DOI issue:
No. 86 (May, 1900)
DOI article:Boucher, Henry: A French caricaturist: Louis Morin
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0258
Louis Morin
subtle ombriste. His shadow pictures, seen more
than once at the "Chat Noir," were a delight
to those best qualified to judge. Also he has
turned to caricature, and handled it with genuine
humour. Lastly, and this is not the least of
his merits, he possesses a clever, vivid, amusing
pen, and amid his sparkling lines of prose he will
dash off little illustrations which speak for them-
selves and need no interpreter.
It would be a grave error to suppose that all
these resources, all these manifestations of great
talent, find expression hastily and oft-hand. Morin
is too cultured for that, and far too conscientious.
While he observes and depicts life in its lighter
aspects, he never strays beyond the limits of truth
and reason, nor loses sight of the true significance
of his subject. There can be no pettiness in art
when it is treated thus. Morin understands full
well, and has well exemplified, the sound truth that
treatment in art is purely relative.
In order, then, to see the nature and the scope
of Morin's art, let us proceed to examine his work
as concisely as we may
Louis Morin was born in Paris in 1855. His
father, formerly tutor in one of the great Neapolitan
families, took his boy a long way on the road of
knowledge After his death the son completed his
education by two years of study at Versailles and
at Stanislas—the two most miserable years of his
life, Morin declares! Then, approaching art—
much against the wish of his family—from its
severest side, he applied himself to architecture,
which proved to be a roundabout way of reaching
that which he felt germinating within him. The
family opposition deprived him of a master; indeed,
he had the rare advantage of escaping the influence
of any one teacher in particular, and at the same
time of having the benefit of instruction from them
all—not the teachers of class-room or studio, but
the great mute Masters whose lessons are to be
had every day for nothing in our museums and
galleries. He learned to study, too, in Nature's
lovely book, in the streets and fields, and amid the
rich profusion of the libraries.
Starting in this fashion, it was harder for Morin
than for most men to make a good beginning.
24S
subtle ombriste. His shadow pictures, seen more
than once at the "Chat Noir," were a delight
to those best qualified to judge. Also he has
turned to caricature, and handled it with genuine
humour. Lastly, and this is not the least of
his merits, he possesses a clever, vivid, amusing
pen, and amid his sparkling lines of prose he will
dash off little illustrations which speak for them-
selves and need no interpreter.
It would be a grave error to suppose that all
these resources, all these manifestations of great
talent, find expression hastily and oft-hand. Morin
is too cultured for that, and far too conscientious.
While he observes and depicts life in its lighter
aspects, he never strays beyond the limits of truth
and reason, nor loses sight of the true significance
of his subject. There can be no pettiness in art
when it is treated thus. Morin understands full
well, and has well exemplified, the sound truth that
treatment in art is purely relative.
In order, then, to see the nature and the scope
of Morin's art, let us proceed to examine his work
as concisely as we may
Louis Morin was born in Paris in 1855. His
father, formerly tutor in one of the great Neapolitan
families, took his boy a long way on the road of
knowledge After his death the son completed his
education by two years of study at Versailles and
at Stanislas—the two most miserable years of his
life, Morin declares! Then, approaching art—
much against the wish of his family—from its
severest side, he applied himself to architecture,
which proved to be a roundabout way of reaching
that which he felt germinating within him. The
family opposition deprived him of a master; indeed,
he had the rare advantage of escaping the influence
of any one teacher in particular, and at the same
time of having the benefit of instruction from them
all—not the teachers of class-room or studio, but
the great mute Masters whose lessons are to be
had every day for nothing in our museums and
galleries. He learned to study, too, in Nature's
lovely book, in the streets and fields, and amid the
rich profusion of the libraries.
Starting in this fashion, it was harder for Morin
than for most men to make a good beginning.
24S