DOI Heft:
No. 57 (December 1897)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: A French wood-engraver: Auguste Lepère
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0193
Auguste Lepere
the present day to be "modern" and truly per-
sonal, without severing himself completely from the
rules, the traditions, and the processes of other
times. It proves, moreover, that it is quite possible
to produce work bearing the stamp of true indi-
viduality, without posing as a revolutionary, an
independent, or an anarchist in art.
In his later wood-blocks, so frank, so expressive,
so full of bold and vigorous harmony, Lepere has
used no method but that employed by the maitres-
graveurs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
But this in no way prevents him from being tho-
roughly modern, or from giving full expression in
these admirable plates to the features of the life of
to-day.
Take, for instance, his "Paris Pittoresque" series,
published in LImage. Is it possible to mistake
them for ancient wood-blocks ? Are they not emi-
nently modern in their careful exactitude, in their
real truthfulness? How characteristic the touch,
how sure the hand ! What clearness, what intense
poetic feeling in their various types—these fau-
bourgs, these Parisian outskirts, these old deserted
districts, with their narrow streets and dilapidated
houses; these rubbish-littered landscapes of the
Fortifications, with their withered grass and scanty
trees; these kitchen-garden patches ; these poverty-
stricken dwellings !
Some of these drawings are extraordinary; for
example, this bit of Notre Dame, rising from the
water, like some tall ship, standing out quite blacky
with a dazzling sunset as a background. All the
fire of the heavens is reflected in the waters of the
Seine, which ripple like a piece of shot-silk. How
supreme the art with which he has treated the white
portions of the paper, to produce these astounding
effects of light!
Then again—one might go on writing for ever
about the work of such an artist—Lepere has to
my mind still another great merit. He is French.
He loves the clearness, the movement, the life, the
picturesqueness of his Paris ; and he shows it some-
times, nay, often, in the healthy joyousness, the
humour, I had almost said the gauloiserie, of his.
work. He always says what he wants to say with
accuracy and without excess, for he has the eye for
measurement, the sense of proportion, the taste
of his race—all those delightful qualities which,
alas ! we seem to be losing more and more every
day.
As I have already suggested, Lepere, besides
being a wood-engraver, is an aquafortist and a
153
the present day to be "modern" and truly per-
sonal, without severing himself completely from the
rules, the traditions, and the processes of other
times. It proves, moreover, that it is quite possible
to produce work bearing the stamp of true indi-
viduality, without posing as a revolutionary, an
independent, or an anarchist in art.
In his later wood-blocks, so frank, so expressive,
so full of bold and vigorous harmony, Lepere has
used no method but that employed by the maitres-
graveurs of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
But this in no way prevents him from being tho-
roughly modern, or from giving full expression in
these admirable plates to the features of the life of
to-day.
Take, for instance, his "Paris Pittoresque" series,
published in LImage. Is it possible to mistake
them for ancient wood-blocks ? Are they not emi-
nently modern in their careful exactitude, in their
real truthfulness? How characteristic the touch,
how sure the hand ! What clearness, what intense
poetic feeling in their various types—these fau-
bourgs, these Parisian outskirts, these old deserted
districts, with their narrow streets and dilapidated
houses; these rubbish-littered landscapes of the
Fortifications, with their withered grass and scanty
trees; these kitchen-garden patches ; these poverty-
stricken dwellings !
Some of these drawings are extraordinary; for
example, this bit of Notre Dame, rising from the
water, like some tall ship, standing out quite blacky
with a dazzling sunset as a background. All the
fire of the heavens is reflected in the waters of the
Seine, which ripple like a piece of shot-silk. How
supreme the art with which he has treated the white
portions of the paper, to produce these astounding
effects of light!
Then again—one might go on writing for ever
about the work of such an artist—Lepere has to
my mind still another great merit. He is French.
He loves the clearness, the movement, the life, the
picturesqueness of his Paris ; and he shows it some-
times, nay, often, in the healthy joyousness, the
humour, I had almost said the gauloiserie, of his.
work. He always says what he wants to say with
accuracy and without excess, for he has the eye for
measurement, the sense of proportion, the taste
of his race—all those delightful qualities which,
alas ! we seem to be losing more and more every
day.
As I have already suggested, Lepere, besides
being a wood-engraver, is an aquafortist and a
153