Studio: international art (29.1903)

The Paintings and Sculpture of A Iphonse Legros

il

was about to enter. This may be
discovered the more easily by
examining his etchings, which at
that time were marked by a certain
.ardent and somewhat wild sense of
poetry.

■ His favourite masters just then
were the German and Italian "prim-
itives." On arriving in England
he quickly modified his style; not,
to be sure, that he copied the
English artists, with whom he lived
on terms of excellent comradeship ;
on the contrary it cannot be said
that he assimilated anything from
• "--v this association, remaining absolutely

refractory to the British spirit.
But, isolated as he was from the
combative circle of his first years of
struggle, forming about him a sort
of separating zone, within which he
was free from immediate influences,
he simply associated himself with a
set of chosen friends—faithful friends,
faithfully loved, friends with venera-
tion styled Masters — Holbein,
Mantegna, Albrecht Diirer, Rem-
brandt, Titian and Poussin, not
forgetting Ingres, whose pupil he
had always longed to be. These
names alone reveal the changes in
his artistic sense and in his tech-
study for a fountain from the dry-point by alphonse legros nique. He abandoned his primitive

" precocity," to the great regret of
the critics who had applauded his
sheer observation of popular life, as is seen in his early efforts. He renounced the charm of colour
Tinkers, his Fish-hawkers, his Wood-cutters, &c, in favour of the manlier beauty of design ; he lost
whom we know by means of his paintings, together something of his strange accent, but ;he gained in
with all the other honest, humble folk who throng simplicity, in grandeur, in dignity, in unity; in a
his plates—milk-girls, egg-sellers, peasant girls going word, he entered the ranks of what are known as
to market, all, as a rule, dressed in the sober but the classics.

spruce style of the women Of Boulogne, a town he Space prevents me from referring here to his
often visited, his mother living there. Then we innumerable pen and pencil drawings, also to his
have men cutting faggots, coal-men, harvesters, and silver and gold point work, wherein, reviving the
frequently gipsies, vagabonds and old beggars, for old methods, he immortalised the most famous of
whom he had a special tenderness. his contemporaries both in England and in France.

From the point of view of form and style Legros' This taste for old techniques, for disused methods,
work is somewhat complex in character. It would led him, even from the outset of his labours,
• appear to be divided into two great periods, each towards etching; thence, one day, he was attracted
possessing a distinctly different physiognomy, towards medal work, which, as he said, was' part of
Thus the whole of his early period has a savour the painter's craft, and, in fact, was restored to
rough, keen, and primitive, a picturesque and at honour by painters themselves,
times a minute realism, which was bound to appeal It was inevitable that some day or other he
specially to the pre-Raphaelite circle into which he must attempt sculpture. His curiosity led him to