DOI issue:
No. 56 (November, 1897)
DOI article:Uzanne, Octave: On the drawings of M. Georges de Feure
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0122
Georges De Feure
Cimabue. Taste ruled otherwise, all being in and in drawing to themselves all the apostles of
favour of an easy eommercialism, based on the true art.
attractiveness of "pretty" subjects; and art did Whence did the movement spring? Did it
splendid business, that is to say it had become arise out of the great moral influence of the pre-
degraded, brought down to a deplorable level Raphaelite Brotherhood ; or was it simply one of
of mediocrity to suit the taste of the public at those logical recurrences to the old forms of which
large. we have had so many instances in the history of
Painting with intellect in it, and expression and painting?
harmony and ideas, bordering on decorative work, It were impossible to tell exactly. Wagner and
synthesising form, simplifying colour—the painting Rossetti each has had an influence, more or less
sometimes called " symbolic," "embryogenic," or profound, on the new generations. What the new
" mystic," was only just making its appearance in art sought to depict was the eternal misery of the
Paris about 1885; and its earliest exponents, body fretted by the soul; to adapt itself as deeply
coming on the scene at the high tide of realism, as possible to the aesthetic sense of human suffer-
were received with irony and loaded with ridicule. ing. By dint of reverting thus to precise and
They were not long, however, in securing attention primitive characterisation, with a passionate care
for form and ornament
and detail, this art gradu-
ally became decorative.
The picture assumed the
appearance of a fresco or a
tapestry; the artist became
less exclusive than for-
merly ; he consented to
display his gifts in all sorts
of decorative work, on
books, on furniture, on
wall-papers, and he pro-
duced illustrations,
covers, posters, friezes,
menus and book-plates,
on the principle that
nothing is small if the art
be great.
It is therefore very
interesting and curious to
consider the generation of
painters who came into
prominence as recently as
1890; for the art they
serve is spread over every-
thing, and is no longer
specialised in useless inde-
finite canvases.
One of the most charac-
teristic figures among the
artists who now hold the
field, armed with pen, or
brush, or burin or litho-
graphic pencil, is Georges
de Feure, whose decora-
tive gifts are essentially
"personal," and whose
TUB £ REUSE." ILLUSTRATION FOR " FEMINIFLORES " BY GEORGES DE FEURE Originality, SO far from
Cimabue. Taste ruled otherwise, all being in and in drawing to themselves all the apostles of
favour of an easy eommercialism, based on the true art.
attractiveness of "pretty" subjects; and art did Whence did the movement spring? Did it
splendid business, that is to say it had become arise out of the great moral influence of the pre-
degraded, brought down to a deplorable level Raphaelite Brotherhood ; or was it simply one of
of mediocrity to suit the taste of the public at those logical recurrences to the old forms of which
large. we have had so many instances in the history of
Painting with intellect in it, and expression and painting?
harmony and ideas, bordering on decorative work, It were impossible to tell exactly. Wagner and
synthesising form, simplifying colour—the painting Rossetti each has had an influence, more or less
sometimes called " symbolic," "embryogenic," or profound, on the new generations. What the new
" mystic," was only just making its appearance in art sought to depict was the eternal misery of the
Paris about 1885; and its earliest exponents, body fretted by the soul; to adapt itself as deeply
coming on the scene at the high tide of realism, as possible to the aesthetic sense of human suffer-
were received with irony and loaded with ridicule. ing. By dint of reverting thus to precise and
They were not long, however, in securing attention primitive characterisation, with a passionate care
for form and ornament
and detail, this art gradu-
ally became decorative.
The picture assumed the
appearance of a fresco or a
tapestry; the artist became
less exclusive than for-
merly ; he consented to
display his gifts in all sorts
of decorative work, on
books, on furniture, on
wall-papers, and he pro-
duced illustrations,
covers, posters, friezes,
menus and book-plates,
on the principle that
nothing is small if the art
be great.
It is therefore very
interesting and curious to
consider the generation of
painters who came into
prominence as recently as
1890; for the art they
serve is spread over every-
thing, and is no longer
specialised in useless inde-
finite canvases.
One of the most charac-
teristic figures among the
artists who now hold the
field, armed with pen, or
brush, or burin or litho-
graphic pencil, is Georges
de Feure, whose decora-
tive gifts are essentially
"personal," and whose
TUB £ REUSE." ILLUSTRATION FOR " FEMINIFLORES " BY GEORGES DE FEURE Originality, SO far from