Studio: international art (35.1905)

Constantin Meunier

“ LE PECHEUR” BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER

(Photograph by P. Becker)

soon able to help her in the business; her eldest
son, Jean-Baptiste, obtained work at a printer’s as
a typographer, the second was employed in a
government office, whilst the youngest, Constantin,
was still occupied with his elementary schooling.
By what concatenation of circumstances, however,
did the artistic vocation reveal itself in Jean-
Baptiste and in his brother? Theodore Fournois
(the great Brussels landscapist) had come to live at
Mme. Meunier’s. He it was, perhaps, who gave
them a taste for art. However that may be, Jean-
Baptiste shortly afterwards became a pupil of Cala-
matta (who directed the school of engraving at
Brussels), with the intention of learning to wield
the burin; then he in turn developed the germ of
art in his younger brother, and it must have been

interesting to see the journeyman-printer, burdened
with a double labour, that of the workshop as well
as that of engraving (for he continued to practise
his trade), correcting the first attempts of the great
painter-sculptor whose work is now before us.

The ) oung man set himself to work enthusias-
tically at drawing; and when, shortly after, he
presented himself at the studio of the sculptor
Fraikin, the latter received him with the words :—
“.Thank goodness, you can draw !”

“But with Fraikin,” as Meunier used to relate,
“ my time was passed in moulding or preparing the
plastic clay which the master needed for his work.
Occasionally I received a casual lesson in model-
ling ; and nevertheless I looked upon my pro-

UNE H1ERCHEUSE” BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER

(Photograph by P. Becker)

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