DOI Heft:
No. 71 (february 1899)
DOI Artikel:Some drawings by Steinlen
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19231#0030
Some Drawings by Steinlen
stand it; how many, on the other hand, those
who regard it simply as a summary representation
of an incident, a hasty background for the text!
Only the highly trained in art can feel the full
beauty of his work ; for the simplicity of the means
employed, the admirable skill, the accuracy, the
masterly sureness of it all can only properly be
appreciated by the cultured nature.
Willette's draughtsmanship is not less striking;
but here we have a dreamer, a poet, with too
subtle an imagination, too delicate a fancy to
impress the majority, always eager for actual, imme-
diate reality. His vision of things will satisfy none
"UN TYPE DE MONTMARTRE : BIBI-LA-PUREE "
BY STEINLEN
but those refined temperaments who demand of
art that it shall lift them from the world of realities
into the realms of dream.
Steinlen, on the other hand, is a transcriber of
the truth, a translator of everyday life, and his art
is based on sheer observation. He has an ardent
love of the picturesque, an extraordinarily de-
veloped sense of it. Everything interests and ex-
cites him, everything that is going on around him
in the great city of which he is the faithful
delineator. And his sympathies are chiefly with
the humble and the poor, the Bohemians of all
/ho live by the street and in the street.
These are his favourites, his models who
pose unconsciously before him. Children
of nature, and therefore sincere, they re-
veal to him without reserve the secrets of
their existence, with no motives either of
interest or of morality to hinder them from
leading the lives they lead outside, or, at
best, on the extreme fringe of organised
society.
An endless subject for study, this ; and
one can easily understand its fascination
for an artist devoted to realism. How
finely characteristic the haunts into which
Steinlen introduces us; how movingly,
how faithfully he depicts the intimate life
around ! How infinite the types he puts
before our eyes, in all the careless un-
consciousness of their work or of their
leisure! These street scenes in the crowded
working quarters, with the " hands " turn-
ing out of the factories and workshops into
these drinking-dens ; these half-built neigh-
bourhoods with their vast plots enclosed
by palings through which one gets a
distant glimpse of the smoky regions be-
yond—all this has been done by Steinlen
as no draughtsman ever did it before in
point of picturesqueness and expression.
How poetical his work is at times, and
what depth of feeling in the gestures, the
attitudes, and the grouping of his figures !
What pity, too, for all this wretchedness,
all this inconscient degradation; and what
tragic grandeur in the despair of some of
his scenes !
Herein lies the true stamp of Steinlen's
genius, herein his intense originality. In
many of his most striking pages one for-
gets at first to admire the artist's wonder-
ful technique and skill in draughtsman-
ship, for other emotions claim more
stand it; how many, on the other hand, those
who regard it simply as a summary representation
of an incident, a hasty background for the text!
Only the highly trained in art can feel the full
beauty of his work ; for the simplicity of the means
employed, the admirable skill, the accuracy, the
masterly sureness of it all can only properly be
appreciated by the cultured nature.
Willette's draughtsmanship is not less striking;
but here we have a dreamer, a poet, with too
subtle an imagination, too delicate a fancy to
impress the majority, always eager for actual, imme-
diate reality. His vision of things will satisfy none
"UN TYPE DE MONTMARTRE : BIBI-LA-PUREE "
BY STEINLEN
but those refined temperaments who demand of
art that it shall lift them from the world of realities
into the realms of dream.
Steinlen, on the other hand, is a transcriber of
the truth, a translator of everyday life, and his art
is based on sheer observation. He has an ardent
love of the picturesque, an extraordinarily de-
veloped sense of it. Everything interests and ex-
cites him, everything that is going on around him
in the great city of which he is the faithful
delineator. And his sympathies are chiefly with
the humble and the poor, the Bohemians of all
/ho live by the street and in the street.
These are his favourites, his models who
pose unconsciously before him. Children
of nature, and therefore sincere, they re-
veal to him without reserve the secrets of
their existence, with no motives either of
interest or of morality to hinder them from
leading the lives they lead outside, or, at
best, on the extreme fringe of organised
society.
An endless subject for study, this ; and
one can easily understand its fascination
for an artist devoted to realism. How
finely characteristic the haunts into which
Steinlen introduces us; how movingly,
how faithfully he depicts the intimate life
around ! How infinite the types he puts
before our eyes, in all the careless un-
consciousness of their work or of their
leisure! These street scenes in the crowded
working quarters, with the " hands " turn-
ing out of the factories and workshops into
these drinking-dens ; these half-built neigh-
bourhoods with their vast plots enclosed
by palings through which one gets a
distant glimpse of the smoky regions be-
yond—all this has been done by Steinlen
as no draughtsman ever did it before in
point of picturesqueness and expression.
How poetical his work is at times, and
what depth of feeling in the gestures, the
attitudes, and the grouping of his figures !
What pity, too, for all this wretchedness,
all this inconscient degradation; and what
tragic grandeur in the despair of some of
his scenes !
Herein lies the true stamp of Steinlen's
genius, herein his intense originality. In
many of his most striking pages one for-
gets at first to admire the artist's wonder-
ful technique and skill in draughtsman-
ship, for other emotions claim more