VIII

THE MODERN ILLUSTRATORS CONNECTED WITH IMPRESSIONISM:  RAFFAELLI,
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, FORAIN, CHERET, ETC.

Not the least important result of Impressionism has been the veritable revolution effected by it in the art of illustration.  It was only natural that its principles should have led to it.  The substitution of the beauty of character for the beauty of proportion was bound to move the artists to regard illustration in a new light; and as pictorial Impressionism was born of the same movement of ideas which created the naturalist novel and the impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and the Goncourts, and moreover as these men were united by close relations and a common defence, Edouard Manet’s modern ideas soon took up the commentary of the books dealing with modern life and the description of actual spectacles.

The Impressionists themselves have not contributed towards illustration.  Their work has consisted in raising to the style of grand painting subjects, that seemed at the best only worthy of the proportion of vignettes, in opposition to the subjects qualified as “noble” by the School.  The series of works by Manet and Degas may be considered as admirable illustrations to the novels by Zola and the Goncourts.  It is a parallel research in modern psychologic truth.  But this research has remained confined to pictures.  It may be presumed that, had they wished to do so, Manet and Degas could have admirably illustrated certain contemporary novels, and Renoir could have produced a masterpiece in commenting, say, upon Verlaine’s Fetes Galantes.  The only things that can be mentioned here are a few drawings composed by Manet for Edgar A. Poe’s The Raven and Mallarme’s L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune, in addition to a few music covers without any great interest.

But if the Impressionists themselves have neglected actively to assist the interesting school of modern illustration, a whole legion of draughtsmen have immediately been inspired by their principles.  One of their most original characteristics was the realistic representation of the scenes, the mise en cadre, and it afforded these draughtsmen an opportunity for revolutionising book illustration.  There had already been some excellent artists who occupied themselves with vignette drawings, like Tony Johannot and Celestin Nanteuil, whose pretty and smart frontispieces are to be found in the old editions of Balzac.  The genius of Honore Daumier and the high fancy of Gavarni and of Grevin had already announced a serious protest of modern sentiment against academic taste, in returning on many points to the free tradition of Eisen, of the two Moreaus and of Debucourt.  Since 1845 the draughtsman Constantin Guys, Baudelaire’s friend, gave evidence, in his most animated water-colour drawings, of a curious vision of nervous elegance and of expressive skill quite in accord with the ideas of the day.