Studio: international art (7.1896)

The Chromo-Xylographs of Henri Riviere

gesture and movement. How exquisite the art This engraving of the Pardon de Sainte-Anne
with which he showed us the Mardie a I'Etoile, remains so far his greatest work, his tour de force.
with all the people—shepherds, and sailors and Apart from the question of process, its general
kings—hastening towards the stable at Bethlehem, treatment and effect are astonishing.
Striking, animated pictures these, unforgetable As I close this brief notice of M. Henri Riviere's
pages of colour; those of the ships, for instance, art, I feel with regret and apprehension that I have
with their big sails, and the human forms standing done but scant justice to the characteristics of his
in the fore, with arms stretched out towards the work, and have not sufficiently emphasised his
gleams of the miraculous star. Then there were merits. The fact is, when one is face to face with
moon-set scenes, and landscapes of oriental night, productions such as these, full of so fine a senti-
studded with gilded beads as with so much gold- ment, mere words seem powerless to express one's
dust, while the deep warm blue of the heavens sense of the very mystery such works contain, and
seemed to quiver with luminous spheres. of the delicious charm he feels who has the privi-

The art of M. Henri Riviere—as I have at- lege of seeing and admiring them,
tempted to describe it—has yet another aspect, Gabriel Mourey.

and one which, I venture to think, is worthy of the
fullest consideration. I refer to its deco-
rative points. Side by side with a genuine
and masterful handling of detail, we find
in his work that fulness of line and of
colour which we admire so much in the
Japanese. If M. Riviere had only the
leisure to devote himself to applied art,
there can be no doubt that, equipped as
he is with a thorough knowledge of
draughtsmanship, and with a rich and
simple palette, he would produce the most
original and effective decoration. There
is in him, apart from the artist, a techni-
cal worker of remarkable skill, with a
profound knowledge of processes, which
enables him to adapt his material to the
best advantage, according to the require-
ments of his work.

The sheer labour involved in the en-
graving of even one of these coloured
wood-blocks might deter even the most
industrious of craftsmen. Each plate,
indeed, requires no less than fifteen or
twenty different wood blocks. For the
printing of his plates he prepares his own
colours, and thus it is he succeeds in
obtaining the most remarkably free and
delicate effects of tone. His large en-
graving, the Pardon de Sainte-Anne, com-
posed of four plates joined together, is
formed of from sixty to eighty wood
blocks, and the artist himself will tell of
the difficulties of the joining, and of all
the care needed before he succeeded in
harmonising the scheme of colours, and
bringing the lines and the tones into

accord, when each fragmentary sheet had ,. paris1a}) landscapes '•

to pass a score of times under the press. prom chromo-xylographs by h. ri

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