Engraving

[Latour] has a light all his own. The light is that of the paper, whereas his material is the wood, along with the tools with which he defines his forms. At times by expanses of flatness, at times by accents and at times by more-or-less spaced incisions — made to undulate like the optical effect of shot silk — he builds and shapes his universe. More than just an alluring artifice, for him colour is a tactile force. Black and grey appear not as values of shadow but as tonal instruments.

And so, a world at once solid and transparent, imaginary and concrete appears before our eyes. The plates that Latour has given us possess the double character of all precious works: on the one hand, painstakingly elaborated and born of a kind of secret and, on the other, a dreamlike facility, the airy quality of beautiful poetry. They present us with a new dimension of this lovely art.

Henri Focillon
Arts et métiers graphiques, nº 29, 1932

Illustration for Henri Focillon’s L’île oubliée (The Forgotten Island)

1920
Wood engraving
11 x 9 cm

Landscape

1913
Wood engraving
13.5 x 18.5 cm

Forest

1913
Wood engraving
13 x 18 cm

Caulking in Granville

1913
Wood engraving
16 x 21 cm

Seascape

1920
Wood engraving
13 x 18 cm

The Sea

circa 1920
Wood engraving
12.5 x 18.5 cm