The Illustrators of Montmartre/Chapter 8
VIII
J. WÉLY
WÉLY is one of the more recent stars in the firmament of Parisian illustrators, nevertheless he shines with a peculiar brilliance of his own.
His drawing of the female form divine, more or less disclosed in dainty decollété, is well nigh unsurpassed. The excellence of the draughtsmanship, which is so generally attained in the Paris Schools of Art, is very frequently nat traceable in work produced later in the artist's career. This, however, is not the case with Wély; the sureness of drawing required in the schools remains, plus a large quantity of vim and esprit. The adjective which best labels his work is charming; and here it may be well to state that the more emancipated any one Is the greater the number of Wély's drawings he is able to admit to his collection, to charm again and again. For Wély is the artist of adventures — the adventures of the bedroom. He is a humorist, and not a caricaturist. He has too much love of human beauty to caricature the human face and figure, and it is possible that for the same reason he never produces a coarse drawing; however risky the situation he depicts, that which attracts and interests one is the beauty of his drawing, and the technical dexterity of his handling.
It is possible that admiration for the work of Jules Chéret, the master poster-maker, has had something to do with the formation of his style. His work, like that of most of the later illustrators, is done with chalk or charcoal, very little pen-work being produced, The perfection to which the photo-reproduction of drawings now attains has been chiefly responsible for this, together with the praiseworthy attempt of the modern men to vie with the magnificent series of drawings on stone, done half a century ago, by Gavarni, Daumier, De Beaumont, Cham, and other splendid draughtsmen: The revival of their method of treating drawings with a broad point seems for the time to have more than half submerged the exquisite pen-and-ink work, such as was contributed to the illustrated papers some twenty years ago by Lunel, Courboin, Jeanniot, Vogel, José Roy, Vierge, Luigi Loir, Moulignié, Gorguet, Robida, G. Stein, Galice, Myrbach, G. Scott, F. Fau and others, But the situation is saved by the fact that Guillaume, Caran-d'Ache, Job, Morin, and a few other leading illustrators are still faithful to pen and ink. In any case it is certain that of those who use crayon, charcoal, or lithographic chalk, none produce work which is so subtle and yet so facile and so sure as Wély. He is a light-hearted Steinlen of my lady's dressing-room; or an emboldened Helleu.
The relations between artist and artist's model frequently attract Wély's pencil, while other outside subjects seem to tempt him much less frequently. The hard-working, penniless, happy-go-lucky artist rapins he draws arc a delightful crew, most excellently put upon paper.
A specimen of his humour is indicated in the words accompanying onc of his rare pen and ink drawings, which appeared in Cocorico, A chic little lady is seated in a shop, while a female attendant unrolls pile after pile of material in the hope of supplying her wants. The lady says: "Why certainly, show me some more: I'm not a bit tired,"
A beautiful little drawing, of two dainty Parisiennes gossiping on a pier, discloses the method he has employed to produce a telling piece of work. The outline has been rapidly sketched in with a few bold, subtly curving lines from a pen, while modelling and colour have been given to the whole with deft crayon touches. We feel the joy the artist must have evinced in regulating the pressure he put on the crayon, so as to give each line its exact breadth, and depth of tone. The pleasure he takes in manipulating his medium is always manifest in his work, "The complete modelling of a dainty neck and shoulders, or of a shapely ankle, is frequently accomplished by the merest touch of the chalk — but a touch in exactly the right place, and of exactly the right size.
Wély has contributed te the pages of the Frou Frou, and very frequently to La Vie en Rose. His small illustrations to "Aristophane à Paris," and to "La Maitresse du Prince Jean," which first appeared in the latter journal, are full of ability, humour and vivacity, A drawing entitled Quelques Predictions pour 1902, shows us a delightful little coquette in déshabillé, who is consulting the cards with an old woman fortune-teller, the while a tiny kitten plays with a ball of worsted. "They are so life-like and so subtly depicted that we almost expect to see them move on the paper. Passe temps du jeune Age, is one of the most astoundingly able and beautiful studies of the nude that one can recall by any artist, and also appears in La Vie en Rose.
The type of man usually introduced into our artist's drawings is not conspicuous for its beauty; it generally depicts a bit of a scamp, a don viveur, who is used artistically as a foil to some fresh and dainty young person of the opposite sex.
Several pages in colour, which appeared in the Vie en Rose, evinced a charmingly refined sense in that direction; while some illustrated covers for Le Rabelais, each most successfully dealing with an entirely different and difficult colour problem were among the most striking examples of that branch of art yet produced.
