Size of the original etching, 12½ × 10½ inches
But besides these many realistic studies of bird life there are just about as many of purely decorative interest, showing strong Japanese influence, and mostly executed for ceramic decoration. There are also decorative combinations of Reeds and Teal, Swallows flying in graceful curves and swirls, Lapwing and Teal swimming and flying. Here again we have an entirely different point of view. The loving study of nature, sometimes expressed in an uncompromising hardness in the reproduction of form or detail, or elsewhere in an almost playful lightness of touch in obedience to a passing mood, appears here with quite different results. Seemingly endless changes on the same theme of swirling, undulating curves of flying, running, strutting, swimming bodies of birds and fishes delight the eye with the rhythmic flow of ever recurrent accent on the pure beauty of line.
And at the end, when you have gone through the many portfolios of Bracquemond’s work, there occurs to you his own statement quoted by Clement Janin. It is to the effect that a work of graphic art must bear on its face, undisguised, the characteristics of the technique by which it was produced. A lithograph must be a lithograph; a wood-engraving a wood-engraving and not the imitation of an engraving on copper or of a photograph. A review of the arts of reproduction proves that this is not the truism it may seem. It is a basic principle in all art, and will bear earnest and repeated emphasis. And the notable recognition of this fact by Bracquemond is a prime factor in his success in the art that has meant so much to him.
AUGUSTE LEPÈRE
By ELISABETH LUTHER CARY
Art Editor of the New York Times
IT is the fashion of the moment to specialize in art as in other professions, and we no longer expect to find the multiple tendencies and ambitions of a Leonardo or a Dürer, or even of the self-contained Rembrandt, in the modern artist. He is a painter or a sculptor or a wood-engraver or an etcher. He is even more closely classified as a portrait- or a landscape-painter, an animalier or a decorator, a dry-point engraver or a disciple of pure etching. If, as sometimes happens, he escapes from the threads of the Lilliputians and swings his arms in a wider sweep, it is in the mood of deprecation or excuse, as a writer may choose to whittle wood or hammer metal in order to clear his word-fogged brain.
There is, however, a wholesome and growing impression among thoughtful observers that extreme limitation and restriction produce weakness rather than strength, and when we find an artist who has something of the ancient flexibility of mind and hand it is worth our while to acclaim him.
Lepère. Rheims Cathedral