Art: Monk's Myths

The title of the sombrest painter now alive, which is a considerable distinction, belongs by general consent to Georges Rouault. Born shortly after a shell knocked his mother out of bed during the Paris insurrection of 1871, Rouault was first apprenticed to a maker of stained glass, later became the favorite pupil of the academic painter, Gustave Moreau. Since Moreau's death in 1897, pale, clerkish Georges Rouault has lived a mystic, melancholy life. Every day he goes to the little Moreau museum, of which he is curator, near the Gare St. Lazare, often...

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