Page:Catalogue of an exhibition of water-colour drawings and other original works by Edmund Dulac.pdf/6

 EDMUND DULAC

AN APPRECIATION

F Edmund Dulac had had any voice in the matter he would have chosen some dream city of the Orient for his birthplace, a Persian princess for his mother and an artist of the Ming Dynasty for his father. These would have bestowed upon him racial instincts for the arts he loves best, and Dulac is always trying to convince himself and his friends that, although he is a naturalized Englishman, born in Toulouse, he is actually descended from those mysterious Saracens who overran the ancient centre of Languedoc, several centuries ago. Perhaps his theory is correct. It offers, at any rate, a simple explanation for the fact, that besides being English and French, his art is of Persia, India or China as the occasion demands, as well as for the cleverness with which he can seriously impersonate an oriental gentleman, and for the uncanny way in which his pet chow and Siamese cat understand him.

Dulac does not recall a time when he did not paint, and although he began, like the

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