Studio: international art (78.1919)

THE DRAWINGS OF JEAN DE BOSSCHERE

Suffice it to say that at some time or
another Bosschere hit upon the idea that
line and colour are really one and the
same. It matters not whether a line be a
black line or a grey line, thick or thin, or
brown or red or green, so long as it is a line.
This method of using calligraphic design
to express both form and colour is almost
unknown outside the work of the great
Chinese and Japanese masters ; and Jean
de,'Bosschere, working perhaps from the
slight hint dropped by Beardsley, was the
first artist in Western Europe, so far as I
know, to make deliberate use of it. 0 a
Take, for example, such an illustration
as His Memories are gathered together in
Six Notebooks from ** The Closed Door."
At first sight it may appear to be simply
a man of remarkable beetle-like appearance
walking along a road. But taken as a
series of lines and spots of black and white,
it shows a skill in gradation of tone and
spacing of mass not inferior, I think, to
the work of the finest Chinese masters.
Kept in the bounds of the most conven-
tional calligraphy, it yet perfectly renders
an idea, the spirit, if you will, of a man in
perpetual movement. 000
In 44 Christmas Tales of Flanders " and
in]“Beasts and Men" there are certain
illustrations which are printed on the same
paper as the text, and which are yet colour
illustrations, as they are composed of black,
white, and a pale wash of red-brown.
These illustrations, which are all of full-
page dimensions, not only convey to our
eyes a richer decorative feeling than the
simple black and white, but they also
afford a valuable link between the small
black-and-white cuts and the full colour-
blocks, which the artist, for once relaxing
his austere self-denial, has permitted him-
self to make use of in these volumes. 0
And, indeed, it is fortunate that Jean de
Bosschere has produced these two books,
for without them we would never have
known what rich gifts, what a bewildering
range and variety of artistic effect, he was
capable of achieving. To children of all
ages between six and seventy, it must be
these same colour illustrations that attract
them most to 44 Christmas Tales " and
44 Beasts and Men." Here the artist gives
us a picture recalling the Flanders plain
and Breughel's scenes of snow and hunting,
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such as The Rich Woman and the Poor
Woman on Christmas Eve, or The Three
Farmers with its superb fox in the fore-
ground. Again he is pure Persian, as in
The Quarrel (frontispiece to 44 Beasts and
Men ") or in Birds going to the Races.
Now he transmutes Beardsley into an ex-
quisite colour miniature, as in The Satyr's
Village or The Procession, and now he com-
bines Persia, Flanders, and mediaeval
illumination into a magnificent whole, as
in the case of Jan and Jannette on the
Wonderful Bridge. But always he has in
him the spirit that is Jean de Bosschere.
In 44 The Closed Door " it is a spirit cold,
austere, aristocratic, and aloof. In the
illustrations to these folk-tales it is at once
more human and more openly droll. It is a
spirit that is as fine as44 Tyl Eulenspiegel "

''THE RATTLES ON A WHEELBAR-
ROW." BY JEAN DE BOSSCHERE
(From “ The City Carious”)