The Illustrators of Montmartre/Chapter 6
VI
LOUIS MORIN
MORIN is the Watteau of the modern illustrated press. He is, so to speak, an eighteenth-century maître galant of the twentieth century. He inherits
Watteau’s gaiety and light-hearted joy in the fetes and intrigues of the butterfly life of a time now gone by—a life half imaginary and half real. His figures tip-toe airily through an atmosphere scented with roses, ever ready for ardent love-making, for a stately minuet on the sward, or for a reckless break-neck dance over the cobble stones. Anon his figures laze in swan-like gondolas, gliding along the moonlit canals of Venice to the throbbing music of the mandoline. Moreover, all his delightful personages are instinct with life; they flirt and romp, and their boisterous gaiety is infectious; we must laugh with them for sheer joy—aye, and weep with them, now and then, for sheer sorrow.
Morin wields magic pens and pencils. His lines are full of nerve and verve; they are impelled by the passionate excitement of the moment, and can be no 
mere outcome of patient plodding. If ever an artist's fingertips were the ready, unquestioning servants of a lively brain, those fingertips are Morin's; in its effervescent spirit and gaiety, the quality of his brain is essentially Gallic.
Morin was born in Paris in 1855, and was educated {education being much against his youthful will) first at Versailles, and then at one of the Paris Licées, He was trained as an architect, but left that profession in favour of sculpture, producing excellent portrait busts and such exquisite work as his "Moineau de Lesbie," &c. As an author Louis Morin has gained great distinction. His "Cabaret du Puits sans Vin," written in 1884, was crowned by the Académie Francaise, and further was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition.
In 1883 he had produced "Jeannik," a book resulting from a stay in his beloved Brittany, and illustrated with eighty-seven drawings of eighteenth century Brittany, Later he travelled in Italy, and found inspiration for his book, "Les Amours de Gilles," which he adorned with 178 spirited sketches of the beaux and belles of Old Venice, their manners and their customs. In 1886 he wrote and illustrated "Ia Légende de Robert le Diable," to charm the little ones, He has also illustrated for his juvenile admirers, "Pikebikecornegramme," and "Dansons la Capucine "; later he wrote and illustrated with ninety sketches his delightful "L'Enifant Prodigue." Then there are his works on "French Illustrators," and on "Quelques Artistes de ce Temps," as well as "Dimanches Parisiens," with twenty-five etchings by the greatest wood engraver of modern times — A. Lepére.
He has also illustrated the following books: "Vieille: Idylle" with twelve drypoints, "Le petit Chien de la Marquise," "Les Cerisettes," "Le dernier Chapître de mon Roman," "Vingt Masques," "Carnavals Parisiens" (with 178 drawings), and "Les Confidences d'une Aieule." In the early eighties Morin started drawing for La Caricature and Le Chat Noir, and later on for the Revue Illustrée, the Revue des Lettres et des Arts, Figaro Illustré, St. Nicolas, Le Canard Sauvage, La Vie en Rose, &c.
Morin was one of the leading spirits of the "Chat Noir" shadow pantomimes, and produced there in 18go his enchanting "Carnaval de Venise," in 1892 "Pierrot Pornographe," in 1894 "Le Roi débarque," and in 1896 "L'honnête Gendarme." In 1891 he produced his pantomime "Au Dahomey" at the Musée Grèvin.
A fair sized room having been acquired as an annexe to the artistic cabaret of the "Chat Noir," a white sheet was fixed at one end of it over a miniature stage, and surrounded by a quaint and elaborate gold frame. From the wings at the rear were thrown on to the sheet the shadows of marvellous little figures cut out by such artists as Morin, the great Henri Riviére, Caran-d'-Ache, Henri Somm and others, who thereby achieved great fame. All kinds of ingenious little pieces of machinery and clever combinations were invented and employed to build up the great success, which proved attractive enough to draw "all Paris" to Montmartre for some years, and to fill the pockets of proprietor Rudolph Salis, the "King of Montjoie-Montmartre," so full that towards 1897 he was enabled to purchase and retire to a noble estate in the country. From this estate, however, he was shortly to be recalled by the magnetic attraction of his beloved Montmartre.
A glance at the pages of the Revue des Quat' Saisons, which consists of four dainty parts written and illustrated by Morin, serves to give us a very good idea of his later work. Each of the quarterly parts is contained in a paper cover embellished with a different design in colour by the artist-author, which gives one a foretaste of the treat of spices contained within; for within, interspersed amongst the larger plates of a refined colouration, are numberless little masterpieces of pen draughtsmanship, incredibly gay and graceful and supple. Morin herein shows himself a superb draughtsman, his excited little figures career about the pages, their shapely forms palpitating and quivering with the "joie de vivre". The artist's quick eye has detected the slightest inflection in the body's outline, caused by some momentary and wayward impulse, and crystallises the beautiful thing for his own joy and for ours.
The intoxication of the carnival pervades the greater part of this book, whose literary contents consist of a series of chapters on such interesting matters as the "Courrier Francais Hall," "Phe Ball of the Medical Students," and the final two Quat'z'arts Balls — at which latter the Paris art students and their models used, until the heavy hand of the law fell upon them, to vie with one another in producing the most artistic and audacious groups of revellers in (and without) fancy dress ever seen. Another chapter is devoted to a "Night Fête at Venice" in the olden time, with its scenes of love and revelry, Yet another, illustrated with silhouettes such as helped to make the success of the Chat Noir Theatre, deals with the influence of that institution on latter-day Art and Poetry. "Then follows an article on "Spanish and Eastern dances," illustrated with gracefully whirling votaries of the terpsichorean art; next comes a chapter on "Modern Sculpture," decorated with irresistibly comic drawings of models posing in excruciating attitudes to satisfy the modern sculptor's supposed craving for originality.
The amount of ingenuity, facility, and anatomical sureness shown in this little set astounds one,
Most of the drawings have evidently been done with every flexible pen, capable alike of giving a line that with but slight pressure passes from great delicacy to corresponding strength.
The Vie en Rose contained many contributions from Morin; occasionally he essayed a drawing executed with the bold thick line then in vogue, but anything approaching brutality in method or subject could not but come amiss to him, and it is in such delightful fancies in this journal as the Façon de voir la vie en Rose—Le Dessinateur—that we see him at
his best. A draughtsman of elegant appearance, surrounded with bric-a-brac, is here seen in his censer-perfumed studio, reclining on an enormous rose-coloured cushion ; his cigarette is in one hand, and the crayon which is limning a female form in the other. Two adoring little models watch and guard him; while a procession of respectful art patrons stream in humbly to offer their thousand-franc notes for the sketches he is tossing off.
Other less discreet studio incidents, treated with even more delicacy of colour and draughtsmanship, are contained in the journal,
Morin stands alone in his particular style of workmanship: those who have come nearest him are the joyful and boisterous Robida, and the more reserved Henri Pille.
From all the above it is easy to gather that Louis Morin is little short of a genius; a charming and wonderful personality, endowed with one of the keenest and most versatile brains of our day.