DOI Heft:
No. 109 (April, 1902)
DOI Artikel:Mourey, Gabriel: The art of M. Lucien Simon
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19875#0171
Luciai Simon
documents—"tranches de vie" or "bits of life".....-
as we used to express it years ago—palpitating
with vitality. The models he chooses are surely
good enough to stand by themselves, without
being clothed in the garb of fancy. It suffices
that they are real; and we may well be content that
the artist has elected to show them to us just as
they are, just as he himself has seen them, with
their true gestures, their true character, in their true
surroundings, and in their special atmosphere. In
carrying out this task which he has imposed on him-
self—or rather, which has been imposed on him, in
the first place by his temperament, and secondly, by
the direction his labours have taken—M. Lucien
Simon combines with a sure method and a bold
fancy for experiment the qualities of an enlightened
psycho-physiologist. For this reason his work will
appear to some people coarse and exaggerated,
while others will be shocked at the keenness of his
drawing, and the unswerving fidelity of his brush.
There is nothing astonishing in this. Others,
again, will blame him for being cruel, for pursuing
his investigations too far, and will regret not to see
him—gifted as they know him to be—devote his
talents to the representation of the brighter side of
things. Instead of that wild, brutal, grimacing,
half-animal Brittany, whose strange coarse nature,
haunted by superstitions, hostile to progress,
mentally rudimentary, he probes with a perspicacity
so penetrating, why does he not show us a comic-
opera Brittany, with bright costumes and joyous
scenery ! In truth there are sad realities in plenty ;
but there are genial realities too, which bring a
smile of satisfaction to the lips of those who taste
them—acidulated and digestive realities leaving an
agreeable flavour on the palate ! Why then does
not M. Lucien Simon manufacture artistic bon-bons
of this sort ? At present he simply gains the
PORTRAITS
158
BY LUCIEN SIMON
documents—"tranches de vie" or "bits of life".....-
as we used to express it years ago—palpitating
with vitality. The models he chooses are surely
good enough to stand by themselves, without
being clothed in the garb of fancy. It suffices
that they are real; and we may well be content that
the artist has elected to show them to us just as
they are, just as he himself has seen them, with
their true gestures, their true character, in their true
surroundings, and in their special atmosphere. In
carrying out this task which he has imposed on him-
self—or rather, which has been imposed on him, in
the first place by his temperament, and secondly, by
the direction his labours have taken—M. Lucien
Simon combines with a sure method and a bold
fancy for experiment the qualities of an enlightened
psycho-physiologist. For this reason his work will
appear to some people coarse and exaggerated,
while others will be shocked at the keenness of his
drawing, and the unswerving fidelity of his brush.
There is nothing astonishing in this. Others,
again, will blame him for being cruel, for pursuing
his investigations too far, and will regret not to see
him—gifted as they know him to be—devote his
talents to the representation of the brighter side of
things. Instead of that wild, brutal, grimacing,
half-animal Brittany, whose strange coarse nature,
haunted by superstitions, hostile to progress,
mentally rudimentary, he probes with a perspicacity
so penetrating, why does he not show us a comic-
opera Brittany, with bright costumes and joyous
scenery ! In truth there are sad realities in plenty ;
but there are genial realities too, which bring a
smile of satisfaction to the lips of those who taste
them—acidulated and digestive realities leaving an
agreeable flavour on the palate ! Why then does
not M. Lucien Simon manufacture artistic bon-bons
of this sort ? At present he simply gains the
PORTRAITS
158
BY LUCIEN SIMON