IX
LOUIS MALTESTE
AMONG the workers on the French illustrated papers none produces a steadier flow of thoroughly conscientious, sound work than Louis Malteste.
His are no chance effects, no tours de force of mere eccentricity or charlatanism, but are the outcome of knowledge, hard work and assurance.
He is a splendid draughtsman, unerring and direct, a seeker and finder of individual character, who does not attempt to electrify the world with his audacity, or his at-any-cost originality; for he is content to delineate for us, in masterly fashion, specimens of humanity as they appear to the man of keen discernment.
At the time of the loathsome trials of Dreyfus, Malteste was one of several artists who specially distinguished themselves by splendid sketches of the actors concerned therein, In the writer's possession is a collection of these spirited and life-like drawings.
