DOI Heft:
No. 61 (April, 1898)
DOI Artikel:Lees, Frederic: Henri Harpignies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18391#0164
Henri Harpignies
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V
FROM A CHALK DRAWING BY HENRI HARPIGNIES
painter is not to reproduce like the photographic Even when a mere child at Valenciennes, his,
camera, but to select the lines and tones which birthplace in 1819, Henri Harpignies was busy
specify the character of what is before him. He with his pencil. It was not until the age of twenty-
has altered Nature, as Turner did, to suit his own seven, however, that he received any regular in-
purposes, correcting her disorders and errors, add- struction in art, probably for the reason that his.
ing or suppressing, enlarging or diminishing, paint- parents were opposed to his choice of the pro-
ing an object near to or far off, so that if we were fession of artist. They wished their son to become
to stand upon the spot where he has placed his a man of business. But at last their objections
camp stool we should see before us the elements were overcome, and Harpignies came to Paris to
only of which he has made use. Sometimes he study under Achard, the friend of Francais, a
will even place upon canvas what is not actually landscape painter who holds a middle position
before his eyes, as in that picture La Loire a JVevers, between Michalon and Bidault; an artist of great
exhibited at the 1883 Salon, in the background of worth, but one of those men who seem destined,
which he has placed blue mountains to complete the owing to their peculiar disposition, never to reach
effect. All things are permissible to the landscape the position they deserve. Harpignies only studied
painter, he will tell you, so long as he produces a for two years under the inexorable Achard—he
beautiful work within the limits of possibility. was the most exacting of masters—but he benefited
Let us note the progress along the years which greatly, indeed he attributes much of his ultimate
this artist has made—how in this year he painted success to the thoroughness of the instruction
figures, in that trees, and so on until we reach the which he received. A two years' journey in Italy
time when he produces so perfect a work of art as followed this apprenticeship to art, and three years
the Solitude, for which he received the medaille after his return to France he obtained his first
d'honneur last year. success at the Salon with a picture which he named
144
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1 J
V
FROM A CHALK DRAWING BY HENRI HARPIGNIES
painter is not to reproduce like the photographic Even when a mere child at Valenciennes, his,
camera, but to select the lines and tones which birthplace in 1819, Henri Harpignies was busy
specify the character of what is before him. He with his pencil. It was not until the age of twenty-
has altered Nature, as Turner did, to suit his own seven, however, that he received any regular in-
purposes, correcting her disorders and errors, add- struction in art, probably for the reason that his.
ing or suppressing, enlarging or diminishing, paint- parents were opposed to his choice of the pro-
ing an object near to or far off, so that if we were fession of artist. They wished their son to become
to stand upon the spot where he has placed his a man of business. But at last their objections
camp stool we should see before us the elements were overcome, and Harpignies came to Paris to
only of which he has made use. Sometimes he study under Achard, the friend of Francais, a
will even place upon canvas what is not actually landscape painter who holds a middle position
before his eyes, as in that picture La Loire a JVevers, between Michalon and Bidault; an artist of great
exhibited at the 1883 Salon, in the background of worth, but one of those men who seem destined,
which he has placed blue mountains to complete the owing to their peculiar disposition, never to reach
effect. All things are permissible to the landscape the position they deserve. Harpignies only studied
painter, he will tell you, so long as he produces a for two years under the inexorable Achard—he
beautiful work within the limits of possibility. was the most exacting of masters—but he benefited
Let us note the progress along the years which greatly, indeed he attributes much of his ultimate
this artist has made—how in this year he painted success to the thoroughness of the instruction
figures, in that trees, and so on until we reach the which he received. A two years' journey in Italy
time when he produces so perfect a work of art as followed this apprenticeship to art, and three years
the Solitude, for which he received the medaille after his return to France he obtained his first
d'honneur last year. success at the Salon with a picture which he named
144