DOI Heft:
No. 40 (July, 1896)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: The Salon of the Champs-Elysées
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17297#0123
The Salon of the Champs-Ely sees
"LA ROUTE DE NICE " FROM A SKETCH OF THE PAINTING BY W. L. PICKNELL
fails me. His ability is such as to deserve the
full appreciation which some day doubtless The
Studio will be able to devote to him. He is
represented this year at the Champs-Elysees by
three pictures : La Bourrasqne, Les Mysteres de
Ceres, and Noire Dame de Pen march, widely dif-
ferent each from the other, and thus showing the
various aspects of his style. His is a complex per-
sonality, intent on expressing by plastic means
nought but the hidden, mysterious self of his
creations; always striving anxiously to reveal the
soul through the face, to show in material form the
spiritual and the invisible. One might imagine
that he would attain this result by an unprecise
process of draughtsmanship and colouring, letting
the figures, serving to illustrate his ideas, float
vaguely in the mists of his dreams. But nothing
of the sort. His art is all that is open and clear,
and it is in this that he shows his pre-eminence.
Everything in his pictures, every detail, has its
proper meaning ; nothing is left to chance ; and it
must be admitted that he has the power to give
full expression to his thoughts. This being so, his
work, as may be imagined, is instinct with
character. From the point at which others would
stop, in difficulties and doubt, he goes straight
ahead, determined to master the mysteries of his
art, and he carries his dreams to their utmost
io8
artistic limit, thanks largely to a truly astonishing
power of draughtsmanship. Add to these gifts,
taste of the rarest order, a flexible and delicate
fancy, a real love of all that is exquisite and subtle,
without ever becoming affected or involved, and
with all this include a fine sense of order and of
harmony of line and colour, and you have a succinct
summary of M. Levy-Dhurmer's talents.
As for the portraits, their name is legion. We
may pass over those of M. Bouguereau, whose
La Vague is not worth considering, and also those
of MM. Bonnat and Jules Lefevre, for we know
already how these three high-priests of Official Art
understand their work of reproducing the features
of their contemporaries for ages yet to come. Let
me simply make passing mention of the portraits
of MM. Axilette, Marcel Baschet, Aime
Morot, Guinsac, Louis Chalon, Fernand
Rabatte, Della Sudra, and Marec, before
devoting a moment to the two portraits of ladies
by M. Ferdinand Humbert, of much charm and
distinction, and to M. Paul Dubois' picture, by
no means without merit. M. Benjamin Constant
is represented by his Portrait de mon Fits. Dis-
like as one may this artist's habitual exaggeration
of manner in his enormous pictures, with their
meretricious and artificial Orientalism, dragged in
under the guise of " local colour," or his music-
"LA ROUTE DE NICE " FROM A SKETCH OF THE PAINTING BY W. L. PICKNELL
fails me. His ability is such as to deserve the
full appreciation which some day doubtless The
Studio will be able to devote to him. He is
represented this year at the Champs-Elysees by
three pictures : La Bourrasqne, Les Mysteres de
Ceres, and Noire Dame de Pen march, widely dif-
ferent each from the other, and thus showing the
various aspects of his style. His is a complex per-
sonality, intent on expressing by plastic means
nought but the hidden, mysterious self of his
creations; always striving anxiously to reveal the
soul through the face, to show in material form the
spiritual and the invisible. One might imagine
that he would attain this result by an unprecise
process of draughtsmanship and colouring, letting
the figures, serving to illustrate his ideas, float
vaguely in the mists of his dreams. But nothing
of the sort. His art is all that is open and clear,
and it is in this that he shows his pre-eminence.
Everything in his pictures, every detail, has its
proper meaning ; nothing is left to chance ; and it
must be admitted that he has the power to give
full expression to his thoughts. This being so, his
work, as may be imagined, is instinct with
character. From the point at which others would
stop, in difficulties and doubt, he goes straight
ahead, determined to master the mysteries of his
art, and he carries his dreams to their utmost
io8
artistic limit, thanks largely to a truly astonishing
power of draughtsmanship. Add to these gifts,
taste of the rarest order, a flexible and delicate
fancy, a real love of all that is exquisite and subtle,
without ever becoming affected or involved, and
with all this include a fine sense of order and of
harmony of line and colour, and you have a succinct
summary of M. Levy-Dhurmer's talents.
As for the portraits, their name is legion. We
may pass over those of M. Bouguereau, whose
La Vague is not worth considering, and also those
of MM. Bonnat and Jules Lefevre, for we know
already how these three high-priests of Official Art
understand their work of reproducing the features
of their contemporaries for ages yet to come. Let
me simply make passing mention of the portraits
of MM. Axilette, Marcel Baschet, Aime
Morot, Guinsac, Louis Chalon, Fernand
Rabatte, Della Sudra, and Marec, before
devoting a moment to the two portraits of ladies
by M. Ferdinand Humbert, of much charm and
distinction, and to M. Paul Dubois' picture, by
no means without merit. M. Benjamin Constant
is represented by his Portrait de mon Fits. Dis-
like as one may this artist's habitual exaggeration
of manner in his enormous pictures, with their
meretricious and artificial Orientalism, dragged in
under the guise of " local colour," or his music-