Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/18

204 technical difficulty had been so competently conquered that the famous colored prints of England seemed antiquated and the effects which the Japanese reached by a different method had been equaled. But that surprise is now giving way to admiration for the qualities of the man who inspires the workman. Sentiment is the largest ingredient of true art, as it is of life; and the sentiment of De Monvel in "Joan of Arc'" and "Xavière" reaches its highest purity. In this last he addresses himself to an older audience. In "Joan of Arc" he meets the interests of the childish reader, but he expresses himself as genuinely in each book. They seem ideal and beautiful dreams, forceful in drawing, with a psychology which makes every face individual in a more complete, but no less simple, sense than the faces in his lighter works are real. Noticing that an artist is making funny children or grotesque animals, we are inclined to take him lightly, as if we measured genius by solemnity or by acres of paint; but if we turn back to the more amusing books, after being excited by "Xavière" and "Joan of Arc," we see them with a new eye. It is the same artist looking into the hearts of many things and recording with a sure hand.

M. de Monvel is now making frescos for the church which is building at Domremy, the birthplace of the Maid whose story he is to tell again; but his studio is full of portraits of children and of sketches for illustrations. One series, just finished, dealing with the little peasants of the country, is to be followed by the street boys of Paris. There is little danger that with his eagerness of mind De Monvel runs any risk of working one vein to death; neither will he abandon for his larger work the line in which he has been a pioneer. His future activities promise to be as full of variety and development as his past, and it is hoped that he may devote more and more of his time to what, in the mind of the best judges, is his greatest field. The painting of portraits is probably the highest as well as the lowest and most common achievement of art. There have been many great portrait painters; but outside of Velasquez and a very few great masters, it is hard to think of any truly good portraits of children. An increasing demand for De Monvel's portraits of children has been the natural result of the popularity of his illustrated books. Of course, he had always been making portraits in his illustrations; he has told himself how hard it is to make each little figure in a group a separate person; and all these constant efforts of many years made the step to portrait painting an easy one. His portraits have been as successful as his own fanciful children. Not only has he been able to give the appearance of his sitter with the certainty and vividness which was to be expected of him, but he has proved his high artistic judgment in the way which all accessories are subordinated and yet used to strengthen the central effect. Just as in the picture from "Xavière" on page 202, full as it is of objects, table, chairs, window, all conspicuously placed, we see, nevertheless, only the faces, the attitudes, the light, all giving the spirit, the sentiment, the significance of the scene; so in his portraits, backgrounds and the arrangement of accessories show exquisite tact, and while serving their purpose of putting the face and figure into relief, add, one might say, some side explanations to the type. It is marvelous how all parts of the canvas belong to the portrait; how typical accessories and background are so subtly and intelligently handled that one does not realize they are there at all.