Studio: international art (13.1898)

Car an D'Ache

last, quite tired out, he gives it up, and the monsieur,
without having noticed anything wrong, gets up to
go. "Three frisures for the gentleman . . . .
three ! " cries the operator to the cashier. The
customer pays, and exit. Directly he has gone the
hairdresser seizes the paper and reads from it aloud.
The caissiere's hair, his own hair, the dog's hair,
the very hair on a wig stand on end, so awful is the
story. In fact, it is " a story to make your hair
stand ! "

Or, to mention others, what could be better in
their way than Le Recit du Capitaine, Trappeur
d ''Arkansas, LAssaut de Malakoff, Appareil a Duel,
orMetropolitain Oriental? In all we see the same
verve, the same sense of the comic side of events,
the same art of expressing things with accuracy and
restraint. For artists of this kind are beset by
many pitfalls, the chief of which is the temptation
to go too far, to overdo one's effects, a result which
practically never happens with M. Caran d'Ache's
work. He knows perfectly well how to say what
he wants to say, and he says neither more nor less
than this—a rare merit indeed, which he owes to
his extremely keen observation, to his profound
knowledge of gesture and expression. In a few
lines he places his figures; then he surrounds them
with just the setting they demand; in a word, he
creates their "atmosphere." He brings at once
into relief the essential characteristics of things,

disregarding all save that which calls for promin-
ence, and has some special part to play in his
story. Thus he is always clear and comprehen-
sible ; his ideas are within everybody's range, and
are expressed with the utmost crispness and pre-
cision.

His method is to simplify as much as possible;
hence the apparent poorness of some of his draw-
ings ; hence the sense of crudeness they sometimes
produce; but examine them closely, carefully, and
you will be astonished to find how much there is
in them after all, how minutely accurate is the
detail. The development of his subjects, all
their half-dramatic, half-comic interest, consists in
the successive transformations of a line, expressing
upon the face the gradations of this or that feeling,
or passion, or thought. By the simple deforma-
tion or exaggeration of one or two primary features
in face or figure, Caran d'Ache shows us the birth,
the expansion, the growth, the full development,
the bursting—so to speak—of his drama. Apart
even from the gay humour they contain, some of
his "stories without words," told in a series of
little pictures, are full of merit.

From the artistic point of view, Caran d'Ache
seems to me to be better, although less popular,
as the soldier's artist—the military caricaturist, than
as the fanciful humorist whom all the world knows;
moreover, that it is his true natural bent, and in