Zorn. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife
Size of the original etching, 12½ × 8⅜ inches
Zorn. The Waltz
Size of the original etching, 13¼ × 9 inches
He calls etching his diversion, which accounts for the uniformly high quality of this side of his art. Done for the sheer love of it, as other men would ride horseback or play golf, these plates are the product of a joyousness that is the mother of all great art. It is typical of him that he should have taken up the practice of this exacting though elusive art merely as an amusement, as he himself says, “with which to while away odd hours, instead of sitting at home or going about for entertainment.” This is characteristic of his whole life and harks back to the genesis of his artistic career when, as a mere lad, he carved in birch-wood with his clasp-knife images of the flocks he tended in the Dalecarlian forests. Even in those early days this son of humble peasant folk revealed a power of lifelike characterization that did not pass unnoticed by these shrewd, clear-eyed peasantry whose sole criterion in matters of art was whether or not the counterfeit presentment looked like the original. And in these small carved images of cows and sheep they found a striking resemblance to their models that aroused their keenest admiration. His first patron was one of these peasant folk, a shepherd friend of his, who bought from him a carved statuette of an enraged cow for which Zorn received in payment a sou and a little white loaf. To make his sculpture more lifelike he used to imitate antique statuary by tinting his work. His palette was the palm of his hand, in which he mixed a composite of bilberry juice and certain coloring substances obtained from little forest flowers.
That was the beginning of a sturdy naturalism that no subsequent academic training has been able to nullify. Even in these first tentative attempts at personal expression he revealed the essential qualities of his genius,—his very powerful color sense and his acute observation of natural phenomena. His work betrays an almost savage delight in the truth of nature, and if to be truthful is to be cruel, then Zorn is often cruel. He employs no gentle gloss, and, whether it be friend or casual sitter, each is treated with unblushing frankness. A full-blooded art, somewhat primitive and exulting in its crude strength, it gives one a pulsating sense of reality. His work has the natural daring of one who is on familiar terms with all the secrets of his art. Conveying an appearance of brilliant, almost reckless improvisation, it is none the less the result of astute and penetrating observation that has in each case recorded the face of actuality as well as its deeper and abiding spirit.
Strongly opposed to all the conventionalities of the studio, he abhors posing as much as he dislikes monogamy, preferring to study his subjects under natural conditions when they are off their guard and then to transcribe his impressions very largely from memory, after the essential lines have been noted. Thus have come into being some of his most memorable plates, such as the Renan, and the portrait of himself and his wife, each executed in a few hours of concentrated effort. The very swiftness with which these impressions have been recorded has no doubt contributed much toward giving them that convincing finality which, paradoxically enough, are theirs in a preëminent degree no matter how casual may appear the means by which this effect has been achieved. That is the impression left upon one by his illuminating portrait of the pontifical-looking Renan, for example.
Zorn. Madame Simon