DOI issue:
[No. 320 (November 1919)]
DOI article:Mourey, Gabriel: French decorative art, [2]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21359#0060
FRENCH DECORATIVE ART
TABLE CENTRE IN
SILK WITH BATIK
DECORATION. BY
MME. MARGUERITE
PANGON
of the object, and to his exquisite sense of
colour. It would be no less unjust were
I to neglect to praise as it deserves the work
of M. Jean Dunand, who remains the
perfect craftsman in an altogether different
medium—metal. Swiss by birth, M. Du-
nand has long since earned the right to be
regarded as one of ourselves, so entirely
French is his talent in tendency, in taste,
and in feeling. 0000
M. Clement Mere rightly holds a quite
exceptional position. As a creator of little
knick-knacks—useless things, if you will,
but infinitely fascinating by reason of their
very exquisiteness—M. Clement Mere has
no equal. His taste is absolutely refined
and of the purest, and with it go the skill
and the original fancifulness of the Japanese,
combined with a truly French sense of the
grace and the poetry of things. In all his
work, whether in leather, in wood, in ivory
or in metal, he has, thanks to his inventive
genius and his happy audacity, brought
new things to realization and opened up
fresh horizons. 0000
Mile. Marguerite de Felice is another
charming artist. Until 1914 she had
specialized in leather work; but since
then the lack of primary materials has
forced her talent into other directions, as
is seen in these printed papers for bindings,
in which she now excels. 000
Many are the others who day by day
are showing us the results of their activity
in kindred branches of art. The wall-
papers of M. Gabriel Rene—his Les Per-
ruches, his Jet d’Eau, and his Roses, for
example—like those of M. A. Joseph He-
mard, Mme. Valentine Henches, and Mile.
Roussy, and the etoffes batikees of Mile.
Maublant and Mme. Pangon, all reveal
the suppleness of imagination possessed by
our decorators.] 0000
Nor is the tapestry and embroidery art
standing still. Mme. Fernande Maillaud
continues successfully to produce the fine
tapisserie de laine on which her reputation
was made. She created her own tech-
nique—subdued, logical, and full of quality
—which owes nothing to the past and is
in perfect accord with the subjects she
deals with. There is complete harmony
between the conception and the execution.
One might perhaps suggest, however, that
she is rather too fond of dead colour, and—
54
TABLE CENTRE IN
SILK WITH BATIK
DECORATION. BY
MME. MARGUERITE
PANGON
of the object, and to his exquisite sense of
colour. It would be no less unjust were
I to neglect to praise as it deserves the work
of M. Jean Dunand, who remains the
perfect craftsman in an altogether different
medium—metal. Swiss by birth, M. Du-
nand has long since earned the right to be
regarded as one of ourselves, so entirely
French is his talent in tendency, in taste,
and in feeling. 0000
M. Clement Mere rightly holds a quite
exceptional position. As a creator of little
knick-knacks—useless things, if you will,
but infinitely fascinating by reason of their
very exquisiteness—M. Clement Mere has
no equal. His taste is absolutely refined
and of the purest, and with it go the skill
and the original fancifulness of the Japanese,
combined with a truly French sense of the
grace and the poetry of things. In all his
work, whether in leather, in wood, in ivory
or in metal, he has, thanks to his inventive
genius and his happy audacity, brought
new things to realization and opened up
fresh horizons. 0000
Mile. Marguerite de Felice is another
charming artist. Until 1914 she had
specialized in leather work; but since
then the lack of primary materials has
forced her talent into other directions, as
is seen in these printed papers for bindings,
in which she now excels. 000
Many are the others who day by day
are showing us the results of their activity
in kindred branches of art. The wall-
papers of M. Gabriel Rene—his Les Per-
ruches, his Jet d’Eau, and his Roses, for
example—like those of M. A. Joseph He-
mard, Mme. Valentine Henches, and Mile.
Roussy, and the etoffes batikees of Mile.
Maublant and Mme. Pangon, all reveal
the suppleness of imagination possessed by
our decorators.] 0000
Nor is the tapestry and embroidery art
standing still. Mme. Fernande Maillaud
continues successfully to produce the fine
tapisserie de laine on which her reputation
was made. She created her own tech-
nique—subdued, logical, and full of quality
—which owes nothing to the past and is
in perfect accord with the subjects she
deals with. There is complete harmony
between the conception and the execution.
One might perhaps suggest, however, that
she is rather too fond of dead colour, and—
54