LOUIS RAEMAEKERS.*
Tins third volume reaches a higher level than the second, and in some ways excels even the first. It is not that Mr. Raemaekers
bites deeper into the live man's flesh for parchment, nor that the writing rankles more, for that would be impossible. But it is in those drawings which are not satiric, and which are inspired rather by a noble exaltation, that the artist has sur- passed all that he has hitherto given us in this particular diree- tion.—It was the great pictorial qualities of these works that made Rodin exclaim : " But these are not cartoons I T hey are projets de tableaux."—This is notably so in the drawings of the English soldiers at the end of the volume, when the theme is the sheathing of the sword. Foremost among these is the splendid drawing cf the infantryman, his rifle and bayonet hung on a tree, holding the plough. It is not only that the idea is a fine one, but that the artist's magnificent control over the resources of figure and landscape drawing enables him to construct a design which is monumental in its grandeur. The force and power of the body, well controlled by tho will, are manifested by the grip of the hand on the plough, the perfect poise of the body, the Antaeustko strength of the legs rising from the earth. A fine drawing of a more symbolical kind is the one that shows a knight in armour sheathing his sword as he returns on his horse through a peaceful landscape, which recalls the richness and harmony of the backgrounds of Titian. This suggestion is carried farther in the two figures seated with their backs to us in the middle distance. Here the artist's instinct has led him right when he draws the figures unclothed, for they are the eternal Adam and Eve for whom the earth shall bring forth its increase.
Quite different in sentiment is the drawing—" ca marehe mon vieux "—of the two French soldiers, meeting and exchanging their views. Tho two men stand balanced and contrasted with admirable art, and the expressions of the faces are drawn with complete penetration and sympathy. The artist's old power of intense and moving pathos is shown in the drawing of the Welsh prisoners, which those who have not spoken with men just released might think overdone. When we consider Mr. Raemaekers's artistio powers independently of the subjects, we cannot fail to be impressed by the drawing of German prisoners in a dug-out, in which massed light and shade is dealt with in a masterly manner. Quite different is " The Kaiser's Eastern Dream," in which a vast procession of soldiers with bands precedes the elephant bearing the Kaiser. Here we have an example of the artist's marvellous power of drawing crowds.
This work, too, is made wonderfully effective by a few touches of colour.
The greater number of the drawings are satirical, and one of the best of these shows the autumn wind scattering crowns like withered leaves. The wretched monarchs as they leave the shelter of the woods are seized by the whirlwind and struggle in a squalid group trying to clutch at their orowns.
The first and last drawings in the book are figures of British soldiers, for whom it is obvious Mr. Raemaekers has a deep sympathy. In the first the man who bore the heat and burden of the day stands war-worn outwardly, but triumphant and happy. The last picture is different. Here with infinite tenderness the artist has drawn the crucifixion of the young Englishman, bidding us always remember that this is he by whose death life was made possible for us. No words could be found more appropriate to place by the side of this moving design than those put there by the editor of the volume,
the words spoken in London by Marshal Pooh :- "Above all let us salute the glorious dead who sleep in the earth of France. Faithfully, piously, jealously, we shall guard them and keep their memory alive, because to us they are a testimony and a pledge. They fell in a foreign land—a far distant one for many of them—but they affirmed that the peoples beyond the sea came to fight side by side with us in the defence of liberty and civilization. If our sons in the genera- tions to come should ever forget this, the dead will rise to recall to them this common duty."
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