the same care in choosing a rich, gay
setting, the same feeling for grace, and, in
many of his works, the same sense of the
decorative. I am thinking particularly at this
moment of a panel entitled Le Faune, wherein
one beholds near a statue, under trees, a group
of young women listening to a faun; and this
panel immediately brings back the memory of
Fragonard of Grasse. There is the same boldness
of drawing, the same successful arrangement in the
distribution of the groups, the same intoxicating
colour. Moreover, it seems to me as though
La Touche takes pleasure in emphasising this
kinship, as he does when he devotes himself to
certain decorative motifs which were in much
66 i^AIR ANCIEN BY GASTON LA TOUCHE
( The property of Mots. T.)