DOI Heft:
No. 86 (May, 1900)
DOI Artikel:Boucher, Henry: A French caricaturist: Louis Morin
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19784#0267
Louis Morin
OMISRES DU CHAT NOIR. "CAKNAVAL DE VENISE ' BY LOUIS MORIN
sketch, I will attempt succinctly to sum up his Far from it. No art formula finds him indifferent
career. or unappreciative. While he has closely followed,
Louis Morin is in everything and before every- and still closely follows, the work of all our illus-
thing a synthetist; he fixes an epoch, reveals a trators,* he has not been sparing in his admi-
milieu far more effectually than an individual ration for foreign draughtsmen of note—such as
personage; he is also what I will term an " un- Menzel, Rops, Abbey, Vierge, and others—always
realist," and to him may justly be applied the showing a marked preference for those in
felicitous criticism passed by Walter Pater on whose work lifelike gesture and personality are
Watteau in his " Portraits Imaginaires " He de- conspicuous, and in which the method employed
scribes him as " . . . sketching scenes from nature, is honest and significant.
but with a sort of grace, and a marvellous gift of The judgment I have thus inadequately ex-
omission with regard to vulgar reality. . . ." More- pressed will, I feel sure, speedily receive general
over, Morin's synthetic characteristics find expres- sanction, for about the time these lines appear in
sion in divers ways—now graceful, now amusing, print the firm of Ollendorff will be offering to the
now pathetic, now broadly comic, or even strongly public " Pes Confidences d'une Aieule " by Abel
grotesque; with charming ease and certainty he Hermant, and Doucet's " Douze Pantomimes,"
will touch even the most risky subject, yet never both adorned by Morin's pencil, and will also be
degenerate into mere triviality, of which he has a inviting " M. Tout le Monde" to visit the galleries
profound horror. As for bad or sickly art, he in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and judge for
makes no attempt to hide his opinion thereon in himself of the many and the real merits of this
his fore-word to "Pes Carnavals Parisiens." "The most delicate artist. They deserve to be pro-
land of Rabelais, and Callot and Moliere and La claimed aloud and universally, to compensate for
Fontaine, and Watteau and Fragonard and Gautier the feebleness of the praise I have been attempting
has not become so completely subjugated by to bestow ; but will " Mr. Everybody," whose
Germany as to be indifferent to gaiety and grace sagacity in matters of this sort is occasionally open
and colour and brightness and wit and good sense to doubt, be capable of appreciating these said
—to say nothing of that touch of folly indispensable merits ?
to every reasonable being, etc." The fact is that Henri Boucher.
in the matter of art and criticism he has not been
content to remain with Winkelman and Victor *A Vl,lllme ofn«*d^Iorin ™ c"tain fof hi*
contemporaries, entitled " (Juelques artistes de ce temps
Cousin ! lias been published.
254
OMISRES DU CHAT NOIR. "CAKNAVAL DE VENISE ' BY LOUIS MORIN
sketch, I will attempt succinctly to sum up his Far from it. No art formula finds him indifferent
career. or unappreciative. While he has closely followed,
Louis Morin is in everything and before every- and still closely follows, the work of all our illus-
thing a synthetist; he fixes an epoch, reveals a trators,* he has not been sparing in his admi-
milieu far more effectually than an individual ration for foreign draughtsmen of note—such as
personage; he is also what I will term an " un- Menzel, Rops, Abbey, Vierge, and others—always
realist," and to him may justly be applied the showing a marked preference for those in
felicitous criticism passed by Walter Pater on whose work lifelike gesture and personality are
Watteau in his " Portraits Imaginaires " He de- conspicuous, and in which the method employed
scribes him as " . . . sketching scenes from nature, is honest and significant.
but with a sort of grace, and a marvellous gift of The judgment I have thus inadequately ex-
omission with regard to vulgar reality. . . ." More- pressed will, I feel sure, speedily receive general
over, Morin's synthetic characteristics find expres- sanction, for about the time these lines appear in
sion in divers ways—now graceful, now amusing, print the firm of Ollendorff will be offering to the
now pathetic, now broadly comic, or even strongly public " Pes Confidences d'une Aieule " by Abel
grotesque; with charming ease and certainty he Hermant, and Doucet's " Douze Pantomimes,"
will touch even the most risky subject, yet never both adorned by Morin's pencil, and will also be
degenerate into mere triviality, of which he has a inviting " M. Tout le Monde" to visit the galleries
profound horror. As for bad or sickly art, he in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and judge for
makes no attempt to hide his opinion thereon in himself of the many and the real merits of this
his fore-word to "Pes Carnavals Parisiens." "The most delicate artist. They deserve to be pro-
land of Rabelais, and Callot and Moliere and La claimed aloud and universally, to compensate for
Fontaine, and Watteau and Fragonard and Gautier the feebleness of the praise I have been attempting
has not become so completely subjugated by to bestow ; but will " Mr. Everybody," whose
Germany as to be indifferent to gaiety and grace sagacity in matters of this sort is occasionally open
and colour and brightness and wit and good sense to doubt, be capable of appreciating these said
—to say nothing of that touch of folly indispensable merits ?
to every reasonable being, etc." The fact is that Henri Boucher.
in the matter of art and criticism he has not been
content to remain with Winkelman and Victor *A Vl,lllme ofn«*d^Iorin ™ c"tain fof hi*
contemporaries, entitled " (Juelques artistes de ce temps
Cousin ! lias been published.
254