II
CARAN D’ACHE
Emmanuel Poiré, better known by his Russian pseudonym of Caran d’Ache (pencil), is a public benefactor, in that he has considerably added to the gaiety of nations; and if it be true that one laughs and grows fat, then he must also be responsible for much of the extra weight that those nations carry with them.
The man upon whom one may count to make one merry is sure to be popular. Caran d’Ache, as we have already hinted, has made whole nations merry, and he is a popular favourite. It is true that sometimes his own infectious laughter is cynical, or spiteful, or cruel to a minority, but he always has the majority to laugh with him, and follow him in his pictured tirades—be they well-considered or ill-considered. But, after all, that is perhaps a matter of politics, or nationality, or religion, or what not; and the fact remains that his drawings are irresistibly humorous, and are always excellent works of art.
Caran d’Ache was born in Moscow, of French parents, but when twenty years of age he came to Paris, where his innate talent soon evinced itself.
While undergoing his military service in the early eighties his unquenchable passion for drawing was put by the authorities to their practical use, in making studies of past and current military uniforms for the War Office. The costumes of the glorious Napoleonic era and of Germany were made a speciality, and the knowledge thus acquired was carefully retained by the young artist, and served him in good stead in his later years.
Caran d’Ache, like every thorough-going Frenchman, preserves his love for the army, incidents in whose life he is never tired of depicting with that spirited brilliance we have come to know so well. And the military officer’s smartness of bearing has stuck to him, for he is recognised as an “ultra chic”,—a very dandy among the illustrators, and an eccentric one at that. Yet at the same time he refuses to associate himself with the smart set in Paris; he has too much of the artist temperament for that.
He was early attracted to the “Chat Noir” on the Butte of Montmartre, and Rudolph Salis—that keen exploiter or genial art patron, which you will—was not long in appreciating the talent of his client. Soon we hear of him achieving an artistic triumph with his astoundingly perfect shadow pantomime, L’Epopée, at the little “Chat Noir” Theatre. Caran d’Ache had spared no trouble to make his silhouettes and the effects in which they were set as perfect as possible. No greater pains could have been taken preliminary to the painting of a series of Salon pictures; and he reaped fame as his reward.
“L’Epopée” dealt with Napoleon’s succession of military triumphs. Opportunity was thus early given to M. Poiré to display his astonishing knowledge of the horse in all its varied attitudes.
The horse he delights and excels in is a magnificent, proud, high-mettled beast, whom he puts at some breakneck charge, or causes to career about in high-strung excitement. Caran d’Ache’s army horses are not surpassed even by those of such acknowledged masters as Meissonier and Détaille. The Studio published some splendid equine studies of his a year or so ago, which must have been a revelation to those who had previously looked on Caran d’Ache as a comic artist and nothing more.
His drawings have been produced in innumerable papers, magazines, and books, and are for ever being re-reproduced abroad. Collections of his caricatures have been published as “L’Album Caran-d’-Ache,” “Bric-a-Brac,” “Le Carnet de Cheques,” “La Comédie du Jour,” “Les Courses dans l’Antiquité,” “Fantaisies,” “Galérie Comique,” “Les Peintres chez-eux,” apart from his illustrations to “C’est à prendre ou à laisser,” “Prince Kozakokoff,” “Malbrough,” &c. More recently “L’Album” published a selection of his works, including some drawings done in a bolder style than that which he generally produces for reproduction,—such are the Battery of Dreadnoughts, bold and grim, and the splendid Charge. In the drawing of himself there is a good specimen of those caricature portraits for which he is so renowned.