Studio: international art (45.1909)

Auguste Lepère

study of Nature is unnecessary? Not at all;
for from Nature springs the element of all know-
ledge ; it is on Nature that the artist fait ses
gammes ; but when it is a question of a picture a
study is not sufficient ; several, many, are re-
quired ; the artist should not undertake a picture
until he possesses the necessary material, until he
has undergone the preliminary labour which will
enable the execution of the work to be carried out
without trouble .... Shall I ever attain to that?”
With Lepère the art of the engraver developed
on parallel lines with that of the painter. At the
time when he was putting on canvas his vigorous
sketches of the landscape of La Vendée, he took
advantage of the opportunity to engrave certain
plates which were inspired by scenes close at hand.
Lepère has mastered all the secrets of his metier,
all the methods, however diverse—etching, wood-
engraving, engraving in colours, and dry-point. In
all his works there are to be found, combined with
the impeccable virtuosity of the good workman,
imagination, a sense of the picturesque, and com-
prehension of life. Many are the plates I could
name which I have seen once more with delight
on the walls of the Lepère room at the Salon or in
the artist’s studio : this underwood so full of colour
in its black-and-white, this apple market on the
Seine at the mouth of the Canal St. Martin. Like
Méryon, he has obtained some astonishing effects
out of the ancient buildings of Paris. Here we
have, in admirable contrast, delicate church steeples

seen through the dormer window of some old
tower and melting into the sky, or crowded quays
with all the movements of boats and barges, beside
the silence of Notre Dame—so many fine and
noble things that are destined to live.

In his wood-blocks Lepère revives and re-
juvenates the art of the old German engravers ; in
his PW du, Port de Nantes the detail of the old
masters is carried to its extreme limits, and another,
showing the return of a procession of ecclesiasti-
cal dignitaries with their attendants to Nantes
Cathedral on the occasion of the “fête Dieu,”
reveals to the full all the effects the artist is able
to draw from this fine and broad technique.

Lepère has utilised his natural gifts as an
engraver and his great experience in the art not
only in a large number of separate plates, but in the
illustration of volumes which contain some of his
most beautiful wood-work. The admirable thing
about these books is that he has not been content
merely to illustrate them, but has adorned them
from end to end in the distribution of the type and
in the general arrangement of the mise-en-page.
The names of some of these works should be kept
in mind, for they rank high among the things of
their kind produced of recent years. They include
the Paysages Parisiens of Goudeau, the Dimanches
Parisiens of Louis Morin, the Paysages et Coins de
Rues of Richepin, Nantes (1900), La Bievre et les
Gobelins of Huysmans, A Rebours, by the same
author, and two contes by Maupassant.

‘le pont NEUF” (ETCHING) BY AUGUSTE LEPÈRE

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