'PAUL JOSePH SACHS .4 .•f i «' '.'I.*' ■1 V' , . . ‘ ■■ ■ V ' ‘ ;; ’ •/ , • •*Im :■ ■■ ■’ ly. ' : , ■ .'a > 'i I j I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/somennastersoflitOOcurt IMI r n .r'" I fA' , ■: '.‘I SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY This edition is limited to seven hundred and fifty copies \ ' r. •Mi-' Cv'. /. . SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY BY ATHERTON CURTIS lyiTH TWENTY-TIVO PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES AFTER REPRESENTATIVE LITHOGRAPHS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1897 COPTRIOHT, 1897, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. HERE is no attempt in the following pages to give a history of lithography. My plan has been simply to select a few of the greatest lithographers for the purpose of showing what has been done in an art which for many years has been sadly neglected. This neglect is the more to be deplored because lithography has in it re- sources peculiar to itself. Unlike the various copperplate mediums, it is easily learned by any one who has a knowledge of drawing. Etching, burin-engraving, mezzotint, all require long prac- tice for one to master successfully their mechan- ical details ; lithography can be made use of at once by any one who is able to draw on paper with crayon or charcoal. Some of its methods, such as laying an even tone with flannel or stump, require a little experience; but, generally speaking, a man who can do good work with a iii IV SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. crayon on paper can produce a successful draw- ing on stone with no previous practice. This is clearly a great advantage, but it is by no means the most important recommendation for the medium. Of all the methods by which prints can be made, lithography is the one best suited for working in masses, and consequently for working in values. Its scale of tones begins with the whitest paper and ends with the deepest black that printer’s ink can give. Between these two extremes, every possible subdivision of tone is at the lithographer’s command. The same is of course true of mezzotint on copper, but mezzo- tint is a slow and laborious process, unrivalled in many ways in its rich beauties of tone, but not well suited to spontaneous work, and therefore not truly an artist’s medium. Lithography is also a thoroughly autographic process. As the artist makes his drawing on stone, so will it appear on paper. There are no tricks open to the printer. He can print the impressions a trifle lighter or a trifle darker, but aside from this he is confined to giving the artist’s work exactly as it is. In stating the merits of lithography, my intention is not to cast PREFACE. V reflections on any other art. Each has its own peculiar characteristics, its own intrinsic merits. Etching can do things unknown to lithography, just as burin-engraving can do things impossible in either of them ; but while admiring the great works produced by the burin and the etching needle let us not forget that lithography too has had its great masters — men who can stand beside the Diirers, the Rembrandts, and the Meryons with no fear of suffering by comparison. If that ideal time ever comes when works of art are appreciated for their own merits, when col- lecting is no longer governed by fashion but turns to everything that is good, regardless of the medium by which it is done, then the great mas- ters of lithography will take the place they deserve among the immortals. As we marvel now at the ages that could ignore the greatness of Rembrandt, so surely will the time come when people will wonder at the ignorance that failed to under- stand the genius of Gavarni and Raffet. It has not been my plan to mention all the best works of the men of whom I have written, but rather to make selections which shall illus- trate the phases of the artist’s work, and, above VI SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. all, the qualities in which he excelled. In doing this the artist’s masterpieces must inevitably come under consideration, but the reader must not suppose that the failure to mention a particular print carries with it an unfavourable opinion of that print by the author. Omissions of certain well-known lithographers will be noticed by those familiar with the sub- ject, and in particular the omission of the repro- ductive men, such as Aubry-Lecomte and Mouil- leron. The question of the respective positions of a man who does original work and one who reproduces the work of others is an old one, and I do not care to enter upon a discussion of it here, especially since there is nothing new to be said upon the subject. Suffice it for me to say that while I recognise the important part played by reproductive work in the past, particu- larly before the invention of photography, I can not consider a man who merely interprets the work of others worthy to be placed among the great names of art, any more than I can consid- er a translator in literature the equal of a great creative writer. In judging the works of a lithographer the PREFACE. Vll reader must see very fine impressions of the stones. This is quite as important in lithogra- phy as it is in the case of etching or engraving, perhaps even more important. As a stone is printed from, the work upon it gradually grows black and heavy, a corresponding process to the wearing of the lines in an etched plate. An- other result of over-printing is the disappearance altogether of the more delicate portions of the drawing. It is obvious that no correct judgment can be formed of a print when part of the work has been lost and the remainder has grown thick and muddy. A word or two is necessary in regard to the illustrations. They give, 1 think, a good idea of the originals from which they are taken, and are on the whole remarkably successful reproductions. But the reader must not take these photogravures as substitutes for the original lithographs. They give, no doubt, a good idea of the general effect of the prints from which they are taken, but nevertheless the very best reproduction must of necessity fall short of what it aims at, and a comparison of the originals with any of the plates here given will show many shortcomings in the Vlll SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. latter. The photogravure process has the advan- tage of imitating the peculiar qualities of lithog- raphy, and for this reason the illustrations ought to give the reader a very fair idea of the style of each of the artists mentioned — in many cases a better idea than worn impressions from the original stones could give. With the possible exception of Calame’s Cours de PAar^ the Ga- varnis and Daumiers are, all things considered, the most successful. The RalFets too are good, with the exception of the I(evue nocturne^ which misses the silvery qualities of the lithograph. Calame’s Lac des quatre Cantons^ good as it is, fails to give all the subtle atmospheric effects of the original. Delacroix’s Lion and Tiger do not show the richness of the artist’s work. The Boning- tons have succeeded much better than I had hoped, and, in spite of a certain lack of deli- cacy, convey a fairly good idea of the master’s lightness of touch. So, too, the Isabeys may be said to give well the effect of the originals, though, as in the case of Bonington, with a cer- tain loss of delicacy. Isabey’s detour au port shows well the movement of the water, but the little clouds of which I have spoken scarcely PREFACE. IX appear at all. Harding’s Gorge du mont Terrible does not show the beauties of the original^ as much of the atmospheric effect is lost in the reproduc- tion, but the plate entitled Beech is, I think, very satisfactory. In writing the book the illustrations were not taken into consideration, because it was impossi- ble to know just which prints would have to be chosen for reproduction. I have thought best to leave the text as it was, in spite of the fact that there are in some instances descriptions of prints which have been used in illustrating, and which the reader may therefore see for himself. The amount of space devoted to each man is not necessarily a criterion of the author’s opinion on the relative importance of the man’s work. It is impossible to give as much space to Calame or Harding, for instance, as to Daumier, on account of the nature of the subjects they treated ; and yet in my own opinion both Harding and Calame were greater men than Daumier, or at least I will say that they appeal to me more than he, for they are hardly to be compared, so different are they. 2 X SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. I wish here to express my great obligation to M. Duplessis, curator of the print department of the Bihliotheque Nationale in Paris, and to his as- sistants, MM. Raifet, Bouchot, Courboin, Mou- reau, Doire, and Guibert, for their extreme kind- ness in aiding my researches. I have examined at the Bihliotheque nearly fifteen thousand prints, and during the whole period of my investigations I have found M. Duplessis and his assistants not only exceedingly patient in taking down volume after volume from the shelves, but remarkably ready to give me any information within their power. I have taxed their kindness to the utmost, and I have never found it wanting. I must likewise thank M. Arthur Calame, of Geneva, for his courtesy in giving me valuable information regarding his father’s lithographs. Without his kind help I should have been obliged to omit from these pages the name of one of the greatest of landscape lithographers. I am also indebted to M. Aglalis Bouvenne for assisting me in my endeavours to establish the au- thenticity of one of Bonington’s prints as an origi- nal work by the master. Lastly, I must thank M. Duchatel, chief of the PREFACE. XI printing department at Lemercier & Co.’s, for the technical information he has so kindly given me from time to time. Much of this information is such as only a practical printer can have knowl- edge of, and is therefore unobtainable elsewhere. i / i : i,V.y I- CONTENTS. PAGE Preface iii List of Illustrations xv I. The Inventor of Lithography i II. Theodore Gericault lo III. Ricpiard Parkes Bonington i8 IV. James Duffield Harding ....... 27 V. Eugene Isabey 39 VI. Alexandre Calame 51 VII. Eugene Delacroix 67 VIII. Honore Daumier • 73 . IX. Nicolas Toussaint Charlet 93 X. Achille DEvfeRiA 106 XL Auguste Raffet 115 XII. Gavarni 145 Appendix — Technical Explanations . . . -173 Bibliography 179 List of Prints mentioned 18 1 xiii ■Si ■t :i«! ■-« . ■>;. f ' A "'U '/■ • fSf LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The dimensions of the originals are given in inches, in order that the reader may know the amount of reduction in each case : Raffet : Batterie No. 9 (Siege of Rome) (9'/^ X i 5 ' 4 ) {Frojitispiece). Gericault ; The English Farrier (ii X 14%)- Bonington : Rue du Gros-Horloge X Tour du Gros-Horloge (is'/s X 8'/,). Harding : Gorge du Mont Terrible (5^8 X Beech X i 6 y,). ISABEY : Retour au port (Syg X n'/g). Brick ^chou 6 (45/3 X Calame ; Lac des quatre Cantons ( 7'4 X 9V4). Cours de I’Aar a la Handeck X n'A)- Delacroix : Lion de I’Atlas (13 X iSYg). Tigre royal {12^^ X iSy^). Daumier : Mr. Keratr (ii X 8). Le Public au Salon, No. 9 X SYg). Charlet : Tu es fran?ais. . . . (6Yg X sVJ- DeVERIA : Portrait of Huerta (ii X fh)- XV XVI SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Raffet : Revue nocturne (8 x loYs)- Combat d’Oued-Alleg. X 14%)- Tatars sortant de la Mosquee (Voyage en Russie) (10 x isVs)- Gavarni : Masques et Visages. Toujours etonnant ! (Les Invalides du sentiment) (7“/, X 6yj. Le retour du march6 (Les Anglais chez eux) (7*4 X 6 ‘ 4 ). Et de la beaute du diable. . . . (Les Lorettes vieillies) (7'/, X 6 ' 4 ). Vraiment, ce n’est pas parce que c’est mon fils. . . . (Les Parents terribles) X 6 ' 4 ). SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. I. THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY. LOIS SENEFELDER, the inventor of lithography, was born at Prague in 1771, or, as some say, in 1772.* His father, Peter Senefelder, was an actor in the court theatre of Mu- nich, and the son from boyhood acquired a natu- ral love for the stage. His father was opposed to his adopting acting as a profession, and sent the young Alois to Ingolstadt, where he studied law for three years, until the death of his father in 1791, when he returned to Munich to pursue his favourite profession. He soon saw that acting was not his forte, and after a short time he turned * Senefelder himself merely states that in 1789 he was in his eighteenth year. 2 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. his attention to play-writing. In this, too, he was doomed to failure. Unable to find a publisher for his dramatic works, he conceived the plan of print- ing them himself in order to preserve them for posterity; but here arose pecuniary difficulties. Too poor to buy the necessary outfit for his work, he was obliged to try various methods of casting type, none of which were successful. Then he thought of etching on copper ; but the results were no better, for he found that writing in reverse upon the etching ground was extremely difficult, and, in addition to this, his plate soon became too thin for use through continual planing. After trying one or two other methods, he hit upon the idea of etching on stone. The use of stone for the purpose of etching was not un- known, rude experiments having been made al- ready in this direction. Senefelder, however, had not heard of these, if we are to believe what he himself tells us, and even if he had heard of them his right to honour as the inventor of li- thography would be in no way diminished, since lithography has nothing in common with etching. Etching, however, was the means by which he arrived at his later discoveries. He procured a THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY. 3 Stone from the quarries of Solenhofen, near Mu- nich, and began his experiments.* During his stay at Ingolstadt he had learned something of chemistry, and this knowledge served him now to good purpose. He carried on his etching for some time, trying many different methods of producing the results he was seek- ing. One day in 1796 his mother asked him to write a list of linen which she was about to send to the wash. “ I had just finished clean- ing off a stone,” he says, “ in order afterward to cover it again with etching ground, and thereupon to continue my exercises in writing backward, when my mother wished me to write a washing list for her. The washerwoman was already waiting for the clothes, but not a scrap of paper was at hand just then. My own stock, as it chanced, had been exhausted by my print- ing experiments. Moreover, the ordinary writing ink was dry, and as there was no one in the * It is important to note that this particular kind of stone, at that time much in use in Munich for building purposes, is the only one upon which good results can be obtained in lithogra- phy. Had Senefelder begun his experiments on any other stone, the art of lithography would have remained unknown. 4 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. house to procure fresh writing materials, I did not deliberate long, but wrote the washing list temporarily on the polished stone with my ink that was in store — composed of wax, soap, and lampblack — intending to recopy it when fresh paper had been brought. When, later on, I was on the point of cleaning off this writing from the stone, the idea came to me all at once to see what would become of these letters writ- ten on stone with wax ink if I should etch the stone with acid, and [to see] whether perhaps they could be blackened and printed from in the manner of type or wood blocks. My previous experience in etching, by which I knew that acid bit sideways as well as downward, led me, indeed, to suppose that I could not give any very great elevation to the letters by etching them. As, however, the letters were rather coarsely written, and consequently could not be quickly eaten away by the acid, I began the experiment at once. During five minutes, I left a solution of one part acid and ten parts water upon the stone at a depth of two inches, the stone having been previously surrounded with a border of wax, as is customary in etching, in order that the THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY. 5 water might not overflow. I then examined the working of the acid, and found that the writing had an elevation of about ^ part of an inch, or about the thickness of a card. A few fine lines, probably not strongly enough written, had suf- fered some damage, but the remaining lines had lost only imperceptibly in their width and not at all in relation to the depth, so that I had well- grounded hopes that carefully written letters, and in particular printed letters, which have few fine lines, could be etched considerably more in re- lief.”* His next experiments were in inking the letters ; but there is no need of describing these in detail. Suffice it to say that in time he suc- ceeded in producing printed impressions entirely to his satisfaction. This story of the washing list has been told often; but its bearing upon lithography has not always been accurately stated. When Senefelder had produced his raised letters on stone he had given something new to the world, but he had not discovered lithography. In lithography the * Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey, p. ii. 6 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. printing is done from the flat surface of a stone, and depends in no way upon either an incised or a raised line.* Senefelder’s discovery was important because it was the beginning of a series of experiments which were to end two years later in his great invention ; but that the incident of the washing list marks the begin- ning of lithography itself is not true. We might with as much truth date the invention of the art from Senefelder’s first attempts at etching on copper, or even from his first attempts at casting type, as to date it from this discovery of a means for printing from raised letters. The real date of the invention of lithography is 1798, and not 1796, as is generally stated. After discovering this new method of printing from stone by means of raised letters, Senefelder thought that with a properly constructed press he could carry on a successful business in printing books and music. A friend of his named Gleiss- ner, a musician at the Bavarian court, lent him * Further information regarding the technical side of lithog- raphy will be found at the end of the book, under Technical Explanations. The reader who is not familiar with the prin- ciples of the art would do well to read this section first. THE INVENTOR. OF LITHOGRAPHY. 7 sufficient money to set up a press, and Senefelder began his printing. His greatest difficulty lay in the necessity he was under of writing in reverse upon the stone, and to facilitate this he conceived the plan of writing on paper with a mixture of red chalk and gum, and of taking a counter-proof of this upon the stone. In this way he obtained a feeble outline of his letters in reverse, and these he could afterward go over with a pen. The plan was not entirely satisfactory, and his next idea was to write with his soapy ink on gummed paper in order to transfer the writing itself di- rectly to the stone, and thus do away with reversed writing altogether. After more than a thousand unsuccessful attempts, he succeeded in obtaining the result he sought for. This was in 1798. The inventor was now on the verge of discover- ing the principle of lithography. In making his transfers from paper to stone, he was obliged to dip the paper in water for the purpose of moistening the gum. It happened one day that a few drops of oil were floating on the water, and on wetting the paper he found that the oil adhered to the writing and not to the wet paper. This led him to see whether his printing ink would act in the 8 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. same way as the oil, and and he found that it would. He then thought of printing directly from the paper, but he found that this plan, while possible, was rather impracticable, because of the pliability of the paper, among other reasons. The idea now came to him that perhaps the same result could be got on the stone. With a piece of soap he made a line on one of his stones, passed gummed water over it, and then with a sponge applied his oily ink to the surface. The ink adhered to the soapy line only, and on run- ning the stone through the press he obtained an impression of the line on paper, and the first lithograph was produced. True, this was lithog- raphy in a very crude state, but the principle was there nevertheless. Senefelder saw at once that he had made an important discovery, and he began immediately to perfect his process. He soon found that it was necessary to treat the stone with a solution of acid in order to get good results. He carried his experiments further and further, until at last he had worked out almost all the principles of the art as it is practised to-day. Few inventors have themselves perfected their inventions as Senefelder did his. Since his death THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY. 9 a few improvements have been made in the art ; but in all its essential details lithography remains to-day practically as Senefelder left it. Like many another inventor, Senefelder reaped little pecuniary benefit from his invention. For a number of years he spent his time in trying to establish printing offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Strassburg, and other large cities throughout Europe. But no sooner was one office established than he abandoned it to begin again in another city. At last he saw his in- vention in use throughout Europe, while he himself was receiving no pecuniary compensation from it. He returned to Munich in i 825, ob- tained a pension of fifteen hundred Borins from the Bavarian Government, and lived there until his death in 1834.. II. THEODORE GERICAULT. HOUGH Senefelder’s invention dates from 1798, its importance to the fine arts was not appreciated until nearly twenty years later. Gericault was one of the first among the artists to make use of the new process. His Bouchers de Bome^ drawn in 1817, has little or no value regarded merely as a work of art ; but in its historical con- nection it is of no slight importance. Timid in workmanship, weak in drawing, entirely wanting in effect, the lithograph, nevertheless, deserves praise, considering the time at which it was pro- duced. To-day a man might do good work in lithography with no previous instruction, but in 1817 the art was in its infancy, its possibilities were not understood, and even its mechanical details had not been perfected. Gericault’s next lithographs were in the same style, and, though they show an advance over the 10 THEODORE GERICAULT. 1 1 Bouchers de Bjome-i they were clearly mere ex- periments. In them the artist thinks less of the drawing, less of the production of a work of art, than of the action of the crayon upon the stone. The most important of his early works are the Mameluck de la garde imperiale^ the Boxeurs^ Deux chevaux qui se battent^ I(etour de I^ussie, and Artillerie changeant de position* These have received rather extravagant praise from some critics — more, no doubt, because of the name of their author than because of any great merit in the works themselves. An impartial examination will show that the artist was still experimenting with more or less success. The Boxeurs is good in the action of the two prin- cipal figures, but there is weakness in the draw- ing, due to want of familiarity with the handling of the stone. The use of pen and ink in the negro’s body is clearly an experiment, for the pen work is not in harmony with the treatment of the rest of the composition. So, too, the I(etour de I^ussie has faults which prevent its ranking * Gdricault’s early lithographs are all very rare. Five impres- sions only are known of the Deux chcvaux qui se battent and the same number of the Artillerie changeant de position. 12 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. with the best lithographs of the artist. The piece is not without feeling in the expressions of the faces ; the draperies are simply treated, but the work is greatly injured by the shortness of the figures. That here, too, the artist was still in the experimental stage is shown by the use of two stones — one of the first cases in which this manner of printing was employed by an artist. In the few remaining years of his short life G^ricault so far developed the process of draw- ing on stone as to produce works which, if they do not entitle him to rank among the greatest masters of lithography, give him, nevertheless, a very important place in the history of the art. He reached the height of his powers in the series of lithographs, published in 1821, known as the English Set.^ Strong as these are, they are not faultless. Gericault, great in his own way, never reached the perfection attained by Raffet, Ga- * These should not be confounded with the series published by Gihaut in 1822, in which several of the English Set are re- peated, though in some cases with changes in the composition. The lithographs in this Fi'cnch Set are not by Gdricault, but were done by Cognict and Volmar after drawings by him. Each THEODORE GERICAULT. 13 varni, Bonington, Harding, or Isabey. His chief fault was an indecision in the treatment of his subjects from the technical side. He did not al- ways know how best to render what he had before him, and this led him at times to handle the crayon in the same way for two very differ- ent objects — giving, for instance, the same qual- ities to a sky that he gave to a rock. Fortu- nately, these errors are generally found in minor details, which proves, perhaps, that they are due as much to carelessness as to want of knowl- edge. Still, though he did not attain the per- fection of some of the greatest men, Gericault holds an important place historically. We should remember that he died when still a young man, and that his death took place when lithography was in its early stages — a fact of much importance in judging his work. If the English Set is not remarkable for im- agination, it is not wanting in feeling, especially lithograph in the English Set has the title in English, the address of the publishers, Rodwell and Martin, and the inscription C. HiUlmandcr s Lithography. Those of the French Set have no titles, and each has the inscription Lith. de Villain. The title- page of the French Set is, however, by Gericault himself. SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. 14 in the pieces depending upon human interest for their subjects. Nine of the twelve lithographs are studies of horses drawn with the same love for form and action that Gericault always showed in the delineation of these animals, particularly when he had to deal with a well-groomed thor- oughbred. For this reason The English Farrier is one of the best of the series. The horses are drawn with great care, and the action of their heads is wonderfully true to nature, while the rendering of the satin gloss of their coats is very successful. An Arabian Horse is another good example of the artist’s ability in representing horses of a high class. The animal here is drawn with great feeling for its beauty. The lithograph was prob- ably done from a drawing made by Gericault during his travels. The Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf is inter- esting not alone for the drawing of the horses, but for the general effect of the print as a whole. The arrangement of the blacks and whites is highly artistic. No doubt the shadow under the arch is too black, for the sunlight falling as it does would cast reflections diminishing its intensity. ' -^Af (^' / / // A/-,^ // Il %:■ i THEODORE GERICAULT. 15 but the blackness is intentionally exaggerated for the purpose of giving relief to the horses, as well as to produce a contrast in the lights and darks. Passing over the other studies of horses, among the best of which are The French Farrier and The Flemish Farrier^ we come to two pieces de- pendent upon human interest. Of these, the bet- ter is The Piper. An old blind man is seen play- ing a bagpipe. Behind him stands his dog, weary and dejected, waiting patiently for the signal of his master to move to another spot. There is real pathos in the scene, which is one to touch our deepest feelings. Our sympathies are moved by the miserable monotonous life of these two beggars, each dependent upon the other for his daily bread. In execution this is one of the best of Gericault’s lithographs. The drawing is very fine, the face of the old man being especially good. There is transparency in the shadows il- luminated everywhere by reflected lights. The man’s coat is strongly and simply modelled, while its texture is well suggested by the grain of the stone. Though similar in feeling, the other piece re- ferred to is far inferior to The Piper. It repre- i6 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. sents an old man, exhausted by hunger, seated upon the ground beside a baker’s shop. The title of the print is — Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, two lines of verse by Thomas Moss. The greater part of the seventy-eight litho- graphs done by Gericault is composed of small pieces, published mostly in sets, which, if they are less important than his larger works, have among them many little gems. They are chiefly studies of horses, often quite as delightful in their way as some of the larger prints. To mention each of these small lithographs is scarcely neces- sary, though before closing I wish to call atten- tion to one especially deserving of notice — a dead horse, in the set published by Madame Hulin. The wild, desolate effect of a winter landscape could not be better rendered. The composition is of the greatest possible simplicity, with abso- lutely nothing but this dead horse, some carrion birds hovering over their prey, a little frozen pond, and a long stretch of snow, unbroken save by one or two barns in the distance, and near them THEODORE GfiRlCAULT. 17 a man lying upon the ground beside a dying horse. G6ricault was born at Rouen in 1791. At the age of fifteen he went to Paris, and two years later entered the studio of Carle Vernet, but after a brief stay left Vernet to study with Guerin. He began even in his student days to show signs of his future revolt against the classic school. His dislike for classic traditions, and par- ticularly his admiration for Rubens, led his mas- ter at last to advise his abandoning painting, which advice was fortunately not followed. In 1817, after having served in the army for three years, he went to Italy, where he studied in Rome and Florence. His famous of the Medusa was painted in 1819, and was exhibited in the Salon of the same year. Received with ridicule by the French critics, it was afterward taken to London, where it met with great suc- cess. Gericault died in Paris, January 18, 1824. III. RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON. HE greater part of Bonington’s litho- graphs were done in France, many of them for Baron Taylor’s Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans Van- cienne France^ in the illustration of which he was one of the moving spirits. No one had a greater influence than he upon his contemporaries, and while there was a return in- fluence exercised upon him by the country in which he worked, he remained thoroughly Eng- lish in the spirit and characteristics of his art. * This monumental work in nineteen large volumes began to appear in 1820. It played an important part in the history of lithography. The lithographs with whieh it is illustrated are of all degrees of exeellenee. If many of them are not of a very high order, there are others that rank among the best things the art has produeed. Taylor’s literary eollaborators were Nodier and De Cailleux. Among the artists the most important were Fragonard, Villeneuve, Atthalin, Cieeri, Prout, Chapuy, Duzats, Isabey, Bonington, and Harding. 18 ! hOMF; MAsSTf-RS OF UTH^ ■ FO'- ii'. rhc whole held of lithography.* As t -. nt ai xhievemeiit, the first has perhaps a slight ■ - iage, but the second is to my mind more hai- monious in coiri>-. .'i'-n. Taken together, they contain t;' * ^ ' r n -rox, ^ greatest quali- tTns. |r r:F-:' the first' thing ..t.r; -.o. .tjuthful way . . m^.K-nccd the efiecf 1 ■ ■■•t r'kxv is seen in tb-: ■ u ! dav when ho - air . ■ , • the • rhough '1= !.rokes on 1 ,ec, on . i 5 , . i '.r bv the V' nr i’.c;: 1 . V i>\ ■ u. 1 he uu t i; . b of touch v> almost, bevond hci>ct, i he •' iUT'-rcenobk nradatiun of values from the nearest ' 1 ~ i to the one farthest in the distance is so per- ■’ ■ ])- kept that, hough wc can see the difference the tvv^o houses, the intermediate changes < ; ■ ‘:^'adaal for us to tell where they take * IS \r<'r!h., •. \< ‘ V. .i,- • ‘lily i V.' ■ ■..■'iieij ;'I 0 rr! vnese IW<» iitl’i>o-i‘ujaiS. culy-three V RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON. 21 place. Added to this, the local values and the accidental shadows are in perfect relation to each other and to the whole composition. Everything is drawn with great care, but at the same time in a very broad manner. The work is indeed a remarkable example of selection and suggestion. All the little ornaments on the houses are done with real love for their daintiness. Seen at a distance, they seem to be drawn in every detail, but on examining them closely we find that the crayon has merely made broad indications, and that in reality only the essential features are actu- ally given. We can scarcely see how the result is obtained, so simple are the means employed. The delicacy and refinement in the Tour du Gros-Horloge are no less than in the preceding lithograph, though the workmanship is of another kind. The problem to be solved here was per- haps less difficult, because the atmospheric effect was less subtle ; but in spite of this the lithograph easily holds its own beside its rival. Bonington has drawn the bare walls and beautiful ornamenta- tion of the tower with great feeling. He was in thorough sympathy with his subject, because it suited exactly his refined temperament, and the 22 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. picture is therefore the true expression of his char- acter as an artist. Personally, it gives me more pleasure than the I(ue du Gros-Horloge^ because of its perfect harmony of composition. The sky, the houses, the people, and the beautiful old tower fit together as if made for one another. With the exception of the figures, the artist probably drew what he saw before him- but the picture is composed, nevertheless, for the point of view had to be selected, and so well was the selection made that any change would destroy the balance. The Vue g§n&rale de l^Eglise de Saint- Ger- vais et Saint- Protaii a Gisors is scarcely inferior to the two lithographs just mentioned. Bonington’s sensitive nature had a real love for the light, airy tracery of Gothic architecture, and nowhere has he entered more fully into its spirit than in this piece. The ornaments are delightfully drawn, and contain the same suggestive qualities seen in the preceding prints. Bonington drew architec- ture with the real sympathy of an artist who loved his subject and who wished to convey to others the impression produced upon himself. Here, as in all his works, we feel the material of which the building is constructed. The church is built RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON. 23 up, Stone upon stone — not, however, with the stiff accuracy of an architect’s plan, but with the res- ervation of a true work of art. Bonington knew, too, the importance of a human interest in a picture. His little figures always add life and spirit to his scenes, giving a sense of reality far greater than the buildings alone could give. Another work that should be mentioned here is the Porte latirale de 1' Eglise de Saint- Wul- Jram^' a beautiful piece of Gothic architecture in the master’s best style. There is no need of criticising it in detail, because the same charac- teristics are seen in it which we see in the three pieces just described. Bonington was always successful in his render- ing of clouds, and he understood well their artistic usefulness in his compositions. The best of his cloud effects is in the Vue generate des Puines du Chateau dt Ar lay where the clouds are mod- elled with great tenderness and with a thorough knowledge of their forms. There is a wildness * The print is extremely rare. f The basis of this lithograph was a sketch by Baron Taylor, but so little remains of Taylor’s drawing that the piece may be said to be an original work by Bonington. 24 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. in the scene which is very grand. One would scarcely think so much could be made out of so little, for the ruined castle on the hill is not of a kind to be especially interesting in itself. The charm of the lithograph is entirely due to the artist’s own poetic imagination. Two pieces that likewise deserve attention for their cloud effects are Croix de Moulin les Planches and the Vue prise de la route de Calais. This last differs from the subjects usually selected by Bonington in that it represents a long stretch of landscape with gently sloping hills and a city in the distance, while a sky composed of beautiful clouds fills two thirds of the picture. There is nothing more exquisite in all the artist’s work than this delicate bit of landscape. There is a small lithograph called Le Mating which for tender beauty and subtlety of touch can scarcely be surpassed. In the foreground are several fishing-boats, with large sails silhouetted * M. Beraldi is certainly in error in saying that Le Matm is after a drawing by Noel. There is nothing upon the lithograph itself to bear out his statement. M. Beraldi has probably mis- taken Noel the printer for Noel the lithographer, as the piece bears upon it the inscription “imp. Noel.” After coming to the conclusion that the piece was an original lithograph, I consulted 4 1 *■' 1 i i ; i RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON. 25 against the sky. There is a long stretch of calm water, and in the distance some cliffs rising out of the sea. We all know the beauty of a de- lightful morning in summer when the sun has just risen, and the pure, balmy air gives new life and charm to Nature. Such a morning has Bonington given us here. All is peace and re- pose. The sails hang motionless in the still air, while the sky glows and the silvery clouds sparkle with the radiance of the morning sun. The artist has succeeded in producing the impression to perfection. How differently treated and yet what a beautiful companion piece is this to Claude’s delightful etching of the same time of day ! As Claude’s little masterpiece stands un- surpassed in etching, so does Bonington’s in lithog- raphy. Each is the perfect expression of an early morning after sunrise. There is little to tell of Bonington’s life, so sadly cut short at its very beginning. He was M. Bouvenne, author of the catalogue of Bonington’s works, and he, on careful examination of documents in his possession, agreed with me that the piece was unquestionably an original work. The print is extremely rare, the only impression known to me being the one in the Bibliotheque Nationale. 26 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. born at Arnold, near Nottingham, October 25, 1801. At the age of fifteen he was taken by his father to Paris, where he became a student at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. In 1819 he entered the studio of Baron Gros, but his artistic educa- tion was mainly obtained at the Louvre in copy- ing and studying the old masters. He visited Venice in 1822, and painted there a number of pictures, which on his return to Paris gave him a well-deserved reputation. At the Salon of 1824 he received a gold medal. In 1827 he made a brief stay in London, after which he again went to Paris. In 1828 he returned hurriedly to Lon- don, where, on September 23d of the same year, he died from the effects of a sunstroke. IV. JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. MONO the lithographers who have turned their attention to landscape, Harding stands almost, if not quite, unrivalled. Others have equalled him in manual dexterity, but I know of no one who combined in a higher degree than he thorough technical skill with deep, poetic feel- ing. His power in giving all the subtle changes of value in Nature, in the beautiful modelling of clouds, in the charming drawing of foliage, and in the delightful rendering of atmospheric effects is beyond all praise. His draughtsmanship was of a high order — not, of course, of a kind that can easily be compared with Gavarni’s or Raffet’s, but in its own way strong and forcible, with all the feeling for texture and form that every de- lineator of landscape ought to have. We are too prone to think that because a tree can take al- most any shape, good drawing is not an essential 27 28 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. qualification toward success in depicting landscape — an error that leads to no end of bad work, and has induced many a man who could do nothing else to take up landscape as a last resort. In Harding’s lithographs there is no indecision, no hesitation. His trees and clouds are drawn with the utmost firmness and precision. He tries to interpret their character as accurately as if he were drawing the human figure ; and the result is a convincing sense of reality which makes us feel ourselves standing before Nature herself. He did occasionally fail to convey this impression, as in the Source du Lison^ where the texture of the rocks is far from what it should be; but a man can not keep up his highest standard at all times, and even in this print we can forgive the want of reality in the rocks when we look at the deli- cate manner in which the distance is drawn. Great as was his technical ability, Harding’s claim to honour is far from resting wholly upon this side of his genius. The chief value of his work lies in his profound love for Nature. He was a born poet, a man who aimed to tell us not what he saw, but what he felt. There is scarcely one of his landscapes which does not JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. 29 breathe forth the poet’s own love for the scene he depicts. We feel that he was not of those who see in Nature only subjects for artistic rep- resentation, but that he delighted in her for her- self. His genius in this respect had much in common with Wordsworth’s. Indeed, the simi- larity between them is seen even in their choice of subjects. Both loved Nature in her peaceful moods, and both preferred her in what we may call her human aspect — not in her wildest state, when she is out of touch with mankind, but rather when, though lonely and solitary, she still conveys a feeling of civilization within reach. Harding had two distinct styles, so different as to seem almost not to belong to the same man. In the one, his work was delicate without de- scending to useless finish ; in the other it was broader, and attempted to give only the general effect of what the artist saw before him. The difference between them is to be found in the ends at which he aimed. In the first style he sought chiefly to produce light and shade; in the second he strove to render the form of things. A difference in the workmanship was the conse-^ quent result; but the mental characteristics of the 30 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. artist remained unchanged. He showed always the same profound love for Nature, the same beautiful poetic sentiment. I shall not attempt to name all of Harding’s best works, but shall content myself with selecting a few typical exam- ples of each style. The representative works of the first manner are found in Taylor’s Voyages pittoresques^ in the illustration of which Harding played a most im- portant part. Bonington, whose influence was predominant in the first volumes of Taylor’s book, ceased working for it about the time that Hard- ing began. After this, Harding dominated al- most the whole body of his fellow-artists. Many who had previously followed the lead of Boning- ton now changed their style completely, and, with few exceptions, those who did not directly imitate Harding showed his influence to a greater or less degree. This is the more strange because he was not essentially a delineator of architecture as Bonington was, but a landscapist who looked on architecture only as a pleasing adjunct to Nature in the making of a picture. Again, it is strange that the two men who had the great- est influence upon the illustrating of the Voyages 1 i I ■i i JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. 31 pittoresquef should both have been English. Of the two, Harding was the less affected by the art of the country in which he worked. Bonington did become somewhat French in his tendencies, but in Harding it is difficult to discover anything that is not unmistakably English. Harding took particular delight in the effects produced by contrasts of sunlight and shadow. A cloudless day was one rarely chosen by him for a picture. He liked best a day when scat- tered clouds throw shadows here and there upon the landscape, leaving it partly in bright sun- light and partly in shade. His ability in mak- ing use of these contrasts for the purpose of emphasizing the salient points of his subject was very great. There is no better example of this handling of light and shade than the Gorge du Mont Terrible^ a picture of the most exquisite beauty, full of feeling for the grandeur of mountain scenery, and one that illustrates the artist’s genius in its very highest form. In vari- ous parts of the landscape the clouds throw dark but transparent shadows which fall precisely in the right places to lend charm and poetry to the scene. Far down in the valley a little village is 32 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. lighted by the rays of the sun, and above it a great cloud clings sluggishly to the side of the mountain. It is difficult for me to restrain my enthusiasm when speaking of this charming land- scape. Aware of the danger of superlative praise, I shall endeavour to keep within bounds and con- tent myself with saying that nothing finer has been done in the way of landscape lithography, so far as my knowledge goes, than this beauti- ful print. It is worthy to stand beside the greatest landscapes that art has given us. Harding generally preferred extended land- scapes like the one just described because of their distant atmospheric effects, in the rendering of which he was a past-master ; but that he was able to give charm to a picture in which there was no distance whatever is evident in the Vue du Chateau de Frame. Here we have an old tower, the entrance of which is approached by a stone bridge under whose arch winds a nar- row path. The sky is black and ominous, but through its threatening clouds there breaks a gleam of misty sunlight illuminating the tower with its dim rays and leaving the rest of the picture in weird, mysterious obscurity. The man who can JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. 33 combine poetic sentiment, artistic beauty, and technical ability as Harding has done in these two pieces deserves assuredly a foremost place among those whose names are famous in land- scape art. Quite similar to the last lithograph in feeling is the Chateau de Verce^ a view of a little country village peacefully situated at the foot of an old ruined tower under whose protection it seems to lie. The masses of trees mingled with the houses are depicted in a most beautiful manner. The print is too black in tone for strict conformity to Nature, but in spite of this the scene is so lovely and so full of poetry as to make us forget any slight shortcomings it may have from a technical point of view. Chateau neuf^ Auvergne, aside from its great beauty as a picture, is one of the best examples of exqusite refinement and delicacy of handling that the artist has left us. The reflections in the water are perfect. When Harding had to do with water in violent motion he was not always sure of his results; but when his subject was a calm lake or a quiet pond, then no one could surpass him. In the later volumes of the Voyages pittoresques 3 + SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Harding turned to lithotint, a medium less suited to him than the crayon. He subsequently made much use of the two in combination; but as a process by itself lithotint was scarcely adapted to his needs. Still, while this is true of his litho- tints in general, there are several exceptions to the rule, notably Le Casset^ Valine de Monetier^ a print quite equal to some of his best work with the crayon. The wash is laid with great nicety, especially in the distance, which might almost be mistaken for crayon work, so delicate is the ma- nipulation. So, too, the Fort I(ouge de Calais and La Tour sans Venin, while not so good as Le Casset^ are interesting examples of the artist’s work with the brush. The series called The Park and the Forest * is perhaps the most representative of the second manner. The lithographs in this set are printed in two tones, and are done partly in crayon and partly in wash. They show to perfection the artist’s power in handling foliage. Nowhere has he given us trees modelled with greater vigour, nowhere has he entered into their character with * Published by Thomas Maclean, London, 1844. • 1 J- I • I JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. 35 more spirit and force. Of the twenty-five litho- graphs in the series, I like best the one entitled Beech^ a scene in Windsor Forest. Others of the set are unquestionably not at all inferior to this, but we all have predilections for certain scenes which appeal to us personally, we know not always why. To overpraise this delightful work is well-nigh impossible. Art here reaches its highest point in expressing the feelings of a poet before Nature. The landscape is one of those that are found in England only. There is none of the wildness of rough, uncultivated Na- ture as we see it in Switzerland, nor is there the artificiality of a landscape made by man. It is simply one of those calm, peaceful scenes, so common in England, where Nature has been civilized by the hand of man without losing her own intrinsic beauty. On the banks of a placid river stand stately beech trees, affording shade to a herd of deer which lie there, confident that no enemy will disturb their repose. The picture is * The titles of the prints are the names of trees. In order to find the locality from which the scene is drawn, one has gener- ally lo turn to the index published with the set. I give the titles as they appear upon the prints, for the sake of identification. 3^ SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. serenity itself, a delightful spot where one who loves to be alone may find perfect tranquillity; a place in which we almost forget the sweet beauty of the landscape in the dreamy thoughts it awakens. In sentiment the lithograph called Black Pop- lar^ a view of Bolton Abbey, is not unlike the one just described. Here, too, we have a picture quite typical of England. Beside a quiet little pond stand fine old trees full of dignity and grandeur. On the bank a fisherman is making ready to cast his line, and in the distance are seen the ruined walls of the old abbey. Looked at merely as a landscape. Beech Trees in Arundel Park is one of the loveliest scenes Harding has given us ; but the huntsman whom we see through the trees is a disturbing element which mars the poetry of the picture. This may seem an unimportant point to dwell upon, espe- cially since the huntsman is so small as to be scarcely noticeable. Yet, in a picture of peaceful repose like this, anything suggestive of noise or violence is a fault in taste, even if it does not injure the technical excellence of the work. Though there are many lithographs of great JAMES DUFFIELD HARDING. 37 power in the series, I shall mention but one more, Beech and Ash on the Greta, A delightful trout stream winds its way among thick masses of foli- age and rocky banks, bounding joyously from stone to stone or swiftly gliding over flat, polished rocks, playing around projecting bits of land or standing quietly in some little bay waiting for a chance to jump forward again in its headlong course. In execution the lithograph is one of the artist’s best. The massing of the foliage and the rendering of movement in the water are the work of a master. If many important pieces have been left un- noticed in the foregoing sketch, enough has been said, I hope, to give some idea of Harding’s power in picturing Nature. If the reader who is un- acquainted with them will turn to the lithographs themselves he will find in them a source of great pleasure. There are men who can draw land- scapes in a most artistic manner whose technical ability is beyond reproach, and yet they fail to interest us for any length of time. We admire their work without feeling drawn toward it. Harding had this technical skill, but he had much more. He had the faculty of creating a 38 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. picture which, when it was finished, had all the charm and beauty of Nature itself. Here is the secret of the spell he casts. Harding was born at Deptford in 1798. His father was an artist, and from him, no doubt, the son acquired his early love for art. Besides his lithographs, Harding did no small number of paintings in oil and many water colours. He was a member of the Water-Colour Society, and in 1847 applied for membership to the Royal Academy, but failed of election. He died at Barnes, December 4, 1863. V. EUG£NE ISABEY. )R any one who wishes to study lithog- raphy from the technical side, there are no prints more instructive than those of Isabey. He had perfect com- mand of his medium, and, in addi- tion to the ordinary methods of drawing with the crayon, he made experiments in lithotint and mezzotint, pushing this last far beyond a mere crude state to a point where it yielded results almost as satisfactory as the simple crayon process. The results obtained by him are all the more remarkable because he did not leave us a large number of lithographs in any form, while his mezzotints number less than half a dozen in all. Pen-drawing is the only one of the four princi- pal lithographic mediums he did not make use of, and the reason for this is that expression by means of line was not at all suited to him. He needed to work in masses ; to employ means that 39 40 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. would give him, without too much labour, the effects he wished to produce; and no line proc- ess could have fulfilled his purpose. He leaned, perhaps, rather toward the tech- nical side in his work, at times even allowing it to show itself more than was absolutely neces- sary; but he would scarcely deserve a place among the first masters of lithography if manual dexterity were his sole claim to our attention. He was a great romantic artist, abounding in sentiment and emotion, as far removed from the cold, classic school as from the modern so-called realists. His art, on the whole, was of the same order as Bon- ington’s and Harding’s, but with the difference that, while they were calm and peaceful in their work, he was wild, stormy, full of movement, preferring above everything wind-swept scenes, with dark, tempestuous clouds, and water lashed into foam or heaving to and fro in the gale. He liked, too, bare, desolate landscapes, where Nature works her will unstayed by man. Many of his prints are of a quieter character ; but these, fine as they are, can not in the slightest degree approach the grandeur of his greatest works. EUGENE ISABEY. 41 In his illustrations for Taylor’s Voyages pit- toresques^ Isabey was not at his best. His work was inexperienced and wanting in vigour, the chief fault being an unpleasant woolly appearance in the drawing of his textures. An exception must be made, however, in favour of the Eglise Saint -Jean a Thiers {Auvergne), one of the most powerful works he ever produced. In it the force of his romanticism is brought out in all its strength. We stand at the edge of a deep chasm, on whose farther side we see the church upon a rocky, precipitous height. The sky is black with heavy, ominous clouds, whose stormy aspect gives great impressiveness to the scene. The artist has sought to render Nature accurately, but he has made her his servant, not his mistress; taking her as the basis of his work, but calling upon his own imagination to give him the effect on which the grandeur of the picture depends. It is one of those works of art of which we never tire. As we stand before it we can not help feeling ourselves in the presence of a great poet. In 1833 Isabey published a set of lithographs bearing the title Six Marines dessinees sur pierre, 4-2 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. par Eug. Isabel/* This series exhibits all the artist’s finest qualities in crayon work. They are not views of the sea, but views on the seacoast or in seaport towns. While they are not all of equal artistic value, each is nevertheless a work of very high order. One of the most character- istic is the Eetour au port/\ a fishing boat under full sail, ploughing her way through a heavy sea as she enters the port. The picture is full of spirit and dash, with its tossing waves and wind- swept clouds — a scene exactly suited to the artist, and one that he could depict as no other lithog- rapher has ever been able to do. Another characteristic work is the Environs de Dieppe^ to me the most interesting print in the series, though from an artistic standpoint it is in no way superior to the preceding one. Here we have a bleak coast with high cliffs, at whose foot are one or two fishermen’s huts. It is one of the artist’s grandest works, and is han- dled in the most superb manner. Isabey did not * The best impressions are with the address and stamp of Morlot, the publisher. f There is likewise a larger lithograph of this same sub- ject. EUGENE ISABEY. 43 generally seek to give the true values when he was drawing Nature. He tried to produce a sense of reality, but he was not and could not be a slavish realist, because the romantic side of his genius was too strong. When he departed from Nature, he did so for the purpose of add- ing artistic interest to his work. In the print now before us he has exaggerated the depth of the shadows in order to accent certain parts of the picture. This was one of his favourite methods, and one that he used in a skilful manner. He knew instinctively where his accents should come to produce a harmonious whole. This, indeed, is nothing more than saying that he had a fine sense of composition ; for compo- sition is not entirely dependent upon the placing of objects in a picture, but upon everything that goes to make the result harmonious. The print before us is one of the very best examples of Isabey’s handling of light and shade. It is inter- esting, too, to note the manner in which he has treated the various textures in the clouds, rocks, and water. Most of the work is done by direct application of the crayon, but there is likewise no small amount of mezzotint in various parts of 44 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. the print. Of this last process I shall have more to say further on. Interieur d'un port is quite different from the two lithographs just described, because, instead of wild, impressive scenery, we have here only a quiet, picturesque seaport town with quaint old houses and fishing boats left standing in the river’s bed by the going out of the tide. Though Isabey is not so great in scenes of this kind as in his wilder views, the difference is chiefly mental. If he was less a poet, he was none the less a mas- ter. At first sight the composition of the Int§rieur d"un port seems somewhat confused. It is cer- tainly not so simple as was usual with the artist, but a little study ought to convince any one, I think, that this apparent chaos is well thought out, and that we should have some difficulty in making a change in it without destroying the unity. The placing of the boats and the inclina- tion of their masts, the arrangement of the houses, and of the groups of figures on the quay, tend to make a harmonious composition in spite of the apparent confusion. Of the three remaining pieces in the set, that entitled I^adoub d'une barque h maree basse is by EUGENE ISABEY. 45 far the best. While less grand in effect, it has many of the qualities of the Environs de Dieppe^ which it resembles closely in sentiment and in technique. For this reason I shall not criticise it in detail, though it is, in my opinion, one of the best of the series. Souvenir de Saint -Valery sur Somme and Marde basse are the least interesting of the set, but they are nevertheless works of much merit. The last has the same kind of fine, wind-swept clouds that we have seen in the Eetour au port. Before turning to Isabey’s mezzotints I must say a few words in praise of his wonderful little Brick dchoue^ the finest in sentiment of all his drawings on stone. On a lonely beach, from which the tide has receded, lies a wrecked vessel whose hull alone remains. At the right, smooth, perpendicular cliffs rise to the top of the picture. The landscape is one of utter desolation, of ab- solute solitude. Save the slow, monotonous flap- ping of the wings of one or two sea-gulls, not a sound is heard in the still air. How well the artist has conveyed the impression he himself felt ! To me this work is one of the masterpieces of lithography — one of the few things where poetic 4-6 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. conception and technical ability maintain a per- fect balance • nothing forced, nothing exagger- ated, no attempt to make a display of manual skill, but the whole combined into a harmonious composition, majestic and impressive ; not a sketch, not a hasty drawing, but a picture as grand and beautiful as if it had been done in colour. Isabey developed mezzotint beyond the point where it was carried by any of the other great lithographers. Harding, Raffet, Gavarni, and, indeed, all the masters made use of the scraper in putting in high lights in their work, while Charlet made many drawings entirely by this method ; but drawing with a white line on a black surface is not mezzotint, which, as the name implies, must of necessity consist of semi- tones. So far as I am aware, few of the masters attempted real mezzotint, and none of them reached the perfection of handling attained by Isabey. But even his mezzotints are not to be compared in richness of tone with those of the masters who have employed the same medium on copper. This is due to no lack of ability on his part, but simply to the fact that lithographic EUGENE ISABEY. 47 mezzotint is incapable of giving the beautiful vel- vet tones produced by a copperplate. Whether or not in the future it will be developed so as to rival the copper medium is, of course, impos- sible to predict; but its defect, even in the hands of Isabey, is a certain muddiness in the half-tones which detracts from its beauty. I can not see that it has any advantage, as a process by itself, over the direct crayon method, which can attain practically the same results as those reached by mezzotint. Isabey could not have got the same muddy half-tones by the simple use of the crayon, but these — even had he wished to obtain them, which seems doubtful — might have been produced by the scraper after the work had been done with the crayon. In this way he would have reached the same end with less drudgery, for mezzotint is far more laborious than simple crayon work. The fact is, his mezzotints are mere ex- periments — successful ones, no doubt, but still experiments. As such, they are of the greatest interest for the technical student, who, though he may not wish to avail himself of the process as a medium by itself, may, nevertheless, find in them much instruction regarding the uses to +8 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. which the scraper can be put as an auxiliary instrument. The most successful of Isabey’s mezzotints is a small piece called Mar^e basse.^ The clouds are magnificent, and I doubt whether their author could have drawn them any more grandly with the crayon. Outside of technical interest, the lithograph is a fine picture, and represents to perfection the effect of wind blowing across sea and beach. The piece called Souvenir de Bretagne^ may be cited here, for, although the greater part of the work is done directly with the crayon, the clouds and many other portions of the composi- tion are drawn in whole or in part with the scraper. What mezzotint there is in the print illustrates well the artist’s command of the me- dium. In lithotint Isabey made but one experiment. * There are one or two other prints bearing the same title, but this one may be easily recognised by the inscription at the top — Premier ciessin fait a la maniere noire, par Etig. Isabey, 1831. f There are two prints with this title. The one referred to is an upright subject. eug£ne isabey. 49 so far as I know,'^ and his work in this line has not, therefore, the importance of his mezzotint work. It is to Harding rather than to Isabey that we must turn to see what can be done in this medium. There is another medium, however, which Isabey used with marvellous skill, though he did but one lithograph entirely in this way — the Ba- teau de pecheurs en rade. The method employed here is that of powdered crayon. This medium gives very delicate tones when properly handled, but the difficulty in the process lies in its extreme sensitiveness. It is easy to make a black daub with powdered crayon, but to lay soft, even tones of just the proper degree of intensity requires no little practice. Isabey’s experience with the me- dium can not have been very great, though he employed it occasionally in parts of his litho- graphs ; and yet, when he attempts an entire * Of course, it is possible that others exist. There is no catalogue of Isabey’s lithographs, excepting the very unsatisfac- tory list given in M. Beraldi’s Graveurs du XIX^ sitdc. The collection of his works in the Bibliotheque Nationale is far from complete, and I have been obliged, therefore, to depend entirely upon my own collection in writing this sketch. 50 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. work in this manner, the result would seem to denote perfect familiarity with the process. The rolling clouds in the Bateau de pecheurs have all the beauty of drawing of his best works \ and the water, too, with its gentle, undulating move- ment, is admirably suggested. Nowhere is there the slightest hesitation. All the gradations of tone are given with extreme delicacy, forming in their combined mass a picture of a beauty rarely equalled by the artist. Isabey was born in Paris, July 22, 1804, and died there, on the 26th of April, 1886. He was a son and pupil of the miniature painter J. B. Isabey. In 1830 he was appointed royal marine painter to the Algerian expedition. He received first-class medals in 1824, 1827, and 1855. In 1852 he was promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour, having already been made a knight of the same order in 1832. His litho- graphs number less than sixty, but, few as they are, their artistic excellence places him, beyond all question, among the six or seven great masters of the art. VI. ALEXANDRE CALAME. MONG landscape lithographers, Calame is the only one whose genius can at all approach Harding’s ; the only one who can stand comparison with him from a poetical as well as a tech- nical point of view. Such choice as there is between them must be dictated by our own feel- ings, for the question resolves itself chiefly into one of personal preferences in regard to the sub- jects they chose. Both are so great, each is so perfect in his own way that any comparison between them is well-nigh impossible, if we would do justice to the high qualities of their respective arts. By way of introduction, I may be permitted, however, to point out some of their differences in temperament, as well as some of their simi- larities. Both had the same starting point, a passionate love for Nature, and both tried to interpret her with truth and sincerity ; but while 51 52 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Harding loved her best in her gentler moods, Calame preferred her when she was more sublime. Whatever may be thought of the relative tech- nique of the two men, it is certain that Calame was an accomplished draughtsman in the inter- pretation of landscape, and that in depicting the majestic scenery of his own country he is abso- lutely without a rival. He was a true Swiss in his feelings and in his love for the grandeur and the solemn beauty of his native mountains. Every phase of their scenery was dear to him ; every aspect of it was studied with a care that only real sympathy can give. We hear it said some- times that the majestic proportions of such land- scapes preclude the possibility of producing the same effect on a small scale, and that mountains are not, therefore, fit subjects for the graphic arts. This is due to ignorance of the true principles upon which grandeur rests. Besides, Calame’s small lithographs are a positive proof that the proposition is false. If any one who is a lover of mountain landscape will examine these litho- graphs, he will find in them, I am certain, all that his heart can desire. A great deal of Calame’s lithographic work ALEXANDRE CALAME. 53 consists of outline sketches, which were done as models for school children to copy. They are mere elementary drawings, good as far as they go, but uninspired, and therefore totally lacking the stamp of genius. Another class of prints done for the same purpose, but carried beyond the stage of simple outline, are those printed in two tones, giving the effect of a black crayon or wash drawing heightened with white chalk. Such, for example, are the prints forming the series called U Ecole du paysagiste. These have undoubtedly more merit than his outline sketches, and there are individual lithographs among them which show no slight cleverness ; but the method did not suit Calame, and the greater part of his works in this manner are commonplace produc- tions. One or two of those in the series La Campagne^' are, however, pieces of real merit, as, for instance. No. 87 — a view of a mountain stream rushing through a rocky gorge. The picture is simply and effectively treated, particu- larly the foaming water, hurling itself against the rocks and boulders. * Only a few of the prints in this series are by Calame. 54 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. It is not, however, in works of this kind that we must look for the real Calame, but in his more finished things ; in those where he sought to express Nature in her true values, with all her subtle differences of light and shade, with all her beautiful cloud effects, her delicate harmonies, and her various changes of mood. Here and only here is Calame truly great, and, like all the best landscape draughtsmen, he is great not because of his technique alone, but because of the spirit that animates his work, because of his intense love for Nature and the poetry with which she inspires him. Many of his best works are found in the se- ries called CEuvres de A. Calame^ which he * In his Life of Calame, M. Rambert says that these litho- graphs were done by one of Calame’s pupils named Terry, and that Calame himself did no more than give the finishing touches to the stones. The masterly manner in which most of them are drawn, and especially the fact that almost all are signed by Calame, while none of them bear Terry’s name, led me to doubt this statement, and I therefore wrote to M. Arthur Calame to ask whether he could give me any information upon the sub- ject. The importance of the question warrants my quoting M. Calame’s answer in full, and I therefore give the reader a trans- lation of it, “ My own opinion on the ‘ Qiuvres de A. Calame,’ is that 1 ALEXANDRE CALAME. 55 did after his paintings and drawings. In them we have the very essence of his art. Other art- ists have produced landscapes equal to them in many ways, but no one else has ever approached them in their wonderful picturing of mountain the series is entirely by my father, who signed them, although M. Rambert does not agree with me, since he says that they are almost wholly the work of Terry. Terry was an employee, paid by my father to make a reduced drawing of his paintings, and to carry this drawing to a certain stage of advancement — a very crude stage, for that matter. I still remember that the stones, as they came out of Terry’s hands, were a kind of preparation, a sort of outline drawing with a few shaded values, flat tones repre- senting the distribution of light and shade in the composition. At this stage my father took them up and brought them to the degree of perfection that you know. For me, the plates are completely the work of my father, and since he signed them he must have accepted them as his own, and they have for me all the value of original works. “ If you should have an opportunity of seeing a work that Terry did on his own account, ‘Tournde dans la Haute Savoie,’ you would see what was Terry’s style when he was left to him- self, and this would give you a true idea of his contribution as a rough-hewer in the lithographs called ‘ CEuvres de A. Calame.’ “ My father employed Terry to do mechanical work which he himself did not have time for because of the numerous orders he received. It was in the evening by lamplight that he took up the stones begun by Terry, and he did not consider them finished until they gave a faithful representation of his paintings. These fine lithographs, bearing, when finished, the stamp of his 56 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. scenery. Some of them are far superior to others ; but, as a whole, they are singularly uniform in quality, and only a very few of them are totally lacking in interest. All are not mountain scenes, nor, indeed, are the pieces that deal with this class of subjects always superior to those which do not, though, generally speaking, the artist is at his best in mountain landscape or in subjects which have something in common with this, his own hand, were intended to reproduce his paintings and to make them more widely known. “ Some of these stones did not pass through the hands of Terry. My father preferred, in the case of certain subjects of which he was particularly fond, to treat them entirely him- self, and as you yourself suggest, ‘ La Mer ’ is one of these prints.” There ought to be no doubt which of the two authorities we should choose — that of the biographer who brings forth no proofs in support of his statement, or that of the son who saw his father working upon the stones. It is true that the son was only ten years old when the lithographs were done ; but since he re- members the appearance of the stones when they came out of Terry’s hands, and as he was afterward on sufficient terms of inti- macy with his father to obtain information on the subject, I am myself perfectly satisfied with his conclusions. Moreover, we should take into account the fact that M. Rambert devotes him- self almost wholly to Calame’s paintings, and that the lithographs are to him works of very minor importance, to which he gives ALEXANDRE CALAME. 57 favourite theme. Thus, for instance, La Mer (No. ii),* while not a scene whose motive is taken from mountain landscape, is yet one of the finest lithographs ever produced by the master. Steep cliffs rise directly out of the sea. Against them the stormy waves break and recede, rising in high peaks, surmounted with spray as they recoil before the immovable barrier. The heavy, black clouds are magnificent specimens of but a passing comment, and about which he was not likely to trouble himself greatly. We should also remember that Calame was a man of exceptional integrity, and that he certainly would not have signed lithographs which were not his own work, and, above all, that he would never have signed them, as he did in many cases, “Calame f.,” meaning “fecit.” Terry’s outline suggestions were quite mechanical since the composition had already been carried out by Calame in the paint- ing ; and as the master afterward entirely covered over the pupil’s work with his own, there remains nothing in the lithographs as we now see them, except what Calame himself drew upon the stones. It seems not improbable that the pieces signed by Calame are the ones with which Terry had nothing whatever to do ; but this is a conjecture resting on no documentary evidence. At all events, I am myself fully convinced that the one hundred and eight lithographs forming the series are all original works by Calame’s own hand. * As the prints bear no titles upon them, I shall give the number of each in order that the reader may identify it. lO 58 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. the artist’s handling of a stormy sky. The litho- graph is one of the most stirring pictures imagi- inable, indescribably impressive, giving us a com- plete sense of the sea’s terrific power. Quines des temples de Pee stum (No. 33) is another proof that Calame did not need moun- tains, pine trees, and roaring torrents to bring out his genius. This print is even further removed than the preceding one from his favourite sub- ject. La Mer is not, after all, so very different in feeling from many of his mountain scenes ; but the present lithograph is of quite another order. Here we have an extended plain, with nothing to break its monotony save the ruins of a Doric temple in the distance. The genius of the artist has triumphed over a subject that many a man would have passed by without seizing the full extent of its beauties, so much depends upon the poetic treatment of the scene. The brilliant sky and sombre landscape form a picture of mel- ancholy desolation, a vivid suggestion of remote antiquity — of a civilization once splendid, now passed away forever. But these prints, powerful as they are, stand somewhat alone in the artist’s work. They arc ALEXANDRE CALAME. 59 not in any way inferior to his scenes among the Swiss mountains, as I have said before ; but, while he did many lithographs of views other than Swiss, he was more thoroughly himself when he was among the mountains and lakes of his native country. Then he was in a realm of his own, where no one else has ever equalled him. Who but Calame could have given us the beautiful Lac des quatre Cantons (No. 17) ? One must have seen Switzerland to appreciate the faithful way in which the artist has portrayed the deep, tran- quil lake, surrounded by its majestic mountains, bathed in warm sunshine and covered with a soft, misty atmosphere. There is something in a mountain seen at a great distance like this that is different from anything else in the world. There is a mysteriousness about it, a unity of tone, a breaking up of the light and shade into large masses that give to it an individuality quite its own. Calame understood all these things to perfection. How beautifully, how delicately the masses are treated ! How harmoniously the pic- ture is constructed ! Could any one convey bet- ter in so small a compass the grandeur of these giant mountains ? Only he who does not appre- 6o SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. ciate the sublimity of Swiss landscape can fail to be moved by a print like this. Glacier de rAigle [Handeck) (No. 49) is a view of fine old pine trees, with a beautiful snow- capped mountain in the distance, upon which the sun shines with cold brilliancy. On every side there is the hushed solemnity of the mountains. Calame loved best those landscapes in which Na- ture was the wildest — not necessarily boisterous and turbulent, but lonely and solitary. We can not but feel ourselves far removed from civilization in a spot like this. So well is this impression realized that we can look at the print for a long time without noticing its masterly workmanship. This is indeed true art, for perfect technique never obtrudes itself upon us. And yet, if we do at last examine the technical execution, we find every detail carried out with great skill. The drawing of the pines and of the snow- cov- ered mountain could not be finer. The sunlight is admirably managed, and the shadows are very true to Nature- — such shadows as mountains only can cast. There are many prints in the series whose exquisite beauty is fully on a level with the two ALEXANDRE CALAME. 6i just described. Such, for instance, is the Cours de rAar^ Souvenir de la Handeck (No. 41), one of the best examples of Calame’s drawing of pines, rocks, sunlit clouds, and distant mountains. So, toOj Environs de la Handeck (No. 95) is one of his best works, while nothing could be finer than Le grand Eiger (No. 47), with its deep chasm and its stately mountain indistinctly seen in the light of a brilliant sunrise. There are still others that deserve high praise, but a list of even the best would include the greater part of the series. It is impossible, however, to leave unno- ticed some of those in which the artist’s drawing of clouds is best illustrated, for Calame was a master in the variety and beauty of his skies. We have seen the heavy storm-clouds in La Mer, and something of the same kind of sky is seen in Souvenir des hautes Alpes (No. 45), where great massive clouds hang around the mountain top. From scenes like these Calame could turn to such a one as Prhs de Brunnen^ Lac des quatre Cantons (No. 31) or to Souvenir d'Ttalie (No. 16), both with clouds of lovely delicacy. This last has something in it that reminds one of Turner. The landscape is romantic and unearthly, a scene 62 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. such as one might expect to find in some fairy land. Calame’s masterpieces are not all found in the series just mentioned. He did many other litho- graphs of a high order, some published separately, others in sets. There would be no object in de- scribing all of these, for the prints already men- tioned are sufficient to convey a complete idea of Calame’s art. Still, the reader may wish to know something of the lithographs which were not done after the artist’s paintings, and for this reason I shall say a few words upon one or two of those in the series published by Gihaut in Paris. They are treated in a broader manner than the lithographs in the CEuvres^ or perhaps it would be better to say in a freer manner. They are more spontaneous, but they are none the less attempts to express values, and as such they belong to the same class of work as the CEuvres. Cours de r Aar a la Handeck^ Canton de Berne^ is a good representative example of this style and quite typical of Calame at his best. How admirably he has portrayed the whirling, seething mountain torrent, rushing against the I ALEXANDRE CALAME. 63 projecting rocks as it sweeps down its precipitous bed ! The distance is mysterious, and, in fact, the whole scene, faithful as the drawing is to Nature, has in it something that awakens the fancy, some- thing that calls upon us to admire not an artist alone, but an artist who sees with the eyes of a poet. Among the other lithographs of the series I may mention the Lac de Thoune (No. 3), Le Schwartzwald^ sur la Scheideck (No. 13), and Vue prise a Lauterbrunnen^ though I am not sure that this last belongs to the same set. It is, however, in the same style, and is a charming view of some chalets lying in a valley whose mountains rise on each side high above them. Calame was born at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva, the 28th day of May, 1810. Soon after this his father moved with his family to Neuchatel, and about 1824 they settled in Geneva, Calame’s home during the remainder of his life. When a boy at school he received a blow from a com- panion which deprived him of the use of one of his eyes; but, as the appearance of the eye re- mained unchanged, many of his acquaintances 64 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. were ignorant of the accident. In 1826 his father died, leaving the family in great distress, and Ca- lame was obliged to take a position as clerk in a bank to assist in supporting his mother and the younger children. He now thought of putting his artistic talent to some practical use, and employed his leisure moments in drawing mountain scenes, for which there soon arose a demand among the collectors of Geneva. In 1829 he left the bank to study painting with Diday, whose work was after- ward inspired by that of his pupil. Calame’s mother died in 1832, and two years later he mar- ried Amelie Miintz-Berger, the daughter of a musician living in Geneva. He made many trips to Paris at various periods of his life, and besides these he travelled in Holland, Italy, the south of France, and in 1850 he visited London. He received a second medal at the Salon of 1839, a first medal in 1841, another medal of the same class at the Paris Exhibition of 1855, and in 1842 was made a knight of the Legion of Honour. He died at Mentone, March 17, 1864. Calame’s life was singularly peaceful, devoted almost entirely to his family and his art. He ALEXANDRE CALAME. 6s was an indefatigable worker, in spite of continual ill health. His paintings were rarely, if ever, done directly from Nature, and the same is true of his lithographs. His practice was to make a number of studies, and from these his finished works were done. This method was employed, not because he did not care for truth in his art, but because his memory enabled him to call to his mind a landscape he had not seen for years, and to paint it with as much accuracy as if it were actually before him. Still, Calame was not a realist in the sense that the term is generally understood. He tried to be true to Nature, but his aim was not always to depict a particular scene exactly as he saw it. Many of his works were composed entirely from imagination ; but, whether the scene was one that actually existed or not, his purpose was to give to it the appear- ance of reality by the correct drawing of all his details, by the accurate rendering of his values, and by the exactness of his light and shade. Thus a picture was produced which, if not a representation of a particular landscape, was, nev- ertheless, so founded on careful observation of Nature that it seemed to be a faithful rendering 66 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. of something really seen by the artist. The true value of his work may be said, in fact, to depend upon this careful balance of reality and imagina- tion, upon the equal play of his two tendencies, realism and romanticism. VII. EUGENE DELACROIX. ROUND a great name whose reputa- tion is firmly established there hangs a sacred veil, through which, in the eyes of many people, it is a kind of sacrilege to penetrate. We may bow down in admiration, but we are not permitted to hazard an adverse criticism, except under pen- alty of laying ourselves open to the charge of being unable to understand the genius of whom we speak. People are shocked at the audacity which dares even to suggest that Rembrandt did not always draw perfectly. One would think, from the reverential attitude of the art world toward some of its greatest men, that a Rem- brandt or a Michelangelo could never err ; that what seems in them to be a weakness or a de- fect is in reality intentional — -a deep, mysterious something incomprehensible to smaller minds. It is this unqualified admiration for genius which 67 68 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. leads to so much senseless collecting of works of art because of the names they bear when the works themselves are often of no great value. At the present time Delacroix is an object of this reverential awe. Rightly looked upon as one of the great painters of the century, his genius is made to appear in all his works, however trivial they may be. The reputation of his paintings is transferred to his lithographs, giving them a ficti- tious importance which an impartial examination of the prints themselves does not warrant. I know that I am throwing myself open to criti- cism from the artist’s disciples when I say that Delacroix did two lithographs of tremendous power, and that the rest of his works, with possi- bly one or two exceptions, are simply detestable. Nevertheless, this is my opinion, after a careful study of his prints. His two sets of illustrations for Faust and Hamlet may fairly be taken as ex- amples of his whole work, because, after his two great lithographs, they are the most admired of his prints. However great he may have been as a painter, Delacroix was not a draughtsman, and his work in black and white suffered in conse- quence. Of course, even in black and white. EUGfiNE DELACROIX. 69 slight technical shortcomings may be overlooked when an artist has produced a remarkable imagi- native picture ; but no amount of imagination can counterbalance such atrocious drawing as we find in these illustrations for Goethe and Shake- speare. There is not a figure in either series that is not entirely out of construction, not one that can be likened to a human being by any possible stretch of the imagination. They are, one and all, monstrosities. Nor do the prints possess that first requirement of good illustration — a faithful interpretation of the text. It is said that Goethe admired Delacroix’s Faust^ and the author ought, in all reason, to have understood his own mean- ing in his great tragedy ; but it is not impossible that Goethe’s very understanding of the play made him see in Delacroix’s work things that it did not contain. Be this as it may, I run no risk of opposition from Shakespeare in saying that Delacroix did not comprehend Hamlet. His illus- trations are trivial and meaningless, without the faintest knowledge of what the author of the play had in his thoughts. He sees only the outward movement of the tragedy, remaining utterly un- conscious of anything below the surface. To him 70 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. the play is a description of certain actions, not an analysis of a human mind. It is a pleasure to turn from these wretched, commonplace productions to the artist’s Lion de r Atlas and Tigre royal. Delacroix needs no other claim to be called a master than these two prints. They will always remain two of the marvels of lithography. As we look at them we can not but feel a regret that their author did not con- tinue in this direction, instead of undertaking things beyond his grasp. They are not by any means perfect in drawing, but what they lack in this way finds abundant compensation in their insight into animal life and in their beautiful har- mony, due in great measure to the masterly handling of the crayon. In the tiger, for in- stance, the hind leg is impossible in construction, and indeed at first sight the whole tiger has the appearance of a stuffed skin \ but who would not forgive these defects for the sake of the fine spirit in the animal ? The litheness of his body, the treachery of his nature, the intentness of his gaze with those sharp, piercing eyes, are most wonder- fully portrayed. How perfectly the landscape har- monizes with the rest of the picture ! How rich EUGfeNE DELACROIX. 71 are the soft, velvety blacks ! The work is as suggestive of Nature as if it had been done in colour. On the whole, I prefer the tiger to the lion, but the choice between them is so slight that any preference is only a question of personal taste. My own predilection is governed more by the subject than by the workmanship. To me there is something so pathetic in the timid, help- less hare resting in the clutches of this merciless lion that I can not look at the picture without a feeling of pain. There is another print that I would exempt from my general condemnation of Delacroix’s work. This is the portrait of Baron Schwitter, a piece good in character and, on the whole, well handled technically, though not at all com- parable to some of the best work of the portrait lithographers. It is scarcely necessary to say much in regard to the life of Delacroix, but, for the sake of uni- formity, a few words may be appended to this brief criticism of his works. He was born at Charenton Saint-Maurice, April 26, 1799, and died in Paris, August 13, 1863. Early in life he joined the revolt against classicism, but his work 72 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. as a leader of the romantic school needs no com- ment here. He was made a knight of the Le- gion of Honour in 1831, an officer in 184.6, and commander in 1855. In 1857 he was elected to membership in the Institute. VIII. HONORE DAUMIER. O one has ever been more misrepre- sented than Daumier. Lauded by some as the equal of Michelangelo, he has been sneered at by others as a man unworthy of serious considera- tion. The truth in all such cases is generally found to lie somewhere between the two ex- tremes. Daumier is beyond all doubt the great- est caricaturist that lithography has produced ; perhaps it is not too much to say the greatest that any art has produced. This title would be sufficient in itself to give him a high place in the history of lithography, even if he had no other claims to greatness ; but at the same time we should bear in mind that, however much honour he may deserve for being supreme in his own line, caricature, even at its best, is not one of the highest forms of artistic expression. It is possible to give to this form of art more or less 73 12 74 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. of an elevated position, according to the amount of insight into human nature displayed by the artist ; but, as a rule, the real caricaturist is not a man of profound intellectual ability. His very bent toward caricature is a sign of his superfi- ciality. It is precisely at this point that I am not in agreement with Daumier’s most enthusias- tic admirers. They would have us see in him one of the greatest interpreters of human nature in the whole history of art. In a certain sense this may be true. He was undoubtedly a close observer of everything about him, and especially of the actions of his fellow-beings ; but his knowl- edge of men was confined almost wholly to their outward side. He did not possess a deep insight into their characters. All their actions he studied with great attention, but the motives for these actions — the mind back of them — he left almost untouched. It is for this reason that his people lack life. They are too often puppets, worked, no doubt, with consummate skill, but still puppets, whose moving power is Daumier and not their own free will. The way he manages the wires of these dolls deserves the highest praise, but his genius — for genius he certainly had — is not of HONORE DAUMIER. 75 that rare order which gives us men and women of flesh and blood, letting us see them through and through, so that we can read their minds, their thoughts, their very souls. In studying Daumier’s work it is well to bear in mind that the vast majority of his three thou- sand seven hundred lithographs were done for the purpose of earning a living, and that he not only disliked lithography, but that caricature it- self was distasteful to him. His one ambition in life was to be a painter, but poverty compelled him to turn his genius to other things. That he had great talent for his favourite pursuit is suffi- ciently evident from the few paintings he has left us ; and it is equally clear on examining his work in black and white that, whether or not lithog- raphy was the medium best suited to him, his real genius lay in caricature. Even his paintings show — some more, some less — this natural tend- ency of his mind. His misconception of his powers could not but have a baneful effect upon his work, and it is for this reason that I insist upon the necessity of bearing in mind his dislike for caricature. Many of his failures are thus easily explained. How could he do good work 76 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. when he had a dislike for what he was doing ? Fortunately, there were times when his mood changed, and it was then that he produced his masterpieces. The most marked effect of his lack of inter- est in caricature is a monotonous feeling when we are obliged to look over many of his litho- graphs at one time. They become, after a while, unbearably tiresome, until at last we are glad to turn our attention to something else. Produced to order as they were, they are too often want- ing in inspiration and conviction. Again and again we meet with the same types, the same ideas, the same expressions of face, and not infrequently the same action. His accessories too are generally carelessly drawn, nothing in the picture seemingly being of any interest to him excepting the principal figures, and even these at times show insufficient study. In addition to his other faults, it will be admitted, I think, by his staunchest admirers that he was sometimes extremely vulgar and occasionally even indecent. Having now shown the weak side of Dau- mier’s art, I may be asked with reason what there is in it to entitle him to rank as a mas- HONORE DAUMIER. 77 ter. His claims to greatness rest almost entirely upon his technique ; not upon his knowledge of lithography, for he used the stone merely as a thing upon which to dash olf rapid sketches, but upon his marvellous draughtsmanship. His fig- ures are blocked out in a broad, vigorous man- ner, with rapid, nervous strokes, every one of which takes its place precisely where he wishes it to go, and produces exactly the effect in- tended. He never feels his way. He knows what he wants to do and does it. When the result is unsatisfactory, we must seek the cause in his carelessness or lack of interest in the sub- ject, never in his inability. When he wishes to draw well he does so. Of course, his work is always that of a caricaturist, and therefore rarely accurate. The important point is, not that he gives us a figure faultless in construction, but that, exaggerated as may be the parts of the body, they are always the work of a man who knows what he is doing, of one who can draw well if he chooses. So likewise the action of his fig- ures and the expressions of their faces are dis- torted at times to a point where they become meaningless, but generally with a power that 78 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. shows at once the knowledge and ability of the artist. Daumier may be called with truth a natural draughtsman. His technical skill was not learned from a master, not even acquired by his own efforts ; it was born in him. So true is this that his series of caricatures of public men, published in La Caricature at the very beginning of his career, remained to the end of his life one of his greatest works. In them he became at once the Daumier whom we know. His manner of draw- ing underwent changes from time to time, but even in these early works he had formed a style from which he was never radically to depart. They are caricatures of the most exaggerated type, but they are at the same time portraits of the persons represented. Their individuality is too marked for us to doubt that they are faith- ful likenesses, even if we did not have the testi- mony of contemporaries to prove their fidelity to the originals. As examples of strong draughts- manship, they are simply astounding. I wonder how many similar cases can be found in the his- tory of art of a young man, twenty-five years of age, who, with scarcely any previous training. HONORE DAUMIER. 79 could draw in this marvellous way. The best pieces in the series are the portraits of Mr. Pot de NaZy Mr. Sebasty Mr. Pruney Mr. Bailly and Mr. Keratr. This last is especially remarkable. The man is bowing in a most obsequious, self- satisfied fashion, holding his hat in his left hand while he presses his right hand against his breast, and grinning in an indescribably laughable manner. A man’s treatment of the nude is the severest test of his technical skill, because the undraped figure calls out his whole knowledge, making him stand forth for just what he is. Most of Daumier’s drawings of the nude are to be found in the two series Les Baigneurs and Croquis d^ete. As exam- ples of his technique, many of them are as fine as anything he ever did. In fact, he is nowhere seen to better advantage, either from a technical or from a satirical point of view, than in the majority of these pieces. Especially do they bring out his fine sense of the ridiculous, which, next to his technique, is the most distinctive feature of his work at all times. It is rare that he looks upon the serious side of anything. There was a serious side to his nature, but it did not often 8o SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. appear to any great extent in his work. To Daumier, the man, life was far from being as laughable as Daumier, the artist, would have us believe; but we are occupied now with his pro- ductions, not with himself. Of course, the two are inseparably connected, for a man’s work does show the influence of his character, in spite of the seeming contradictions we occasionally meet with. On the whole, Daumier was by nature a man who turned everything to ridicule. If in his own life adversity made him more serious, this did not prevent his real nature from coming out when he turned to his art. On taking up the crayon or the brush he forgot his troubles in the enthusiasm of work, and then he became the real Daumier. His drawing in these two series partakes of the same qualities which distinguish all his best work. The figures are exaggerated, their action distorted, the expressions of their faces too vio- lent ; but all this is done with intentional devia- tion from the truth by a man who has exact knowledge, and who can do with his medium whatever pleases him. His feeling for beauty in the human figure was certainly not very highly o I j \ HONORfi DAUMIER. 8i developed. Indeed, the sense of beauty in any form was almost completely wanting in him. His nude figures are samples of all that is ugliest in Nature. Looked at from the aesthetic side, they have not even one redeeming feature ; but, repulsive as they are, their superb technical han- dling can not fail to call forth admiration. In speaking of Daumier’s sense of the ridic- ulous, the series called Histoire ancienne must in- evitably come up in our minds, for in none of his works is this quality more developed than in these pieces. They are satires upon the classic school, and deal chiefly with mythological subjects. Some of them are not particularly refined, but they are almost all amusing, and none of them can be said to come under the head of indecency, though some of them verge dangerously close upon it. Ariadne abandoned by Theseus is per- haps the best. She is seated upon the ground, watching the ship of her lover as it sails away in the distance. The melancholy expression of her face as she holds her finger thoughtfully to her mouth is highly ludicrous. In another piece we see Thetis dipping Achilles in the Styx. As she draws him out of the water by the heel a 13 82 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. lobster clings to his nose. The boy is crying, and evidently takes little enjoyment in the pro- ceeding. The Education of Achilles, to mention but one more of the series, is likewise very amus- ing. Despair is seated in the boy’s face as he looks at the open book out of which the Cen- taur is endeavouring to teach him the first letters of the alphabet. I confess myself not a little shocked at these interpretations of the heroes and heroines of Greek mythology, but we must take Daumier as he is, and, after all, the litho- graphs are unquestionably very funny. More- over, they are not intended so much for satires upon the gods and goddesses of antiquity as upon the classic school of painting. Another series in which Daumier reaches the height of the ridiculous is that called Les Baig- neuses. The pieces in this set can not pass for examples of extreme refinement, but they are many of them exceedingly funny with their fat women and thin women — figures of every ludicrous type imaginable. Some of Daumier’s best character sketches are to be seen in his studies of the people who visit the Salon, The public, the critics, and the artists HONORE DAUMIER. 83 themselves all come in for a share of his ridicule. He shows us the throngs of people who make the Salon unbearable upon the opening day, and the crowds that stand in front of a celebrated pic- ture hopelessly endeavouring to get a glimpse of it. There are the people who carefully study all the titles of the pictures in the catalogue without taking the trouble to look at the pic- tures themselves. We see the country people, who do not understand the nude sculpture ; the artists who rub their noses against the pictures in order to study the way in which they are done; the people who stand gazing at portraits of themselves ; the influential critic who does not deign to notice the obsequious artists as they politely raise their hats to him — in fact, all the types of people so familiar to us at public exhi- bitions are amusingly portrayed. The two series Exposition de i8^g and E Exposition universe lie may be classed with the various series on the Salonsy for they partake of the same charac- teristics. Les moments difficiles de la vie also contains some of the artist’s best work. One of them in particular is a real masterpiece of expression. It 84 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. represents an actress behind the scenes of a theatre explaining to the manager the reason for her having been absent from a rehearsal. At least this is the construction placed upon the drawing by the author of the text at the bottom. What- ever may have been Daumier’s real meaning, it is evident, from the expressions of the faces, that the woman is telling the manager something which he does not believe, and which she does not expect him to believe. The woman’s face here is the nearest approach to beauty that Dau- mier has given us, so far as I can call his work to mind. Les beaux jours de la vie is likewise one of the artist’s best series. So too are the Cro- quis musicauXy Croquis d^hiver^ Croquis parisiensy Croquis dramatiquesy the various series on hunt- ing, the Canotiers parisiensy Croquis pris au theatrey and Les Bohemes de Paris — the last, es- pecially, containing some fine specimens of his art. Daumier reviewed in his lithographs almost all the passing events and fashions of his day, such as the comet which was to destroy the world in 1857 ; the various laws, with their effects HONORE DAUMIER. 85 on different people ; crinolines, a never-failing source of amusement to the caricaturists of the period; the influenza, magnetism, spiritualism, with all its absurdities of table-tipping; besides which he ridiculed all grades of society and all kinds of people — the rich, the poor, the middle classes, butchers, cab-drivers, porters, artists, lawyers, judges, criminals, proprietors of houses and their tenants, amateur actors ; in short, no one escaped his raillery. Much of his time was devoted to political caricatures, a line in which he produced little that is worthy of note. When he dealt with politics he was apt to be excessively mo- notonous, not to say stupid. His forte lay in quite other directions, and had not necessity com- pelled him to grind out whatever could bring him in a little money, he would probably never have turned his attention to this form of carica- ture at all. Every one of his political pieces might be eliminated from his work without risk to his reputation. To criticise Daumier’s work in detail would require a great deal more space than the limits of this short sketch. His lithographs were almost all published in the Charivari^ and appeared in 86 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. series.* To give even a general idea of the vari- ous series is not easy, because the pieces com- posing them vary so greatly in merit that a description of a series as a whole is likely to give a false impression of many of its individual litho- graphs. The classification of the prints as adopted by the Charivari was rarely due to Dau- mier, and many of them appeared afterward under other titles. Nor had Daumier anything to do with the lines of text at the bottom of each piece. He simply drew his lithograph and sent it to the editor, who employed some one to write an appropriate dialogue or a witty saying to ac- company the piece, after which it was published in the series that seemed most fitting. Not only did Daumier take no part in the composition of the texts, but he thought them in every way useless and even detrimental to his work. When his drawings could not be understood without a * The impressions that appeared in the Charivari were printed carelessly and are never good. They bear the text of the paper on the reverse side. The only good impressions are those printed on separate sheets of paper — that is to say, the proofs which have no printed text on the back. Even these are not always good. 1 HONORE DAUMIER. 87 written explanation he considered them failures. Although this may have held good at the time of publication, it is not so true to-day. We must judge the artist, of course, by the drawings alone ; but the text at the bottom is often of service in conveying his idea, because many of the pieces had reference to passing events, and are therefore not now intelligible without an ex- planation by some one who was living at the time. This is especially true of the political pieces. No doubt the writer of the text often failed to interpret the artist’s idea, but he was nevertheless in many cases better able than we to understand the meaning. A few words remain to be said on Daumier’s four large lithographs which most admirers of his work rank as the supreme expression of his art. I am not in accord with such high praise as this, because I find the artist’s genius as well exem- plified in many of his smaller prints as in these large ones. I am ready to acknowledge that Daumier never drew better than in these four lithographs, but I am not prepared to admit that he never drew so well. The reason that they have been placed so far above all his other pro- 88 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. ductions may possibly be due to the fact that they are more finished works than he was accus- tomed to do — that is to say, the drawing is carried further than usual, so that the result is less of a sketch and more of a picture. Their size, too, gives them a seeming importance out of proportion to their real merit. My purpose is not to disparage the pieces, but simply to do jus- tice to the many other things by Daumier which are in every way their equals. In point of time, they are among the artist’s early works — a further proof of his great natural ability as a draughtsman. As in the case of the series of caricatures men- tioned at the beginning of this sketch, it seems incredible that these four lithographs, so mature in drawing, can be the work of a man only twenty-six years of age, who had no training be- yond what he had been able to obtain through his own spasmodic studies. The first of these four prints is Le Ventre l^gislatif^ representing some of the best-known members of the Chamber of Deputies. They are all caricatures of great power, and, exaggerated as they are, good portraits of the persons. There is no doubting this. The drawing of character HONORE DAUMIER. 89 is too strong for them to be otherwise than ad- mirable likenesses. In the second piece — Ne vous y frottez, pas — a workingman in the costume of a printer stands ready to defend the freedom of the press. His sleeves are rolled up, showing a pair of muscular arms. The whole figure has some- thing grand and dignified in it, standing firmly and resolutely determined to defend liberty at all costs. In technique, the lithograph is certainly as fine as anything its author ever did. The drawing is magnificent. The piece is not a cari- cature, but is simply an attempt to draw the human figure as it is, without any distortion. Enfonce La Fayette^ on the other hand, is a caricature. Louis- Philippe, disguised in loose, misfitting clothes, stands with hands raised to his face, pretending to weep at the death of La Fayette. This, too, is superb in technical han- dlings — one of the artist’s masterpieces beyond all question. La I(ue Transnonain is to me a very unpleas- ant print because of the horrible subject. On the floor of a miserable room are the bodies of a family who have been murdered. The figures are 14 90 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. realistically drawn, with no attempt at carica- ture. Repulsive as the subject is, the work commands attention because of the tremendous draughtsmanship displayed in it. To those who admire his lithographs, a few words on Daumier’s manner of drawing may not be uninteresting. He never drew from Nature, but depended wholly upon his observation and memory in producing his works. He liked to watch the people in the streets and in the vari- ous public resorts. His whole knowledge of the human body was gained through seeing the peo- ple at the public baths ; but, even when he was thus studying the human figure, he never made so much as the slightest sketch to aid his mem- ory. His work was done at home in his own room, his lithographs being generally done in the evening. These were not so spontaneous as we might suppose from the seemingly free way in which they are treated, and from the fact that he frequently finished six or eight in a day. His practice was to place several stones upon a round table, and then to move from one to the other as the mood seized him. He was continually changing what he had drawn, now adding to HONORS DAUMIER. 91 this one, now erasing something from that ; but his want of spontaneity was in his ideas, not in his teehnique. In the composition of his subjects he proceeded slowly and laboriously ; but, when once he had decided what he wished to do, he drew rapidly and with the utmost sureness of hand. Daumier was born at Marseilles, February 26, 1808. When he was seven years old his parents moved to Paris. His first school of art was the Louvre, where, as a boy, he went of his own accord to draw from the antique sculpture. See- ing that he had some artistic ability, his father reluctantly consented to his studying art. He began work with Alexandre Lenoir, but left him immediately because he did not like the master’s methods. After this he studied with a lithog- rapher named Ramelet, but left him too almost at once to enter the studio of Boudin, where he did nothing but idle away his time. His stay with Boudin was as short as it had been with his other masters, and what he learned of his teacher amounted to literally nothing. This was the extent of his instruction. His only real mas- ter was himself ; yet, as I have said before, his 92 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. knowledge was not gained by hard study, but was rather intuitive. His life was one long strug- gle for existence. By the sale of his lithographs and an occasional water-colour he was enabled to support his family in a very frugal way. The later years of his life were passed at Valmondois, a small village near Paris. Here poverty pressed hard upon him. His lithographs ceased to be saleable because of the decline of the art in pub- lic favour, and at last even the slight remunera- tion he had received for his water-colours failed him. He became almost totally blind, and by this affliction his family was deprived of the only remaining means of support. Unable to pay the interest on the mortgage of his house, he re- ceived notice of foreclosure ; but at this moment occurred one of the many beautiful acts in the life of that gentle, lovable painter Corot. Hear- ing that his friend was to be expelled from his house, Corot paid the mortgage in full without consulting Daumier, and thus secured for him and his family a home for life. Daumier died at Valmondois on the nth of February, 1879. IX. NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. IjOMPARED with some of the great men, Charlet was not a lithographer of the very first order. He had tal- ents far above the average, but they were not such as to give him the stamp of genius. He may be said to deserve a foremost place among men of secondary rank, but to class him with the giants of lithography is to make him appear much smaller than he really is. I am not seeking to disparage Charlet ; on the contrary, my wish is to put him in his true light. A man’s reputation may suffer as much from overvaluation as from undervaluation. So too, overpraise will often call forth a reaction against a man which will place him as far below his deserts as he was formerly placed above them. This is just what has happened to Charlet. Looked upon for many years as one of the greatest lights of lithography, he has come to be 93 94 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. considered a man of very ordinary ability. The fact is, he has suffered not only from overpraise, but from being admired for the very things he was incapable of doing, while the things in which he was really strong have been overlooked, and were not appreciated even by the most eulogistic of his contemporaries. His life as an artist was divided into two distinct epochs, differing as much in the subjects he chose as in the technical manner in which he carried them out. It was the work of his first period that called forth most of the admiration of his fellow-artists, while the work of his second period — that by which his name will live — was looked upon as of quite secondary importance. Even to-day writers on lithography attach comparatively little value to these later productions, but keep the slight praise they bestow upon Charlet for the works of his early manner. During the first period Charlet turned his at- tention for the most part to military scenes. In these he was neither clever nor original. They have not, as a rule, even the merit of being well drawn, and in conception they are merely repe- titions of ideas that had been so worked out by NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. 95 the older military painters as to be positively un- bearable. Whatever merit these older men may or may not have had, it was certainly too late for Charlet to produce anything of real artistic interest in the lines his predecessors had followed. Vernet, Gros, and the other members of the school had made it difficult for any one to con- tinue in their path without being their imitator. True, Charlet did advance in a way toward a more modern conception of military art, but he clung to the old traditions of hero-worship. He took the common soldier as his ideal instead of lavishing his admiration upon some recognised hero like Napoleon. This is the only difference between him and the men who came before him. In the Grenadier de Waterloo^ which may be taken as completely illustrating his early work, the ob- ject of the artist’s veneration is a soldier who stands ready to defend a wounded comrade while the ranks of the enemy hesitate to advance against a foe who they know will sell his life dearly. There is no attempt to give a realistic representa- tion of a subject which in itself has nothing to prevent the making of a noble picture had it been properly carried out. Charlet has totally missed g6 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. his chance by want of vigour and accentuation in the drawing and by the forced expressions of the faces. The figures stand as if hewn out of wood. Instead of conveying the impression in- tended, the piece is almost laughably theatrical. Le Drapeau defendu has all the faults of the preceding print, with the addition that the ex- pressions of the faces, instead of being senseless, are positively ridiculous. These two prints tell all that it is necessary to know of Charlet’s early military pieces. Any one who has seen them is quite capable of judg- ing the artist at this period of his career without examining more of his works. It is necessary to mention, however, the two lithographs called Voltigeur and Carabinier^ because of the incon- ceivable praise that has been bestowed upon them. They represent two soldiers, one of whom is pok- ing the ashes of his pipe, while the other is doing nothing but hold his gun in his hand. I am unable to discover any merit in them, except that they are not badly drawn. In the matter of showing the military costumes of the times — the object for which they were done — they are not without interest ; but as works of art they can NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. 97 not hold a very high rank. Charlet himself at- tached slight importance to them — a fact that has led one of his biographers to remark that here the artist has given us the very soul of the French army without having an idea himself of the mas- terpieces he was creating. I think Charlet was more nearly right than his critic. Of the early pieces drawn from sources other than military, the best example is UAumbne. There is some really good work in this print, which is not without feeling, in spite of the rather forced sentimentality. It is too much in- fluenced by Gros to be a work of any marked originality ; but, compared with most of Charlet’s early lithographs, it stands out in a very favour- able light. In his second period Charlet turned to scenes of everyday life, which he treated in prints of small dimensions — -much better suited to his pe- culiar temperament than the large theatrical pieces of his early manner. In these small genre sub- jects he created for himself a branch of art quite his own. No one has succeeded in surpassing him in the truthful rendering of these little scenes, so full of life and humour and so delightful in 15 98 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. their touches of human nature. Many of them have soldiers for their subjects, but they are not properly military scenes. They are connected with the army merely because Charlet liked the soldier and his costume, and not because he wished to depict incidents of military life. It is the soldier off duty that he gives us — the soldier when he is at play and has put aside all the characteristic qualities of his profession. Charlet is nowhere more inimitable than in his drunken men, whom he gives us in all the stages of intoxication. He sees them wholly from their humorous side. They are rarely quarrel- some, and never dangerously so. Good nature is their chief virtue, as a rule ; and when by chance they do lose their temper, the humorous side is still preserved. Perhaps the best of these drunken scenes is one in which a soldier, staggering in front of a guide-post, says to it : Tu es frangais ou tu rCes pas franqais f Si tu n'es pas franqais ffenfonce.^' The expression of the man’s face is excellent. He is not angry, not even quarrel- some, but addresses the post in a sort of half- unconscious manner, as if he cared little what the result might be. / ■ I NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. 99 Another scene, equally laughable, is that in which three soldiers, much the worse for liquor, are coming out of a house. One of them ex- claims as he falls backward into the arms of his companion, ‘‘ Soutiem moi^ Chatillon^ je m'eva- nouis.'' There are many other scenes just as character- istic as these and quite as full of humour. There is the one where an old woman, taking up a gun, presents arms to three men so much under the influence of liquor that they can scarcely stand upon their feet, and who can only answer to her challenge of vive I the words Patrouille griseP I like, too, Le Brigadier Petremann^ who says in broken French, “ Che bleire gom un pete de gochon, che safre has hourguoiP He is leaning against a table at which he has been drinking, until he has got himself into rather a tearful con- dition. The piece is extremely humorous. Charlet was very fond of scenes of child life. He did not always draw children with the same ability he showed in the drawing of adults, but he had a real sympathy for their characters, and even when the execution is not all that we might wish, there is still the spirit of childhood in his lOO SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. works. Can anything be more amusing in its way than the two boys who are puzzled at the wooden leg of an old soldier seated upon a bench in front of them ? One of them says, as he points with his finger, to his companion, “ Y dit que vous avez une jambe de bois de naissance,"' This is one of the artist’s best studies of expres- sion. The boy who addresses the soldier has an air of not knowing whether being born with a wooden leg is exactly within the realm of pos- sibility ; while his comrade looks very sheepish as if he felt that he had made a silly statement, but hoped the facts of the case would bear him out. The old soldier is greatly amused at their innocent inquiry. Charlet did many other lithographs of chil- dren, but most of them are greatly inferior to the one just described. Among those worthy of special mention is Le Deserteur^ a child of some two or three years of age who is about to suffer mock execution for having abandoned his regi- ment. The little criminal, whose eyes are blind- folded, is quietly eating a large piece of cake, utterly oblivious of the terrible death that awaits him. The work is full of observation of chil- NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. lOI dren at play. How often we see just such scenes as this in which the children show as much seriousness as if the whole game were real ; while frequently some little fellow, too young to comprehend what is going on, detracts from the reality by his lack of interest and his insubordi- nation ! This same earnestness is seen in Le Petit Caporai^ a little boy wearing a large hat after the fashion of Napoleon’s, who is giving orders to his two companions. I might mention, too, the piece in which some schoolboys, each holding his hand to his head, say to their master. Monsieur^ nout avons un grand dissime mal de tete. Voulez-vous nous permettre de nous en aller^" Though inferior in drawing to some of the others, the picture is very amusing. A long list might easily be made of Charlet’s best genre subjects, but nothing would be gained by giving the titles of all of them. He was especially good in some of his hunting scenes. In them he generally looked at the sportsman from his funny side, as in La Chasse^ where an old man has gone to sleep while a number of hares are seen not far off quietly feeding. So, too, he showed great ability in his rendering of old 102 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. men and old women, many of his best works being drawn from this class of subjects. If he looked on life, as a rule, from its brighter side, Charlet had a serious phase to his art as well. The piece where Death summons a wounded soldier, who answers, Je suis pret^^^ is dignified and touching. Another work of some- what the same order is Les HMtiers, Here an old man lies dying, while his relatives are look- ing around the room at the things they expect to inherit. The subject might easily have lacked impressiveness, but Charlet has treated it in a manner that makes us sympathize deeply with the old man, whose worldly relatives have so little regard for his feelings. The scene is an admirable bit of character-drawing. Tireurs de la Compagnie infernale may be noticed here, though it is different from any of the previous prints. Four soldiers behind a for- tification stand watching an opportunity to shoot. The principal figure is a good piece of drawing, and very natural in the intentness with which he is watching the enemy. Strong contrasts of light and shade add much to the forcible effect of the subject. The lithograph is done mostly in ink. NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. 103 with here and there touches of crayon in the high-lights. Charlet made use of ink not infre- quently in his lithographic work. One of his favourite methods was to blacken the surface of his stone with a wash of ink, and to produce his picture upon this ground by scraping out the lights. Mezzotint is scarcely the right name to apply to this process as Charlet employed it, be- cause, as I have said, mezzotint implies semi- tones, and Charlet’s drawing consisted merely of white lines against a black ground. He left us, too, no small number of lithographic pen- drawings which are not, however, of much artis- tic value, and show little or nothing of the uses that can be made of the pen. They are simple in workmanship, being done as models for school children, and have in them nothing particularly characteristic of lithography. The same result could have been obtained by wood engraving. I can not close without a word on Charlet’s landscapes. This is not a department of art in which he excelled, but he has left us a few land- scapes which, if they do not bear comparison with those of the masters in this branch of lithog- raphy, are not wanting in a certain feeling for 104 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Nature and in the sense of what is right in its delineation. The best of these is the Guerillas navarrois^ a scene of great dignity and grandeur in its massive foliage and wild mountains. In technical treatment it may lack the strength of Harding or of Calame; but the artist has at least seized the spirit of the scene in a way that a more brilliant technician might easily have failed to do. Charlet was born in 1792. He was the son of a soldier, and himself served in the imperial army in 1814 and later in the national guard, for his services in which he was rewarded with the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in 1831, and was afterward made an officer of the same order in 1838. He began the study of art under Le- bel, a pupil of David, and in 1817 entered the studio of Baron Gros, with whom he staid until 1820. On leaving Gros’s studio he was obliged to seek a living for himself and his mother, and served for a long time as a clerk in the employ- ment of the state. Throughout his life he was always more or less in straitened circumstances, which often caused his art to suffer. He was married in 1824, and died in 1845. NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET. 105 Charlet’s importance in the history of lithog- raphy is very great, because of the tremendous influence he exercised upon his contemporaries, many of whom, and among them Delacroix, looked upon him with an admiration amounting almost to reverence. He was unquestionably a man of great, nay, even of remarkable ability, but he was not a genius, as Delacroix and many of his contemporaries would have us believe. Their admiration for him, however, has had the effect of giving him a place in the history of lithography much higher than he could have ob- tained by his own talents, because such unquali- fied praise as he received naturally magnified the importance of his prints, and made them very powerful in moulding the work of his fellow- artists. As a delineator of genre subjects, Charlet will always, I think, hold an honourable position through his own intrinsic and, in a way, unri- valled ability ; but the eulogies of his contempo- raries were lavished upon his military works, and in these, as I have said, he falls far below many of his predecessors, both in intellectual concep- tion and in technical execution. 16 X. ACHILLE DEVERIA. HOEVER would form a just opinion of Deveria’s work must be careful to study his masterpieces before passing judgment. A superficial glance at his lithographs is almost certain to cause a misconception of his powers as an artist, because of the lamentable disproportion in numbers be- tween the good and the bad work. I had myself at one time the most profound disdain for his prints, having formed my opinion through insufii- cient knowledge of them. Since then I have seen many that were before unknown to me, and the consequence is a complete change of opinion — an admiration as great as my former contempt. A man should be judged, of course, by his best work; but we are obliged also to take his fail- ures into account in forming our estimate of him. And yet, while taking into consideration the proportion of good and bad work, we must, loG ACHILLE DEVgRIA. 107 in justice, endeavour to ascertain the reasons for the inferior productions, for they frequently pro- ceed from external causes entirely independent of the artist’s ability. This is precisely the case with Deveria. His forte lay in portraiture, and many of his failures are due to the fact that he was continually trying to do subject pieces — a branch of art quite outside his sphere. Whether he was driven to this kind of work by the necessity of gaining money, or whether he took it up because he mistook his true vocation, I do not know; but, whatever the reasons, his subject pieces are cer- tainly valueless as works of art, and can add nothing to his reputation, which will rest in the future entirely on his portraits. How comes it, then, that the greater part of his portraits have little or no value if he was really great in this line ? The answer to this question is not diffi- cult. The majority of his portraits were done merely for commercial purposes. They were things in which he took no interest, and come under the head of what are called among artists pot-boilers.” We must leave them wholly out of consideration in judging of his powers, and form our opinions upon the works to which he io8 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. gave serious attention. After taking out the sub- ject pieces and the commercial portraits, there is comparatively little left ; but this little is of so high an order as to place its author upon a plane almost by himself as a portrait lithographer. Nay, more than this, his masterpieces challenge comparison with the works of the greatest por- traitists in any branch of art. The first great feature of his portraits is their extraordinary fidelity in giving the likeness of the person represented. They are absolutely living ; so true to life that we can almost imagine our- selves looking at the person himself. No one ever penetrated deeper into the character of his sitters. He gives us, not only the features, but the very soul of his model ; laying bare his mind for us to read as clearly as if we had an open book before us. The whole man stands revealed, enabling us to look almost into his secret thoughts. This quality is so rare in portraiture that only a very few men in the whole history of art have possessed it in a pre-eminent degree. It depends, of course, to a great extent on the artist’s tech- nical skill, but back of this there must be a profound insight into human nature. In Deveria ACHILLE DEVERIA. 109 these two powers were admirably combined. His manual ability was abundantly able to interpret his observation of character. He could draw in a manner so masterly and at the same time so simple as to make us wonder at the subtlety of modelling which could attain its ends by such apparently slight means. Every touch tends toward the final result, every stroke falls exactly in the right place to produce the desired effect. This is especially true of his heads, which are generally more carefully drawn than the rest of the figure. There is an explanation of this in the fact that he concentrated his attention on the head, which in reality is the centre of interest in the human figure, being, as it is, the seat of in- telligence, and possessing, as it does, almost all the powers of expression of which we are capa- ble. Of course, a great deal of character may be expressed through the hands and through the movements of the body — a fact perfectly well known to Deveria; but he knew, too, that in a successful portrait the head must be made the chief object of interest, and that to it everything else must be kept in proper subor- dination, whence came the carelessness frequently I lO SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. displayed in his drawing of other parts of the The first portrait I shall mention is that of Alexandre Dumas, a most striking piece of work and thoroughly original in treatment. He is seated on a divan, his arms resting upon two pillows, his head supported by his right hand. The picture is very light throughout, with only the dark, bushy hair of the sitter to vary what might otherwise have been slightly monotonous. This one accent relieves the whole work and serves to draw attention directly to the head. Dev6ria generally kept his portraits light in tone and reserved his blacks for the purpose of strong emphasis. No one has understood better than he the artistic value of these dark accentuations, and no one has ever known how to make use of them in a more effective manner. The face in this portrait is full of life and character, and is modelled almost with the minimum of work, a few strokes of the crayon here and there being the only means used in obtaining a result so marvellously true and expressive. If the portrait of E. Robert is less striking in effect than that of Dumas, it is not in any way 0 f ACHILLE DEVERIA. Ill inferior in draughtsmanship and in the interpreta- tion of character. It is incontestably one of the artist’s greatest achievements. For simple, deli- cate modelling, nothing can be finer than this face. Nearly the same qualities of drawing are found in the portrait of Huerta, another of the artist’s strongest works. We have here a super- cilious young musician, conscious of his good looks and of the impression he is making upon those who have the privilege of seeing him. The whole expression of the face depends upon the eyes and the insinuating turn of the mouth, whose momentary action the artist has seized with startling reality. The reader who has the opportunity should see these three portraits together if he would appreciate the artist’s versatility in dealing with types and characters of the utmost dissimilarity. It must not be supposed, however, that I intend to select them as the only examples of Deveria’s varied powers nor yet as his masterpieces. He has done nothing finer than these three, but he has done others that easily hold their own beside them. Such are the portraits of Roqueplan, of 1 12 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Bessems, of Leon Noel, and of Henri Herz. This last has a fault that Deveria was sometimes apt to commit — namely, an exaggeration in the length of the neck. It seems impossible to con- ceive of a man’s having a neck so long as the artist has drawn it here ; but for all this, the head is so living, so fine in character, as to com- pel admiration in spite of this defect. Another portrait deserving of a place among the artist’s best is that of his son, a little boy standing beside a couch. He is dressed in an old- fashioned manner with trousers, coat, waistcoat, and a very large cravat; a manly little fellow who stands there with hands in his pockets quite un- concerned, but at the same time half conscious that he is posing. It is difficult to imagine anything more fascinating in the way of a child’s portrait. Deveria had two styles of working — the one rather finished, the other more in the manner of a sketch. Both are broad, but in the first the drawing is carried further than in the second. Their difference is not the result of artistic de- velopment, for both were carried on at the same time, the choice of styles being dependent upon ACHILLE DEV^RIA. II3 the exigency of the case. The portraits thus far considered belong to the more finished style. In general his best work is found in this class ; but the rule is not without exceptions, as the portraits of Koechlin, Weiss, and Gevaudan prove. These differ from the ones already described merely in the broadness of the handling. As lifelike repre- sentations of the people, they exhibit nothing that has not been brought out in the previous lithographs. Among the prints hitherto criticised, there has been no mention of any portraits of women. A few words on these are now necessary. De- veria showed much less ability in his interpreta- tion of the female than of the male type. Some of his portraits of women have undoubted merit, as, for instance, those of Madame Rossigneux, of Madame Eckerlin, and of Madame St.-Elme, called La Contemporaine ; but even these are far inferior to his best male portraits. The feminine type does not seem to have appealed to him, or, if it did, he was unable to make the hand do what the eye saw. Perhaps his love for beauty in woman was such as to call forth inferior work in his search after an ideal. Whatever may be 17 1 14 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. the reason, it is certain that his women, for the most part, are insipidly drawn. Many of them are not wanting in charm and beauty; but there is too much prettiness in the work and too great similarity in the types, especially in the long necks and sloping shoulders, for them to take rank as works of art beside the master’s wonderful male portraits. Deveria was born in Paris, on February 6, i8io. He was a pupil of Lafitte and Girodet. From 1855 to 1857 he was curator of the print department at the Bibliotheque Nationa/e^ where he rendered untold service by his diligent and careful organization of the department. When he became assistant curator under Duchesne, his predecessor, he found the prints in the greatest confusion. During his service as assistant, and afterward as head of the department, he drew order out of chaos, and placed the prints in a position to be of use to those who wished to study them. The present system of classification, by which all new acquisitions may be put in their proper places, is due to him. He died in Paris, December 23, 1857. XL AUGUSTE RAFFET. HERE is not in the history of lithog- raphy any one man who holds the pre-eminent position of Rembrandt among etchers or of Diirer among engravers. To say that Raffet occu- pies such a place would be unjust to Gavarni, whose genius entitles him to rank second to no one. Gavarni, however, limited the range of his art. He understood its resources perfectly well, but chose not to make full use of them, prefer- ring in general to employ the crayon only as a means for throwing a rapid impression upon the stone. He was not above everything a lithog- rapher, but used the process merely as the most convenient method of giving to the world what he had to say. Raffet, on the other hand, was purely and simply a lithographer. No other medium would have suited his purpose in exactly the same way. He could work in other mediums 115 ii6 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. quite as well as on stone ; but the point I wish to make is, that when he did make use of lithog- raphy the result was something that could be obtained in no other manner. Quite likely his Siege of ^ome would have been just as good if he had used another medium, but it would not have been the Siege of I(ome with which we are familiar. Other lithographers, like Bonington, Calame, and Harding, have understood all the possibilities of the art as well as Raifet, and Isa- bey went perhaps even further than he into some of its mysteries ; but while they were his equals in the manual use of the crayon,* they can scarcely be said to have had his intellectual range. Ralfet, therefore, if not the greatest, is unquestionably the most representative lithographer. In comparing Raffet’s technique with that of Bonington, Harding, Calame, and Isabey, the reader must understand that I refer to the special technique of lithography, and not to the wider * Though he knew all the uses of the pen, Raffet did not employ this instrument except in rare instances, and then only as an accessory. The same is true in general of all the masters. Up to the present time the history of lithography has to deal almost entirely with the work of the crayon. AUGUSTE RAFFET. II7 sense of the term which embraces the general skill necessary in all branches of the graphic arts. In all the graphic arts good drawing is the basis upon which everything else rests, and without which scarcely anything is possible. Here Raffet far outstrips every other lithographer except Gavarni. More than this, his drawing is of a kind to entitle him to stand among the few great draughtsmen of the world. His work is not characterized by boldness and dash, by the sug- gestion of a great deal with very little labour. His aim was to render what he saw with as much truth to Nature as possible, and he did this, especially in his later work, with a pre- cision of hand truly astounding. But if his draw- ing was not dashed off with a few lines, neither was it carried to a disagreeable finish in the details. His work was careful and honest, but his desire for accuracy never led him to forget his subject as a whole. He knew how to select the essential features of his model and to place them on the stone in a most masterly manner, while remembering always their relations to each other. The sureness with which his figures are drawn might lead us to suppose that he drew quite ii8 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. without effort ; but, while he was almost infal- lible in his results, his works were not produced without thorough preliminary study. In like manner the general arrangement of his subject was always carefully worked out before he began to draw upon the stone. His composition is characterized by great simplicity — such simplicity, indeed, that he seems never to have composed at all. Each figure falls into place with no appar- ent design, and belongs there so naturally that we can with difficulty believe that any thought was given to the arrangement. But composition such as this does not come by chance. It is always the outcome of careful planning, though the result, as with good drawing, should never show the labour bestowed upon it. A work of art need not be spontaneous, but it should give the impression of spontaneity when finished. There are those who look upon art as a mere question of technical skill. The fact remains, however, that the masterpieces of the past — those whose fame has lasted through the centuries — have been produced by men whose minds had in them something worth saying. The great men, whether in literature, sculpture, or the graphic arts, have AUGUSTE RAFFET. II9 always thrown their own personality into their works, and personality is more dependent upon ideas than upon technical skill. Of course, the greater the thoughts, the greater must be the power to express them. Nevertheless, technique is the means, not the end. With Raffet, as with all men of genius, we find the personality of the artist predominant. There was always in his mind something that was striving to escape, and his hand had the ability to tell us what this was. Raffet’s lithographs may be broadly divided into two classes — those drawn from the imagina- tion, and those dependent upon facts, or that seem so to depend. The border line between them is not very well defined, for many of the military pieces might properly be placed in either class. Still, it is sufficiently distinct to enable us to put some order into the study of his prints. Among the imaginative works, the two that naturally hold the chief place are the I(evue nocturne and the I(eveiL The first represents the spirit of Napoleon reviewing the ghosts of his army. In the silvery light of the moon the phantom riders on their phantom horses whirl by. 120 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. thousands upon thousands, reaching far into the distance, until they become a mere faint mist. None but the troops in the foreground are actu- ally drawn, those in the distance being only in- dicated, though with such power as to make us feel the numbers that are there. Throughout the piece there is great harmony, and the technical work is kept in perfect relation to the poetic conception. Nowhere has a full black tone been used. All is of a silvery gray, giving the ap- pearance of weird, unearthly moonlight. A single black spot would have injured the supernatural effect. Though not finished until twelve years later, Le B^eveil is a companion piece to the I(evue. Here a drummer beats the call to arms, and on every side the dead soldiers, awakening, rise from their graves. While less striking than the I(evue in imagination, the piece has the advantage over its companion in drawing, or at least the draw- ing is more apparent because of the subject. The drummer and the two men in the fore- ground on the right are modelled with great force, the drawing of the hands and feet being espe- cially noteworthy, as is almost always the case in AUGUSTE RAFFET. I2I RafFet’s works. Nor are the strong qualities con- fined to the three prominent figures. Those in the background are done with great care, while the ghostlike draperies covering many of them are drawn in a very effective manner. Two lithographs that come under the same class as those just mentioned are Le I(eve and Nemesis. In Le I^eve a grave-digger is seated beside a grave, his head bowed down upon his arms. Behind him the moon, partly covered by clouds, lights the landscape. The lithograph is not strictly accurate in its values, but works of this kind should not be criticised too closely with regard to their truth to Nature. The aim of the artist was the production of a poetic subject, and we should be satisfied if he has attained his pur- pose. The Nemesis was done for a poster to adver- tise the satires of Barthelemy. Nemesis on a phantom horse rides through the air at a furious pace, followed by skeletons whose heads alone are seen. In her hand she waves writhing snakes. The drapery of the goddess and the mane and tail of the horse give admirably the effect of swift, rushing motion. The whole lithograph is i8 122 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. full of action, while the harmonious arrangement of light and dark masses is managed very artis- tically. Raffet seldom made use of the deepest blacks the crayon is capable of giving. This was not by reason of any inability on his part, but because his compositions rarely required them, or required them in very small amounts only. The Nemesis is a good example of his power in han- dling large black spaces when needed. So har- monious are the blacks and whites here that there is a charm in the print, even when seen at a distance so great that the details are lost to view. Of the second class of subjects, the most im- portant are the military pieces. Some of these were drawn from imagination, though representing in many cases actual historical events* others are scenes based entirely upon facts, and were studied in most of their details directly from Nature. This classification, though sometimes adopted, is not the best, because it fails to take account of the historical order in which the lithographs were produced. Throughout his life Raffet inclined more and more toward realism, but his most realistic works are not always those based upon his personal observation. He had, of course, to AUGUSTE RAFFET. 123 draw entirely on his imagination for the litho- graphs dealing with the Revolution and the First Empire. So, too, the series on the siege of Con- stantine was of his own invention, excepting so far as he could obtain details from the accounts of those who had been present, for Raffet him- self was never in Algeria. But the Siege of Ant- werp — a series done four years before that on Constantine — was founded quite as much upon his own observation as the Siege of I(ome^ which he left unfinished at his death. The development of his works, therefore, is properly marked by a constant tendency toward realism, toward accuracy in rendering the scenes he depicts, whether he was actually present at the events or not. His later works deal chiefly with the army of his own day, which he was able to study from actual ob- servation ; and through his thorough knowledge of the movements of troops and his numerous sketches of fortifications, landscapes, cannons, uni- forms, and other details, together with informa- tion obtained from friends who were present at the battles, he was able to reconstruct the various scenes with marvellous exactness. Through his constant striving for truth, Raflet 124 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. became the founder of the modern school of mili- tary painters, though he himself seldom worked with the brush. In his lithographs he broke loose from the traditions of his predecessors, and the example thus set revolutionized all branches of the art, and has had a powerful influence upon all his successors, even to the present day. He aban- doned the old ideas that military painting meant merely the glorification of some hero, and that the common soldier was of use only so far as he was necessary for purposes of composition. To him the interest in military scenes was precisely what had been neglected hitherto — the men who fought and suffered. Nor, like his predecessors, was he satisfied if only his picture represented what might have taken place. Not an appearance of reality, but a faithful representation of scenes as they actually occurred, was his aim. This, indeed, be- came his guiding principle, for upon it everything else depended. Truth to Nature naturally went side by side with truth to historic facts, and the raising of the common soldier to the chief place of interest followed almost as a matter of course. While truth was his constant aim in the ren- dering of military scenes, Raffet’s own personality AUGUSTE RAFFET. 125 was never absent, and, aside from his technique, it is his power of making us enter into his own feelings which gives him his high rank among lithographers and, indeed, among delineators of military life, for few, if any, of the French mili- tary painters have depicted scenes of war with equal power. Ralfet’s first military works deal chiefly with the Revolution and the First Empire. In point of time the pieces of this class do not all pre- cede the works on the army of his own day, for some of them were done later than the series on the siege of Antwerp. Still, they are rightly classed, as a whole, before the works on the modern army, because they belong to the early manner of the artist. The Siege of Antwerp is the beginning of another style, or, more properly, of another tendency, and it is not unnatural that, having done this series, Ralfet should have re- turned for a time to his old way of working. In most of these early pieces, or in the most im- portant at least, Napoleon is the centre of interest. The lithographs are far from lacking originality, and, indeed, many of them show a decided tend- ency toward the artist’s later ideas on military art. 126 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Still, in choice of subject and in the method of carrying it out, Raffet was a follower of the old school. Like the men of the generation that pre- ceded him, many of whom were still living, he took for his theme some hero, and to him he made everything in his work subordinate. Like most of the older men, too, his admiration for Napoleon was unbounded, and therefore his idol became his favourite subject. Even in a piece like the Dernibre charge des Landers rouges a Waterloo Napoleon is the main idea. In the spirited rep- resentation of a cavalry charge this lithograph is unsurpassed among the artist’s works. The rush of troops is tremendous as they ride forward with stern determination to make one last effort under their master’s eye to regain the day or die in the attempt. Grand, however, as is the charge of cavalry, the theme upon which the picture rests is the artist’s feeling for Napoleon. The em- peror is seen in the distance, upon a slight eleva- tion of ground, watching silently this last effort to turn the battle in his favour. The man who has ruled Europe now sits almost in despair, hop- ing against hope that the desperate charge of his faithful troops will regain the day and restore to AUGUSTE RAFFET. 127 him the power that is fast slipping from his grasp, and which, in the failure of this final effort, will be gone from him forever. Such were the art- ist’s feelings when he drew the lithograph, and the attempt to put them on stone is the purpose of the work. Raffet has given us but one other cavalry charge that can at all approach this — the Carre enfonc^ — which, with all its power, is scarcely equal to the Landers rouges. Among the lithographs on Napoleon, Ils grognaient et le suivaient toujours is one of the best — perhaps, considering the feeling and the execution, the very best. The emperor, on his white horse, accompanied by two officers of his staff, is followed by his troops on foot, making their way through a driving rain. Misery and weariness are seen in the faces and figures of the men as they march silently over the water-soaked ground, the storm beating against them. In spite of their hardships, they follow their idol ; they grumble at their sufferings, but there is something in the silent figure, wrapped in a heavy coat, which draws them on, they know not why. Raf- fet’s purpose here is to show us this personal magnetism of Napoleon, and we are made to feel 128 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. it as strongly as if we ourselves had been followers of the emperor. This it is that stamps the artist’s own individuality upon the work. The I(etraite du bataillon sacr^ a Waterloo has always held a high place with admirers of RalFet’s works.* This is unquestionably just, for the lithograph is, beyond all doubt, one of the artist’s masterpieces. The fierce attack of the English, and the resolute resistance of the French troops formed in a square to protect their em- peror, make a picture of great power. Still, it must be admitted that the ^etraite falls short of the perfection of a work like the Combat d’ Oued- A/leg. Strong as it is, there is a want of unity in the composition. Our eye wanders from spot to spot over this vast field of battle, and fails to find a resting place because there is no dominat- ing idea to fix our attention. In spite, however, of its want of harmony, the piece remains one of the master’s grandest lithographs in the impres- sion it gives of the din and turmoil of battle. No doubt this very quality is due in part to the * The piece is very rare, the stone having been broken in the printing. ▼ »-3 ¥ 1 * I i i AUGUSTE RAFFET. 129 confusion in the composition ; but none the less, the work can not be called perfect so long as there is a want of harmony in it. The series of twenty-four lithographs on the siege of Antwerp was the first of Rafiet’s works on the army of his own day. In them his art takes a new direction, and some of the pieces have real merit in themselves, aside from their interest in illustrating the artist’s development. Still, though the series marks the real beginning of Raffet’s breaking loose from the old school, we do not see the indications of the height his art was to reach in later years until he began his Siege of Constantine. The French opened the attack on this city in 1836, but, failing to take it, were forced to abandon the attempt until the following year, when they were finally successful. Raffet made twenty lithographs of the siege, di- vided into two series — the first, the lietraite^ the second, the Prise de Constantine * — forming, in fact, one series, though each is numbered separately. If among these twenty pieces there is some strong * The Retraite consists of six lithographs and a frontis- piece, the Prise of twelve and a frontispiece. 19 130 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. work, the set is nevertheless not without faults. The furious onslaught of the Arabs in No. 2 of the ^etraite is particularly good, the flying white draperies rendering well the fierceness of the charge. No. 5 of the same series combines both good and bad qualities. In the effect of a driv- ing snowstorm it is very successful, but the drawing of the figures is weak, nearly all of them being too short, while some are lacking in construction. No. 2 of the Prise is one of the best of the series. The composition is well worked out, and the French army in the dis- tance is well suggested by a few dots and strokes on the stone. The group of Arabs in the fore- ground is, of course, the centre of interest. No. 4 of the same set is also a superior work, the fiendish nature of the Arabs being very forcibly brought out. No pity could be expected from these devils, who would never grant quarter to a prisoner nor ask it for themselves. The Flight of the Arabs (No. ii) has a grandeur in its very horror. Men, women, and children, in their at- tempt to escape from the captured city, are fall- ing over a precipice whose tremendous depth we feel though we see but the beginning of it. AUGUSTE RAFFET. 13I Still, while there is much to admire in these lithographs, Raffet afterward rose so far above them that the series proved to be merely a step toward his great work on the siege of Rome. In 1849 Raffet went to Rome a few days after the taking of the city by the French. Ex- cepting that the fighting had ceased, everything was in the condition it had been in during the siege. The French earthworks stood before the city, their cannons still in position. On all sides were ruined buildings and other signs of destruction worked by besiegers and besieged. Before all these records of battle should be cleared away, Raffet began to make sketches of whatever could be of use to him in the production of a series of lith- ographs. Batteries, fortifications, uniforms of the various regiments, swords, guns — all were drawn with the greatest care. It is characteristic of his love for absolute accuracy that he took careful measurements ot all the fortifications, in order to make his work conform exactly to all the facts. Besides his numerous sketches, he made many written notes from information given to him by officers of the French army. With all these doc- 132 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. uments as a groundwork he began, in 1850, his set of lithographs.* In this series Raffet reached the full develop- ment of his powers. There are lithographs by him quite equal to any in the Siege of I(ome, but these mark the height of his development, because in them he attained his ideal. Here was his first real opportunity to handle military scenes with truth to facts and without the necessity of depending upon his imagination. His previous work had given him sure command of his tech- nique. He had become a consummate draughts- man, and understood perfectly the special resources of lithography. Thus equipped, he was able to produce a series of lithographs which we may properly say was the beginning of a new school in the world of art, and which have never been surpassed by any of his successors. Aside from the natural powers of the artist, the strong draughtsmanship in the Siege of I(ome is due chiefly to the care bestowed upon the pre- * At the time of his death he had finished thirty-two of the one hundred he had intended to do. The set as published con- tained thirty-six lithographs, the last four being by other hands, from drawings left by the artist. AUGUSTE RAFFET. 133 liminary studies. Nearly all the figures were drawn from the nude before being placed upon the stone, and where this was not done he made use of the draped model. In some cases he even went so far as to make a study of the whole composition, with all the figures nude.* In this way he was able to give to them truer action than if he had worked entirely from memory. If, however, he had depended wholly upon his model, he would never have been the great artist he was. Studies from the model are necessary to a thorough knowledge of the human figure, but action can be got only by the observation of figures in actual motion. In the Siege of I(ome^ as in almost all his works, nothing is more remarkable than the action of the figures, whether moving by themselves or in masses. Notice, for instance, those in No. 15, Ouverture de la parallele-i everyone of which, small as they are, is drawn with an accuracy that is Nature itself. A very slight stretch of our imagination will almost set them in motion, so lifelike are they. Momen- * I am indebted to his son, M. Auguste Raffet, for my in- formation regarding Raffet’s manner of work. 134 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. tary action is likewise well expressed in Chemin de I(onde-i where the men throw the weight of their bodies upon their spades to force them into the Ralfet’s power in giving the combined move- ment of a body of men is particularly well exem- plified in JO avril i8/l.g. The headlong charge of the troops is very fine as they press forward eagerly to gain the fort, while on every side men are falling under the heavy fire of the enemy. So, too, the hurrying of the troops in U Arm^e Jrangaise arrive a la Maglianella is a good ex- ample of a somewhat similar kind of action. The artist’s skill in drawing the human fig- ure in repose, or in less violent motion, is well illustrated in Sapeurs Mineurs, Devouement du Clerge catholique^ Batterie No. p, and PrNs a partir pour la ville &ternelle. The Devouement du Clerge catholique has in its noble sentiment an interest quite apart from technical considera- tions. At the risk of their own lives, two Roman Catholic priests conduct the wounded French prisoners through an excited mob of Italians. Nothing could be more full of feeling than the priest on the right, as with uplifted hand AUGUSTE RAFFET. 135 he signals to the mob to stand back in the name of the Church. Like all the scenes in the series, this incident actually took place, and the two priests are portraits done from life. Batterie No. p is one of the masterpieces of the set — one of the masterpieces of the artist’s whole work I ought to say, for when a man reaches perfection, as Ralfet has done in this print, he can go no further. If the reader will study carefully the wonderful way in which the whole composition is made to lead up to the principal figure, the officer who is aiming the gun ; if he will notice how, after looking at other parts of the print, his eye inevitably returns to this spot, he will be convinced, if he need convincing, of the perfection of the composition without any demonstration on my part. And yet this is only one of the remarkable qualities of the work. How well the sunlight seen through an atmosphere of smoke is understood ! How truthfully the reflected lights are given ! And, above everything, what masterly draughtsmanship is displayed throughout the whole picture, not only in the figures, but in the rolling smoke, the fortifications, and in every detail of the entire 136 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. work ! Such drawing as this has been equalled by few men. It has been surpassed by none. Throughout the Siege of I(ome Raffet’s per- sonality is always present, more conspicuously, of course, in some cases than in others. In none of the pieces is the feeling of the artist more apparent than in the Prise de la Villa Pamphili^ a subject full of poetry in its early morning light, the trees standing against a delicate sky in which are seen the first signs of dawn. An ominous stillness reigns on every side, broken only by the hurried forming of the troops and their quick advance to take position for the com- ing battle. Something of the same feeling is seen too in Sape Volante, in which the effect, if less impressive, is even more mysterious. It is unnecessary to mention every lithograph in the Siege of iRome^ for the same qualities are seen in greater or less degree throughout the series. With one or two exceptions, all are char- acterized by strong individuality, rising in some cases to high poetic sentiment, by sound draw- ing, great ability in composition, and by sincere truth to Nature and to historical facts. Before leaving them, however, a passing mention should 4 AUGUSTE RAFFET. 137 be made of the Prise du Ponte Mo//e, on account of the delicate rendering of the landscape, espe- cially in the water and the bridge, and for the charming way in which the little figures in the distance are indicated. For delicacy and grace this is one of the artist’s best lithographs. Of Raffet’s works on the army of his own time, two important pieces have not yet been mentioned — the Combat d' Oued-Alleg and Le Drapeau du i pe leger — the last being remarkable for the manner in which the steady tramp of the men is expressed, and for their quiet enthusiasm as they march beside their old flag which has seen so many battles. Considering all its qualities, the Combat d" Oued-A/leg is, I think, Raflet’s greatest work, though it is difficult to choose between this and Batterie No. g. If we are to judge from the rarity of successful results, the rendering of an extended battlefield is a thing of great difficulty. That in this instance complete success has been achieved is unquestionable. The piece is one of the very best examples of Raflet’s unobtrusive composition. So naturally does each figure take its place that there seems to be no plan what- 20 138 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. ever in the arrangement, and yet the composi- tion is so good that the slightest change in it would destroy the balance. The dead soldiers in the foreground, and even the gun, are neces- sary to the harmony of the whole. Without them a disagreeable vacant space would be left which could not have been filled so well with running troops, because a break in the long lines was needed. For the same reason the small body of soldiers on the right has been detached from the main body ; while the slight waves in the long ranks are necessary, not only artistically, but in strict conformity to truth. The action of every figure is worthy of careful study, though the chief point of interest is the marvellous man- ner in which the rush of the whole body of troops is expressed, and the indication of the fierce battle in the distance. It is a grand work, fully worthy of the greatest master in the art of delineating military subjects. That Raffet’s genius was not confined to mili- tary works we have seen in Le ^eve and in the Nemesis ; but these are not the only non-military pieces worthy of attention. In the year 1837 Raffet travelled through southern Russia with AUGUSTE RAFFET. 139 Prince Demidoff, and the result of the journey was a series of one hundred lithographs entitled Voyage dans la I^ussie mMdionale et la Crim^e. They were done during the years 1838 to 184.8 from sketches made at the time. In them Raf- fet has entered into the spirit of the country and seized upon the life and character of its people in a most delightful manner. Just as there is something in a portrait by Rembrandt that makes us sure of the likeness, so is there something in these lithographs by which we know them to be characteristic of the country they represent, even if we have never visited it. Strangely enough, the least interesting are the military pieces, of which there are a few in the series. Probably the reason for this is that they represent reviews and sham battles, in which the artist seems to have taken little interest. How- ever, with few exceptions every one of these hundred lithographs is charming, and some among them are worthy to be classed with the best works of their author. Never did Raifet show stronger draughtsmanship, or greater truth in the easy action of his figures, than in the Tatars sortant de la Mosqude. The nearest Tartar, the beggar 140 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. on the right, and the old man telling his beads, are remarkably line, especially in the drawing of the extremities and in the wonderful manage- ment of the draperies. The action of the nearest Tartar as he descends the steps is so perfect that we can only look on in admiration. Criticism is dumb before such drawing as this. „ Circassiens^ Lesghines et Cosaques de la ligne is interesting in its treatment of still life, the coat of mail being done with true feeling for texture. But while these are line examples of the artist’s drawing, they are not so characteristic of the series as some of those which deal with the life of the people and the aspect of the country, such as the Eglise et tour des trois Saints^ Yassy^ with its deli- cate architecture, the Grande Eue de Baghtcheh- Sardi^ the Tatars en priere^ or the Vue du vieux bazaar et du Mont-Mithridate. I like too the Eecrues turques^ in whose faces there is real pathos made doubly touching by the indifference or harshness of the recruiting officers. If the litho- graphs composing the series vary in interest, it must be said at least that, considering them as a whole, the standard is high and well maintained, and that the inferior pieces form a very small minority. AUGUSTE RAFFET. I4I A few words remain to be said of the artist’s portraits. One of the most notable things in Raffet’s artistic work is its great variety. Few, even of the greatest men, have not their weak sides ; but with Raffet nothing seems to have been beyond his grasp. Whether he treated im- aginative or realistic subjects, figure pieces or animals, landscape or still-life, he was always the same powerful draughtsman, working with the same absolute knowledge. So, too, his best por- traits can hold their own with his best work in other lines. Can anything be finer or more dignified than his portrait of Marshal de Saint- Arnaud ? His little portrait, too, of Amable Gihaut is full of character, as is that of Prince Demidoff, who stands in an attitude not alto- gether graceful, but nevertheless, without doubt, quite characteristic. Raffet made two portraits of Prince Demidoff — one in the Voyage en I^ussie^ the other published by itself.* Both are good in character, but the second is much the finer. The * The one published in the Voyage en Rnssie has in the lower margin, in the handwriting of Prince Demidoff, Rnssie Mdridionale et Crimie — i8jy Ddmidoff ; the other bears only the signature Ddmidoff. 142 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. perspective of the landscape is unfortunate, and gives the figure the appearance of being too tall; but one can easily pardon this defect in a por- trait so lifelike and so strong in character. Le baron Alfred de Marches is scarcely a portrait in the ordinary acceptation of the term, and yet it is a likeness of the man, and is in- tended as such. The Baron is lying dead upon his bed, his hands clasping a cross. Beside the bed stands a small table, upon which a candle is burning. The simple way in which the litho- graph is treated must call forth admiration from all who respect honest, straightforward work. I might say that it should be a lesson to all who wish to study simplicity of handling, but such work as this is within the power of few men to produce. The drawing of the figure, the treat- ment of the drapery, and of the still-life are Raffet’s life was almost wholly devoted to the study of his art, and he spared himself no labour in the endeavour to perfect his talents. He was an indefatigable student of everything that came under his observation. His sketch-book was his constant companion, and he never missed an op- AUGUSTE RAFFET. H3 portunity to make notes of whatever might prove useful to him. He studied anatomy at the Ecole de Medecine, where he made many drawings of the muscles and bones of the human body. These were done with the utmost care in the accuracy of the details, and were covered with written notes describing the various parts of the body represented in the drawing. Ralfet was born in Paris, on March i, 1804. At the age of eighteen he studied drawing with Riban in the porcelain factory of Cabanel, and about a year later he worked with an artist named Suisse. In 1824 he entered the Ecole des Beaux- Arts^ and from 1824 to 1827 he was a pupil of Charlet. Finding, on leaving Charlet’s studio, that he was doing mere imitations of his master’s work, he entered the studio of Baron Gros in 1829 that he might be under a new influence. He began to break loose from Charlet’s manner almost immediately, and soon after left Gros’s studio to study no more under a master. In 1837 he made the acquaintance of Prince Demidoff, and a friendship sprang up between the two which lasted throughout their lives. Prince Demidoff was a great patron of the fine artSj and through 144 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. his generosity Raffet was enabled to pursue his artistic career without a thought of his pecuniary affairs. Raffet twice visited Spain. He travelled often in Italy, where he was frequently a guest at San Donato, the home of Prince Demidoff. During the later years of his life he travelled in England, Scotland, Holland, and Austria. He died at Genoa, the 17th of February, i860, leav- ing a wife and two sons. During his lifetime Raffet was not wholly unknown, as so many men of genius have been, nor was he appreciated at his real worth. Charlet was ranked far above him as a military artist, not only by the public in general, but by men whose knowledge of art came from the practice of it. The public knew Raffet by name, and bought his lithographs and water-colours at low prices ; his fellow-artists considered him a man of rather more than the average cleverness ; but few of them dreamed that his work marked the begin- ning of a new school in the world of art, and that they had among them a man who, in his strong personality and his tremendous technical ability, was capable of holding a place beside the greatest masters that art had produced. XII. GAVARNI. IKE Rembrandt, Gavarni had the mis- fortune to be one of those misunder- stood geniuses who for a time are the idols of the public, but who soon fall from their pedestals, to give place to other gods in the minds of their admirers. Dur- ing the early part of his career Gavarni attained extraordinary popularity, curiously enough, before he had done anything to deserve it. His first lithographs were enthusiastically praised by every one — lovers of art as well as the public in gen- eral. Soon, however, the interest in his works began to wane, and when at last he brought forth things worthy of the admiration lavished upon his early productions, they were received on all sides with cold indifference. The public had been amused at the witty sayings placed below his lithographs ; they laughed without understanding, seeing only the outward side of the artist’s genius, 145 21 146 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. unconscious that below the surface lay a power of penetrating human nature such as has been given to few men in the history of art. Natu- rally a public that did not understand the deep thinking of the writer soon tired of reading his witty sayings, clever as they were, and hence the indifference with which his later works were re- ceived. Unlike Rembrandt, Gavarni has not yet been rediscovered. Not that his works are wholly un- appreciated — for a genius never lacks admirers, few as they may be — but to the public in gen- eral, and even in the world of art, he is almost unknown. And yet Gavarni was one of the greatest geniuses of our century — one of the greatest artists of any century — a man whose in- sight into human nature was profoundly philo- sophical, who read his fellow-men with rare ability, and who had the power of expressing what he saw with a magic touch that places him among the greatest draughtsmen, not of this cen- tury, but of all time. He is one of the few of whose masterpieces we can say. It is impossible that they could be better done. The day will surely come, though it may still be far distant. GAVARNI. 147 when he will obtain the place he deserves beside the few very great masters of black and white. Like all men of genius, Gavarni was an exception to all rules. The marvel is that he ever became the master he was. However great may be a man’s natural endowments, he can gen- erally become a strong draughtsman only by con- stant study and practice in the early years of life, before the hand and eye have become untrainable. Gavarni’s only instruction was in the art of mechanical drawing for the purpose of making architectural and scientific plans, and even in this his education was rudimentary. Not until nearly thirty years of age did he make any serious attempt at drawing in an artistic sense, but he then made up for his early want of training by constant application to his art; and this, together with his extraordinary powers of observation, gave him a facility in his technique which few men have had. So sure was his hand that when he was producing his great works. Masques et Visages^ he was able to finish one each day during the course of a whole year, and this with the greatest ease and without showing in the result the slightest trace of haste. This adds 148 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. nothing, of course, to the merit of the works themselves, which would have the same value had they been produced more laboriously; but the fact is of interest as showing how a man entirely self- taught could by study and application so train his hand and eye as to give them a sureness equal to that of the greatest masters. Before looking at his works in detail, a few words must be said regarding the nature of Ga- varni’s art. So many useless comparisons have been made between him and Daumier, and so many worthless discussions have taken place regarding the relative merit of their works, that the wide difference between them can not be too strongly insisted upon. In fact, they have scarcely anything in common. Daumier was a caricaturist pure and simple in almost everything he did ; Gavarni had none of the qualities of the caricaturist in his temperament.* It is true he often resorted to slight exaggeration in order to call attention to certain features, but he did this in a way common to many artists. In cari- * Of the twenty-seven hundred lithographs by him, not more than a dozen can properly be classed as caricatures. GAVARNI. 149 cature the peculiarities and eccentricities of the model, whether of mind or body, are brought into prominence by placing them wholly out of relation to the other features or characteristics. Gavarni’s drawing was never of this kind. His aim was to render what he saw broadly, freely, but accurately. The study of human nature was his delight. He saw its follies and its weak- nesses, and this manner of looking at his fellow- men made him above everything a satirist. Satire is the foundation of his work, as it is the fun- damental characteristic of his mind, and in this line he has made for himself a high place, for in the graphic arts at least he has probably never had an equal in this direction. As a satirist he was naturally a moralist, but we must not sup- pose that his aim was the teaching of a lesson. This was probably far from his mind; and, in- deed, it is doubtful whether he often thought of the moral side of his works. In criticising Gavarni’s lithographs it is impos- sible, or at least unprofitable, as a rule, to select particular ones for comment, because this would necessitate constant repetition. With compara- tively few exceptions, his prints were done in 150 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. series, all those of each series being more or less related as regards their subjects. Gavarni drew with great uniformity when his art had reached maturity, and therefore it is best to look at his works in the groups in which he himself classed them, for, in general, what is true of the series is true of each of the prints composing it. His work may be divided into three periods, each characterized by a distinct style — the first dating from 1837 to 1843, the second from 1843 to 1851, and the third from 1851 to 1858 or i860. There is also the period previous to 1837, in which the artist was feeling his way, but there is nothing in his work of that time sufficiently individual to constitute a distinct style. Though the dates are more or less approximate, we must keep them in mind if we would understand the artist. Too often the mistake has been made of criticising his work as a whole. Mentally, there is not a very great difference between the Gavarni of the first period and the Gavarni of the third, but technically the difference is enormous. Of the lithographs done before 1837 there is little need of saying anything. They were mostly fashion-plates and illustrations for the covers of ■Tt: V GAVARNI. 151 sheet-music, which, though they were, no doubt, of benefit to him as regards study and practice in drawing, have little or no interest for us except historically. He did not discover the direction in which his powers lay until he began in 1837 to work regularly for the Charivari^ in which paper were published most of the lithographs of his first manner — more than a thousand in all. As has been remarked already, the artistic importance of these works was greatly exaggerated during their author’s life, and even recent writers have criticised them as if they were quite equal in value to the lithographs of the third manner. This is due to failure in separating the literary side of the artist from the side that has to do with the graphic arts. Gavarni generally made use of two means of expression at the same time. First, he took his crayon and made a drawing on the stone. This done, he wrote one or more lines of text, short dialogues or witty sayings.^' Both contain the same thought, but the one is not subordinate to the other. * The text was generally composed after the drawing had been finished. 152 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Each is a distinct way of expressing the idea, and as such is complete in itself. Of course, the artist having given us his conception in two forms, we can better understand his meaning by the study of both, but we should also be careful to keep them separated in our minds. Gavarni’s literary powers were developed much more rap- idly than his powers of draughtsmanship. The texts that accompany the lithographs of the first period are fully equal to any that he wrote sub- sequently — better in many cases. So, too, his insight into human nature was as great at that time as in his later years. For this reason his admirers have been led into error in judging his work as a draughtsman. They have read the witty sayings, and having found in them a deep knowledge of human nature, have transferred their admiration to the drawings, bestowing upon these the praise that should have been given to the text below. The series Les Enfants terribles is one of the best examples of the superiority of the artist’s literary ability at this period. His knowl- edge of child character is wonderful, and in read- ing the texts we can not fail to see that the writer has been a profound observer of children. GAVARNl. 153 and has studied not only their outward actions, but all the workings of their undeveloped minds. The drawings, however, show none of this deep insight, and if we had them by themselves we should never know how great was the artist’s knowledge of children. In avoiding too great praise we must not go to the other extreme of underrating these early works. In them we may see the dawn of Gavarni’s genius, and at times even the indications of his subse- quent powers in draughtsmanship; but he has not learned to express himself with the firmness and decision that he was master of in later life. He does not know how to make every stroke tell, and his work is therefore wanting in the mar- vellous simplicity it was afterward to show. He seems to be thinking always of his technique, as if his knowledge were not sufficient to convey his ideas ; and it is partly on this account that there are such great differences in artistic value, not only in the various series, but in the individual litho- graphs themselves. Many show the hand of a master, while others are weak in drawing, and some are hopelessly bad. The majority, however, are the work of a man of real ability who has 22 154 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. evidently not yet reached the full development of his powers. The best as well as the most rep- resentative works of the artist’s first manner are Fourberies de femmes (two series), La Botte aux lettres^ Les Artistes^ Le Carnaval^ La Politique^ Lemons et Consei/s, Paris le matin ^ Paris le soir^ Les Muses, La Vie de jeune homme, Les Etudi- ants de Paris, Souvenirs du bal Chicard, Le Car- naval h Paris, Elvers des medailles, Clichy, Les Debardeurs, E Eloquence de la chair, and Impres- sions de menage (first series). During the years 1844. to 1851 Gavarni’s style was undergoing a change. His work became broader and stronger in character, his hand more sure. His manner of drawing was a mixture, tending now toward the first period, now toward the third. The beginning of this new style was marked by the two series Musiciens comiques ou pit- tor esques and Physionomies des Chanteurs, These do not differ so much from his earlier works in method of handling as in strength and character of drawing. They are not all equal in value, but, as a whole, they show greater knowledge and more command of technique, while some of them rise in artistic merit to the height of their author’s GAVARNI. 155 best works. The artist’s power of rendering the expressions of the faces is one of the chief ad- vances, some of the lithographs of this period being unsurpassed in this respect even by the best productions of his later years. During this transition period Gavarni was mostly occupied in producing the eleven series of lithographs grouped under the general title CEuvres Nouve/Zes. The best of these are Chemin de Toulon^ Impressions de menage (second series), Le Par fait cr fancier ^ and Les Patrons (an unfinished set). It is unnecessary to go into detailed criti- cism of these, because what I shall have to say of the artist’s third manner applies equally to the best of the CEuvres Nouvel/es, which improve in quality the nearer they approach in style to the lithographs of the third period. I have passed rapidly over the first two periods of Gavarni’s work in order to show the relation- ship between them and his third manner. We come now to the masterpieces upon which his reputation will rest in the future. These number less than five hundred in all — a relatively small pro- portion when we consider that the artist did some twenty-seven hundred lithographs. We must not SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. 156 forget, however, that Gavarni was self-taught, and that therefore the work of his first period is prop- erly that of a student. During those early years he applied himself assiduously to the study of Nature and the practice of his art ; and his dili- gent labour and profound observation gave him the ability and knowledge necessary to the pro- duction of his great works. The small propor- tion of these is, however, merely relative, for, after all, five hundred lithographs of the first quality are no mean number for a life’s work, in addition to the many drawings and water-colours left by their author. In the article on RalFet I said that Gavarni limited his art in range, and that therefore he could not be considered a thoroughly representa- tive lithographer. I will now try to make this more clear. Lithography is a medium particu- larly adapted to work in tone, because its char- acteristic feature is mass, not line. For this reason its true or rather final means of expres- sion is in values, giving, so far as this is pos- sible in black and white, the natural relation- ship of the various tone gradations. Now, Ga- varni’s mind was one that worked with great /, >t ■// f GAVARNI. 157 rapidity, and it was consequently necessary for his hand to act in the same way. He chose, therefore, an abbreviated form of expression in order that his hand and mind might work spon- taneously together. Though he adopted this method voluntarily and developed it carefully, he could not, in the nature of things, have done otherwise, for his temperament would not have permitted him to spend weeks or even days over one drawing ; and, in fact, when he did attempt to work in values he was not remarkably suc- cessful. There is no objection to his method in itself, because it is one that is quite within the scope of lithography, which lends itself readily to rapid sketches. Had he endeavoured to make lithography imitate etching or some other totally opposite process, his method would have been vicious, for each art ought to stand upon its own basis. But Gavarni never attempted to force the stone into doing unnatural or impossible things. He merely chose not to carry the pro- cess so far as it was capable of going. This does not detract in any way from his glory, though it prevents his being an entirely repre- sentative master of the art. The distinction I 158 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. would make is this : Considered merely as a lithographer, as a man to whom we may turn to study the resources of the process made use of by him, Gavarni did not produce works equal to those of some even of the minor men ; but considered as an artist, apart from the medium employed, he is one of the greatest, in some ways the greatest, of all draughtsmen on stone. The third manner begins with the Masques et Visages^ a series of three hundred and seventy- nine lithographs divided into nineteen sub-series. Here Gavarni is at his best. There is no longer any hesitation in his technique. He has learned to draw with a power that is astounding. Every stroke of the crayon is placed upon the stone with absolute certainty. There is never a line too many, never a line too few. He knows exactly what he wishes to do, and can do it without the slightest danger of a mistake. Each stroke is put down once for all. There are no corrections to be made even in the most unimpor- tant details. His touch is magical. His figures are absolutely living in their movements and in the expressions of their faces ; his draperies are indicated with a sure knowledge of the way GAVARNI. 159 every fold should fall, following perfectly all the changes of form in the figure underneath. Each of his people is marked by strong individuality, and throughout his work a type once drawn is never repeated.* So great is the artist’s imagina- tion that the resources of his mind are inex- haustible. Day after day he gives us a new creature of his brain, and all these are as varied in character as are human beings in general ; forming, in fact, a little world of their own, as full of life and as real as that in which we live. Though Gavarni drew with extraordinary ease and rapidity, he never lost sight of the artistic side in his work. Everything is properly subor- dinate to the main idea, the centre of interest be- ing always in the principal figures. So thoroughly are the minor details kept in place that we do not at first notice them, and yet when we do turn our attention away from the leading figures we find the same knowledge, the same power in carrying it out. His backgrounds, whether of houses, interiors, or landscapes, are always drawn * Excepting, of course, in such a series as Thomas VireloquOy where the same personage is seen throughout. i6o SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. with the most remarkable ability. They are gen- erally mere suggestions of the things represented, but they are indicated with the hand of a mas- ter. His arrangement, too, of blacks and whites is always artistic to a degree. This quality is one that he sought for in his work, and one that he succeeded in obtaining. He knew how to give a rich, velvety tone to his deep blacks by putting them in opposition to his highest lights, and the effect is always excellent, though as re- gards relative values not, of course, true to Na- ture.* I have already said, however, that Gavarni deliberately chose this method, and that the very * Though I have already called attention to the importance of studying fine impressions, I must lay particular stress upon this in the case of Gavarni, for only by seeing his lithographs at their best can we form an idea of their power. After the first impressions, the velvety blacks lost their brilliancy and richness. The proofs before all letters are of course the most desirable ; but as these were always limited to ten or twelve impressions, they are not easily obtained. The early proofs before the reg- ular publication, printed generally, though not always, on India paper mounted on white, are very fine, and are usually not at all inferior to the proofs before letters. The earliest of the pub- lished impressions are at times very good in quality. In the Masqiies et Visages those bearing the address Librairie Nouvelle are worthless. GAVARNI. i6i spontaneousness of his art precluded his render- ing of values in his work. Had he drawn in any other way, he would not have been Gavarni, for he would have lacked precisely the qualities that make his lithographs so wonderful. Gavarni understood human nature in all its phases, and with few exceptions he portrayed all classes of society with great skill. He came in contact with all manner of people and studied them profoundly. He knew the young dandies and the old beaux, young women and old ; he knew those whose existence was passed in going to balls, theatres, or the opera, and who spent their lives in idleness, living upon their fortunes • he knew the painters and the literary men ; the labouring classes and the vagabonds ; the market women and the street venders; the beggars, street sweepers, ragpickers, drunkards, thieves, pick- pockets, and criminals. All these, high and low, rich and poor, honest and dishonest, he drew with the greatest possible truth, with the most astonishing knowledge of their manner of life, and with a subtle insight into their ways of thinking and acting. While he studied all grades of society, the ' 23 i 62 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. lowest classes appealed to him above all. No one has ever depicted these with greater fidelity or with more feeling for the terrible misery of their wretched lives. He knew how to give force to their sufferings by drawing strong contrasts, as when he shows us a rich, well-fed man coming home from market with expensive birds in his hand, followed by two half-starved women • or by similarity, as when a miserable beggar stands look- ing at a scarecrow whose clothes he covets, though in truth there seems to be little choice between them. Subjects from these sources are found in most of the sets of Masques et Visages^ and par- ticularly in those entitled Etudes d' Androgynes^ Les Anglais chez eux, Bohemes, and Histoire d"en dire deuxy four series unexcelled by any that Gavarni has left us. Les Propos de Thomas Vireloque is another set drawn from the lower classes, but differing in purpose from the four just mentioned. Thomas Vireloque is a philosophical vagabond who, with spectacles on his forehead, goes about comment- ing upon everything he sees. The texts below these twenty lithographs are among the best Gavarni has written, while the draughtsmanship 'iT' f^fe '(>f\}/r ■'5 1 GAVARNI. 163 in the series is superb. There are no better examples than these of his power in drawing the human figure. If Gavarni was at his best when depicting beggars and vagabonds, he was not less remark- able in his rendering of old age. None of his works surpass the Lorettes vieilliei in power. They are masterpieces in every sense of the word. He portrays in a wonderful manner these loose women worn out, often prematurely, by their lives of dissipation. In Lef Inva/ides du sentiment we have what may be called a com- panion series to the Lorettes. Here are old men who in their younger days have seen all sides of life and most of whom are now paying the pen- alty of their excesses. Some of them are old beaux, who at seventy are trying to play the part of young men of twenty-five. The two series are among the most successful of the artist’s character drawings. Questions of politics were always distasteful to Gavarni. He hated political discussions of all kinds, and would never enter into them himself, nor did he like to hear others engaged in them. His series JListoire de politiquer is a very keen 164. SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. satire on all such disputations. He shows us with his great power of delineating human nature the ridiculousness of these disputes and his con- tempt for those who take part in them. We have the subject in all its phases, from the ex- citement of those who in the heat of argument are led to say uncomplimentary things, to the good humour of those who do not take seriously the angry earnestness of their opponents. To criticise all the lithographs in the Maiques et Visages would be to write a book on human nature. The reader who would know them must study them carefully himself, for only by seeing a great number can he understand the immense extent of Gavarni’s knowledge of men and women. He must see not only the series already men- tioned, but Les Parents terribles^ Les Petits mor- dent^ Les Maris me font toujours rire, Manidres de voir des voyageurs^ Ce qui se fait dans les meilleures societes, Par-ci^ par-la^ and, in fact, every series in the collection, for all contain mas- terpieces of the highest order. There is a set entitled U Apr ^s Nature, which, on account of the similarity of style, may prop- erly be considered with the Masques et Visages. GAVARNl. 165 It is remarkable for the same variety in types, the same knowledge of human nature, and the same powerful qualities of drawing. There are still other lithographs of the third period which might be mentioned, but enough has been said to point out the main features of Gavarni’s work. The Masques et Visages alone would assure their author immortality. In spite of the great uniformity in the qual- ity of his drawing and the high standard he was able to maintain during the third period, Gavarni was not without his failures. The most conspicu- ous of these are in his attempts to render refine- ment of feature, especially in women. It is undeniable that some of his women have a cer- tain fascination, but, in spite of their often at- tractive faces, there is generally a lack of vigour in the drawing, which keeps them from holding a place beside his best work. Strangely enough, his want of success in rendering refined types was due to one of his strongest qualities. He had great power in making his manner of work con- form to the subject in hand. His drawing was more or less refined, according to the type with which he was dealing. He drew his beggars with i66 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. ragged lines, his young swells with lines of greater delicacy. When he attempted to express beauty in women he tried to carry out the same prin- ciple by an ultra-refinement in his work, and the result was too often insipid prettiness. In portraiture, too, Gavarni was not always at his best. This was due, in later life at least, chiefly to the fact that he had become accustomed to drawing without models. His great works were done with nothing but his imagination, his observation, and his retentive memory to aid him. When he attempted portraits the restraint of fol- lowing what was actually before his eyes became burdensome to him, and want of interest in the subject produced inferiority of work. There were, however, many exceptions to the rule, for when he turned his attention seriously to portraiture and took an interest in his subject, then he showed himself great again, as may be seen in his strong portraits of Decamps, of Prince Jerome Napoleon, of J. B. Isabey, and of Henri Monnier. Gavarni’s real name was Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier. He did not take the name of Gavarni until 1829. Though used at first merely for signing his drawings, this became at length the GAVARNI. 167 name by which he was known to his friends, and with which he signed his letters. He was born in Paris, on January 13, 1804. Between the ages of ten and twelve he worked for an architect named Dutellard, from whom he received some instruc- tion in drawing architectural plans. At the age of sixteen or seventeen he entered the Conserva- toire-i where he studied the drawing of machines and mechanical instruments. This was all the instruction he ever received. From 1824 1827 he travelled on foot through the south of France. He was extremely poor, and could scarcely earn enough to clothe and feed himself. In 1828 he returned to Paris, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. During his travels he made sketches from Nature, but these had no artistic value. They were the work of an un- trained amateur who drew merely for his own amusement. Not until 1830 did he begin to draw in a true artistic sense. In 1833 he began the publication of the Journal des Gens du monde. The paper was a failure, and two years later its founder was imprisoned for debt. But though embarrassed throughout the rest of his life by the debts contracted in this unfortunate i68 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. venture, Gavarni was not a man to be greatly worried by such troubles. He was of a free- and-easy nature, fond of pleasure, and thinking little of anything beyond the enjoyment of the moment. He was thoroughly what is known as a “man of the world,” fond of society, fond of gaiety, of good living, and above all of the com- pany of women, though whether he was ever really in love is doubtful. But though he could be frivolous in his enjoyments, he was a dif- ferent man when the time for work came. Every day from twelve o’clock until five he applied himself assiduously to his art; and dur- ing those hours no one, except occasionally one of his intimate friends, was permitted to disturb him. His mingling in society of all kinds was, of course, what gave him his great knowledge of human nature. In 1844 he married Made- moiselle de Bonabry. From 1847 1851 he lived in London. During his stay in England he did very little work, his art for some reason having become distasteful to him ; but on his return to Paris, in 1851, he turned to it again with new interest. Then began his third style, and for seven or eight years he produced the / _ e‘f - 0/~ /Ji €■ /c>/.// //^ ///,S^.frAf / ry^f/rf /. / 'f - f/'f. 6? • /f / // GAVARNI. 169 greatest works of his life. After 1858 he aban- doned his art almost entirely. Discouraged by the indifference of the public, depressed in spirits by the appropriation of his house and grounds at Auteuil by the Government for the purpose of building a railroad, and, above all, deeply afflicted by the death of his favourite son, he became melancholy and unfit for work. He died No- vember 24, 1866. As the manner in which great masterpieces are produced is always interesting, I will here give a translation of a passage in the De Gon- courts’ Life^ showing Gavarni’s method of draw- ing during his later years : * “We have watched him at work during many hours, for it was truly a miracle to see Gavarni cover a stone. It was as if the Genius of Drawing were at work. His hand resting upon a maul-stick and suspended over the stone placed upright upon the cross-piece of an easel, the lithographer, as if by hazard and with a crayon that seemed to be merely playing, threw off at * Gavarni, riiomme et r(EUvre, by Edmond and Jules de Goneourt, page 339. 24 170 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. first a few strokes, a few zigzag lines like the stripes of a zebra, with which he effaced the light and glossy surface of the stone. . . . The beginning of his drawing having been thus done with this confused, cloudy mass, his crayon turn- ing and rolling, brought out geometrical outlines, polygonal figures, squares like those in which Cambiaso incloses his sketches, though as yet nothing of the future drawing could be made out. Then these squares, circles, and cubes being forced into shape, lost their undefined forms and their lifeless lines to assume human proportions, becoming misty silhouettes of men and women, which came out more and more from the vague and waving mass, each new stroke of the crayon giving them relief, light, precision in outline, and clearness. “ He worked without sketches, without any- thing to aid his memory; and his hand after a while, as if seized with a fever, seemed to re- produce from Nature a model that came back to pose in his memory. So it was. He saw the people he drew. They came into his mind like visions. Did he not say one day to Morere when he had finished a lithograph before him, ‘There! GAVARNI. 171 do you remember ? ’ ‘No,’ replied Morere. ‘ What ! It is the man we saw, you know, on the quai de la Tournellel* That was twenty years previously.” Gavarni’s lithographs are only a part of his work as an artist. This is not the place to speak of his literary powers, nor is it the place to speak of his water-colours, which are in no way inferior to his drawings in black and white, and which, for sound draughtsmanship, harmony of colour, and beauty of composition, have rarely been equalled. It is my hope that this short sketch may awaken in those who as yet are unac- quainted with his lithographs a desire to study these productions of one of the greatest artists of our century. I have myself spent many delight- ful hours in examining them ; I have turned to them again and again, always with renewed inter- est, always with increased admiration, and each time more strongly impressed with their inex- haustible wealth and with the mighty genius of their author. I APPENDIX. TECHNICAL EXPLANATIONS.* LITHOGRAPH, in its ordinary form, is sim- ply a crayon drawing on stone, done precisely in the manner of a crayon or a charcoal draw- ing on paper, the difference being that by means of a printing press the drawing on stone may be multiplied, as in etching or en- graving. The crayon used in lithography is partly composed of soap, which sinks into the stone wherever it is touched by the crayon. When the drawing is finished the surface of the stone is covered with acid. This process is technically called etchings but it is not etching in the sense that the term is employed for the bitten line of a copperplate. The acid makes no incision in the stone, but is used for the purpose of fixing the drawing, or rather for render- ing the parts not drawn upon less capable of receiving the ink in the printing. The artist will find it more advantageous to leave the etching of his stone to the printer, for some experience is re- quired in order to obtain satisfactory results ; and as the process is purely mechanical, the drawing itself is in no way affected by * This section of the book has already appeared in pamphlet form. I have made a few changes for the sake of clearness, as well as to explain one or two things which did not seem to need touching upon in the pamphlet. With these exceptions, the article stands as it was originally published by Messrs. Frederick Keppel & Co. 173 174 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. the acid, provided the stone is properly etched. The greatest danger lies in leaving the acid too long upon the stone, in which case part of the drawing itself may be eaten away. In the hands of an experienced workman, however, there is no risk, and the drawing remains unaffected by the acid. In order to print im- pressions, the stone is moistened with water, and as water and grease do not combine, the parts drawn upon repel the water, while the parts not drawn upon absorb it. A roller charged with greasy ink is now passed over the surface, and for the same rea- son as before the ink is repelled by the wet parts and adheres to every part drawn upon. A sheet of paper is placed upon the stone, which is then passed through the press. The ink becomes transferred to the paper, and produces an exact facsimile of the original drawing. These are the principles upon which lithography rests, though there are other mechanical details connected with the printing into which it is unnecessary to enter, and which, like the process of etching, are better left to the printer. For the artist who wishes to employ the process, a litho- graphic stone and crayons are all that are necessary. He has only to draw as he would draw upon paper with charcoal or crayon, and, the drawing finished, take his stone to the printer. The crayons most generally in use are those of Lemercier, which are made in three degrees of hardness, numbered i, 2, and 3, No. I being the hardest. Should the lithographer wish to make corrections in his drawing, he may take out work by moistening a clean rag with benzine and rubbing the part that he wishes to efface. New work may then be done upon the effaced part. The benzine leaves a slight tint upon the stone, but this will not show in the printing. This method can be used before printing only. After a proof has been printed, the stone may be prepared by the printer for retouching, but the lithographer is confined to adding APPENDIX. 175 new work or taking out old work with a scraper ; he can not work again upon the parts scraped out. At first sight this would seem to put lithography at a disadvantage as compared with the mediums on copper ; but in etching and engraving, work once done is not easily effaced, and in lithography the artist has the advantage of seeing his drawing before him exactly as it will appear on paper when printed. In retouching after a proof has been printed it is better to work with a somewhat softer crayon than in the first instance, because the stone does not absorb grease so readily as in its original condition. It is well also to go over the whole drawing more or less, for the second application of the acid is likely to injure the previous work, especially if it is at all delicate. Besides the simple method of working directly with a crayon, the lithograph may be treated in various ways, giving great scope to the artist. A soft, even tone may be obtained by rubbing the stone with flannel. The crayon may either be rubbed upon the stone and afterward blended with the flannel, or rubbed upon a piece of paper and the flannel dipped in the sauce thus made. A somewhat different tone may be similarly obtained with a stump. For the flannel and the stump a special crayon, called crayon estompe, is made, but crayons 2 and 3 may also be employed. A sharp high-light may be got with a scraper, and in the same way a tone may be reduced in intensity ; but in using the scraper care must be taken not to injure the surface of the stone if new work is to be added upon the scraped portion. The lithographer may do his entire drawing by this reverse method, blackening the surface of the stone with a crayon and working backward from dark to light, as in ordinary mezzotint. A sharp penknife is a good substitute for a scraper. A tone may also be reduced in intensity with a dry-point or other sharp instrument such as a needle, by tapping perpendicu- larly upon the stone with the pointed end. The little needle 176 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. pricks thus made do not injure the surface so as to prevent further work upon the part thus treated. In addition to the various methods of work with a crayon, ink may also be used, either by itself or in combination with the crayon. Lithographic ink is made in sticks. To prepare it for use, rub some of it dry in a saucer ; then mix with soft water by rub- bing with the finger, adding more water until the right consist- ency is reached. It is best not to prepare much at one time, as the ink soon loses its greasy quality once having been mixed with water. The ink thus prepared may be used in the ordinary ways known to pen draughtsmen, by drawing with a pen, by spatter, or by wash-work. This last is called lithotint, and is, of all the lithographic processes, the most difficult and the most unsatis- faetory, being the only one in which the results are uncertain. Great experience is required to handle lithotint with a chance of a good result, and even in the hands of one who has had long practice the process is likely at times to bring forth unexpected effeets. For working in wash, the ink may be mixed in turpen- tine instead of water. Some lithographers add a few drops of lavender water to the turpentine, but no method of lithotint yet discovered is entirely satisfactory. The scraper may be employed in working with ink, as in drawing with crayon. The weight of a lithographic stone is often a disadvantage, but fortunately the lithographer is not confined to working on the stone itself. Specially prepared paper is made, upon which he may draw in the same way as on stone ; and this paper is particularly useful in out-of-door work, being light and easily carried. When the drawing is finished it is transferred to stone by the printer. This process is entirely mechanical. The trans- fer is not a copy of the original drawing, but the original drawing itself taken from the paper and placed upon the stone, leaving APPENDIX. 177 the paper bare. The lithographer may then make changes in his drawing upon the stone either before or after printing, in the same manner as if the drawing had been done upon the stone originally. In using the scraper, care must be taken not to scratch the surface of the paper if one wishes to add new work in the part scraped, because, if the preparation on the paper be removed, new work will not print. With great care a tone may be re- duced and new work added in the parts thus scraped ; but, if a high-light has been obtained by scraping out clean, no work can be added in the scraped part. It is scarcely necessary to say that benzine can not be used upon the paper as upon the stone for taking out portions of the drawing. There are various papers for lithographic purposes, one of which, manufactured by Vanhymbeeck, is especially good. This is known as papier bristol chine, and may be had either smooth or with a very slight grain, the one for pen-drawing, the other for crayon work, though the pen may be used on the latter or the crayon on the former. There is also a paper called papier viemiois, which is good but not quite so satisfactory as the bristol chme, because of its peculiarly mechanical grain, which gives the drawing the appearance of having been done with fine, regular dots. Indispensable as the paper is in many cases, it has its limitations. For sketches, paper is in every way as good in its results as stone ; but for drawings pushed to any degree of finish, the transfer will be found not always successful, because too much work is likely to injure the preparation on the paper. Red chalk may be used to make the first placing of a draw- ing on the paper or on the stone, and as the chalk contains no grease, work done with it will not show in the printing. A hard lead pencil will serve the same purpose, and tracing paper may also be employed. 25 178 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Care should be taken not to touch either the stone or the paper with the hand, as the slightest grease is quickly absorbed by them and shows in the printing. A piece of thick flannel placed under the hand is generally sufficient protection ; but the safest plan is to place the stone upon an easel, resting the hand upon a maulstick. The lithographer shbuld generally avoid working in an over- heated room, because heat has a tendency to make the drawing heavy. This, however, is a question of personal choice, since some lithographers place their work near the fire, in order to produce certain blendings of tone. Dampness should be avoided, especially in the case of trans- fer papers. Moisture will also affect the crayons, rendering them soft and at times even altogether useless. A drawing should never extend to the edges of the stone, because, without a margin of at least an inch, the printer can not ink the stone properly. Chromolithography differs in no way from the processes already described, excepting that the printing is done from a number of stones instead of from a single one. The lithographer makes an outline sketch of his drawing, which is transferred to as many stones, generally speaking, as there are to be colours in the finished print. He then works with a black crayon upon each stone, drawing only upon the part of the stone that is to produce the particular colour required. The colour is obtained by the printer’s ink, and not by the crayon used in making the drawing. When the various parts of the drawing are finished, the printing is done by running each stone through the press separately, and as each is inked with the special colour desired, the print is built up, colour after colour, until the whole is complete. It is not always necessary to make use of as many stones as there are to be colours. Green, for instance, may be obtained by printing yellow upon blue. BIBLIOGRAPHY. This list contains only the most important works on the subject, and is not there- fore in any sense exhaustive.. Senefelder ; Vollstandiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey. Munich and Vienna, i8i8. The first part of the book gives an aceount of the discovery of lithography. The work has been translated into English and French. Engelmann ; Traitd thdorique et pratique de lithographie. Engelmann p^re et fils, k Mulhouse, 1839. The first two ehapters contain accounts of the invention and early history of lithography. Duchatel ; Traitd de la Lithographie artistique. Paris. Pub- lished by the alithor, 1893. This is by far the best book known to me on the technical side of lithography. The author has had long practical experience as head of the printing department at Lemercier’s, and he treats the subject in a simple manner, with no superfluous details. Bouchot, Henri ; La Lithographie. Paris, Quantin, 1895. A short history of lithography. Beraldi, Henri ; Les Graveurs du XIX^ siecle. Twelve vol- umes. Paris, Conquet, 1885-1892. Catalogue de I’oeuvre gravd et lithographic de R. P. Bonington par Aglaiis Bouvenne. Paris, Baur et Detaille, 1873. Alexandre Calame, sa vie et son oeuvre. By EugCne Ram- bert. Paris, Librairie Fischbacher, 1884. Charlet, sa vie, ses lettres suivi d’une description raisonnCe de son oeuvre lithographique par M. de La Combe. Paris, Paulin et Le Chevalier, 1856. 179 i8o SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Catalogue de I’oeuvre lithographic et gravC de H. Daumier par Champfleury. Paris, Heymann et Perois, 1878. Merely a sketch of the artist’s prints. No descriptive catalogue of Daumier’s lithographs has been published as yet, though M. Maindron is at present compiling one. Honore Daumier, I’homme et I’oeuvre par ArsCne Alexandre. Paris, Laurens, 1888. L’CEuvre complet de EugCne Delacroix, peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, catalogue et reproduit par Alfred Robaut commentC par Ernest Chesneau, ouvrage public avec la collaboration de Fernand Calmettes. Paris, Charavay freres, 1885. The reproductions mentioned in the title are minute woodcuts of use only for identifying the prints. E. Delacroix et son oeuvre par Adolphe Moreau. Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1873. L’CEuvre de Gavarni. Catalogue raisonnC par J. Armelhault [MahCrault] et Bocher. Paris, Librairie des Bibliophiles, 1873- Gavarni, Etude par Georges Duplessis. Paris, Rapilly, 1876. Gavarni, I’homme et I’oeuvre par Edmond et Jules de Gon- court. Paris, Plon, 1873. Gericault, Etude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonnC de I’oeuvre du maitre par Charles Clement. Third edition. Paris, Didier et Cie., 1879. The catalogue of the lithographs was published separately by the Gazette des Beatix-Arts in 1866. The numbering of the prints differs from that of the catalogue afterward published in the third edition of the complete work. Raffet, sa vie et ses oeuvres par Auguste Bry. Paris, J. Bauer, 1874. Second edition. Raffet, son oeuvre lithographique et ses eaux-fortes par H. Giacomelli. Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1862. A de- scriptive catalogue. LIST OF PRINTS MENTIONED. Gericault : Bouchers de Rome lo, 1 1 Mameluck de la garde imp^riale 1 1 Boxeurs Deux chevaux qui se battent 1 1 Retour de Russie 1 1 Artillerie changeant de position 1 1 The French Set 12, note The English Set 12 The English Farrier 14 An Arabian Horse 14 Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf 14 A French Farrier 15 The Flemish Farrier. 15 The Piper 15 “ Pity the sorrows of a poor old man ” . . . .16 A Dead Horse 16 Bonington : Rue du Gros-Horloge a Rouen ig Tour du Gros-Horloge (Evreux) ig ^^glise de Saint-Gervais et Saint-Protais a Gisors ... 22 figlise de Saint-Wulfram (Abbeville) 23 Vue g6nerale des Ruines du Chateau d’Arlay ... 23 Croix de Moulin les Planches 24 Vue prise de la route de Calais 24 Le Matin 24 181 i 82 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Harding : Source du Lison Gorge du Mont Terrible . Vue du Chateau de Frasne Chateau de Verce Chateau neuf, Auvergne . Le Casset, Valine de Mon6tier. Fort Rouge de Calais La Tour sans Venin . The Park and the Forest . Beech .... Black Poplar Beech Trees in Arundel Park Beech and Ash on the Greta ISABEY : ^Iglise Saint-Jean h Thiers Retour au port Environs de Dieppe .... Interieur d’un port .... Radoub d’une barque k mar6e basse Souvenir de Saint-Valery sur Somme Maree basse Brick echou6 Maree basse (mezzotint) . Souvenir de Bretagne Bateau de pecheurs en rade 28 31 32 33 33 34 34 34 34 35 36 36 37 41 42 42 44 44 45 45 45 48 48 49 Calame : L’Ecole du paysagiste 53 La Campagne 53 CEuvres de A. Calame 54 La Mer (No. ii) 57> 58 Ruines des temples de Paestum (No. 33) .... 58 Lac des quatre Cantons (No. 17) 59 Glacier de I’Aigle (Handeck) (No. 49) .... 60 Cours de I’Aar, Souvenir de la Handeck (No. 41), . . 61 LIST OF PRINTS MENTIONED. 183 Calame : Environs de la Handeck (No. 95) 61 Le grand Eiger (No. 47) 61 Souvenir des hautes Alpes (No. 45) 61 Prds de Brunnen, Lac des quatre Cantons (No. 31) . 61 Souvenir d’ltalie (No. 16) 61 Cours de I’Aar k la Handeck, Canton de Berne ... 62 Lac de Thoune 63 Le Schwartzwald, sur la Scheideck 63 Vue prise k Lauterbrunnen 63 Delacroix : Faust . Hamlet Lion de I’Atlas . Tigre royal Baron Schwitter Daumier : Caricatures of public men in La Caricature . . 78 Mr. Pot de Naz • 79 Mr. Sebast • 79 Mr. Prune • 79 Mr. Baill • 79 Mr. Keratr • 79 Les Baigneurs . 79 Croquis d’et6 • 79 Histoire ancienne . 81 Les Baigneuses . 82 The Salon 82 Exposition de 1859 . . 83 L’Exposition universelle ...... . . 83 Les Moments diflficiles de la vie .... . . 83 Les beaux jours de la vie . . 84 Croquis musicaux ....... . . 84 Croquis d’hiver . . 84 Croquis parisiens . . 84 . 68 . 68 . 70 . 70 71 184 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Daumier : pack Croquis dramatiques 84 Canotiers parisiens 84 Croquis pris au theatre 84 Les Boh^mes de Paris 84 Le Ventre 16 gislatif 88 Ne vous y frottez pas 89 Enfonc6 La Fayette 89 La Rue Transnonain 89 Charlet : Le Grenadier de Waterloo 95 Le Drapeau d6fendu 96 Voltigeur 96 Carabinier 96 L’Aumone 97 Tu es frangais 98 Soutiens moi, Chatillon . . . . . -99 Qui vive ! Patrouille grise 99 Le Brigadier Petremann 99 Y dit que vous avez une jambe de bois de naissance . . 100 Le D6serteur 100 Le Petit Caporal loi Monsieur, nous avons un grand dissime mal de tete . . loi La Chasse loi Je suis pret 102 Les H6ritiers 102 Tireurs de la Compagnie infernale 102 Guerillas navarrois 104 Deveria : Alexandre Dumas no E. Robert no Huerta in Roqueplan in Bessems 112 L6on Noel 112 LIST OF PRINTS MENTIONED. 185 DEVliRIA ; PAGE Henri Herz 112 Portrait of his Son 112 Koechlin 113 Weiss 113 G6vaudan 113 Madame Rossigneux 1 1 3 Madame Eckerlin . - . . . . . . -113 La Contemporaine (Mme. Saint-Elme) 113 Raffet : La Revue nocturne 119 Le R6veil . . . . . . . . . . .119 Le Reve 12 1 Nemesis . . . . . . . . . . .121 Derniere charge des Lanciers rouges a Waterloo . . .126 Carre enfonce 127 Ils grognaient et le suivaient toujours 127 La Retraite du bataillon sacr6 a Waterloo . . . .128 Siege of Antwerp 123, 125, 129 Siege of Constantine 123, 129 Siege of Rome ri6, 123, 131-137 Ouverture de la paralRle 133 Chemin de Ronde 134 30 avril 1849 134 L’Arm6e frangaise arrive a la Maglianella . . • 134 Sapeurs Mineurs 134 Devouement du Clerg6 catholique 134 Batterie No. 9 134, 135, 137 Frets a partir pour la ville 6ternelle . . . • 134 Prise de la Villa Pamphili 136 Sape Volante ■ . . .136 Prise du Ponte Molle 137 Le Drapeau du 17= 16 ger 137 Combat d’Oued-Alleg 128,137 Voyage dans la Russie meridionale et la Crim^e . . .139 Tatars sortant de la Mosqu^e . . . . . .139 26 1 86 SOME MASTERS OF LITHOGRAPHY. Raffet : PAGE Circassiens, Lesghines et Cosaques de la ligne . . 140 Eglise et tour des trois Saints, Yassy .... 140 Grande Rue de Baghtcheh-Sarai 140 Tatars en priere 140 Vue du vieux bazar et du Mont-Mithridate . . . 140 Recrues turques 140 Marshal de Saint-Arnaud 141 Amable Gihaut . 141 Prince Demidoff . 141 Le baron Alfred de Marches . 142 Gavarni : Les Enfants terribles .152 Fourberies de femmes -154 La Boite aux lettres • I 54 Les Artistes . -154 Le Carnaval . -154 La Politique . .154 Legons et Conseils 154 Paris le matin . . . . . . . . . • 154 Paris le soir . . . . 154 Les Muses . . . . -154 La Vie de jeune hommc . ■ 154 Les Etudiants de Paris • 154 Souvenirs du bal Chicard . . . . . . ■ 154 Le Carnaval a Paris . . . . . . . . -154 Revers des medailles . . . . . . . • 154 Clichy 154 Les Debardeurs 154 L’Eloquence de la chair . • 154 Impressions de menage (first series) . . . . . -154 Musiciens comiques ou pittoresques . . . . • 154 Physionomies des Chanteurs . . . . . . -154 Giuvres Nouvelles 155 Chemin de Toulon ........ 155 Impressions de menage (second series) . . . -155 LIST OF PRINTS MENTIONED. 187 Gavarni : Le Parfait cr6ancier .... Les Patrons Masques et Visages ^)tudes d’ Androgynes Les Anglais chez eux Bohemes ...... Histoire d’en dire deux Les Propos de Thomas Vireloque . Les Lorettes vieillies .... Les Invalides du sentiment Histoire de politiquer Les Parents terribles .... Les Petits mordent .... Les Maris me font toujours rire Manieres de voir des voyageurs Ce qui se fait dans les meilleures societes Par-ci, par-lii D’Apres Nature Portrait of Decamps Prince Jerome Napoleon .... J. B. Isabey Henri Monnier • 155 • 155 158-164 . 162 . 162 . 162 . 162 . 162 • 163 • 163 . 163 . 164 . 164 . 164 . 164 . 164 . 164 . 164 . 166 . 166 . 166 . 166 THE END. I ¥ mi p’ W ' I IM i' ^ - ' V. , ■ . , \ ; L\. IV 1 I if 'i •- --If 1#.^ I ■‘W