Studio: international art (47.1909)

Lithographs and Etchings by J. L. Forain

SOME ETCH-
INGS AND
LITHOGRAPHS
BY J.L. FORAIN.
BY PROF. DR. HANS
W. SINGER.

A large number of the
artists who supply the
comic papers of Paris with
humorous designs have
chosen to strike that popu-
lar note which delights in
an extravagant—boisterous,
it might be called — style
of caricature. The black-
and - white convention of
men like the late Emmanuel
Poire (well known by his
nom de guerre “ Caran
d’Ache ”) depends upon
eccentricity for its effect.
The absurdity and the con-
tortions of the pen, as it

represented Mr. A. E. John, but especially was
one of his pencil drawings to be studied for the
sake of seeing what knowledge one single line can
contain running instinctively without correction
down the back of a figure. Miss Edna Clarke
Hall’s drawings always discover an artist through
and through. Mr. W. van Hasselt’s Gipsy Girl
was among the very best things in these rooms.
The Cathedral, Burgos by Mr. Gerald Summers,
the Valley of Arques by Mr. W. W. Russell,
Mentone Town by Mr. C. M. Pearce, Richmond
Bridge by Mr. W. Kneen, come back to our
mind, as does Mr. W. Dadd’s The North Country,
with sunlight giving an illusory charm to a sordid
district of brick. Mr. A. W. Rich’s water-colours
were more supreme in his way than ever, his
Chichester Cathedra!\ Millmead near Guildford,
and Plumpton Place being especially notable. This
year he has avoided the sweetness of tint that
has on occasion detracted from the dignity of his
colour. A delightful monotype, Cloudy Weather,
was the work of Mr. A. H.

Fuhvood. And we wel-
comed the appearance of
Mr. Joseph Crawhall’s per-
fect drawings upon the
New English Art Club
walls. T. M. W.

BY J. L. FORAIN

189

were, are what excite laughter. Great is the
contrast between their broad farce and the refined,
esoteric wit of the other school, at the head of
which Forain may justly be placed. Their work
has no tag upon it; its humour does not lie upon
the surface. Whereas the one class aim at amuse-
ment upon a broadly popular basis only, the other
are perforce at once satirists. Caran d’Ache
published drawings, sets of drawings, indeed whole
albums, without any letterpress at all; but Forain’s
design is, taken by itself, almost always a torso,
not to be properly appreciated without the ac-
companying text. This is generally felt to be true,
and consequently people have always been par-
ticularly interested in discovering what relationship
exists between drawing and letterpress in Forain’s
work, whether he illustrates other people’s flashes
of wit, or whether they adapt texts to his designs,
or, if he is the author of both, whether he first
conceives the picture or the words.

Forain himself explained the genesis of his

“AUPRtS DU MALADE” (LITHOGRAPH)