Studio: international art (78.1919)

THE DRAWINGS OF JEAN DE BOSSCHERE

the fragile lyrical Beardsleyism of “ Beale-
Gryne ” (1908) to these recent works,
there is to be recorded a perpetual ad-
vance, a constant development. In this
connexion it is worth while quoting a
passage from his own essay on Design :

“ Colour has a logic separable from the
appearance; design, on the contrary,
is tightly bound by links that attach it to
the object. This does not in anyway pro-
hibit the search for new expression, which
is the goal of both artist, poet, and prose-
writer. In the general evolution of art,
as in the development of the single in-
dividual, the sole serious struggle is this
perpetual attempt to recreate. Assyrian-
ism, Hellenism, Byzantinism, the Re-
naissance, Rococo, Romanticism, Realism
in its various branches, Impressionism,
the school of Tolstoy, of Ruskin, or of the
Pre-Raphaelites, Idealism, Symbolism, are
links to which others will always be
attached. To place oneself deliberately
196

“ THE BIRDS WORE HATS AND
SPURS.” BY JEAN DE BOSSCHERE
(From" The City Curious ”)

under any of these banners is to shut out
the future, to leave to one side the evolu-
tionary scale of art and of race ” (1905). a
This remark is worth pondering over
by those who are eager to acclaim each new
ism in art as the final goal of perfection.
Here is an artist who refuses to be bound
by the formulae either of yesterday or of
to-day. Any artist who is bound by these
is either ignorant of the development
of art or incapable of making use of all
its resources. Bosschere is neither. 0
In his earliest books he reveals the sole
artistic aim to which he has been faithful :
to be a master of illustrative design,
and above all of design in black and white.
In the essay already quoted from he
attempts to prove that black-and-white
design is the only possible form of modern
illustration. Colour illustration, he de-
clares, demands that the pages of text
should be equally framed in colour; a
rule which the mediaeval illuminators