DOI Heft:
No. 206 (May, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Frantz, Henri: The charcoal drawings of Henri Harpignies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20969#0289
Charcoal Drawings by Henri Harpignies
reason for this is to be found in the fact that
the artist has only quite recently commenced to
work in this new medium. He has been always a
prolific draughtsman and well versed in the art
of suggesting colour through the medium of black-
and-white, as will be seen by anyone who refers to
an earlier volume of this magazine in which
numerous examples of his drawings were repro-
duced (see The Studio for April, 1898, Vol. xiii.).
His lead-pencil drawings are especially charming,
and we find the painter wonderfully skilful in
depicting water, the sky, the massive architecture
of trees and rocks, or the distant undulating line
of the horizon in these little sketches. But up to
a very recent date he had not worked at all in
charcoal.
How is it that now he has come to take up
this technique? No doubt he has felt in these
last few years the desire to record more rapidly
upon paper his visions of nature, and probably for-
saking pencil or pen drawing — those delightful
little sketches which the master used to like to
send, like visiting cards, to his intimate friends—he
has been drawn irresistibly by the peculiar attrac-
tions which this, for him, new technique offers, its
rapidity, and the wonderfully quick but at the
same time eloquent results attainable.
Harpignies has also certainly been influenced
by the charcoal drawings of M. Leon Lhermitte,
himself another master of landscape painting in
France, and who belongs also to the men of 1830,
but is more particularly related in his art to Jean
Frangois Millet, while Harpignies, on the other
hand, derives from Corot. There are great differ-
ences between the work of the two artists, for
while M. Lhermitte depicts in nature not merely
the landscape but also the life and labour of
mankind, Harpignies, except on very rare occa-
sions, is interested in pure landscape. This does
not prevent him from admiring the charcoal
drawings of his brother artist Lhermitte, though as
a matter of fact the latter never offered him any
advice upon the subject, and indeed it was not until
the other day, while on a visit to M. Harpignies,
BY HENRI HARPIGNIES
reason for this is to be found in the fact that
the artist has only quite recently commenced to
work in this new medium. He has been always a
prolific draughtsman and well versed in the art
of suggesting colour through the medium of black-
and-white, as will be seen by anyone who refers to
an earlier volume of this magazine in which
numerous examples of his drawings were repro-
duced (see The Studio for April, 1898, Vol. xiii.).
His lead-pencil drawings are especially charming,
and we find the painter wonderfully skilful in
depicting water, the sky, the massive architecture
of trees and rocks, or the distant undulating line
of the horizon in these little sketches. But up to
a very recent date he had not worked at all in
charcoal.
How is it that now he has come to take up
this technique? No doubt he has felt in these
last few years the desire to record more rapidly
upon paper his visions of nature, and probably for-
saking pencil or pen drawing — those delightful
little sketches which the master used to like to
send, like visiting cards, to his intimate friends—he
has been drawn irresistibly by the peculiar attrac-
tions which this, for him, new technique offers, its
rapidity, and the wonderfully quick but at the
same time eloquent results attainable.
Harpignies has also certainly been influenced
by the charcoal drawings of M. Leon Lhermitte,
himself another master of landscape painting in
France, and who belongs also to the men of 1830,
but is more particularly related in his art to Jean
Frangois Millet, while Harpignies, on the other
hand, derives from Corot. There are great differ-
ences between the work of the two artists, for
while M. Lhermitte depicts in nature not merely
the landscape but also the life and labour of
mankind, Harpignies, except on very rare occa-
sions, is interested in pure landscape. This does
not prevent him from admiring the charcoal
drawings of his brother artist Lhermitte, though as
a matter of fact the latter never offered him any
advice upon the subject, and indeed it was not until
the other day, while on a visit to M. Harpignies,
BY HENRI HARPIGNIES