Rivière and shadow theatre
Rivière’s prints are closely related to the theatrical performances he and other artists staged at the nightclub Le Chat Noir. Fairy-tale worlds were evoked in this shadow theatre using zinc figures that moved behind a sheet lit by a lamp. It inspired Rivière in several ways, including the use of silhouettes in his prints.
36 views of the Eiffel Tower
The print album Les trente-six vues de la Tour Eiffel is one of the highpoints of Rivière’s art. The series of 36 prints shows the recently constructed Eiffel Tower from different viewpoints, inspired by the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by the Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai. Rather than woodcuts in the Japanese style, however, he turned to modern colour lithography, which meant the album could be published in a large edition.
Henri Rivière, The funeral with umbrellas, 1891
Henri Rivière, The Painter on the Eiffel Tower (Le peintre dans la Tour), 1902
Further reading
- Valérie Sueur-Hermel, Henri Rivière. Entre impressionnisme et japonisme, Paris 2009
- Armond Fields, Henri Riviere, Salt Lake City 1983
- Henri Rivière, Les Détours du Chemin. Souvenirs. Notes & Croquis 1864-1951, Saint-Rémy-d-Provence 2004