Studio: international art (30.1904)

The French Pastellists of the Eighteenth Century

1793, and, despite the unjust criticisms of Diderot past that of Quentin-Latour stands out with incom
—rendered at times cruelly partial by reason of parable brilliancy. He is, and must ever be, the
his exclusive admiration of Greuze — produced King of the pastel; no one ever attained, no one
some excellent portraits, of which a goodly number will ever attain, to the perfection of his technique,
are still to be seen in the galleries of the Louvre to the penetration of his genius. Not Diirer, nor
and at Versailles. Holbein, nor Rembrandt, each with his keen, strong

One may be allowed to declare, therefore, that brush, has analysed with greater insight the mystery
the art of the pastel is essentially a French art, of the human face than has this astounding artist,
although in certain very learned expositions its beforewhom posed in turn Sovereign after Sovereign,
paternity is attributed to Alexandre Thiele, of queens of beauty, actresses, high military chiefs,
Erfurt, or to Mile. Heid, of Dantzig. Certain it writers, danseuses, and philosophers. . . .All that the
is, too, that at the opening of the twentieth century, eighteenth century—that age of wit and grace—
as throughout the eighteenth, the spirit of our artists boasted of spirituel and elegant has been fixed
holds the lead, with prodigious skill, in an exquisite definitely by the coloured crayons handled by his
genre, which is, as it were, the tender melody of agile fingers—fixed in physiognomies of rich diver-
painting, sity and extraordinary vivacity. The whole life, the

I will take the liberty of advising our present-day whole intellectuality, of an epoch is here,
pastellists—who, too often, are just spirited painters Apropos, let me relate a brief anecdote in con-
in disguise —to avoid applying the coloured crayon nection with the great Latour. It was, if my
process where the brush
alone seems to be called
for. Why try to pastellise
the storms of the skies, the
flinty hardness of therocks,
the, raging torrent, the
rough tree trunks, or the
lined and sun-tanned skin
of the peasant? Why try.
to express on the flute the
fury of the "Marseillaise?"

The art of the pastel
should be devoted almost
exclusively to the repre-
sentation of women and
fiowers; and fruit. The
historic glory of the pastel
springs from the fact that
certain born pastellists
have succeeded by their
special art in expressing
the inexpressible; in fixing,
by means of their quick
and luminous crayon, the
flower of the flesh, the
flesh of the flower, the
velvet of the fruit, the rapid
quivering of the light amid
the tresses' gold, on the
pearly freshness of the
skin, on the softness of
the silky folds.

* * *

Among the names ot

the great pastellists of the portrait (In the Muste da Louvre) from the pastel by simeon chardix

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