DOI Heft:
No. 36 (March, 1896)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: The art of M. Henri Rivière, as expressed in his chromo-xylographs
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17296#0097
The Chromo-Xylographs of Henri Riviere
In his works one has an excellent example of
what may be attained by conscientious determina-
tion and artistic sincerity, when allied to real and
precious talent. His art is full of Nature, full of a
sentiment at once most deep, most ardent and
most delicate. This feeling is the starting-point
and the goal, the cause and the effect—if one may
so express it—of his work. Everything he does is,
as it were, a canticle to the trees, the clouds, the
light of heaven, the green fields, the rocks, the
hills, the sea itself. In every variety of tone, with
infinite change of modulation and rhythm, he
chants the glories, the sweetness, the goodness and
the charm of Nature. He has no other love ; sees
nought but her; and her innumerable, ever-
changing moods delight and exalt him. Hence
comes the great diversity of his art. He has not
confined himself to the reproduction of this or
that especially enchanting effect, even though it
were in complete accord with his own vision of
things and his own temperament. On the con-
trary, he is never at rest, but always working, with
the consciousness that for a nature, active, ardent,
impressionable like his, there are still new dis-
coveries, fresh conquests, to be made. Thus it is
that every succeeding year he returns from his
summer holidays laden with spoil; and so the
great picture of the world of his dreams grows
richer, larger, more complete. With a scrupulous
patience he accumulates his sound, thoughtful im-
pressions ; steadily gaining ground each day, he
adds to his store of knowledge and observation
and poetry. In this way his manner grows broader
and more simple. He excels in painting Nature in
movement, the wild race of the clouds, the fantastic
neeciness of the cumulus, the dense masses warmed
by the golden reflex of the setting sun, the scattered
flocks of the cirrhus, showing like foam in the clear
waters of the sky—all the moving magic of the air.
In his most curious and original polychrome
wood engravings—a process which he has borrowed
from the Japanese, with a nice appreciation of its
adaptability to his own requirements—he has suc-
ceeded in realising some very striking effects of
Nature, to do justice to which the rhythm of verse
is required, for not otherwise can one convey the
exquisite, penetrating impression produced by these
painted pages. With what supreme art he can
seize that divine moment when the sun is just
vanishing, those last luminous atoms floating in the
evening air, that sublime melancholy over all things
as the solemn drama of the night approaches.
Brittany! The old land of legend and heroic
deed, the land of pious superstitions, with its
BRETON LANDSCAPE. " A FARM AT ST. BRIAC
84
FROM A CHROMO-XYLOGRAPH BY H. RIVIERE
In his works one has an excellent example of
what may be attained by conscientious determina-
tion and artistic sincerity, when allied to real and
precious talent. His art is full of Nature, full of a
sentiment at once most deep, most ardent and
most delicate. This feeling is the starting-point
and the goal, the cause and the effect—if one may
so express it—of his work. Everything he does is,
as it were, a canticle to the trees, the clouds, the
light of heaven, the green fields, the rocks, the
hills, the sea itself. In every variety of tone, with
infinite change of modulation and rhythm, he
chants the glories, the sweetness, the goodness and
the charm of Nature. He has no other love ; sees
nought but her; and her innumerable, ever-
changing moods delight and exalt him. Hence
comes the great diversity of his art. He has not
confined himself to the reproduction of this or
that especially enchanting effect, even though it
were in complete accord with his own vision of
things and his own temperament. On the con-
trary, he is never at rest, but always working, with
the consciousness that for a nature, active, ardent,
impressionable like his, there are still new dis-
coveries, fresh conquests, to be made. Thus it is
that every succeeding year he returns from his
summer holidays laden with spoil; and so the
great picture of the world of his dreams grows
richer, larger, more complete. With a scrupulous
patience he accumulates his sound, thoughtful im-
pressions ; steadily gaining ground each day, he
adds to his store of knowledge and observation
and poetry. In this way his manner grows broader
and more simple. He excels in painting Nature in
movement, the wild race of the clouds, the fantastic
neeciness of the cumulus, the dense masses warmed
by the golden reflex of the setting sun, the scattered
flocks of the cirrhus, showing like foam in the clear
waters of the sky—all the moving magic of the air.
In his most curious and original polychrome
wood engravings—a process which he has borrowed
from the Japanese, with a nice appreciation of its
adaptability to his own requirements—he has suc-
ceeded in realising some very striking effects of
Nature, to do justice to which the rhythm of verse
is required, for not otherwise can one convey the
exquisite, penetrating impression produced by these
painted pages. With what supreme art he can
seize that divine moment when the sun is just
vanishing, those last luminous atoms floating in the
evening air, that sublime melancholy over all things
as the solemn drama of the night approaches.
Brittany! The old land of legend and heroic
deed, the land of pious superstitions, with its
BRETON LANDSCAPE. " A FARM AT ST. BRIAC
84
FROM A CHROMO-XYLOGRAPH BY H. RIVIERE