Studio: international art (5.1895)

The Art of Boutet de Monvel

issued a second one the year following." The was producing these illustrations, he was painting
first of the albums here alluded to was entitled the pictures in oil and water-colour by which he
Chansons et rondespour lespetits enfants; the second has gained such wide appreciation,
was called Chansons de France pour les petits Perhaps Boutet de Monvel succeeds most per-
Frangais. Following this came JVos Enfants, the fectly when he deals with children. It has been

accurately observed by Mr.
%v Ruskin that by artists of ancient

and even of mediaeval times,
whether poets or painters, the
child was treated as compara-
tively of slight importance. In
the case of poetry, the neglect
is curiously conspicuous. A
passing reference here and
there in the literature of Greece
is all we know of the little boy
and girl at a time when many
of the supreme masterpieces of
art and letters were in process
of creation. Nor does our own
early literature prove more
fertile in this matter. The
English poetry of childhood
does not commence very long
before the spacious days of
great Elizabeth. In those days
of miraculous production, every-
thing seems to have been noted,
every subject sung of. The
pathetic epitaph by Ben Jonson
on his son is (in spite of the
fact that it contains only a
dozen words or so) in itself an
exquisite contribution to the
poetry of childhood. In paint-
ing it was impossible so com-
pletely to ignore the little one
as in poetry. When art was
mainly patronised by the
Church, it is obvious that a
child played a supreme part in
the list of subjects, but it was
an infant at the breast, as op-

PORTRAIT STUDY IN LEAD PENCIL BY M. B. DE MONVEL . . .

posed to a child with a will ot

text of which is by so distinguished a litterateur as its own, capable of forming opinions. Again,

Anatole France. Since then, Boutet de Monvel the young prince and princess, the children of

has illustrated several important books, including the august and rich, were painted by such masters

Biart's Quand fetais petit, and Ferdinand Fabre's as Rembrandt and Velasquez. It was, however,

Xaviere. The latter is at present the most im- given to Reynolds, to Gainsborough, and to some

portant of Boutet de Monvel's works, though it is of their contemporaries in England and abroad, to

probable that it will shortly have to concede the do pictorial justice to the child. Since their time,

first place to an album illustrated in colours dealing childhood has ever been a favourite theme of the

with the life of Joan of Arc, to which I shall allude artist.

later. During the time that Boutet de Monvel It is time that we turned for one moment to the
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