Vintage 1974 Rouault “Self Portrait with Cap” Art Plate

Georges Rouault was introduced to the world of fine prints by his grandfather, an avid collector who spent many hours showing young Georges the graphic work of Manet, Courbet, and especially Dau-mier. It was perhaps from the last named that he learned to respect the quality of the black-and-white print, for in his Souvenirs Intimes he comments on Daumier's lithographs: "What a painter he is, with his rare quality of blacks and whites...."

Influenced by Vollard and later by the publisher E. Frapier, Rouault produced a substantial number of prints. Some of these were lithographs handled in a fairly conventional manner. His intaglio prints, however, about which much has been written, are difficult to classify as to method, for Rouault experimented freely and was quite secretive about his inventions. Perhaps the best term for Rouault's technique is that used by the distinguished American print authority Elizabeth Mongan, process etching.

The major intaglio prints, both in black-and-white and color, were begun by photomechanically transferring Rouault's original painting or gouache onto a metal plate. Using this image as an underpainting, Rouault worked with various etching and engraving tools until little of the original image remained.

Etching, drypoint, and mezzotint were combined to yield the effects he desired.

Between 1924 and 1927, Rouault produced for Frapier a series of graphic works generally known as the Frapier Prints. Many of these were numbered and signed by the artist, whereas the works done for Vollard, generally intended as illustrations for books, were signed in the plate.

Among Rouaul's best prints issued by Frapier were the lithographic portraits of the artist's contemporaries and distinguished friends: J.-K. Huysmans, the criticand novelist, and Gustave Moreau, the painter and teacher, who had been so fine an influence in Rouaul's life.

In this self-portrait, Rouault has produced a master print, with its strong contrasts of dark and light, minimal detail, and subtle three-dimensional quality.

Vintage 1974 black and white art plate affixed to chipboard backing for maximum ease in styling, propping, or framing.

Image: 6.75” x 9.75”

In a number of his art classes in 1892, Rouault encountered Henri Matisse, an independent thinker with whom he felt a common bond and in whom he recognized a spirit of rebellion against the Academy.

The two met again later and helped to found the Salon d'Automne in 1903, planned as an unrestricted place of exhibition, where artists of diverse philosophies and techniques could offer their works to the public and critics. As might have been expected, the academic world damned the artists and the public laughed at their pictures.

One of the few champions of the Impressionists had been Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). His writ-ings, brilliant and prophetic, were almost always in support of the artistic revolutionaries, many of whom we have discussed in this book. Rouault did a series of illustrations for the edition which Vollard planned to issue of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.

Ambroise Vollard, the most astute art dealer of his time, became an important force in Rouault's career. As the artist's sole agent, he induced Rouault to dedicate his talents to illustrating books, most of which hold their place among the finest publications of this century. Rouault made black-and-white plates for Alfred Jarry's Les Réincarnations du Père Ubu (see fig. 21), as well as plates in color for André Suards' Passion and a number of other texts. Some of the lavish works planned by Vollard, including Les Fleurs du Mal, never saw the light of day as completed books, but after Vollard's death the illustrations intended for a number of them were issued as separate prints.

The color print here reproduced was one of the seventeen illustrations for Passion, finally published in 1939 after some years of preparation. Carl O. Schniewind has contributed a learned study of "The Technique of Georges Rouaul's Prints" to James Thrall Soby's monograph published by the Museum of Modern Art. The complicated method by which the prints were made is clearly described there.

Inspired by the text of Suarés in his dramatic narration of the Passion of Christ, Rouault introduces a deep sentiment which evokes the memory of stained-glass windows and other elements of medieval religious art.