Vincent and Daumier

Vincent van Gogh was a generous man. He admired a lot of artists, all kind of artists (Meissonier, “le pompier” was, surprisingly for us, today, one of his preferred artists…) and was very generous with his praises for younger artists like Émile Bernard. But there are some names which are mentionned over and over in his letters. Honoré Daumier is one of them. Délacroix is another. Le vieux Millet another yet…

He was an unconditional admirer of  those and he did, especially in his last years, copies, “interpretations” of paintings by Daumier and Millet, especially. Of course, if the design is clearly Daumier or Millet, the color and the brush technique was very much “Vincent”.

Here are two samples, one after Daumier, one after Millet:

The Drunkard after Daumier

The Sheppardess after Millet

I think that if we are to count, the “interpretation” after Millet (Vincent affectionately called him “père Millet” ) are more numerous than those after Daumier. But Vincent greatly admired Daumier, always advising Théo to buy more reproductions and original litographs and expressing a everlasting admiration for the equivalent of Balzac in art: Daumier.

Curiously enough, Balzac, Daumier and Délacroix’s destinies were to touch in more than one occasion. Balzac, for instance, was the Editor  of the magazine Daumier was the illustrator, “La Caricature”, and it was Balzac who, first, detected the genius of Daumier, saying :“Ce gaillard a du Michel – Ange sous la peau” (“This young fellow has Michelangelo under the skin”).

As for Délacroix, he is known to humbly express his unlimited admiration, saying in one occasion to Daumier : “There are very few people I value and admire more than you”…

Finally, Baudelaire, a fine art critic besides being a genius poet, wrote in his 1845 Salons : “We do not know but two artist who draw as good as M. Délacroix: one is M. Ingres, the other is M. Daumier, the caricaturist. Daumier is maybe even a better draftsman if we prefer the healthy, normal qualities to those more weird and more amazing…”

Vincent heartedly admired them both: the healthy and “normal” (but how vigorous and truthfull!) Daumier, “a witness of his time” and Délacroix, the romantic genius. He had a big, comprehensive heart, Vincent and pettiness and meanness weren’t his thing…

Great draftsmen: Hokusai, Daumier, van Gogh,

Being capable of making great drawings is a gift. A gift which was given to some. Not many. I do not talk here about the ability to copy photos or gypsum statues with the utmost accuracy and likeliness. The mimicking capacity or the manual versatility to draw photo-like drawings is a gift too, maybe the basis, important, but not complete, not essential, of being a great draftsman.

I choose arbitrarily 3 great draftsmen, from different time and places, to illustrate this point.   The first two, Hokusai and Daumier have greatly influenced the third, the most (post-mortem) famous of the three: Vincent van Gogh.
What can have in common Hokusai, Daumier and van Gogh?
One important thing is that all three of them have in common is they were drawing very fast, and this is evident in their drawings. Some samples:

Hokusai manga: the samurai and the moon

Another thing they have in common is the vigor of their drawings: strong contrast, no hesitation, no tentative lines. They do it with total focus and, probably, if we could assisted, we would saw a kind of absentminded bliss. Yes, I said BLISS. Fortunately, this kind of bliss, this kind of total focus in the drawing work is not the prerogative of Daumier, Hokusai, van Gogh. ANYONE who like drawing remarked probably this. You draw and the time passed unnoticed, your money (or other) troubles disappear (for a while) and yes, you are happy.

No wonder they use it in Art Therapy. No wonder draftsmen (and draftswomen, of course) are, in general, happy, curious, open-minded people. They can be a bit mysantropical, like another great draftsman, Edgar Degas. But he WAS, at least, curious and, from time to time, happy.

Gauguin (not a bad draftsman himself) had a bassorelief  carved in precious woodwith the words: “Be In Love and You’ll Be Happy!”

Be in Love and You'll Be Happy!

I would paraphrase him and change it to:

“Draw and You’ll be Happy!”

 

Some cruelty, again…

The sketch and the drawing I post here are, a bit, on the side of cruelty… or, if you want, on the side of caricature… Daumier did it, a lot of others also. Even Van Gogh, not a very joyous fellow (and not especially cruel either) did that in some portraits of his, which look like caricature (I remeber some girls portrait, from his last, Auvers-sur-Oise, period, for instance…) I think that, as a true to life artist, this “cruelty” is inevitable. And interesting portraits aren’t those of corny beauty, of Disneyland cartoon or Hollywood starlet… A handicaped or a fat punk teenager could be a lot more intense… Even Jean-Dominique Ingres, the “father” of academism and a inconditional of Raphael and of the perfect beauty said once, adressing his students: “In everything we look at, we must search for the caricature. The painter has to be a physionomist, go for caricature.”

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Le croquis et le dessin que je poste ici sont un peu cruels… si vous voulez, des caricatures… Daumier a fait ca et ce n’est pas le seul. Même Van Gogh, qui n’était pas très joyeux (et la cruauté lui manquit plutôt) a fait des portraits qui ressemblent beaucoup à la caricature (par exemple, un portrait des deux filletes, de sa dernière période d’Auvers – sur – Oise…) Je crois que cette ‘cruauté’ est inevitable si on est un artiste fidèle à la vie. Et un portrait intéressant n’est pas, la plupart du temps, le portrait d’une beauté genre starlette d’Hollywood ou Disneyland… Un handicapé ou une grosse adolescente punk peuvent être tellement plus expressives… Même Jean-Dominique Ingres, le ‘père’ de l’academisme et l’admirateur inconditionnel de Raphael et de la beauté parfaite l’a dit une fois, en s’adressant à ses élèves: ‘ Dans tout ce que nous voyons, il y a une caricature qu’il faut saisir. Le peintre doit être physionomiste, chercher la caricature.’

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Schitza si desenul pe care le postez aici sunt, un pic, crude… sau, daca vretzi, caricaturale… Dar Daumier a facut-o si el si nu e singurul… Chiar Van Gogh, care in general nu era inclinat spre a fi sarcastic (iar cruzimea îi lipsea aproape cu totul…) a facut portrete care seamana foarte mult cu caricaturile (de ex, îmi amintesc portretul, atroce, a doua fetitze, datând din ultima lui perioada, de la Auvers-sur-Oise…) Opinia mea e ca aceasta cruzime este inevitabila daca esti un artist ce se inspira din viatza reala… Chiar ‘parintele’ insusi al academismului, admiratorul inconditzionat a lui Raphael si a frumusetzii perfecte, o spunea, adresandu-se elevilor lui: ‘ In tot ce vedem, trebuie sa incercam sa sesizam caricatura. Pictorul trebuie sa fie fizionomist si sa caute caricatura.’

Copyright for the drawings and text Dan Iordache, 2008.