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| "The Discouraged Artist" by Henri Fantin-Latour |
"One gets a much more favourable idea of Henri Fantin-Latour's powers as a draughtsman, from his abundant output as a lithographer. There are more than 190 of these lithographs, only six or seven of which treat 'realist' subjects. His first lithographs were made in 1862, but he did not turn seriously to the medium until 1873. After this he continued to use it enthusiastically for the rest of his career.
The initial impulse to resume making prints came from the Schumann celebration which was held at Bonn in 1873. Fantin had loved Schumann's music ever since he first heard it on his first visit to England in 1861, and it occurred to him to produce a lithograph as a form of personal tribute. The result was 'To the Memory of Robert Schumann,' the first in a whole series of prints on musical themes.
His musical pantheon was extremely restricted. His two chief gods were Wagner and Berlioz, and to them he dedicated nearly half his entire lithographic output. There are also further tributes to Schumann, and others to Brahms, Weber and Rossini.
He seems to have used the medium as a means of trying out ideas which would afterwards be translated into something larger and more ambitious - in pastel or in oil. His usual practice was to draw on transfer paper. The lithograph would then be pulled in two states - the first to show the design after the process of transfer had been completed; the second after retouches had been made directly on the stone. Other artists did not fail to note the range and subtlety of the effects he was able to achieve.
(Excerpts are from "Henri Fantin-Latour" by Edward Lucie-Smith.)
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