At the Saint-Jean-de-Monts Fair 1907

Auguste-Louis Lepère made this etching called, “At the Saint-Jean-de-Monts Fair” and, like any good printmaker, he really knows how to make his marks count. The whole scene is built up from these tiny lines, kind of like how pointillist painters like Seurat made paintings out of tiny dots. It’s a slow, deliberate process, and you can feel that patience when you look at the finished work. What I love about this print is how Lepère captures the hustle and bustle of the fair with just a few simple lines. Look at the way he renders the figures, especially the group in the foreground. Each one is unique, with their own gesture and posture. The texture of their clothes, the way the light catches on the leaves of the trees, it’s all there, even though it’s just a bunch of tiny marks on paper. Lepère reminds me a bit of Whistler, in the way he uses etching to capture the fleeting moments of everyday life. But where Whistler is all about atmosphere and mood, Lepère is more interested in the nitty-gritty details. He shows us the world as it is, in all its messy, chaotic beauty.