Studio: international art (32.1904)

Fdlix Bracquemond

and thus it is I find him, at seventy-one, still young of one's vision ; and seeing the artist in such sur-
and robust, despite his white hair, bending eagerly roundings, in an instant one grasps the secret of his
over the proof he has just printed, as devoted as serene existence—spent near enough to Paris not
ever to his art, with mind still alert, full of happy to lose its beneficent influence, and far enough
memories of the noble friendships of other days. away not to be swayed by its enervating distractions;

In the pavilion of the Villa Brancas at Sevres, never knowing what it is to waste time, but working
the artist's monachal cell, as it were—in which he continuously in perfect peace. "The one prudence
spends his laborious life, one finds a special in life," remarked Emerson, "is concentration."
atmosphere of meditation and of calm. From the It is here, in these lovely woods so near, that
top of the terrace, once frequented by so many Bracquemond has so tenderly shown, as his works
bright spirits, one sees below the little town of prove again and again, his love of Nature and
Sevres, the woods of Saint Cloud, the slopes of animal life. Here it is that he has watched the
Meudon, and the Seine unwinding its pale ribbon gambols of duck and teal on the shining surface of
across the fair fields green with the early spring, the waters, now taking flight heavenwards, now
And there on the horizon is Paris, with its towers chasing one another over the rushes. Here it is
and belfries, wrapped in mist and filling the limits he saw Jeannot Lapin (to recall his lovely plate in

the "Fables of La Fon-
taine"), bound across the
lanes and play, all regard-
less of huntsman or dog,
or, with ears pricked up,
venture one timid eye
outside his burrow.

Here, too, it is that, in
presence of the realities
of stream and thicket
and field, Bracquemond
has delighted to evoke
that which was visible only
to his imagination — the
other denizens of the forest:
the naiad mingling her
white limbs in the caper-
ings of the young deer, or
startling the ducks at play.

While still quite young
Bracquemond did trade
lithographs, up to the time
when Joseph Guichard
a pupil of Ingres, took
him into his studio. At
the age of nineteen we-
find him making his first
appearance at the Salon
with a portrait of his grand-
mother. The work was
noticed by Theophile
Gautier, and that year
marked the beginning of
a friendship which grew
closer and closer till the
great writer's death. At
the Salon of 1853 the

PORTRAIT OF MANET FROM THE PASTEL BY FELIX BRACQUEMOND . artist showed a portrait.