<emph rend="bold">The Vale Artists, III.—Lucien Pissarro.</emph>
Lucien Pissarro is the eldest son of the famous French
Impressionist, Camille Pissarro, who, though he was working
in the time of Manet, and before the advent of Degas, still
retains the exquisite skill as a colourist which has brought
him to the front rank of contemporary art. Lucien Pissarro
was the first artist in France to engrave his own work on wood,
and may, perhaps, claim to have initiated much of the
charming colour-printing now met with in France.
His work has appeared in the Dial,
from which “Solitude” is taken.
He has just completed a little book called “The Queen
of the Fishes,” founded on an old Valois legend, from which
it has been translated by Margaret Rust. This he has engraved
with his own hand, and he has printed it in colours and
gold. The production of this work, which is being published
by [John Lane](#JLA), and limited to a hundred and fifty copies,
has taken him nearly a year, and many of the pages have
received six printings. A photographic reproduction of one
of the pages of the book is given here. In the original
there are no fewer than six colours, including the border,
which is of gold. Of course, the bright-light effects obtained
cannot be reproduced.
The art education that Camille Pissarro gave his eldest
son was pecular in its simplicity. When he was but a boy,
the father took him into the fields round their home in the
heart of Normandy, and said, “Work, my son.” And so the
experience started, unfettered by the rules of Schools of
Art. “All rules are arbitrary,” said the famous old artist;
“make your own, remembering only that Art is the expression
of a man's individuality.” So it came about that, by study
in Nature's Academy, Lucien Pissarro progressed, and made
his first public appearance in the Revue Illustrée,
engraving his own illustrations for a story by Octave
Mirbeau. An example of the eagerness with which the Vale
artists watch contemporary progress is shown by the fact that,
when Pissarro came to London, in later years, [Ricketts](#CRI)
welcomed him as the engraver of that story in the Revue.
Moreover, Degas found the engravings so much to his liking
that he wrote an encouraging letter to the young artist,
offering him one of his own matchless drawings of a
dancing-girl in exchange for a set of the proofs. It goes without
saying that the offer was accepted, and the sketch hangs
in Pissarro's studio, among many unfinished studies of his own.
Very few artists engrave their own work, and the idea of printing
in colour with various blocks is entirely Pissarro's own. The
result has been completely successful, and, with very slight
touches of gold and silver, he has obtained the delicate
effect of dew on grass, or sunlight on fallen leaves. These
effects are just what is wanted to complete the charm of his
work, which, though robust and cheerful, is slight and
simple in design. This simplicity is not without charm,
reflecting, as it does, the atmosphere of the quaint old-world
Normandy villages in which the artist studied. Nay, more:
in his bold, though often arbitrary, handling of fanciful
and delicate subjects, he has something of the artistic
spontaneity which characterised [Blake](#WBL) in his lighter moods,
notably in the “Songs of Innocence.” Granted that he lacks
that intensity of purpose so evident in Blake's work, it may
be recollected, to his advantage, that he deals with
idyllic subjects.
The “Queen of the Fishes” has almost the richness of a
missal, and has the added interest to collectors of being a
“block” book, in the strictest sense of the term; while,
despite the time and labour of its accomplishment, Pissarro
has found time to publish a portfolio simultaneously with
that of Shannon, to which I have already referred. This
portfolio contains his reproduction of his father's designs,
and is of great interest so far as it combines the work
of the veteran, whose labour is near completion, with that
of the enthusiast, whose success is just commencing.
In common with his brethren of the Vale, Pissarro is an intense
lover of Japanese Art, and the happy possessor of some very
old designs by great Japanese artists. Perhaps these have
taught him his hatred of conventionality and complete disregard
of the dogmas of shcools. Yet those who are familiar with
his work, and can appreciate its simplicity and truth, can
have no possible ground for complaint in the fact that he has
elected to treat Nature as he has founder rather than seek
inspiration second-hand. Such a training as his might well have
been disastrous to an artist who acquires art as others acquire
knowledge of law or medicine; but for the man who inherits the
true instinct, freedom is the best possible aid. It saves all
the worry of learning first and discarding afterwards, and keeps
a man from falling into the rut of commonplace mediocrity, which
is surely the worst fate that can befall him. Success is
glorious; failure is pardonable, and possibly meritorious;
but mediocrity is nothing better than absolute failure decked
out in the garb of moderate success.
There is one curious fact I have so far forgotten to note.
Lucien Pissarro came to England with an introduction to
[Shannon](#CSH) and Ricketts, whose work had attracted much attention
in France and Belgium. When he arrived he discovered that the
Continent had been first in recognising the Vale and its workers.
THEOCRITUS.