I
A. STEINLEN
THERE is no modern illustrator whose work has more completely won the admiration of his fellows of the brush, whatever their predilection in art, than Steinlen, Be the studio in Paris, in London, in Munich, be it even in Timbuctoo, from some discreet corner will be drawn a treasured copy or two of Gil Blas Illustré illustrated by Steinlen — forthwith to be discussed, and as surely lauded without stint.
This is not to imply that Steinlen is what is termed "a painter's painter" and nothing more; for the artist we are now considering is one of the few who are sufficiently great to have captured the warmest appreciation from the public at large, as well as from the critical ranks of his fellow workers.
The "painters' painter" is, as a rule, if nothing else, a master of technique, one whose work shows on the face of it the sheer joy evinced in the skilful manipulation of the medium employed — the exceptions
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to this rule being the men whose work reflects some subtle or involved workings of the brain, and whose great thoughts are felt to outweigh the shortcomings of faulty technique, They are of course styled "painters' painters" because their work appeals to artists and other highly trained critics; and it is useless to expect any but the most sensitive among the public to appreciate them. In smoothness and "softness" consists the acme of technical perfection in the eyes of the untrained, who, as regards figure subjects, prefer something which appears to the artist to be inane and commonplace, and as regards landscape subjects, insipid prettiness is always preferred to greatness or originality of view. In either case an excess of detail is a "sine quâ non," and such "plébiscites" as have been taken in England have almost invariably proved that the inferior painters are the most popular,
Yet, occasionally a great artist arises who will upset these canons, and compel the admiration of connoisseur and public alike; such an one is Steinlen.
Just as it may be presumed that J. F, Millet's popularity extends to all classes, so is it certain that the "Millet of the streets" will be equally widely and lastingly appreciated.
'The pioneer work that Millet did m interpreting the toilsome life of the French peasantry has been extended by Steinlen to the denizens — reputable and disreputable — of the nearer suburbs of Paris.
Born in Lausanne, he was trained for the church; and we may feel sure that had he joined that profession he would have been a forcible advocate of the poor and the ili-favoured, and that his blunt honesty of diction would have dealt his congregation some rude shocks indeed.
This was not to be, however, for the art in the man would out. In 1882 he journeyed to Paris; there to undergo much privation and many hard ships before getting a foothold drawing accepted by
paper "Le Chat Noir" which was to prove the first rung on his ladder to fame.
Rudolph Salis' artistic cabaret of the "Black Cat" was the editorial office of and at the same time a centre of all that was Bohemian and daring this paper, and go-ahead, a forcing ground of impatient talent. These first notable studies by Steinlen were of cats and of children. It was here that our artist met the authors whose work he was later to illustrate; more particularly he struck up a friendship with that fierce poet "cabaretier", Aristide Bruant, whose powerful and terror-striking poems dealt with the
very world that interested Steinlen to the quick, and provided him with the stimulus for many of his finest drawings. They both show us the, to of the us, shabby joys "faubouriens", and their terrible struggles with one another and with Dame Fortune.
Steinlen's field of labour has been in the so-called eccentric quarters of Paris — that is to say, on that soiled fringe of nondescript outlying districts of the Ville Lumiére, which is separated from the city proper by the circlet of shabby-genteel exterior boulevards. Many of these suburbs were at one time peaceful, outlying villages; but they have now been swallowed, and more or less thoroughly digested, by the metropolis. Thus it comes that many of them consist of a queer mixture of humble rustic abodes jostling against towering blocks of tenement buildings, or busy factories for ever being pressed outwards by the expanding city.
No less incongruous than these streets are their inhabitants, — chiefly composed of armies upon armies of tatling workers, while there is nevertheless an effervescing sediment or substratum of those who live by violence and crime. The less successful of these who trade on the weaknesses and follies of a vicious city are forced by circumstances to live in these cheaper suburbs, just as are the poorest of the honest classes; and this is so despite the fact that throughout Paris the upper stories of all flats are occupied by the lower, or at any rate the poorer, classes.
Curiosity, and a search for novel experiences wherewith to whet their jaded appetites, brought numbers of roysterers of a higher social grade to the places of amusement affected by this poverty-stricken and criminal population. These same humble places of amusement, more particularly round and about Montmartre rapidly flourished out of all recognition of their former selves, and until the recent waning of the craze others were frequently being added to the list. "his influx added to the complex character
of such neighbourhoods. Artists, authors, and other persons of more or less Bohemian tastes, many of them men of great renown and genius, have ever found their home on the commanding heights of the Montmartre cliff.
Among them Steinlen has settled, perched high over the myriad glittering roofs and towers and domes of Paris, which lies seething far below, The roar and clatter of the great city reach his window but fitfully, as the sounds are hurried hither and thither on the wings of wayward breezes, the while great stretches of urban landscape are plunged into purple shadow or bathed in golden sunlight as the fleeting clouds chase one another across the great dome of sky.
Most of the artists to be referred to in this little volume are intimately connected with this same breezy, turbulent suburb, and also with the before-mentioned "Chat Noir". This "cabaret", founded and carried on by Salis, himself an artist, for years attracted "le tout Paris" by means of its "réunions" of the most up-to-date artists, authors, and actors, and its unique theatre. Along with its sprightly, risky weekly paper it would form matter for a weighty volume of itself. The students from the "Quartier Latin", moreover, came to share their joyous, reckless hours of leisure between their own beloved neighbourhood of the "Boul' Mich'," and the far-away Mount of the Windmills — Montmartre.
Peasants, workgirls, the starving, the insane, the destitute, those who are fighting misery and those who ate making it, garrotters, thieves, murderers, and a large assortment of parasitical ruffians as well, have all found a sympathetic student and recorder in Steinlen, He understands them, he has a big heart, and he pities them all, and what is more he makes us, willy-nilly, pity them also. He delights in showing us that one little touch of remaining nature that makes the whole world akin, and will out in his most abandoned wretch. He makes us feel that his criminals are what nature and cruel circumstances have led them to be. Never does he descend to the narrow-minded, short-sighted, spiteful views of current events, discernible in the work of so many of his talented confrères. 'The firm tenderness of his nature reveals itself in the very lines of his drawings, which, as if to counterbalance the brilliant vivacity of the work of so many French illustrators, display a sturdy thoroughness and sanity.
A notable feature about his work is that — although he depicts the most depraved and immoral, as well as the most poverty-stricken of his fellow citizens — it cannot be said to be low or vulgar.
His drawings of simple peasant life have all the air of having been undertaken as a relaxation from the contemplation of more lurid subjects, He sallies forth among his chance models, sketch-bock in hand, ready to put down notes of salient features and expressive poses, Later to be incorporated in the wonderfully complete drawings which are shown to the public,
Steinlen is a prolific worker. First in importance among the many publications whose pages he has enriched comes the Gil Blas Illustré. It was Steinlen who initiated the idea of this Paris daily paper issuing a halfpenny supplement on Sundays containing feuilletons and poetry, illustrated with drawings to be reproduced in two or more colours. Since the year 1891, and until recently, the front and frequently other pages of this paper have consisted of splendid drawings by him, as a rule depicting some terrible or pathetic episode in the lives of the faubouriens or faubouriennes to whom we have already alluded, In every case a background, equally masterly and full of local character, has been introduced. This series of essentially modern subjects was occasionally varied by the appearance of a drawing such as the Chevalier a la Fée or Les Digitales, inspired by some medieval incident or legend, These Steinlen would treat in an entirely different but equally successful manner — the style employed soniewhat resembling that of another masterly designer, namely, Eugéne Grasset. Of his more usual style to pick out such splendid drawings as his suicide in A l'eau, the terrible street fight in the Voix de Sang or Le Vagabond, L' Immolation, Pour les Amoureux et pour les Oisseaux, Marchand de Marrons or 14 Juillet, is but to recall hundreds of others equally worthy of special attention.
In 1895 the Gil Blas employed more colours in its reproductions, and Steinlen rose to the occasion with some daring colour schemes exemplified in La Terre Chante au Crépuscule, Le Poil de Carotte and many another drawing. Towards 1896 the range of his subjects noticeably widened.
Among other publications to which he has contributed one recalls Le Chambard, in which appeared splendid lithographs from his own hand, La Feuille, L' Assiette au Beurre, La Vie en Rose, Le Canard Sauvage, etc. In the following music albums will be found some further superb lithographs by Steinlen, namely, Chanson de Montmartre, Chansons du Quartier Latin, and Chanson de Femmes. Among the books he has illustrated are: Les Gaités Bourgeois, Prison fin de Siècle, Dans la Rue, and Dans la Vie — the latter in colour.
Description of a few of his notable drawings, culled here and there, may help us to a better understanding of their quality.
First, then, he shows us the gallery of some dark, putrid Assembly Hall; the air is thick with garlic, and oaths, and gas, whose garish light illuminates a disreputable mob of frenzied anarchists, who are applauding with delirious gusto the sentiments of "Down with everything," "Death to every one."
Next we are taken to some dull, superstitious Breton hamlet; a blind and crippled tramp has arrived, hobbling through on crutches. We feel that his infirmities have hardly saved him from a career of violence. We can almost hear his raucous appeal for alms, as it falls on the ears of a group of simple village children, pitying, yet more than half
(Lithographed Poster}
Less gruesome is a great healthy farmer's lass, surrounded by cocks and hens and clattering her wooden shoes across the cobbled farmyard; or the two fresh little laundry girls, swinging along laden with three great baskets of clean linen. "Look out! there's another of those beastly bicycles," says one of them; "and on Sunday too," comments the other,
'Then again there are idyllic scenes on the sordid Paris fortifications, or yet further afield. Trompe la Mort shows us a crowd of humble folk scandal-mongering in hushed tones, their tittle-tattle provoked to its utmost by the climax indicated in the background by a sombre hearse. Another drawing transports us to the midst of a crowd in quite a different frame of mind, A hue and cry has been raised, and an infuriated mob is tearing down the street at the heels of its hapless prey. Next we see one of the many drawings dealing with a side of life which in less safe hands might be offensive. An unctuous old harpy waylays two fresh little workgirls, and insidiously lays the seeds which, to her profit, shall lead to their downfall. Steinlen occasionally, if rarely, makes drawings of which humour is the motive power. Among these I recall a café-concert study of his. Yvette Guilbert, at that time as thin as a lath, holds the stage, and among the audience is a great, porpoise-like woman who says, threateningly to her poor, inoffensive little wisp of a husband — "Perhaps that's your style .... Satyr."
One of his most charming drawings reproduced in colour in "Le Rive" is called "le bon Gite." The hapless Krüger, all war stained, is seated in some peaceful Dutch cottage, where Queen Wilhelmina, as an awe-struck peasant lassie, fills for him the pipe of peace, the while her martial German husband eagerly engages the old man in fighting his battles over again.
Nor can we forget the splendid double-page drawing that appeared in L' Assiette au Beurre for May 23,1901. Here we see a big boy's seminary, representing the French army of the future, the hope of the country, going out for its daily walk in charge of a number of priests — every one of them a monument of craftiness, superstition or bigoted intolerance, thus representing the power that poisoned a great nation's sense of justice during the hateful period of the Dreyfus trials.
Then again in the same paper for June 27, 1901, appears among others one of his most notable drawing, a veritable tour de force, representing the harrowing scene of the identification of corpses after the dynamite explosion at Issy.
It is interesting to compare such powerful work as this with one of his earliest successes, namely the illustrations to Les Gaités Bourgeoises, a set of chic and delicate little pen-drawings instinct with humour and gaiety.
Steinlen is a giant in the artistic poster movement, Some of his productions were lithographs in colour of enormous size, each printed from as many as thirty different lithographic stones. Here and there a poster would give him the opportunity to introduce some of the marvellous drawings of cats for which he is so justly renowned; and in this connection we cannot forbear mentioning two splendid drawings of cocks which appeared in the earlier numbers of Cocorico, as well as some wonderfully spirited comic drawings of frogs in a volume entitled "Entrée de Clowns."
Those who keep an eye on the picture galleries of the Paris streets can never forget, so splendid was their design and colouring, Steinlen's great posters for La Rue, or the equally long and fresco-like groups of realistic Parisian types advertising the "Affiches Charles Verneau."
Then, who does not love the "Lait Pur Sterilisé" poster with its golden-haired little girl in scarlet drinking out of a saucer, while three inimitable cats beg at her knee. His poster for Zola's "Paris" was a poem in itself; and in the "Tournée du Chat Noir" the noble beast concerned is treated to a glory of decoration. Then, there are his daring "La Feuille" poster, his "Yvette Guilbert," and many another, not to mention programme covers and such smaller game.
Finally, Steinlen has produced charming etchings, both in colour and in black and white, and such splendid oil paintings as Les Blanchisseuses. 
(Pen drawing)
Gil Blas illustré