By MaltestePSYCHOLOGUEIXLOUIS MALTESTE
By MaltestePSYCHOLOGUE
By Malteste
By Malteste
PSYCHOLOGUE
PSYCHOLOGUE
Amongthe workers on the French illustrated papers none produces a steadier flow of thoroughly conscientious, sound work than Louis Malteste.
His are no chance effects, notours de forceof mere eccentricity or charlatanism, but are the outcome of knowledge, hard work and assurance.
He is a splendid draughtsman, unerring and direct, a seeker and finder of individual character, who does not attempt to electrify the world with his audacity, or his at-any-cost originality; for he is content to delineate for us, in masterly fashion, specimens of humanity as they appear to the man of keen discernment.
At the time of the loathsome trials of Dreyfus, Malteste was one of several artists who specially distinguished themselves by splendid sketches of the actors concerned therein. In the writer’s possession is a collection of these spirited and life-like drawings.They are doubly admirable when one considers under what disadvantages they were produced. The task of the artist, told off to a sweltering, over-crowded court-house, surcharged with violent excitement, and commissioned to make portrait groups of interested persons, who are incessantly changing their positions, is none too easy. Yet these drawings show no hesitation; in each case some fleeting gesture or attitude is caught in a vigorous drawing, and fixed for ever.
No wonder then that publishers such as Hachette, and the weekly illustrated papersLe Monde Illustré,L’Illustration, &c., should have availed themselves of his talent; or that when he turned his crayon to more fanciful subjects he should have found a ready outlet in the pages of such papers asLa Vie en Rose,Le Rire,L’Assiette au Beurre, and many others, wherein to let fly thatgauloiseriewhich flows in the veins of even the most serious Frenchman.
Most of the drawings inLa Vie en Roseare excellent works in chalk of actions governed by sudden impulse; and, in technique, strongly recall the admirable drawings of the English draughtsman, Gunning King, whose work Malteste has probably never seen. It is most likely, however, that the style of both artists has largely resulted from profound and well-placed admiration of the work of the veteran Renouard.
There is inLa Vie en Rosean amusing series of drawings by Malteste of coachmen of all grades—eacha strong piece of work, full of character, and well placed on the page. Another series in colour consists of fancy portraits of potentates; here again Malteste has distinguished himself, as witness theLéopold, Roi des Belges, a harmony in white, yellow, and brown. Malteste shows himself as a tender colourist in the excellent drawing of a milking scene, entitledLa Traité des Blanches; another farm scene,Le Fléau, is as excellent an example of black and white work, and only surpassed by the chalk drawingPsychologue, a superb delineation of two ragged, storm-beaten rag pickers toiling homewards with their baskets.
His little studies of queer bits of gnarled humanity are splendid; witness hisFemmes Fidèles,La Femme qui prise, his droll lady who declaresThere is nothing like a good swig, hisWoman with a Dog, hisWoman with the Cats, or the group calledTypes of Electors in the Ville Lumière. We recognise all those electors at first sight; there is the heavy, obstinate man, who gets his way by force of sheer dead-weight, there the suave complaisant “good-sort,” there the pugnacious, quixotic fellow, who adores a riotous meeting, there the pensive philosopher, and so on. There is no mistaking the true character of any one of them; to a companion page ofFemmes Infidèlesthe same remarks apply.
A noteworthy quality in Malteste’s work is the invariably excellent drawing of the hands. To any but the surest draughtsmen hands area veritablebête noire, to be avoided whenever possible.
Besides his reputation as an illustrator, Malteste has made his mark as a painter of note, and in collaboration with Gélis-Didot has executed a charming poster forL’Absinthe Parisienne; while his poster for the Théâtre Antoine is one of the finest things of its kind yet produced.
DE TOULOUSE LAUTREC
DE TOULOUSE LAUTREC