| Georges Rouault (1871-1958) is uniquely a religious artist, and by some, is considered the most important 20th century Christian artist. He is an artist who has combined genuine faith with modern sensibility: "My ambition is to be able to some day paint a Christ so moving that those who see Him will be converted. He was born on May 27, 1871 in Paris, into a Catholic home. His first job was as an apprentice in a stained glass factory, but he soon left to study painting in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His painting teacher, Gustave Moreau, had a great influence on his life. His life was changed and his sensitivity as an artist was transformed under the influence of Leon Bloy, Jacques and Raissa Maritan, leading him to an evangelical Catholicism. As a Catholic he believed the teaching of the gospel as a solution to the problems of the day. He painted the crucified Christnot as a remote event in the past or some vague traditional symbol, but as the expression of faith that is real.The 58 plates of the Miserere, fifteen of which are in this show, were created mainly in the 1920's to be published by Ambroise Vollard. Probably no artist achieved so much in printmaking as Rouault in his Miserere series. The black and white prints werecreated by Rouault using nearly every known process of etching and engraving. Through the photoengraving process he establisheshis base work on the metal plate. This base disappears almost entirely under the extensive handwork, using aquatint, roulette, drypoint line,direct biting with acid, and scraping away parts of the original photoengraved work. Thus, he technically produced one of the most significant print series of the 20th century. "In this series he brings together his whole life's meditation of the poor and oppressed of society, the victims of war, and the way in which these things become part of the passion of Christ. The series was finished in 1927, but was not published until 1948 after Rouault won a law suit against Vollard's estate to secure his rights to the Miserere. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Rouault prints are from the collection of Robert and Sandra Bowden. The photo-reproductions are courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum,Brooklyn NY. The individual commentaries and quotes are used with permission of Frank and Dorothy Getlein, from their book, Georges Rouault's Miserere. | Georges Rouault has been a spiritual drink to me as a Christian artist in the secular desert of modernity. In 1945 he wrote the following to the Museum of Modern Art, New York: "I have respected a certain internal order and laws which I hope are traditional; removed from passing fashionsand contemporaries - critics, artists or dealers - I believe I have kept my spiritual liberty." A quick glance at one of these prints might well give the impression that the work is modern and hence not traditional. But the works before you each have an "internal order" that, uponreflection, will show it to be very traditional indeed. This is Twentieth Century work, yet there is a timelessness in the art of Georges Rouault that by-passes fashion, resonating not inly inthe past but in the eternal. This is not always apparent to viewers. When the young Rouault finally found his unique pictorial voice, putting behind him a style much indebted to Rembrandt, his spiritual mentor, Leon Bloy,attacked his new work in the harshest terms: "This artist that I thought was capable of painting seraphim seems only able to imagine the most atrocious and avenging caricatures." Bloy savagednot only Rouault's art, ".. you are attracted exclusively by the ugly; you seems to be enthralled by the hideous," but through it, his faith, "..if you were a man of prayer...you would not be able to paint such terrible canvases." As painful as this must have been, Rouault did not waver from the path he had been given to follow - he kept his "spiritual liberty." Later, his quiet and clear evaluation of Bloy was that he "...followed his own sentimental impulses (in artistic matters), " but added, "you must understand...that there are things that remain a closed book to people who see very clearly in another domain." In Rouault we find a steadfastness of vision ("a vision of suffering and salvation," William A. Dyrness called it) that gives us an unblinking look at the misery and yet also, the quiet joys of life. Rouault knew that service to God must always be greater than service to art and therein he discovered a liberty that allowed him to embody our faith in an art of the highest order. This art is not necessarily easy on the eyes or the mind and heart, but it will richly reward all three if the viewer will not allow the rich "book" of Rouault's art to remain shut, as did Leon Bloy. The test of art such as this is what it reveals on the fifth look, not the first. The viewer must give it time. Edward Knippers |