Page:The illustrators of Montmartre.pdf/104

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

84
ILLUSTRATORS OF MONTMARTRE

It is possible that, as time goes on, some other quarter of Paris will take the place of Montmartre, as the nursery of young free-lances, and will inspire future Bohemians to other great deeds in the world of art. Mayhap the honoured quarter wlll be "Montparnasse," or the vicinity of the "Luxembourg;" or perhaps it will be the "Butte de Chaumont," — the other great cliff of Paris, surrounded in this instance with a romantic park, and peopled with a toiling, excitable, working population, — that will attract the next group of illustrators of modern city life. However that may be, Paris supplies a never-failing succession of highly talented artists who, as they leave the schools, different as their methods may be, group themselves around some chosen neighbourhood, some cabaret, some master of the art, or some illustrated periodical, Already there is a brilliant group of yet younger illustrators risen in Paris, since the advent of these with whom this volume deals.

The fact that most of the papers in which these illustrations appear are unknown to, or unpalatable to, the British public, renders it certain that, with but few exceptions, the accomplished work of these modern masters of black and white art will never be as widely appreciated in England as it deserves to be,

And this is one more justification of the writer's longe-urged plea that in London we are sadly in need of a National Water Colour and Black and