DOI Heft:
No. 71 (february 1899)
DOI Artikel:Some drawings by Steinlen
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19231#0031
Some Drawings by Steinlen
immediate attention. His humanity appeals to
us before all else, and this it is, all questions of
artistic feeling apart, which invests his productions
with their fulness and force. Yes, as I remarked
before, he is pre-eminently human, and there is
no better word wherewith to describe him. This
very quality rids his work of all bias; for when all
around appeals to him he cannot specialise, what-
ever his preferences may be. Thus he has no
" manner," and there is no evidence of any parti-
cular process in his efforts. He has no ready-made
severity, no preconceived partiality; he is never
bitter on principle, as Forain frequently is, with
so much misdirected energy; he is full of good
humour and " go"; by a delicate touch he will
tone down that which might be too coarse or too
painful in certain of his scenes ; for, his own heart
being touched, his desire is to touch the hearts of
others.
Some of his pictures are truly exquisite, and
marked by a refinement and a grace of which one
would hardly think him capable — notably his
studies of children, whose half-developed, hesita-
ting movements he has lovingly noted; and his
animals, especially his cats, the character of which
he has grasped and expressed with unequalled
success.
He lives at Montmartre, behind the Sacre Cceur
in the Rue Caulancourt, which a couple of years
ago was nothing more than a path across a sort
of waste, with tea-gardens and shooting-galleries
and various queer haunts on the Paris side, with
the vast plains of Clichy, and Saint-Ouen, and
Clignancourt stretching out in the other direction
like an ocean. This Montmartre is an inex-
haustible field of observation for Steinlen; and
one might wander far without finding anything so
full of the picturesque, the characteristic, and the
unexpected.
The drawings now published—chosen as they
are from among a thousand others in Steinlen's
portfolios—are proof of this. They reveal the
honesty and the liveliness of observation on which
his art is based, and they also attest the variety of
his talent, and show that he prefers to generalise
and depict life in all its diverse aspects, instead of
limiting himself to the study of particular effects
and types.
" MASONS RENTRANT AU CHANTIER."
FROM A SKETCH BY STEINLEN
immediate attention. His humanity appeals to
us before all else, and this it is, all questions of
artistic feeling apart, which invests his productions
with their fulness and force. Yes, as I remarked
before, he is pre-eminently human, and there is
no better word wherewith to describe him. This
very quality rids his work of all bias; for when all
around appeals to him he cannot specialise, what-
ever his preferences may be. Thus he has no
" manner," and there is no evidence of any parti-
cular process in his efforts. He has no ready-made
severity, no preconceived partiality; he is never
bitter on principle, as Forain frequently is, with
so much misdirected energy; he is full of good
humour and " go"; by a delicate touch he will
tone down that which might be too coarse or too
painful in certain of his scenes ; for, his own heart
being touched, his desire is to touch the hearts of
others.
Some of his pictures are truly exquisite, and
marked by a refinement and a grace of which one
would hardly think him capable — notably his
studies of children, whose half-developed, hesita-
ting movements he has lovingly noted; and his
animals, especially his cats, the character of which
he has grasped and expressed with unequalled
success.
He lives at Montmartre, behind the Sacre Cceur
in the Rue Caulancourt, which a couple of years
ago was nothing more than a path across a sort
of waste, with tea-gardens and shooting-galleries
and various queer haunts on the Paris side, with
the vast plains of Clichy, and Saint-Ouen, and
Clignancourt stretching out in the other direction
like an ocean. This Montmartre is an inex-
haustible field of observation for Steinlen; and
one might wander far without finding anything so
full of the picturesque, the characteristic, and the
unexpected.
The drawings now published—chosen as they
are from among a thousand others in Steinlen's
portfolios—are proof of this. They reveal the
honesty and the liveliness of observation on which
his art is based, and they also attest the variety of
his talent, and show that he prefers to generalise
and depict life in all its diverse aspects, instead of
limiting himself to the study of particular effects
and types.
" MASONS RENTRANT AU CHANTIER."
FROM A SKETCH BY STEINLEN