IV
PAUL BALLURIAU
BALLURIAU is best known as the artist who has supplemented Steinlen's realism in the pages of the "Gil Blas Illustré" with drawings full of fancy and imagination, Just as we shall call Morin the Watteau, so he may be styled the Boucher of the modern French press.
His work, however, has not been confined to the pages of Gil Blas, for his gay and irresponsible (we had almost said reckless and unfettered) sketches have been noticeable in many another journal of far less steady gait. Nor has he restricted himself entirely to allegorical or eighteenth-century pastoral subjects. Occasionally he bursts forth as a strong modern realist, walking sturdily in Steinlen's steps.
Balluriau has that thorough knowledge of the human figure which enables him to draw it with freedom and certainty, and makes him a painter of classical allegories par excellence. Further, he has a broad, open style, and a yery charming and delicate sensc of colour. His favourite medium is apparently the chalk point, which he handles vigorously; occasionally, however, he varies his method by using pen and ink.
For ten years past his brilliant work has graced the pages of Gil Blas illustré. He is essentially the artist of lovers; and no better choice of an illustrator for that paper's series, "Les Poétes de Amour," than that of Paul Balluriau could have been made.
To judge by these illustrations Cupid has handed ever all the resultant knowledge of his long experience to Balluriau; for there is very little about the outward signs of love and passion which he has not carefully noted, thereafter to render in his drawings. From the first shy gesture to the tender murmur of adoration, and thence, through the whole gamut, to the frenzied passion of uncontrollable love — we find the recording crayon of Balluriau to be ever present.
The settings in which he places his graceful lovers, his Bacchanalian dances, his fauns and his nymphs, are suitably idyllic and beautiful.
Innumerable are the backgrounds of fair lawns shaded by great trees, of lovely bowers, and of secluded nooks in some great park in Dreamland.
Perhaps there is some scrio-comic difficulty to be settled, and we see two charming little ladies, in high powdered coiffures and bared to the waist, fighting a duel with swords under the trees, Or perhaps it is twilight, and some deep and placid stream murmuring beneath the darkling trees carries on its bosom a fairy bark and its cargo of love.
Then it is the mysterious hour of moonrise, and in the shadow of the garden wall, which climbs serpent-like up hill and down dale, we shall find our lovers serenely happy, but hushed by the beauty of the waking night.
Frequently Balluriau will carry us back to a century of delicate silks and satins; and in the broad sunlight will show a band of amorous beaux and belles, full of the joie de vivre, and about to start a game of blind man's buff. His figures live within their old-time costumes; he draws handsome men and beautiful women, for the ugly er the grotesque rarely attract him. But he has proved in such charming works as his "Printemps," and many others, that he also finds in the lovers of to-day sufficient beauty to include them in his "répertoire", The embrace of the sentimental young student in the felt hat and caped overcoat, who has just met the darling of his heart in the Bois de Boulogne, is every whit as tender and graceful as is that of the perruqued galant of the eighteenth century, arrayed in pink satins, who, behind a sculptured satyr, has stolen a kiss from his coy and dainty partner in the last minuet on the sward. Look, in his illustration to "Badinage Sentimental," how natural is the whole scene, how easy the pose, and how charming the face of the tittle Parisienne, who listens, half fearing the ardent words of the young exquisite who is stealing a conversation with her.
Balluriau also knows how to deal with subjects requiring more vigour of treatment — such as he displays in his Breton figure subjects. His drawing Partance is a case in point. The scene is laid in a sailors' cabaret, on the tiled floor are rough tables, at and on which sit peaceful groups of Breton peasants; and sailor-men and buxom bonnes are bidding each other their last adieux — for the sailors are about to embark in one of the ships we see through the wide-open window.
And in the rare drawings where he touches on poverty and serious tragedy he proves himself impressive and capable of deep feeling. His drawings La Toussaint Heroique, the terrible beer-house brawl, L'Eté, and Un Mendiant Rousse, are worthy of Steinlen.
But it is in his illustrations of classical and allegorical subjects that he stands alone, and shows his greatest individuality.
Such subjects as his Bacchantes, his weird Vers le Sabbat, his Chloé, or his La Mort des Lys, to mention but a few in the Gil Blas alone, could have come from no other hand; for excellency of draughtsmanship combined with trained camposition and an exquisitely refined sense of colour, they are hard to beat.