Studio: international art (3.1894)

Dry-Points by Helleu

at all with elaborate effects of light and shade, but
is completely satisfied with a flowing line express-
ing or suggesting all that is essential.

Nine proofs from plates by Helleu (shown at
the recent exhibition at the Royal Society of
Painter-Etchers) are all inspired with an intense
and eager appreciation of the beautiful, and deco-
ratively quite satisfying; the studies of children (No.
262, reproduced on p. 70, No. 264, Tete d'En-
fant, and No. 270, Etude) are to me delightful;
drawn accurately, freely, and easily. For a fine
and telling arabesque, the woman's face framed
in a sweep of hair (No. 269) could not be better,

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" LE SALON BLANC "

and the eyelids and mouth are most subtly drawn.
The quaint and "amusing" composition of the
woman's arm on the chair-back, again, in No. 271,
and the way in which the woman's head arranges
itself with these lines, must have been an acci-
dental pose which the artist at once noted and
appreciated.

Like a wise father, the hanging committee kept
the sugar-plum to the last; at least many will con-
sider that the number which they place the last of
the series, No. 272, Les dessiiis de Watteau au
Musee de Louvre, is to be preferred—the freakish
printing of the Watteau drawings, in ink of a
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different hue from the rest of the plate, need not
trouble us—here is the expression of a momentary
movement and a beautifully drawn back and waist
(as we also have in the two studies of ladies seated
before the fire, No. 263, Le Salon Blanc, and 265,
Femme se Chauffaiit). The Watteau drawings on the
wall in No. 271, are reproduced with an evident
fellow-feeling for the dainty grace of that painter.

Most true artists are simple and direct in their
method of work, and the workman under our con-
sideration is no exception to the rule. His design
is drawn from Nature and composed directly on the
clean face of the copper-plate with the dry-point
needle—for which he prefers
the diamond-point to that of
steel—and no other prepara-
tion in the way of tracing or
preliminary study is made;
thus do we enjoy on the proof
from the plate, at first hand,
the verve and energy of the
original conception of the
artist's mind, drawn with a
delicacy and sureness of eye
and hand akin to that of the
Japanese draughtsman. It has
sometimes puzzled me to find
that the would-be connoisseur
"who knows what he likes"
seems, in his outspoken way
(accustomed as he is to the
conventional exaggeration of
contours), to consider it
almost an insult that Nature
can be expressed in terms
of such simplicity, that it is
even accounted no virtue
that the artist should see
Nature simply and as a whole,
helleu an attitude of mind often
encountered with regard also
to the work of John Sargent.

Beyond all, the quality in Helleu's work which
appeals to me most is that it is personal; it reflects
the man's mind, that of a refined epicureanism,
naturally choosing to live among dainty surround-
ings and pretty people ; a fastidious seeking of the
unconventionally beautiful and an expression of it,
in a manner that does not smack much of the
schools, though it shows a hard and severe train-
ing of the eye and hand, and no sparing of
strenuous study. G. P. J. H.

The five reproductions from the original etchings
which have here been illustrated by the courteous