Studio: international art (31.1904)

Gaston La Touche

THE MODERN FRENCH time when his representations of Italian actors and

PASTELLISTS._GASTON n's ecclesiastical interiors at once aroused full

t a tait„iit. ar™,,,p admiration on the part of his faithful admirers,

LA TOUCHE. BY OCTAVE ... , . , „. r '
while at the same time they were calling forth

UZANNE. vehement protests from the majority, who de-

Master of the pyrotechnics of colour, en- manded to know what he could be doing in the

amoured of all the prisms of light, ever seeking domain of Latour and Perodeau and La Rosalba !

after the sumptuous decorations of the eighteenth Now, as nothing on the subject of processes and

century and the evocations of fetes galantes of esthetic treatment could be of so much value as

reigns gone by; curious, moreover, as to all the arts the ideas and opinions of an executive artist him-

of painting, Gaston La Touche of course could not self, I decided to go and interview my friend

fail to be attracted by the delicacies and the subtle- Gaston La Touche with reference to his pastels,

ties of the pastel. He arrived there slowly, by the In his cottage-studio at St. Cloud, where I found

force of things, when his talents had already him, there was no abundance of pastels — those

expanded themselves on many big compositions in works done with the soft crayon in flat and velvety

oils, and in the water-colours in which he always tones. I should have liked to examine carefully

excelled. It was a time when his capacity was on the grain of the paper, white or grey, if not on

still a matter of lively discussion at the exhibitions, a the canvas, the secret of his skilful rubbing, the

' la copiste" (By permission of A/. Sanchez) from the pastel by g. la touche

XXXI. No. 134.—May, 1904. 281