DOI Heft:
No. 339 (June 1921)
DOI Artikel:Salaman, Malcolm C.: The etchings of M. Armand Coussens
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21392#0239
THE ETCHINGS OF M. ARMAND COUSSENS
"LESPINS." ETCHING
BY ARMAND COUSSENS
as motives for linear expression. In the linear essentials, with the tonal assis-
Les Pins, Heel that as soon as M.Coussens's tance of a little "foul-biting" tactfully
vision had realised the rhythmic relation allowed. 0 0 a a a
of stem and branch and leafage with the A true landscape etcher, then, is M.Cous-
shapes of the land and the cloud-forms sens, and one would fain see more of such
of the sky, and the pictorial conception prints ; but, in asking for more, one finds
had taken its place imperatively upon the that after all it is people rather than land-
copper, the very life of the trees responded scape, the life and character of the peasants
to the vivacity of the etcher's lines. And of his homeland, Provence, that engage
those lines in their very sensitiveness of his needle to its greatest activity. For
draughtsmanship carry conviction that Armand Coussens is a native of Nimes,
the trees are actually rooted in the earth, and in that ancient Provencal town it
that the stems, for all their sturdiness of was that his graphic instincts were first
upward irregular growth, are yielding aroused by the picturesqueness of his
with no more than a natural resistance of local surroundings. While yet at the
their strength and weight to the wind- Lycee he showed innate gifts as a draughts-
pressure, while the branches are spreading man, and, fortunately for the budding
out waywardly for the swaying adventure artist, when he went on to the Ecole de
of the air. Nor are only those trees alive ; Dessin at Nimes he found in Alexis
a pictorial vitality invests the whole Lahaye a master quick to detect the
landscape and skyscape through the sug- promise of talent. M. Lahaye must him-
gestive drawing and skilful biting of self have been an artist of individuality,
223
"LESPINS." ETCHING
BY ARMAND COUSSENS
as motives for linear expression. In the linear essentials, with the tonal assis-
Les Pins, Heel that as soon as M.Coussens's tance of a little "foul-biting" tactfully
vision had realised the rhythmic relation allowed. 0 0 a a a
of stem and branch and leafage with the A true landscape etcher, then, is M.Cous-
shapes of the land and the cloud-forms sens, and one would fain see more of such
of the sky, and the pictorial conception prints ; but, in asking for more, one finds
had taken its place imperatively upon the that after all it is people rather than land-
copper, the very life of the trees responded scape, the life and character of the peasants
to the vivacity of the etcher's lines. And of his homeland, Provence, that engage
those lines in their very sensitiveness of his needle to its greatest activity. For
draughtsmanship carry conviction that Armand Coussens is a native of Nimes,
the trees are actually rooted in the earth, and in that ancient Provencal town it
that the stems, for all their sturdiness of was that his graphic instincts were first
upward irregular growth, are yielding aroused by the picturesqueness of his
with no more than a natural resistance of local surroundings. While yet at the
their strength and weight to the wind- Lycee he showed innate gifts as a draughts-
pressure, while the branches are spreading man, and, fortunately for the budding
out waywardly for the swaying adventure artist, when he went on to the Ecole de
of the air. Nor are only those trees alive ; Dessin at Nimes he found in Alexis
a pictorial vitality invests the whole Lahaye a master quick to detect the
landscape and skyscape through the sug- promise of talent. M. Lahaye must him-
gestive drawing and skilful biting of self have been an artist of individuality,
223