French Drawing of the XX Century [antikvár]

FRENCH DRAWING OF THE XX CENTURY IT IS DIFFICULT to analyse any one aspect of the artistic achievement of the past fifty years such as drawing, and one cannot lightly undertake such an enterprise. Our century has seen so many movements, so many new directions which have not been taken up and fully explored, that any analysis of them runs the risk of being too timid on the one hand or of claiming too much on the other. In order to avoid these dangerous pitfalls, it is better to put forward the sort of observations that come to mind, the spontaneous reflections on this scene in which, as a contemporary, one is inextricably involved. Classification will come later to help "scoliastes futurs"; and, when causes have been examined, they will have no trouble in following up the evolution of drawing, or colour, or space, or subject, of some other category of the spirit, in seeing such a category of things and listing the variations on the themes of the nude and the bottle. What then is drawing and what part does it play in the study and classification of art forms? To what need of man's has it answered ever since man existed and painted? In the space of this short study all that we can attempt is to clarify some applications of this basic question to the wealth of present-day artistic production, and this attempt will be based on the respect and admiration which it inspires. One of the salient characteristics of the business of drawing is its spontaneity. Every artist is, in effect, an eye which looks out in an inquisitive and greedy way