| While wood engraving tempts many young painters, lithography, which flourished at the end of the nineteenth century - with Carrière, Fantin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Odilon Redon - seems a little disdained nowadays. Yet it is to misunderstand a process capable of both delicacy and power.
To be convinced of this, let us think of the heroic times of the stone engraving, the Daumier and Gavarni albums.
A beautiful continuation of Girieud, entitled Princesses of the Fable and the Bible, she announce a revival of this art? Powerful nudes blend their harmonious lines with the great rhythms of the landscape that unfolds, from board to board. One will like the will of classicism which affirms these small scenes, well composed where Girieud tames his sensuality and its lyricism, and takes again, in poet of the eternal fables (Echo, Antiope, Suzanne, Bathsheba).
I presume that Girieud, when he knows better the stone, so capricious and tender, will draw even more wealth from it, will be able to differentiate the values ??more, will arrive to the deep blacks and whites singing. But this first attempt is very happy and it allows all hopes. |