DOI Heft:
No. 29 (August, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Hiatt, Charles T. J.: The art of Boutet de Monvel
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0181
The Art of Boutet de Monvel
infinite devotion. The possessor of a pleasing from his reserve or his dignity by the offer of a
sense of decoration, an accomplished delineator of sugar-plum. It is the child in his instants of
the child and the ways of the child, Boutet de questioning and criticism. It will be remembered
Monvel is neither a supreme painter nor a supreme that in a recent volume Mr. Kenneth Grahame
poet. If absolute supremacy is out of his reach, has, with the rarest felicity, reversed the relations
between the child and the
grown-up man; his little
people have scant apprecia-
tion of a race of beings who
prefer a' flirtation to the de-
licious process of cleaning out
a rabbit-hutch. They look
upon their elders as deplor-
able in their choice of em-
ployment ; fatuous in their
motives of conduct. The
studies of Boutet de Monvel
are slightly in the same spirit.
Take, for instance, the little
lady in the red plaid dress,
reproduced here. No bishop
ever ended a great ecclesias-
tical procession with more
conscious dignity than that
with which she carries her
saucer. And a similar note
is, I think, to be found in the
other studies of children
which illustrate this appreci-
ation. It is surely needless
to call attention to the charm,
or to the beautiful technical
qualities, of the two pencil
studies of little boys seated,
nor to the dignity and grace
of composition of the portrait
of the gentlewoman and little
girl, on page 157. The last-
mentioned has, I think, some-
thing of the sobriety, of the
restrained decoration, of one
of the best known pictures of
Mr. Stott of Oldham, a work
from an unfinished portrait in water-colour by m. boutet de monvel recently illustrated in these
pages.
he is far removed from mediocrity, and he never If Boutet de Monvel had done nothing save his
descends to the banal or the common. portraits of, and illustrations for, children, he had
Boutet de Monvel, it appears to me, takes a yet accomplished no unimportant thing. No small
particularly individual point of view in his delinea- part of the fame of Sir Joshua rests on his exquisite
tions of child-life. His creation is not the child delineations of the little patricians of his day: by
who is wildly exuberant from the sheer joy of nothing is Gainsborough more universally known
living; it is not the enfant terrible; it is rather than by his Blue Boy. And yet the portraiture of
the child in moments of self-consciousness, in children, and the illustration with a view to the
moments when he will on no account be tempted joy of children, does not give to the talent of
162
infinite devotion. The possessor of a pleasing from his reserve or his dignity by the offer of a
sense of decoration, an accomplished delineator of sugar-plum. It is the child in his instants of
the child and the ways of the child, Boutet de questioning and criticism. It will be remembered
Monvel is neither a supreme painter nor a supreme that in a recent volume Mr. Kenneth Grahame
poet. If absolute supremacy is out of his reach, has, with the rarest felicity, reversed the relations
between the child and the
grown-up man; his little
people have scant apprecia-
tion of a race of beings who
prefer a' flirtation to the de-
licious process of cleaning out
a rabbit-hutch. They look
upon their elders as deplor-
able in their choice of em-
ployment ; fatuous in their
motives of conduct. The
studies of Boutet de Monvel
are slightly in the same spirit.
Take, for instance, the little
lady in the red plaid dress,
reproduced here. No bishop
ever ended a great ecclesias-
tical procession with more
conscious dignity than that
with which she carries her
saucer. And a similar note
is, I think, to be found in the
other studies of children
which illustrate this appreci-
ation. It is surely needless
to call attention to the charm,
or to the beautiful technical
qualities, of the two pencil
studies of little boys seated,
nor to the dignity and grace
of composition of the portrait
of the gentlewoman and little
girl, on page 157. The last-
mentioned has, I think, some-
thing of the sobriety, of the
restrained decoration, of one
of the best known pictures of
Mr. Stott of Oldham, a work
from an unfinished portrait in water-colour by m. boutet de monvel recently illustrated in these
pages.
he is far removed from mediocrity, and he never If Boutet de Monvel had done nothing save his
descends to the banal or the common. portraits of, and illustrations for, children, he had
Boutet de Monvel, it appears to me, takes a yet accomplished no unimportant thing. No small
particularly individual point of view in his delinea- part of the fame of Sir Joshua rests on his exquisite
tions of child-life. His creation is not the child delineations of the little patricians of his day: by
who is wildly exuberant from the sheer joy of nothing is Gainsborough more universally known
living; it is not the enfant terrible; it is rather than by his Blue Boy. And yet the portraiture of
the child in moments of self-consciousness, in children, and the illustration with a view to the
moments when he will on no account be tempted joy of children, does not give to the talent of
162