In the early eighties Morin started drawing for La Caricature and Le Chat Noir, and later on for the Revue Illustrée, the Revue des Lettres et des Arts, Figaro Illustré, St. Nicolas, Le Canard Sauvage, La Vie en Rose, &c.
Morin was one of the leading spirits of the “Chat Noir” shadow pantomimes, and produced there in 1890 his enchanting “Carnaval de Venise,” in 1892 “Pierrot Pornographe,” in 1894 “Le Roi débarque,” and in 1896 “L’honnête Gendarme.” In 1891 he produced his pantomime “Au Dahomey” at the Musée Grévin.
A fair sized room having been acquired as an annexe to the artistic cabaret of the “Chat Noir,” a white sheet was fixed at one end of it over a miniature stage, and surrounded by a quaint and elaborate gold frame. From the wings at the rear were thrown on to the sheet the shadows of marvellous little figures cut out by such artists as Morin, the great Henri Rivière, Caran-d’-Ache, Henri Somm and others, who thereby achieved great fame. All kinds of ingenious little pieces of machinery and clever combinations were invented and employed to build up the great success, which proved attractive enough to draw “all Paris” to Montmartre for some years, and to fill the pockets of proprietor Rudolph Salis, the “King of Montjoie-Montmartre,” so full that towards 1897 he was enabled to purchase and retire to a noble estate in the country. From this estate, however, he was shortly to be recalled by the magnetic attraction of his beloved Montmartre.
A glance at the pages of the Revue des Quat’ Saisons, which consists of four dainty parts written and illustrated by Morin, serves to give us a very good idea of his later work. Each of the quarterly parts is contained in a paper cover embellished with a different design in colour by the artist-author, which gives one a foretaste of the treat of spices contained within; for within, interspersed amongst the larger plates of a refined colouration, are numberless little masterpieces of pen draughtsmanship, incredibly gay and graceful and supple. Morin herein shows himself a superb draughtsman, his excited little figures career about the pages, their shapely forms palpitating and quivering with the joie de vivre. The artist’s quick eye has detected the slightest inflection in the body’s outline, caused by some momentary and wayward impulse, and crystallises the beautiful thing for his own joy and for ours.
The intoxication of the carnival pervades the greater part of this book, whose literary contents consist of a series of chapters on such interesting matters as the “Courrier Français Ball,” “The Ball of the Medical Students,” and the final two Quat’z’arts Balls—at which latter the Paris art students and their models used, until the heavy hand of the law fell upon them, to vie with one another in producing the most artistic and audacious groups of revellers in (and without) fancy dress ever seen. Another chapter is devoted to a “Night Fête at Venice” in the olden time, with its scenes of love and revelry. Yet another, illustrated with silhouettes such as helped to make the success of the Chat Noir Theatre, deals with the influence of that institution on latter-day Art and Poetry. Then follows an article on “Spanish and Eastern dances,” illustrated with gracefully whirling votaries of the terpsichorean art; next comes a chapter on “Modern Sculpture,” decorated with irresistibly comic drawings of models posing in excruciating attitudes to satisfy the modern sculptor’s supposed craving for originality.
The amount of ingenuity, facility, and anatomical sureness shown in this little set astounds one.
Most of the drawings have evidently been done with a very flexible pen, capable alike of giving a line that with but slight pressure passes from great delicacy to corresponding strength.
By Louis Morin