Page:The illustrators of Montmartre.pdf/58

 

VI

LOUIS MORIN

ORIN is the Watteau of the modern illustrated press. He is, so to speak, an eighteenth-century maître galant of the twentieth century. He inherits

Watteau’s gaiety and light-hearted joy in the fetes and intrigues of the butterfly life of a time now gone by—a life half imaginary and half real. His figures tip-toe airily through an atmosphere scented with roses, ever ready for ardent love-making, for a stately minuet on the sward, or for a reckless break-neck dance over the cobble stones. Anon his figures laze in swan-like gondolas, gliding along the moonlit canals of Venice to the throbbing music of the mandoline. Moreover, all his delightful personages are instinct with life; they flirt and romp, and their boisterous gaiety is infectious; we must laugh with them for sheer joy—aye, and weep with them, now and then, for sheer sorrow.

Morin wields magic pens and pencils. His lines