Shop for Prints by the Artist:
Theophile Alexandre Steinlen
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There is no modern illustrator whose work has more completely won the admiration of his fellows of the brush, whatever their predilection in art, than Steinlen. Be the studio in Paris, in London, in Munich, be it even in Timbuctoo, from some discreet corner will be drawn a treasured copy or two of Gil Blas Illustré illustrated by Steinlen— forthwith to be discussed, and as surely lauded without stint.
This is not to imply that Steinlen is what is termed "a painter's painter" and nothing more; for the artist we are now considering is one of the few who are sufficiently great to have captured the warmest appreciation from the public at large, as well as from the critical ranks of his fellow workers.
The "painters' painter" is, as a rule, if nothing else, a master of technique, one whose work shows on the face of it the sheer joy evinced in the skilful manipulation of the medium employed—the exceptions to this rule being the men whose work reflects some subtle or involved workings of the brain, and whose great thoughts are felt to outweigh the shortcomings of faulty technique. They are of course styled " painters' painters " because their work appeals to artists and other highly trained critics ; and it is useless to expect any but the most sensitive among the public to appreciate them. In smoothness and "softness" consists the acme of technical perfection in the eyes of the untrained, who, as regards figure subjects, prefer something which appears to the artist to be inane and commonplace, and as regards landscape subjects, insipid prettiness is always preferred to greatness or originality of view. In either case an excess of detail is a " sine qua non," and such plébiscites as have been taken in England have almost invariably proved that the inferior painters are the most popular.
Yet, occasionally a great artist arises who will upset these canons, and compel the admiration of connoisseur and public alike ; such an one is Steinlen. Just as it may be presumed that J. F. Millet's popularity extends to all classes, so is it certain that the " Millet of the streets " will be equally widely and lastingly appreciated. The pioneer work that Millet did in interpreting the toilsome life of the French peasantry has been extended by Steinlen to the denizens—reputable and disreputable—of the nearer suburbs of Paris.
Born in Lausanne, he was trained for the church ; and we may feel sure that had he joined that profession he would have been a forcible advocate of the poor and the ill-favoured, and that his blunt honesty of diction would have dealt his congregation some rude shocks indeed. This was not to be, however, for the art in the man would out. In 1882 he journeyed to Paris; there to undergo much privation and many hardships before getting a foothold in the form of a drawing accepted by the paper Le Chat Noir which was to prove the first rung on his ladder to fame.
Rudolph Salis' artistic cabaret of the "Black Cat" was the editorial office of this paper, and at the same time a centre of all that was Bohemian and daring and go-ahead, a forcing ground of impatient talent. These first notable studies by Steinlen were of cats and of children. It was here that our artist met the authors whose work he was later to illustrate; more particularly he struck up a friendship with that fierce poet cabaretier, Aristide Bruant, whose powerful and terror-striking poems dealt with the very world that interested Steinlen to the quick, and provided him with the stimulus for many of his finest drawings. They both show us the, to us, shabby joys of the faubouriens, and their terrible struggles with one another and with Dame Fortune. Steinlen's field of labour has been in the so-called eccentric quarters of Paris—that is to say, on that soiled fringe of nondescript outlying districts of the Ville Lumière, which is separated from the city proper by the circlet of shabby-genteel exterior boulevards. Many of these suburbs were at one time peaceful, outlying villages; but they have now-been swallowed, and more or less thoroughly digested, by the metropolis.
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