ART CHRONICLE
87
the world?" He unwrapped a reproduction he had just purchased in
the Louvre of Fouquet's portrait of Charles VII.
"His work was very uneven, but his successful canvases are sublime.
For those who like painting rich in thick, luminous impasto, Soutine is
the greatest modern master. You can eat his pictures by the spoonful.
They are not all completely realized, but in spots he has the strength
one finds in Rembrandt, the life one finds in Rubens. He breathed into
his pigment; his work is radiant with light. He was a strange, interesting
character. His early years had been filled with hardship. His parents were
professional beggars. They beat him because he did not want to beg.
Yet a few years later Modigliani, shortly before his death, could say to
Zborowski, their dealer: 'I leave you one heritage--this man of ge–
nius.
. . . '
"As for the future of France as a center of art, I was happy to see
in the catalogue of the recent Paris
Salon de la Liberation
the wealth
of talent which has survived the Nazi occupation. And particularly to
see the names of such young men as Pignon, for example, one of my
students, and one of the most gifted and enthusiastic followers of Bon–
nard. In the catalogue list I found his address given as that of my home
and a photograph of Pignon in a recent copy of
Life
actually showed him
in my studio. Other talented younger men still little known abroad, whose
names I recognized, are Esteve, Lapicque, the son of the famous scientist
and son-in-law of Jean Perrin the physicist, Fougeron and, by much the
youngest, Laforet. Another young man of notable talent whose name is
listed ,in the Engraving section of the Salon is Adam.
"What is particularly interesting about these young men is that
they are all ardent admirers of Bonhard. It would seem today Bonnard
is finally recognized by the youth of France as the great figure of con–
temporary French painting. That is his due. He belongs to the classic
line of Renoir and Cezanne. He is the greatest living exponent of the
magic creation of light through pigment-of life and vitality through
light. The idea which pushes every artist to work is a sense of vitality
and a desire to communicate it. The music of all the arts is the same,
a communication of vitality through form. The only difference is in the
instruments. But even in painting I distinguish different modes of ex–
pression. Some paintings in their use of values come very close to colored
grisailles.
But in others, such as those of Cezanne, Matisse and Bannard
-and, again, Soutine-there is a quality which cannot be translated
into any other medium: their use of light."
Sweeney:
"But I believe you once told me that sculpture is essen–
tially 'modelling in light'?"
Lipchitz:
"Yes, but that again is something quite different. In
the painting of Bannard, for example, the flat canvas gives the impres–
sion of being soaked, drenched in light which breathes out from it. In
sculpture the way in which the volumes catch and reflect the light is
