Description

a rich collection of anecdotes about Degas, Cézanne, Moreau, Huysmans, Ingres and Rops.... probably in preparation for its volume of Intimate memories published in 1926.
The manuscript is written in a tight handwriting with numerous indents, strikethroughs and corrections, on an old sketchbook belonging to the artist.
4 ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY GEORGES ROUAULT The face of Christ (17 cm diameter, blue watercolour), 2 sketches of female nudes (24 x 22 cm, Indian ink, and 27 x 22 cm, blue watercolour), and a running cat (24 x 24 cm, Indian ink, truncated snout).

"Without going into the details, I'd like to pick out the essential features that struck me in these artists! I have no preconceived or materialistic theories to uphold, but I will try to be truthful. These artists can have no link between them and very diverse qualities, even opposites, apart from Cézanne, I have known them all.s[...]"
"Monsieur Degas loves Monsieur Degas too much! Luckily he can't say it with quite the same accent "drawing is the probity of art" [...] Constitious and tender in his painting, he satisfies certain critics. They say "he's a great artist"when its size suits them in front of the rare and beautiful pastels. […] Degas used to say to me "We'll have to become slaves again. " "You call Degas a grumpy, intransigent loner, an enemy of sans-culottism in art, an old-timer  grognard for Ingres and David. We won't contradict you! And yet?" "Of a newly elected member of the Institut, a solitary painter, he will say This hermit knows what time the trains are! Da painter who followed the researchers a little too closely "At last we're flying with our own wings!

"To note in different artists that I have known what strikes me essentially, without seeking either to excuse them or to explain them, their ideal seems to be too haughty a tone. We make a mute art, said the old Poussin, in fact, we express ourselves with shapes and colours." "For Gustave Moreau, when I speak of him I have not used any notes left by G. Moreau, we know his intentions and final wishes, the artist must disappear entirely behind his work. Knowing moreover his desire that no letter from him be published nor his portrait reproduced, I have essentially used private notes taken during his lifetime by me, a precious intimacy that is too flattering for me (I would spend two and sometimes three evenings a week with him) and a memory that would perhaps enable me to bring my beloved patron back to life better within the limits of my limited means. " " Like J. K. Huysmans himself, you would say that they were both ill-mouthed, tortuous, fussy, maniacal! resistant to the art of the century! G. Moreau said to me I'm sensitive to anything new and I like researchers, but I resist". J. K. Huysmans never feels sorry for the art he despises! He never misses a crusade on behalf of the artists he defends in "Some" - it's more of a theme for him!