DOI issue:
No. 49 (April, 1897)
DOI article:Mourey, Gabriel: A decorative modeller: Alexandre Charpentier
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0168
A Decorative Modeller
les boulangers. has relief by alexandre charpentier
superior to what is known as "pure art." Like from his thoughts. To engrave a plate or draw a
so many others, he might of course have spent lithograph with the simple object of doing engraving
his time in modelling statues and busts of men and or lithographic work would be a sore trouble to
women of fashion; but he has thought it better to him. His ambition is mainly to design popular
apply his energies to what certain belated circles pictures, neither more nor less; to produce plates of
doubtless consider the inferior branches of art ■ instantaneous significance, in the plainest possible
work which I nevertheless venture to think is of characters, and within the grasp of the simplest
the very highest and noblest kind. This willing intelligence. This is the true purpose—not yet
and indefatigable worker, this bold and stubborn practically attained, as he knows and regrets—
artist is ever looking for new worlds to conquer. of his gaufred coloured lithographs. Of these La
Every day he strives to enlarge his sphere, to carry
life into all the desert places in the region of indus-
trial art. He holds that there is nothing too
humble to deserve attention. What branch of art
did the craftsmen of the Middle Ages and the
eighteenth century neglect? And these are the
two artistic periods most dear to him. The work-
man who shapes and forges a chandelier, or turns
a vase, or designs and weaves a piece of cloth—
wherein is he the inferior of the painter or the
sculptor ? No difference was known between them
in any age but this. Briefly, the theories now being
advanced by Charpentier in France are those of
the great departed artist-poet, William Morris.
" Art for art's sake ! " There is nothing further embossed design by a. charpentier
162
les boulangers. has relief by alexandre charpentier
superior to what is known as "pure art." Like from his thoughts. To engrave a plate or draw a
so many others, he might of course have spent lithograph with the simple object of doing engraving
his time in modelling statues and busts of men and or lithographic work would be a sore trouble to
women of fashion; but he has thought it better to him. His ambition is mainly to design popular
apply his energies to what certain belated circles pictures, neither more nor less; to produce plates of
doubtless consider the inferior branches of art ■ instantaneous significance, in the plainest possible
work which I nevertheless venture to think is of characters, and within the grasp of the simplest
the very highest and noblest kind. This willing intelligence. This is the true purpose—not yet
and indefatigable worker, this bold and stubborn practically attained, as he knows and regrets—
artist is ever looking for new worlds to conquer. of his gaufred coloured lithographs. Of these La
Every day he strives to enlarge his sphere, to carry
life into all the desert places in the region of indus-
trial art. He holds that there is nothing too
humble to deserve attention. What branch of art
did the craftsmen of the Middle Ages and the
eighteenth century neglect? And these are the
two artistic periods most dear to him. The work-
man who shapes and forges a chandelier, or turns
a vase, or designs and weaves a piece of cloth—
wherein is he the inferior of the painter or the
sculptor ? No difference was known between them
in any age but this. Briefly, the theories now being
advanced by Charpentier in France are those of
the great departed artist-poet, William Morris.
" Art for art's sake ! " There is nothing further embossed design by a. charpentier
162