Studio: international art (16.1899)

Recent Work by A. Charpentier

These pages are full of significance for all who keen sensitiveness and the intensity of vision pos-
can see and understand. Note this suburban sessed by Steinlen has no need to borrow the
scene, with its strolling musicians and the attentive manner of other artists, be they who they may.
crowd around them ; or this, with the masons re- When one is impressed so powerfully, so delicately,
turning to their yard; or so dramatically, and so
again this street landscape exquisitely by the infinite
on the Butte Montmartre, ^Q^S^^J^ an<^ ever-varying spectacle
instinct with the melan- - of life, why use any
choly that attaches to these <**^^^^^^^^fe^ language but one's own to
desolate, unfinished dis- ^^^^w^^w^* express one's feelings and
tricts, with their rubbish- ('»]'!' f one's fancies ? As well
heaps and their hoardings, Sn^SM^ address a fellow country-
their half-built houses, and au fv "^Ps&k man *n some foreign
their high, bare walls, whose V\ \ !|v|||jK tongue. He who has any-
monotony is but ill-con- / ^ "* \L- ^->y\ tninS worth saying must
cealed by the many- ( \^Ss \j,i<M w ll|slltlk say it in an original manner
coloured posters stuck /( I^^^S^^M^i, —that is> unllke anv one
upon them. How charm- / li| Jiv i| elseJ f°r 11 m the course
ing, too, how delicate, how / i) aSmm " °^ exPressi°n ne should
full of life and truth, and I '3e constramed to employ
sometimes of humour, I ^Mfflk /^^^^^^ffi^P^ tne phrases in familiar use
these other sketches! Bibi \ i /'^plf^aPw-^ among others it will mean
la Puree, the incorrigible \ ^^nlllli^^^^^^C^r t'iat w^at ^e ^ac^ to sa^
Bohemian, the strange type \ '^a yy was rea'ly not worth the
who strolls about among Y w! trouble of saying,
the brasseries of Mont-
martre, a dandy even in X-~^MI 1^ l^-l OME RECENT
his rags, with a button- ^\fWi fjf \ I WORK BY
hole in his soiled and JJPf J( /k I ^ALEXANDRE
shapeless jacket, how |/j gf| ^ | /CHARPEN-
touching, how tender the
figure of this child, all

TIER. BY

absorbed in her reading, ff If P ' M GABRIEL MOUREY.
and already quite a little <| | liftf \ The little group of six
woman, despite her big Jin | jjlk artists—"Les Six"—corn-
school apron! If 1 1W I W | posed at first of MM.

Nor must we forget, / 1^ Uf J » Alexandre Charpentier,
after looking at drawings j JA J) \ II Moreau-Nelaton, Plumet,
such as these, his number- || j ^ Aubert, Selmersheim, and
less other productions : his Dampt* has just opened
illustrations, his posters, U| "^.v^ lts third exhibition at the
his book-covers, and his ju Galerie des Artistes
original lithographs—all f Modernes, 19 Rue Cau-
revealing Steinlen's person- « un type de montmartre : bibi la martin. But they are no
ality, all helping us to puree." by steinlen longer only six; this year
obtain a complete impres- they number eleven, and
sion of his talent. to the names already men-
He has sometimes been blamed for suggesting tioned must be added those of MM. Jules Desbois,
Forain or Willette, for seeming to be under their Albert Angst, L. M. A. Herold, A. Jorrand, and
influence when dealing with certain subjects. A Mile. Halle.

narrow and futile criticism this, proving the ex- 'M. Aubert displays polychrome lace, upholstery

cessive importance attached nowadays to mere materials, carpets, and decorative pottery, the

matters of technique, as opposed to the all-essential * See the article on their Second Exhibition, vol. xiii. of

point-—namely, expression. An artist with the The Studio, page 83 (December 1897).

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