DOI issue:
No. 72 (March 1899)
DOI article:Mourey, Gabriel: The work of Gaston La Touche
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19231#0095
Gaston La Touche
dans le pare de Wilhelmshohe and a triptych,
Noel, now in the Museum at Alencon. His
L'Accouchee in the following year gained for him
a medal of the second class. It showed by its
delicate effects of light and by its quiet and simple
treatment that La Touche's style was undergoing
a modification in the direction of the manner it
was ultimately to assume. La greve a Anzin in
1889 is a work of great power, and breathes that
spirit of pity at the sight of human misery which
constitutes the greatness of Zola's Germinal. At
last in 1890 at the first Salon of the Societe des
Beaux Arts in the Champ de Mars, he displayed two
canvases which emphatically proclaimed the fact
that he had "arrived," that he had found his finest
method. They were Les Pivoines and Les Phlox,
scenes of gardens and flowers and women and
children, quivering with joyous colour, and altogether
exquisite in their delicacy and charm. I know
nothing more interesting, nothing more admirable,
in the career of an artist such as La Touche than
his struggles to realise his own individual feelings,
to expand the powers he feels within him, to
take full 1 possession of himself, and to find the
means to express in all its amplitude his particu-
lar view of things. His attempts, his hesitations,
his failures even, all have their charm when we
study them, for they reveal how genius is formed,
and enable us really to know the artist and his
work.
I should like to give a minute analysis of all the
work done by Gaston La Touche during the past
few years—oils, pastels, and water-colours, but
space demands that I shall confine myself to
naming a few of the pictures which may be taken
as representative of his many qualities. The two
water-colours reproduced here, La Revolte and
La Guerre, show the remarkable power he possesses
'LA REVOLTE" FROM A WATER-COLOUR BY GASTON LA TOUCHE
84
dans le pare de Wilhelmshohe and a triptych,
Noel, now in the Museum at Alencon. His
L'Accouchee in the following year gained for him
a medal of the second class. It showed by its
delicate effects of light and by its quiet and simple
treatment that La Touche's style was undergoing
a modification in the direction of the manner it
was ultimately to assume. La greve a Anzin in
1889 is a work of great power, and breathes that
spirit of pity at the sight of human misery which
constitutes the greatness of Zola's Germinal. At
last in 1890 at the first Salon of the Societe des
Beaux Arts in the Champ de Mars, he displayed two
canvases which emphatically proclaimed the fact
that he had "arrived," that he had found his finest
method. They were Les Pivoines and Les Phlox,
scenes of gardens and flowers and women and
children, quivering with joyous colour, and altogether
exquisite in their delicacy and charm. I know
nothing more interesting, nothing more admirable,
in the career of an artist such as La Touche than
his struggles to realise his own individual feelings,
to expand the powers he feels within him, to
take full 1 possession of himself, and to find the
means to express in all its amplitude his particu-
lar view of things. His attempts, his hesitations,
his failures even, all have their charm when we
study them, for they reveal how genius is formed,
and enable us really to know the artist and his
work.
I should like to give a minute analysis of all the
work done by Gaston La Touche during the past
few years—oils, pastels, and water-colours, but
space demands that I shall confine myself to
naming a few of the pictures which may be taken
as representative of his many qualities. The two
water-colours reproduced here, La Revolte and
La Guerre, show the remarkable power he possesses
'LA REVOLTE" FROM A WATER-COLOUR BY GASTON LA TOUCHE
84