The Illustrators of MontmartreEmanuel, Frank L. (Frank Lewis)
General
The Illustrators of Montmartre
Emanuel, Frank L. (Frank Lewis)
Illustrators -- France -- Biography; Montmartre (Paris, France) -- Biography
Other illustrations by Léandre appear in _Le Grand Guignol_, and in the
comic paper _La Vie en Rose_. To a little collection of caricatures
of (then) reigning sovereigns, entitled “Le Musée des Souverains,”
Léandre contributed some remarkably clever work. President Faure, Queen
Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, the King of the Belgians and King
Menelik, all come in for a more or less trying pictorial analysis by
Léandre. The drawing of Menelik is a most wonderful piece of work, but
unfortunately intended to be humiliating to Italy; and here we may
mention that Léandre has always been attracted by general political
cartooning, as well as his more frequent local cartoon work, but
however much his estimate of the nations, as seen from the Gallic point
of view, may tickle outsiders, we feel he is a good Frenchman, and the
artistic quality of his work never fails. His double-page drawing in
_Le Rire_ of the “Senators going to War against the Chamber” is crowded
with caricature portraits of politicians hurrying out to do vigorous
battle, each showing by the introduction of some subtle little device
his own marked peculiarity or fad.
[Illustration: LÉANDRE
(_By himself_)]
Léandre has frequently introduced a self-portrait into his sketches,
and he is evidently as critical of himself as of others. He always
shows us a serio-comic little man with chubby cheeks, bulging,
spectacled eyes, and a big inquisitive nose dominating a small
turned-up moustache and starveling beard. Some of his own military
service adventures he has depicted for us in mock heroic style in “Les
Treize Jours de Léandre.” Among notable caricature portraits is that
of Drumont, the arch Jew-baiter. In a coloured drawing entitled “The
Ogre’s Repast,” we see this noisome person with a chain of Semite
“portions” round his neck poising a gory Jewish head on his fork
previous to making a meal of it. In fine irony a cross hangs on his
breast.
His drawings of concerts and musical conductors throb and thrill with
sound, the very paper on which they are printed seems to vibrate with
the volume of it.
The Comédie Française supplied him with subjects for a splendid set
of caricatures; and the rustic inhabitants of his native village of
Champsecret form the foundation of yet another delightful series
entitled “Ma Normandie.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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