DOI Heft:
No. 85 (April, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: A master draughtsman: Paul Renouard
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0185
A Master Draughtsman
before our eyes, each uttering its
characteristic cry. Nothing more
charming in its power, nothing more
powerful in its charm, was ever seen.
From the brute creation we pass to
the human species—children and men,
ballet girls, anglers, gymnasts and con-
tortionists, together with the attitudes
of Gambetta while delivering his last
speech, i\:c., &c. Here we find our-
selves in the very highest region of
pictorial art—that of expression. And
here the supreme art of the draughts-
man triumphs all along the line, with
its extraordinary delicacy and its truly
astonishing modelling. Everywhere,
in fact, in these two hundred pages,
one is conscious of a delicious sense
of real life—now delicate, now brutal,
but always life itself, whether in laughter
or in tears, and with now and then a
pretty touch of humour or irony, quite
devoid of scoffing or pessimism. From
this it must not be supposed that
Renouard shrinks from depicting the
horrors, the sombre dramas, of every-
day life. His Irish sketches testify to
the contrary, as do his terrible pictures
of low life in Paris and London—truly
hellish scenes of vice and wretched-
ness. Yet this is the very artist who
can depict in all her airy grace the
most lithesome of danseuses, who can
portray in all its tenderness the helpless
gesture of the new-born child.
But whether his work be sombre or
bright, subdued or luminous, sorrowful
or full of joy, whatever he does, in fact,
Paul Renouard depicts for us, day by day,
with surest hand, and honest purpose,
and in perfect style, the essentials of our
mannerism and mere regard for effect, is precious every-day life. He has undertaken a noble task,
and fruitful. and posterity will thank him for it. To him and
A word must now be said of Renouard in respect to others of his stamp will future generations come
of his treatment of animal life. In a collection of —should the grave problems of existence allow
more than two hundred plates—almost all engraved them the necessary leisure—if they desire to realise
a Feau forte by himself, the remainder, a score the special quality of our fin-de-siecle civilisation,
perhaps, done by F. Florian—explicitly styled Gabriel Mourey.
" Mouvements, Gestes, Expressions," he reveals -
himself completely and triumphantly. This colossal In addition to the munificent bequest of the
work was exhibited in the Salon du Champ de late Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Victoria and Albert
Mars of 1898, and was a source of wonder to Museum, South Kensington, has recently acquired
all. Cats, dogs, goats, chickens, ducks, frogs, a collection of twenty-seven paintings, chiefly in
pigs, tigers, rabbits, and birds were there alive water-colours, presented by Mr. James Orrock, R.I.
172
A I. INFIRMEKIE DES INVALIDES
FROM A SKETCH BY PAUL RENOUARD
before our eyes, each uttering its
characteristic cry. Nothing more
charming in its power, nothing more
powerful in its charm, was ever seen.
From the brute creation we pass to
the human species—children and men,
ballet girls, anglers, gymnasts and con-
tortionists, together with the attitudes
of Gambetta while delivering his last
speech, i\:c., &c. Here we find our-
selves in the very highest region of
pictorial art—that of expression. And
here the supreme art of the draughts-
man triumphs all along the line, with
its extraordinary delicacy and its truly
astonishing modelling. Everywhere,
in fact, in these two hundred pages,
one is conscious of a delicious sense
of real life—now delicate, now brutal,
but always life itself, whether in laughter
or in tears, and with now and then a
pretty touch of humour or irony, quite
devoid of scoffing or pessimism. From
this it must not be supposed that
Renouard shrinks from depicting the
horrors, the sombre dramas, of every-
day life. His Irish sketches testify to
the contrary, as do his terrible pictures
of low life in Paris and London—truly
hellish scenes of vice and wretched-
ness. Yet this is the very artist who
can depict in all her airy grace the
most lithesome of danseuses, who can
portray in all its tenderness the helpless
gesture of the new-born child.
But whether his work be sombre or
bright, subdued or luminous, sorrowful
or full of joy, whatever he does, in fact,
Paul Renouard depicts for us, day by day,
with surest hand, and honest purpose,
and in perfect style, the essentials of our
mannerism and mere regard for effect, is precious every-day life. He has undertaken a noble task,
and fruitful. and posterity will thank him for it. To him and
A word must now be said of Renouard in respect to others of his stamp will future generations come
of his treatment of animal life. In a collection of —should the grave problems of existence allow
more than two hundred plates—almost all engraved them the necessary leisure—if they desire to realise
a Feau forte by himself, the remainder, a score the special quality of our fin-de-siecle civilisation,
perhaps, done by F. Florian—explicitly styled Gabriel Mourey.
" Mouvements, Gestes, Expressions," he reveals -
himself completely and triumphantly. This colossal In addition to the munificent bequest of the
work was exhibited in the Salon du Champ de late Mr. Henry Vaughan, the Victoria and Albert
Mars of 1898, and was a source of wonder to Museum, South Kensington, has recently acquired
all. Cats, dogs, goats, chickens, ducks, frogs, a collection of twenty-seven paintings, chiefly in
pigs, tigers, rabbits, and birds were there alive water-colours, presented by Mr. James Orrock, R.I.
172
A I. INFIRMEKIE DES INVALIDES
FROM A SKETCH BY PAUL RENOUARD