Henri Rivière’s lithographs

Aspects de la nature: La Baie (1897). Henri Rivière (1864–1951) was a French painter and printmaker whose Thirty-six Views of the Eiffel Tower (1902) is one of my favourite picture series, a Parisian response to Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Rivière’s series is beautifully done, printed in autumnal hues, bound in boards that combine Art Nouveau design with the traditional styling of Japanese books, and with each print signed with a small red monogram. The same monogram—or a variation of it—turns up on many of his other prints, serving to remind the viewer of the artist’s debt to Japanese printmakers. Rivière’s lithographs apply the traditional Japanese arrangement of minimal outline and flat colour to French subjects, with an equivalent care taken over the choice of view and the structure of the composition. In their realistic detail and use of atmospheric effects this is a side of Rivière’s work that looks forward to the ligne claire style of European comic art. (Note:…