K*WiftMff» 1 *H —1.. 1MB — — THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^NGELfcS ■•fc" NORMAL SCHOOL 7s LOS ANGELES STATE NORMAL SCHOOL i HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES BY M. S. EMERY WITH A SPECIAL CHAPTER OX PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM By STELLA SKINNER ' //7S3 " Do you think Leonardo's wonderful power of delineation grievous to see, because so wonderful, and so hopeless of attainment ? No, it is delightful and full of hope, if your hope is the right one, of being one day able to rejoice more in what others are, than in what you are yourself, and more in the strength that is forever above you, than in that you can ever attain. , ' — John Ruskin. V THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO IZou. /eo2 Copyright, 1S9S, Bt the pkang educational company. Nortoooti IJkess J. S. dishing & Co. Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. ARTS ST/TE NO!- SCHO! CONTENTS PAGE Artists Represented vii I. The Enjoyment of Pictures 1 II. Landscapes : Riverbank with Windmill (Ruysdael) 8 Morning: Dance of Nymphs (Corot) 14 The Fighting Temeraire '(Turner) 19 III. Buildings and Street Scenes : Glimpse at Karnak (Warren) ..... 25 Madison Square (Ilassam) . . . ■ . .30 Old Street in Gray (Pennell) 33 Street in Siena (Woodbury) 36 IV. Pictures that tell a Story : Curiosity (Pasini) ....... 42 The Alarm (Detaille) 47 Othello (Becker) . 51 Domestic Interior (Pletsch) ..... 54 V. Animals: Return to the Farm (Troyon) ..... 59 Study of Cats (Lambert) ,64 Ploughing in the Nivernais (Bonheur) ... 68 The Hare and the Tortoise (Church) ... 71 VI. Portraits : Mona Lisa (Da Vinci) 74 Portrait (Titian) .... 81 Wife and Children (Rubens) ..... 85 Young Man, Musing (Rembrandt) .... 89 iii IV CONTENTS VII. Studies of Life and Character : Salome (Regnault) .... .Punch and Judy at the Convent (Blaas) The Spinner (Maas) .... Joan of Arc (Bastien-Lepage) . s* iEsop (Velasquez) .... The First Step (Millet) . VIII. Illustrations of Legend and Fancy: Circe (Burne-Jones) .... Midas and his Daughter (Gibson) . Death's Door (Blake) Electricity (Puvis de Chavannes) Thetis and the Nereids (Flaxman) . IX. Pictures with Religious Themes: Madonna of the Louvre (Botticelli) . Holy Family (Murillo) Madonna of the Burgomaster (Holbein) Madonna of the Donors (Van Dyck) Sistine Madonna (Raphael) St. Anthony of Padua (Murillo) The Pilgrims at Emmaus (Rembrandt) Jeremiah (Michelangelo) . Moses, Elijah, and Joshua (Sargent) PAGE 95 99 104 109 112 117 123 127 130 134 140 144 151 155 161 166 173 178 182 187 X. The Pages of a Magazine : Boston Public Library (Peixotto) . Landing (Castaigne) Paul Revere's Ride (Yohn) Lions (Van Muyden) Primary School in Brittany (Geoffroy) Pandora (Gibson) .... Geraniums (Turner) .... Moonlight Sky (Longfellow) . XL The Journey from Artist to Reader; Photographs ..... Half-tone Blocks .... Wood-cuts . . ., Stereotypes ..... 198 202 206 209 212 217. 220 224 231 233 238 239 CONTENTS Zinc plates Etchings Steel Engravings Wood Engravings Electrotypes Lithographs Illustrations: Cottage with Palings (Rembrandt) Moths (Clifford) Portrait of Lincoln (Oe Camp) PAfiK 239 240 I'll 211 217 2 is 241 245 249 XII. Pictures in the School-room : Preparation of walls, tinting, etc. Framing and Hanging Choice and Estimate of Pictures Portfolio Collections . Study of Masterpieces Pictures in the Study of "/■Language . Nature ^Literature . Mythology . Geography . : story Pictures and Elementary Art Study Illustrations : Shepherdess with Sheep (Millet) Landscape with Windmill (Rembrandt) The Willows (Corot) 255 257 260 260 261 205 266 269 270 272 274 277 281 283 2S5 Appendix : List of Reference Books 289 STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. "- J, ARTISTS REPRESENTED ITALIAN Botticelli (1447-1515) . Da Vinci (1452-1519) . Michelangelo (1475-1564) Titian (1477-1571 i) Raphael (1483-1520) . Pasini (Modern) . Madonna, Child, and St. John Mona Lisa Jeremiah . Portrait of Himself Sistine Madonna Curiosity . PAGE . Louvre 147 77 Sistine Chapel 183 . Berlin 83 . Dresden 169 . 43 Rembrandt (1607-1669) Ruysdael (1625-1682) Maas (1632-1693) . DUTCH Pilgrims at Emmaus Landscape with Windmill A Young Man, Musing . Cottage with Palings Landscape with Windmill The Spinner . . Louvre 179 . 283 . 91 . 241 Amsterdam 9 107 Rubens (1577-1640) Van Dyck (1599-1641) FLEMISH Wife and Children . Madonna with Donors Louvre 87 163 GERMAN Holbein (1497-1543) Becker (1S20- ) Pletsch ( ) Madonna of the Burgomaster . Dresden 157 Othello 53 Interior with Children . , . . .57 Velasquez (1599-1660) Murillo (1618-1682) SPANISH /Esop .... Madrid Museum 115 Holy Family Louvre 153 St. Anthony and the Christ Child . Berlin 175 vn vm ARTISTS REPRESENTED Corot (179(5-1875) Puvis de Chavannes (1824- Troyon (1810-1865) . Millet (1814-1875) Bonheur, R. (1828- ) Regnault (184:5-1871) . Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) Detaille (1848- ) . Lambert (1825- ) . Geoffroy ( ) FRENCH PAGE Morning Louvre 15 The Willows 285 Electricity . . Boston Public Library 135 Return to the Farm . . . Louvre (il The First Step ...... 119 Knitting Shepherdess with Sheep . . . 281 Ploughing in the Nivernais . Luxembourg 69 Salome . . . Mme. de Cassin, Paris 97 Joan of Arc, MetropoVn Museum, N.Y. City 111 The Alarm 49 Study of Cats .... Luxembourg 65 Primary School in Brittany .... 215 Van Muyden ( SWISS ) . Lions . 211 Blaas (1843- ) AUSTRIAN « Punch and Judy at the Convent 101 ENGLISH Flaxman (1755-1826) . Blake (1757-1827) Turner (1775-1851) Burue-Jones (1833-1898) Thetis and Nereids 141 Death's Door 133 The Fighting Teme'raire, Nat. Gal., London 21 Circe 125 Sargent . Castaigne Church . De Camp Gibson . Gifford . Hassam . Longfellow Peixotto Pennell . Turner . Warren Woodbury Yolm .' AMERICAN (by Birth or by Adoption) . Moses, Elijah, and Joshua . Boston Public Library Landing .... The Hare and the Tortoise Lincoln .... Pandora .... King Midas and his Daughter Moths .... Madison Square Moonlight Sky Boston Public Library . Old Street in Gray . Geraniums A Glimpse at Karnak Street in Siena Paul Revere's Ride 189 203 73 249 219 129 245 31 225 199 :;.-» 22:! 27 39 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES CHAPTER I THE ENJOYMENT OF PICTURES //72?3 THIS little book has a distinctly limited purpose. Its aim is to help those who now find pleasure in studying pictures to find still more pleasure ; to help those who care but little for pictures to see how much delight and inspiration may be theirs for the taking ; to suggest ways of studying photographs and other inex- pensive prints. No attempt is made in these pages to discuss theories of fine art, or to trace the historic development of dif- ferent schools of painting. The literature already exist- ing in regard to these subjects is extensive, and additions to it are continually being made by critics who spend their lives in art study. A brief list of some of the more desirable art books for reference and for systematic study is given in an appendix. This little volume itself is not offered as a contribution to art criticism. It does not treat at all of original paintings as seen in the world's great galleries and cathedrals, but only of such repro- ductions as are practically accessible to everybody in the form of photographs and prints of various inexpensive kinds. B 1 2 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES The pictures specially selected as texts for study have been arranged, not according to the dates of their pro- duction nor according to schools of art, but according to subject, as evident at the first glance. Photographs direct from nature are not here considered at all. The pleasure we take in them is more akin to the interest we feel in our immediate, visible surroundings than to the interest we feel (or may feel) in photographs from works of art.<(^ Through studying reproductions of artists' paintings, we come into touch not simply with the reflected images of real things such as we see in the world about us, but with the thoughts and feelings, the joys, hopes, and aspirations, of some of the great men who have looked at the world and lived in it. If we can gradually learn to look with their clearer eyes and to see the beauty which delighted their more appreciative souls, our own world becomes larger and lovelier through that experience. It is, of course, idle to suppose that one can become a competent judge of " art " simply through studying photographs and other prints. But it is not in the least necessary for most of us to become judges and critics. What is heartily to be desired is that we shall all learn a larger measure of appreciation. We should study great pictures as we study great books, not for the purpose of being able to pass learned criticisms upon them, but for the purpose of appropriating and enjoying our share of whatever they have to give us. Miss Anna Brackett, in her book entitled The Technique of Rest, gives us a bit of sage counsel on this point : — " It is never to be forgotten that it is the rest of the world and not you that holds the great share of the world's wealth, and that you must allow yourself to be acted upon by the world if you would become a sharer in the gain of all the ages to your infinite THE ENJOYMENT OF PICTURES 3 advantage. Many lose all the possible benefits to be won by travel because they have not the necessary passivity. You should go to the picture galleries and museums of sculpture to be acted upon, and not to express or try to form your own perfectly futile opinion. It makes no difference to you or to the world what you may think of any great work of art! This is not the question ; the point is how it affects you. The picture is the judge of your capacity, not you of its excellence. The world has long ago, perhaps, passed upon it, and now it is for the work to estimate you. Jf, without knowing that a certain picture is from the hand of a great master, you find yourself wonderfully at- tracted by it, and drawn to it over and over again, you may be glad that its verdict upon you is favorable." The knowledge of great pictures which can be obtained from such illustrations as are included in these pages — reproductions of reproductions — is necessarily superficial in a certain sense ; but it by no means follows that such knowledge is not worth having. In the first place, a work of art which is really great, in any immortal sense, will bear a good deal of dilution at the hands of "process" reproducers and still have tonic qualities left in it. Its pleasure-giving power may be but a small fraction of that possessed by the original work in a gallery three thousand miles away, but that measure of power which remains is well worth invoking. And, in the second place, " a little learning " is not a dangerous thing unless its possessor mistakes it or tries to pass it off for great learning. In these days, when any serious kind of labor calls for un- stinted devotion of the worker's time and strength, it is evidently impracticable for average busy people to make any thorough study of many subjects outside of the routine of their required work. One is consequently often reduced to choice between slight knowledge and none at all ; and, in the case of picture study, where a very little increase of sympathetic understanding enlarges x 4 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES so much our resources of happy imagination, there can be no question that a little is better than nothing. In fact the study of pictures probably constitutes, for those who really care for it, a resource of rest, delight, and inspiration second to none within the reach of every-day people. Nature, books, music, all have charms to make us forget weariness and worries. We learn to recall their messages in imagination. We learn to fill up the dreary expanses of a sleepless night on a railroad train with memories of beautiful places far distant in time and space, or with favorite poems, the ones that live contentedly in memory, or with passages from noble musical compositions that we have loved till they have become a part of us. Different people take to one or another of these lines of personal resource, according as their habitual enthusiasms are for nature, for literature, or for music. It seems less common for people to appro- priate great pictures to themselves in this intimate fashion, so that these can be called up before "... the inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude," yet many do possess this happy gift. One of America's greatest artists, William Morris Hunt, used to urge his studio pupils to study the best pictures over and over again: . . . " You must set yourselves ahead by studying fine things. . . . I've told you over and over again whose works to draw, — Michelangelo, Raphael, Albert Diirer, Hans Holbein, Mantegna. Get hold of something of theirs. Hang it up in your room ; trace it, copy it, draw it from memory over and over, until you own it as you own ' Casabianca ' and ' Mary had a Little Lamb.' " THE ENJOYMENT OF PICTURES 5 Most of us could not carry out this advice in detail, so far as the copying is concerned; still there is here a hint for us all. Suppose we have pored over the photo- graph of some masterpiece till we know it literally by heart and can see it complete with our eyes shut, with all its expressive masses and outlines, and all its harmonies of lights and darks, — should we not be passing rich ? And it can be done. Anybody who cares to do it can gradually accumulate a little picture gallery of this sort all in his own head, cpuite independent of circumstances, of time, and place, and money. One of the leading art critics of our own country, John C. Van Dyke, says : — " You must look at pictures studiously, earnestly, honestly. It will take years before you come to a full appreciation of art; but when at last you have it, you will be possessed of one of the purest, loftiest, and most ennobling pleasures that the civilized world can offer you." In choosing pictures for this intimate friendliness of companionship, one general rule is safe, — choose the best. Every artist who knows how to draw at all has something to give the public in the way of pleasure and profit ; but the greatest men have the most and the best to give. Anthony Hope is all very well, but Shake- speare is sure to be better. As among books, so among pictures, the best names are almost always a safe guide- board pointing the way to a Palace Beautiful whose win- dows look out towards the Delectable Mountains. £ 6 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES In the following pages author and reader study to- gether a number of pictures, looking for what is spe- cially interesting and beautiful in each one. Pictures, like people, have individual character and charm, and he gets most pleasure out of them who takes them for what they are, not criticising them for their failure to be some- thing else. No attempt is made to point out technical defects or mistakes. Teachers and students of art will doubtless see these for themselves where they exist. For the most of us it seems much more important to delight in what is inspiring and lovely than to detect small errors of workmanship. It is possible that these pages may come to the notice of picture lovers who deprecate studying drawings in detail, to whom the anal} r tic interpretation of a work of art seems a species of sacrilege and disenchantment. While it may be true that the most richly gifted or highly cultivated sensibility often takes in the beauty and the spiritual significance of a picture with uncon- scious aesthetic recognition and appreciation, it remains also true that different people have very different ways of absorbing ideas and feelings and of enjoying these. There cannot reasonably be one exclusive highway to be followed by us all. The author's experience and observation have led to the belief that many of us can best reach the point of fair appreciation and honest en- joyment of pictures through studying them in such ways as are indicated in the following chapters. It is by no means assumed that the methods here suggested will be the best for everybody, or that they will always be the best for any one reader. The author's hope is that such readers as do find these methods of study desirable may go on by themselves to apply and improve upon them, THE ENJOYMENT OF PICTURES 7 and so enter into fuller and happier possession of an in- heritance which belongs to us all. " Who sees may be wise. Who knows shall be wise. Who admires is wise." CHAPTER II LANDSCAPES A N artist is, in the first place, one who knows how to see, and, in the second place, one who has a gift for making ns see with him. Consider the sky, for instance. There are people who seldom look at it at all save to consult it on problems of personal convenience. Others take momentary pleasure in the colors and fleeting lights and shadows of the heavenly show, but think very little about it between these moments. Still others are haunted by a sense of majesty and mystery in the elemental forces playing about our little world. They ask us to stop, to look and listen with them. Ruysdael's 1 picture of the windmill by the shore of a Dutch river is full of the sense of mysterious, mighty, elemental forces in nature. Our first impression, as we look at the print, is that of vast spaces through which the wind, hushed for a moment, will soon be blowing. Those great, soft clouds, rolling up across the sky, mean coming storm. We can see them move, with slow, inevitable transformations, behind and beyond the waiting windmill. We feel as if we were very little creatures indeed, and the expanse of the heavens something marvellously great. These hushed minutes before the storm comes are minutes 1 Jakob Kuysda^l (1625-1682), one of the greatest Dutch landscape painters. 8 < a CO h5 s o 10 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES of apprehensive suspense. The broad stream has some- thing strangely mysterious about it too. It flows silently on and on, and we cannot stay its coming. It began, maybe, as a feeble little stream somewhere in another country, a long way off, but here its floods are full of quietly ominous strength, like the strength of some dumb creature whose purposes are unspoken — only guessed. Yes, we are very little people, moving tiny distances on the surface of a great, mysterious earth, with still greater and more awe-inspiring spaces all above and around. Yet we are daring and adventuresome when we have the en- couragement of each other's company and support. We fell trees and dig stones out of the earth to make homes. We even bid the silent waters and the unseen winds of heaven come help us about our little affairs, turning our mill-wheels to make us bread, and carrying us to and fro in our frail boats on our brief little errands. How do we ever dare? Was it something like this that our Dutch friend felt, three hundred years ago ? Just look at the picture again and see in how many unobtrusive ways he makes us realize the quiet but tre- mendous power that surrounds us everywhere in the forces exerted by air and water. In the first place, he devoted almost two-thirds of the whole picture space to the sky. That space and the masses of soft-rolling clouds give us a feeling of air against our faces. The huge wind- mill, with its wide-reaching arms, being the one prominent, emphatic feature of the landscape, makes the strongest impression, and that impression is one of wind just ready to blow. Notice how the oblique positions chosen for the arms of the windmill suggest motion. If the arms had been drawn exactly vertical and horizontal, + , they would LANDSCAPES 11 not have looked half so much like arms made to revolve. An upright cross is instinctively associated in our minds with stability in one position. An x, on the contrary, gives us a sense of motion either onward or rotary or both. In this case we know the motion of the arms must be very slight, if indeed they are moving at all, for we can dis- tinguish the separate ribs in the construction of the arms - something which it would of course be impossible to do if they were moving rapidly. The sails on the boats are still another reminder of expected wind ; their straight- ness now, and the perfect reflection of the nearest one in the water, show that the air is nearly still, as Ave have often felt it just before a shower. The heavy roof of the house beyond the mill is suggestive of the need of shelter from wind and storm. Evidently the wind can blow vigorously here, when its time has come. In the very foreground, the tall sedges and grasses at the water's edge, bowing this way and that, remind us once more of the masterful air to which they lend such easy submission. No wonder the picture gives us a feeling of the invisible majesty of the coming wind. Then look at the water. It occupies a large share of all the picture space which is not sky. The curving shores behind which the river hides every now and then have a good deal to do with our feeling of its unaccount- ableness. We quite lose sight of it in the distance. The last gleam of the water, as we see it in this print, is hardly more than a speck of light. It vanishes and we can trace it no farther. This is at once a charm for the eye and a challenge to the imagination. It makes us speculate as to whence the stream comes and whither it is bound. The introduction of two boats, one nearer than the other, adds to the suggestion of motion in the water or through 12 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES the water, which might have been made by the sight of one boat alone. The lapping of the waves on the fore- ground shore is significant, too, strengthening our sense of motion in the stream as a whole, and the sight of the bank below the windmill, so carefully protected by its breakwater to prevent its being worn away, makes us realize that those little waves which now look so mild have it in them, on occasions, to beat fiercely upon the grassy banks and even clutch at the old footpath along the riverside. Notice the direction of the principal lines in the pict- ure. They did not simply happen. This old master drew them with intention. He had, to start with, an ob- long space, divided into two unequal horizontal parts : the upper one (sky) much larger than the lower ; the lower space itself divided about equally between land and water. To avoid the monotony of too many long hori- zontal lines, dividing the picture into awkward stripes, he chose a standpoint from which the general lines of the shore would appear oblique to the exact horizontals and verticals. The details, too, have their artistic reason for being just as they are. The tall, dignified figure of the windmill, based on the earth but standing up high into the sky, holds the ground space and the sky space to- gether, giving a pleasant effect of unity to the landscape as a whole. In the windmill itself, the oblique lines of the roof and arms and the curved lines of the gallery rails combine with the vertical lines of the main wall to make a shape as attractive to the eye as it is significant to the imagination. Our eyes like variet}^ of line some- what as our bodily muscles like variety of exercise. The beauty of the picture as a whole is greatly in- creased by the unobtrusive repetition of each kind of LANDSCAPES 13 lines, — vertical, horizontal, oblique, curved. Without knowing at the moment just why, our eye is instinc- tively gratified by the repetition or echoing of a pleasant line somewhat as the ear is gratified by the rhythmical repetition of pleasant sounds. Here, in this picture, where the emphatic note — so to speak — is the upright windmill, we have its vertical repeated over and over, — in the masts, the nearest sail, the walls and pinnacles of the church, in the little building with the arched open- ing, in the tower at the right end of the picture, even in the posts of the breakwater. The level line of the far horizon is repeated by the hull of the large boat, the cross-beams of the breakwater, and the ridges of the waves at play in the little cove. The oblique lines of the windmill-arms answer those of the receding shore, and are echoed again, more faintly, in the roofs of the house and the church, fading into a playful trace of resemblance in the bending grasses by the water's edge. The gently rounding masses of the trees about the mill are repeated on the distant point at the bend of the river, and faintly suggested again in the rolling masses of cloud far overhead. These may seem small points, but they are actually points of great importance in making the artist's picture a thing of beauty, something to be pored over and to be admired more and more, the better we come to know it. * 14 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Very different in its general spirit and effect is Corot's 1 Morning, or, as it is sometimes called, The Dance, of the Nymphs. We have here an open space just at the edge of a forest. The sun is shining out through the morning mist, and a band of wood sprites are frisking and frolicking over the grass. Near the right side of the pict- ure one of the nymphs jokingly pulls a companion by the arm, teasing her to come join in the fun. The feeliug in this picture is one of mingling mist and sunshine, of the awakening song of birds, of delight in the simple fact of being alive. Those who know Words- worth's " Ode on Immortality " by heart are reminded at once of some of its word pictures where the irresistible charms of spring and sunshine have been set in half a dozen lines of verse. What we have here is a certain sort of impression about nature and life, rather than the exact photographic images of trees and rocks and shrub- bery and dancers. That was Corot's way of working. He loved nature with boyish enthusiasm up to the very end of a long, busy life ; he knew her ways, not merely as the scientist knows them in a cool, literal, intellectual fashion, but by heart. He once said of his own habits of work : — " After one of my excursions I invite nature to come and spend a few days with me. . . . Pencil in hand, I hear the birds singing, the trees rustling in the wind ; I see the running brooks and the streams charged with the thousand reflections of sky and earth, — nay, the very sun rises and sets in my studio ! " Hold the page off at arm's length, so as to lose sight of the small details, and see how beautifully the dark parts and the light parts of the picture blend with each other. 1 Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, one of the most famous French land- scape painters (1796-1875). O « O o a o 16 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES The soft, feathery masses of the foliage make the most delicate of transitions from the deep shade to the full sun- shine and the misty haze of the distance. The picture is pleasant to look at, even when we do not quite see what it is all about. If we bring it gradually nearer, so that the detail shows more and more plainly, trees and rocks and dancing nymphs seem gradually to take shape out of airy haze, as they did in the painter's happy fancy. There are touches in the foreground that must mean flowers abloom among the wet grasses. The slender tree beyond the dancers, stretching itself up and up as if it were just waking from sleep, has delicate young foliage as much like a shimmering veil as like separate leaves ; do we not all remember seeing just that effect sometimes in spring and wishing it could last weeks rather than change to the more robust masses of June and July? And look at those tree trunks off at the right, dappled and splashed with sunshine. Some lover of out-of-doors has said that such touches of sunshine in a landscape are like affection- ate little caresses from an unseen hand. It would perhaps be difficult to identify the trees, botanically, but who cares to collect herbarium specimens on a fairies' playground? These trees were intimate friends of Corot's — friends whom he valued more for their souls than for the cut of their clothes. What he wanted to show us about them was chiefly their vigorous, upward growth in response to sun and shower, their lovely play with the light, and their attitude of protection towards the earth below, like that of tall children who begin to take care of their mother. Even the nymphs and fauns have something of the hazy outline of the foli- age above their heads. They were meant to look so. The artist did not intend to draw them with full ana- LANDSCAPES 17 tomical detail or to bring out their features clearly as individuals. Their costume is of a nondescript sort ; the artist was not trying to show us that he knew all about classic draperies. What he did wish to do was to put into his wood scene a suggestion of the impulse to frolic and sing which comes with the dawn of a fresh country morning. This game of the nymphs means just what is meant by the song of birds, the fluttering of butterflies, or the dance of midges in the sun. Notice the lightsome, springy air that is given to the figures by arranging them in such a way that those at the right and left extremities of the group stand higher up against the sky — not against the ground. This gives the group the general shape of a garland or something swung rhythmically to and fro. Imagine all the dancers placed in one straight line, this side of the trees, and you see at once how wisely Corot carried out his fancy. This curve is like the curves we see on the surface of water where waves are lightly swinging to and fro. It suggests the very poetry of rhythmic motion : what was it that Florizel said to Perdita at the country festival? "When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that." This swinging curve, so full of airy grace, is suggested again — not too explicitly — by the forms of the trees and shrubbery around the left, lower, and right edges of the picture. See how the soft masses of the foliage in the left-hand tree are continued in a gentle curve by the shrubbery below, and how, after a little break in the lighted foreground, the grasses and bushes on the right side of the picture take up the idea of the curve, running 18 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES off at last into the thin, sunshiny branches of the extreme right-hand tree. This repetition of the curve made by the group of dancers is so unobtrusive that we hardly see it until we begin to study the picture closely, but it has a great deal to do with the effect we have been enjoying. Again, does not the opposite curve in the picture — the arch made by the trees — have a great deal to do with the charm of the whole? Notice that, while the tree trunks are nearly enough vertical to give an impression of energy and vigor, there are no absolutely straight lines in the whole picture. Everything is full of grace- ful curves and soft touches of light and shade. The very haziness of the distance has its reason in the idea of the picture as well as in a meteorological fact. We cannot see far off. We see only one sunny spot, but that seems to promise for all the rest. " The year's at the spring, And clay's at the morn ; Morning's at seven, The hillside's dew-pearled ; The lark's on the wing, The snail's on the thorn, God's in His heaven, All's right with the world." s LANDSCAPES 19 The glory of the sunset is something that many and many an artist has tried to capture and immortalize. One of the most famous picture-sunsets is that of Turner's 1 Fighting Temeraire. It takes for its text the towing of a famous warship, condemned as unseaworthy, to her last anchorage after long and eventful service. The name of the vessel means The one that dares. She was captured by the English from the French in the battle of the Nile in 1798, and used in the British navy until 1838, when she was pronounced past her usefulness. Although our print is only black and white, the im- pression received is one of gorgeous color. We feel that the sky is ablaze with sunset light, and that the waters reflect the glow of the clouds in every ripple. The im- portant little steam vessel towing the warship emphasizes by contrast with its own dark shape and belching smoke the vivid hues of the sky and the surrounding water. The distant shore, behind which the sun is about sinking, is veiled in a fiery haze through which walls and towers loom with the indistinctness of a dream. We can see how the whole surface of the broad stream is alive with rip- pling color, and yet our eyes do not rest long on the water. The two vessels draw our gaze to themselves, and, as soon as our glance reaches the group with its long reflection in the still water, we find ourselves involuntarily tracing the height of the dark smoke-stack, of the flag- pole, of the tall, slender, bare masts of the old ship, leading up once more into that wonderful sky. See how the bustling, business-like little convoy and the dignified battle ship emphasize each other's character 1 J. M. W. Turner, the English landscape painter (1775-1851). Turner painted this same subject more than once, and there are interesting dif- ferences between his versions of the same theme. 20 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES by contrast. The low, broad hull of the smaller boat is heavy and common-place ; the high set of the Timer aire in the water (she is of old-fashioned build, empty and viewed from the water-level besides) gives her the stately effect of one whose head is held uplifted with conscious pride of birth and of worth. Yet there is an element of desolation and sadness mingled with this pride. We instinctively feel that we see the end of a great career as well as the end of a day. We find ourselves almost re- senting as a cruel touch of impertinence the cloud of black smoke which the little convoy so nonchalantly puffs into the face of her queenly superior. " The old order changeth, giving place to new." The first war vessel to be propelled by steam was built almost a quarter of a century later than the capture of the Temeraire from the French. The ancient battle ship had her day — a glorious day. Now it is all over ! The effect of forward motion in the two vessels is some- thing beautiful to be enjoyed, and, if we like, something interesting to be studied. The plash of the water, churned into foam by the paddle-wheels of the forward boat, and the faint wake left behind the larger boat, give us definite testimony that both are sweeping slowly, steadily for- ward ; yet we have a sense of their forward motion almost without looking at these particular details. But how are we aware of it ? Perhaps the long, sloping lines, or rather the diagonal directions followed by the eye, help give us that impression. See how the tops of the two nearer masts of the Temeraire, the top of the flag-staff, and the upper lines of the ghostly white sails in the distance make us feel a diagonal line reaching down towards the foreground in the lower right-hand portion of the picture. The streaming cloud of smoke gives us. (s 22 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES another line, leading in the direction of the lower right corner of the picture. There is even a faint, echo-like hint of the same direction in the slanting lines of light streaming from the clouds down towards the water, far in the background beyond the white-sailed boats ; and, complementing all this, there is the buoy in the right foreground, answering, with its upward slant, all these forward-reaching lines. Consciously or unconsciously, we feel the pull of these lines towards the water-level in the foreground, and we instinctively translate it into for- ward motion in the vessels, — motion steady and confident, motion proud and reluctant, motion slow and sad, with the gorgeous sunset flooding the whole scene and lending the spectacle the mournful magnificence of a military funeral. See how the buoy and the row-boat and the white sails, all at different distances from us, help strengthen the effect of breadth in the water spaces. We involuntarily measure the horizontal distances according to the varia- tions of these details in size and distinctness, and come to realize that it is a wide expanse over which we look. The noble old vessel has a lonely journey for this, her last, with none grateful enough to do her honor as she passes to her end. The careless city seems dozing in its remote and dream-like haze, unaware of the passing of a vessel that has brought honor to the whole nation. If the men in the little row-boat give a thought to the sol- emn sight in mid stream, their interest only emphasizes the absence and neglect of the rest, as a few scattered spectators in a scantily filled audience room inevitably make it seem lonelier than if it were quite empty. There is evidently little thought among men about the fate of the worn-out vessel; in a certain sense there is a grimly LANDSCAPES 23 cynical suggestiveness about the picture's composition. Yet, when we look once more at that marvellous sky, as the artist makes us look again and again, — that sky which fills nearly three-quarters of the whole picture space, and into which all the lofty vertical lines of the vessels lead our eyes and our feelings, — as we look into that sky we realize that the essential spirit of the picture, over and above its inherent beauties of line and color and light and dark, is not cynical after all. The feeling comes to us that the painter, besides delighting our eyes, has said here in his chosen language of form and color something akin to what his great countryman once said in verse, of the ultimate measure of all earthly great- ness : — " Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. As He pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." And, again, this picture of the old ship, led away to a prosaic and humiliating end, reminds us of Holmes' " Old Ironsides," written when it was proposed to allot a like ignoble fate to the American frigate Constitution : — " Aye, tear her tattered ensign down ! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky ; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar, — The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. 24 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES "Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee ; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea ! " Oh, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave ; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave. Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale ! " CHAPTER III BUILDINGS AND STREET SCENES \ RCHITECTURE is in itself a field for endless study -*-*- by those who have the taste and the opportunity for systematic research ; but even a little glimpse into the subject, such as a magazine article may give, is always enjoyable. When we have well-drawn illustrations to look at, their interest is two-sided. We are interested in the subject for its own sake, and also in the artist's way of showing us the subject. Take, for instance, the glimpse of an ancient temple, shown on page 27. 1 If we came across such a picture in a magazine or a volume of travels, the context would naturally give us more or less information about this particular spot, but, even in the absence of all text, the picture has a great deal for us. Brief notes about the building in question are given at the end of this chapter for those who may like to refer to them later. 2 Let us, for the moment, take the picture just as it stands and ask it to speak for itself. What about the height of the building, — is it an ordinary row of columns such as might be found in a church, or something more than that ? (Compare the men's stature with the height of the columns.) Can we 1 This is from a pen-and-ink sketch by H. B. Warren, an American artist who has earned distinction and fame in illustrative work. 2 See page 40. 25 26 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES roughly estimate the diameters of the columns, by ref- erence to the same convenient measurement ? What ap- pears to be the material used ? Are the columns whole or built up in sections ? How are they ornamented ? Notice the flower-like outward curve of the capitals, where the columns take the weight of the roof above. Notice, too, the shape of the roof, arched, slanting, or flat. What do the broken wall and leaning pillar in the distance suggest as to the age of these buildings ? Does the picture give us any suggestion as to the climate and atmospheric conditions of the region ? (Notice the sharpness and intensity of the shadows where they come in contrast with the full light. See the costumes of the two sitting figures ; they are but slightly indicated, for the artist did not intend to make them conspicuous at the first glance ; but we can easily make out something of the general character of the clothing, especially that of the head.) Now let us withdraw a little from these details and look at the picture as a whole. Hold the page off at arm's length, or, better still, set the open book at a little distance and look at the illustration through a telescope- shaped tube an inch or two in diameter, made by rolling up a card or a sheet of note paper. This cuts off irrele- vant surroundings and brings out the general effect of the drawing in a delightful way. It brings out the lofty proportions of the massive columns, the deep shadow in which they are enfolded (deep and yet at the same time luminous shadow, for even the deepest darks are full of reflected light, showing us the surface of the stones), and it gives added emphasis to the glare of light beyond, where we can feel the hot sunshine beating fiercely down. And see, by the way, how exquisitely the shadow on the A GLIMPSE AT KARNAK. —Warren. 28 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ceiling is modified by lights reflected from below. The deep dusk of the ceiling in among the pillars changes almost imperceptibly as our glance travels towards the middle portion just over the open aisle, being more and more lighted up by reflections from the cylindric sides of the pillars and possibly in part from the ground. When we come to think about the artist's personal responsibility for these effects, — effects produced merely by the right sort of black marks on a scrap of white paper, — we realize that it took a clever man to do what has been done here. As we very well know, the empha- sis and repetition of vertical lines in a picture give us a feeling of loftiness and dignity. By making the dark mass of the roof also a strongly conspicuous part of the drawing as a whole, the artist inevitably attracts the eye up, up, up the tall columns, and, thus forcing us to trace their whole height, emphasizes the impression of their vastness and grandeur. We actually cannot help feeling the impression of loftiness which he wanted to give us. And note, also, how much more impressive he made his sketch by showing us two rows of columns instead of one. (Cover up either row and look at its fellow alone.) Xotice also how he secured the advantage of a V-shaped composition while avoiding its disadvantages. The geo- metric rigidity of the symmetrical V, so strongly sug- gested in the outlines of the successively shorter {i.e. more distant) columns, gives us an impression of strict formality, almost of ceremonial stateliness. It reenforces our already existing sense that this building must have been a serious affair, the scene of gravely considered and orderly proceedings. Still, our sense of the beautiful would make us object to a picture having a complete triangle of light, apex down, precisely in the middle of BUILDINGS AND STEEET SCENES 20 the composition, and the artist, knowing this even better than we do, avoided the completion of the triangle. He let its sloping" sides change their minds and go wavering off into the irregular outlines of distant ruins away in the sunshiny background. It is interesting to see how beautifully the artist suc- ceeded in making those pillars stand out perfectly, one beyond another. We have gray against gray, where two come together, yet the effect is that of perfect sepa- rateness and round solidity. If we try to trace the how of it, we find the secret is largely a matter of subtile variations in the depth of grayness ; but it takes an artist's eye and hand to see and show these variations in exactly the right way. Notice how the brilliance of the sunshine on the left- hand columns and on the ground has been produced ; it is chiefly a matter of sharp contrast between black and white instead of between a soft gray and white, as in the case of the distant ruins. Of course the sunshine outside is equally brilliant, but, as we realize when we stop to think, the free reflection of this strong light back and forth from so many strongly lighted surfaces must neces- sarily make any shadow cast there less dark in effect than it would be in among these dusky, giant columns. * 30 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Very different in its general air and effect is this bit of New York City from Hassam's brush. 1 The towering masses of the large buildings in the background take the eye at the first glance ; then we become tangled in that confused, confusing swarm of carriages and people, and our main impression is likely to be one of shifting, kaleido- scopic motion. The twinkling mixture of light and dark spaces in the carriages and costumes, and the criss-cross directions of the lines made by them as they are arranged here in the lower part of the picture, give us a surprisingly vivid feeling of the restless stir of the crowds of a city street, with their eddies and cross-currents and changing tides. The artist's choice of a standpoint from which the general trend of the streets is seen as an oblique line across the picture adds to the effect of motion, and im- mensely increases the interest of the picture as a whole. It is not easy to explain to ourselves just why this is so ; but, if we imagine the two curbstones as running ex- actly horizontal and parallel across the lower edge of the picture, we feel at once a loss in its spirit. Such a street would be much less attractive to the imaofination. But this one, sweeping by with a sort of magnificent haste, and losing itself in a hazy prospect of distant roof lines, seems to entice us on with vague, fascinating promises of interesting things yet to see. And was not the artist also wise to show us the tall masses of those " sky-scrapers " with their loftiness set 1 Chikle Hassam, one of the prominent American artists of the present clay. He has exhibited many pictures of city streets, wherein he seems to have a special gift for discovering beautiful effects of line and color. This illustration, giving a glimpse across Madison Square at the crossing of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, originally appeared in the Century Magazine and is reprinted here by courtesy of the Century Company. w M as o to J 1 E '''-'■■'&* m ^i*-' ■ 32 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES off by the soft, bower-like masses of the trees in the square, rather than by neighboring buildings of mod- erate height? For, admirable as one of these tall build- ings may be in its own way, there is always something grotesque and disagreeable about its contrast with the modest four-story structure of an earlier generation, which may unfortunately stand beside it. We are in- evitably reminded of a giant on the one hand or a dwarf on the other — possibly both ; and giants and dwarfs, set up permanently in iron and stone along one's daily path, are ugly things to look at. But buildings and. trees have no such dangerous resemblances. We instinctively and quite unconsciously measure the trees by the height of the people walking near, and think of them as tall and stately, no recent graduates from a nurseryman's grounds ; then, seeing how far above the tree-tops the walls of these two great buildings rise, we get an impression of stateliness unmixed with regretful comparisons. That huge apartment house is really a marvel of modern city architecture, and we see it here in its most poetic aspect. 1 Seen at this distance there is nothing mean or ugly about its commonplaces. Even the ventilators take an air of dignity, lifting the pile higher still into the open sky. Notice how beautiful the sky line is, thanks to the trees that help fill in the space between the buildings at the left and right sides in the background. We have a 1 The famous French critic, M. Brunetiere, is credited with a very suggestive comment on tall buildings of this sort, noting the opportunity they offer for quiet, serious thinking, even in the midst of a noisy city. Those tower-like structures certainly do seem to promise a host of de- lightful things, — remoteness from the dirt and noise of the streets, clear air, unbroken breezes, an outlook far, far around over the common earth, embracing an almost limitless space of open sky, with its changing clouds and sunshine. BUILDINGS AND STREET SCENES 33 glimpse of the intervening roofs through the foliage, and can readily see how much pleasanter the picture is now than it would have been if the artist had shown ns all the roofs in sequence, making an outline full of ugly oblong openings like jigsaw " ornament." It is not often that an artist tries to show us the beautiful side of our com- monplace, American city streets. Lacking his help, we are likely to suppose that there is no beauty in these crowded ways, and that the comment of Mrs. Carlyle's little maid, " Lor, how expensive ! " is about all there is to say regarding them. So, when a man like Mr. Hassam calls, " Wait — let me show you how to look at this crowded thoroughfare with its handful of trees at one side and its majestic towers keeping watch overhead," we are grateful enough for a chance to see with his more appreciative eyes. Though we may be surprised at finding the poetic on Broadway, we expect to find it in the little old French town where Pennell : went sketching a dozen years ago. The quaint stone houses, with their steep roofs and tower- ing chimneys, have an air of conservative self-respect which is most attractive. Their building evidently dates back to the times when artisans and artists were less separated than now — when men with taste and talent put into simple, manual labor the best that was in them- selves. Look at that corner building and see how admir- 1 Joseph Pennell, reckoned a master of pen-and-ink illustration. His work is often seen in the best magazines and in well-illustrated books. The drawing on page 35 is reprinted from P. G. Hamerton's delightful volume on The Saone, by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Roberts Bros. The town of Gray is in eastern France at the head of navigation on the river Saone. 34 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ably its wall spacing was planned. We would not have the shapes and placing of those doors and windows changed by a foot either way, the effect is so good as it is. The arched space on the street floor (is it a window with an entrance door beside it?) is a hundred times pleas- anter to look at than it would be if divided exactly in the middle. And notice that strong, graceful scroll which holds the street-lamp well out beyond the wall, where it can light both ways around the corner. Some workman put all his love for beautiful form into the shaping of that simple scroll. It was not turned out by machinery, and sold by the gross, one hundred and forty-four copies, all just alike ! The house next beyond the corner seems to be covered with some sort of plaster or stucco ; Mr. Pennell's draw- ing suggests a roughish surface, like coarse plaster. And are there blinds over the ground-floor windows ? That coquettish curve of the street around to the right is very alluring ; there is nothing like a flavor of conceal- ment to sharpen interest. In a drawing like tins we find ourselves wishing we could see just a little farther around the curve. It is with such sketches as with letter-writing, according to Sam Weller — the great art of it consists in making you wish there was more ! But see what a charming bit this is, just as it stands, with its happy combination of strong masses of dark color, soft grays in the rough, stuccoed wall and the long hori- zontal shadows in the street, and full, clear whites where the sunshine falls unbroken on the smoother walls and the pavement. The window and door spaces are just irreg- ular enough to add picturesqueness to the blending of dark and light in the print. The picture is really charm- ing to look at when we take it from this point of view, STREET IN GRAY. — Pexnell. 3(3 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES even -without any special thought of the locality or its romantic suggestions. Does not the figure of the shirt- sleeved citizen, meditating in the sun, really add a great deal to the general effect, giving, as it does, a strong, spirited accent of dark color in the part of the picture where accent would otherwise be lacking, and where the picture might in his absence seem just a little weak and faded ? As we study the spaces of distinctly dark color in the roofs and elsewhere, we gradually see, what was perhaps not evident at first glance, that there is a good deal of variation in the depth of their color. For instance, in the house just at the left of the corner building, the shadow cast upon the roof by the neighboring roof makes one triangular half of it much deeper in color than the rest. The shadows under the eaves of the corner house are much deeper than the roof above. In the picturesque, unevenly divided arch down below, the narrow portion gives us a deeper dark than the wide portion. These delicate transitions of color make for the beauty of the Avhole, somewhat as the delicate veinings and half-tints of color in a flower's petals make for the beauty of the whole flower. The glimpse in Siena, on page 39, is from a sketch by Charles Herbert Woodbury. 1 It takes us at once into story-book-land. These old buildings, shouldering each 1 One of the younger American artists who has already earned recogni- tion both here and abroad. This sketch is reproduced with his permis- sion from a portfolio of lithographed facsimiles of his pencil drawings, published by L. Prang & Co. Reproduction in "half-tone " cannot show perfectly the pencil strokes of the artist just as he made them, or reflect all their fine effects ; still we have here an approximation to the original sufficiently close to be well worth examining. iiUILDlXGS AND STREET SCENES 37 other unceremoniously like people in u crowd, and still more like people in ;i crowd — standing on tiptoe to peer over each other's shoulders, are just what we want to see in a little, old Italian city whose history runs back into the days of Augustus Caesar. Just such streets as this there should naturally be in a town with a record of "battles, sieges, fortunes" all through the Middle Ages, a town where picturesque villains hatched plots and pictu- resque heroes planned victories, while priests in gorgeous array prayed for passing souls. Besides the romance which is suggested to the imagina- tion by the balconies, the shuttered windows, the dark passageway, and the high garden walls, the very shapes of the buildings and the play of lights and shadows over roofs, walls, and foliage are a delight to the eye. Tne contrast between the streaked brick wall of the arch and the deep gloom of that passageway is beautiful to look at. The contrast between the full glare of light on the face of that tall building at the left and the warm shadows on its weather-beaten side is beautiful in itself, besides giving us a comfortable sense of the caressing sunshine. The recessed door in the garden wall, on which the sun- light falls to be reflected back from the worn panels, must have some individual color different from that of the wall ; the dark effect of the pencil there gives us the impression of color. (Can it be a dull red or green, or some such hue?) It cannot be shadow alone, its tone is so different from the shadow that marks the depth of the recess in the wall. And the irregular, twinkling masses of dark and light in the garden foliage give us a dazzling effect of mingled color and reflected sunshine, such as we have many a time sighed over in admiration by some Yankee roadside. 38 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES A sketch like this can give us a multitude of " points " about looking at nature. For one thing, look above and a little to the right of the recessed doorway in the fore- ground and see how the slightly projecting coping along the upper edge of the wall is indicated. We have merely a few slight horizontal dashes of dark, marking the shadow cast by this projecting edge on the nearly vertical surface below, — only a few streaks of shadow, absolutely not a mark besides, — but this alone tells us that the narrow space above it must project a little to cast such a shadow. Ten to one, unless we have tried to do a little pencil sketching ourselves, we never noticed the ribbon of shadow lying under such a line of stone or woodwork exposed to the sun from above. Then look farther along this same wall to the place where there is an opening into an alley ; notice that the termination of the wall this side of the alley is not marked by any hard outline, in fact, it has no outline at all. It simply stops, and beyond it we have the shadowed side of the alley. This may seem to some of us an odd fashion of drawing ; but if we look at a similar edge of wall with strong sunlight falling on it, we shall often find that we really do not see any sharply defined outline. What we do see is such an effect as the artist gives us here. A similar appearance can be studied in the edge of the wall at the farther side of the alley and in the vertical edges of the buildings in the left-hand half of the picture. Notice particularly the farther edge of the tall building just above the alleyway. In the dazzling light we see no sharp edges, but only the ending of one kind of colored space, and the beginning of another kind of colored space, beyond it. Artists differ greatly in the kind as well as the amount of suggestiveness which they put into pencil sketches like CO H w co 40 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES this. Mr. Woodbury, as we have already seen, actually shows us a good deal of color, using merely a black pencil on white paper. Look at that streak of sunshine stream- ing in from between those buildings at the right, widen- ing warm across the bulging pavement, and spreading into a broad splash on the weather-stained garden wall at the opposite side of the roadway. It is merely a scrap of perfectly white paper where the artist refrained from doing anything whatsoever. He simply arranged the surrounding spaces of shade and shadow in the best way, and contrast did the rest. Notice also, incidentally, how the proximity of this light streak and the dark interior of the arched passage intensifies both effects. The sunshine seems all the brighter and the dusk all the darker for their sharp con- trast. In a somewhat similar fashion the contrast between the strongly lighted house walls and the dark interior spaces behind the open windows adds to the effect of brilliance in this southern sunshine. The illustration by Mr. Warren on page 27 shows a portion of an ancient Egyptian temple at Karnak. Although only a part of the whole temple, this pillared hall is three hundred forty feet long and one hundred seventy feet wide ; it included one hundred sixty-four great stone columns. Those shown in the illustration are sixty feet high and thirty feet in circumfer- ence. The beginning of the building dates away back to 2700 B.C., but certain parts of it were added about 970 b.c. The historic perspective almost takes one's breath away. The flower-shaped capitals of the columns might be made a text for volumes about ancient Egypt and its people. Artists and archaeologists see in them a symbolic representation of the opening blossom of the lotus (a flower strongly resembling our common water lily) which grows in the waters of the Nile. Egypt, being practically a rainless country, has been from time immemorial dependent on the annual freshets of the Nile to overflow the river valley, wetting down the sun-baked fields and fertilizing them with layers of fresh mud. Indeed, the dependence of BUILDINGS AM) STREET SCENES 41 tlic whole country on this overflow of the river has been so absolute, and the service of the river so unfailing, that it can hardly seem strange the ancient Egyptians worshipped as a conscious, powerful personality the stream which came from nobody-knew-where and brought help every year just, in time tor the raising of magnificent harvests. The loins, blooming in the midst of the beneficent waters and associated with their blessing, came to be regarded as a symbol of increasing life, of resurrec- tion, of immortality. The patient carving of the enormous stone blocks of the temple pillars into the lotus form takes a meaning at once pathetic and sublime when we think of the millions of dead-and-gone people, so like us and yet so unlike us, who have stood in the shadows of this silent temple. CHAPTER IV PICTURES THAT TELL A STORY ~\0 we like a picture "with a story"? Very well, — here it is. Only we must supply the plot of the story for ourselves. The arched bridge over the canal and the prow of a gondola just coming in sight tell us at once that we are in Venice. The artist 1 called his picture Curiosity, and no doubt smiled to himself over the joke involved in the name ; for, if the people on the stairs are curious to see what is coming, we who are outside are devoured by curiosity to know at what they are all gazing so in- tently. There is a tantalizing quality about the picture, akin to that of Mr. Stockton's famous tale about The Lady or the Tiger. " Well, which was it ? " says the novelist quizzically, leaving the burden of his tale on our shoulders. And " What is it these Venetian folks are gazing at ? " queries the painter, giving us just a scrap of one approaching boat, and then laying aside his brushes. What can it be to interest all sorts and conditions of men and women, as apparently it does? Every soul except the chubby baby in his pretty sister's arms feels the importance of the occasion, and the different kinds of people are so cleverly sketched we feel acquainted with every one. Would that somebody of the company 1 Pasini, an Italian painter of the present generation. 42 CURIOSITY. — Pasihi. 44 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES would vouchsafe a word of explanation ! The urchin shouting and beckoning to a distant comrade does not enlighten us much, fur small boys are alike the world over : — " A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral," are all delightful pageants to them. But will not the sober, middle-aged workman near by help us out, or per- haps the handsome youth with the dark curly hair and the open shirt collar ? Is a gay wedding party coining down the canal ? Is it some procession of church digni- taries on their way to a special service at one of the old Venetian shrines ? Is it a group of those queer American tourists, armed with guidebooks and umbrellas, taking a first gondola ride and chattering their barbarous language in the unabashed manner of American citizens ? What is it? Whoever is approaching is being studied by the shrewd old fellow in the rough cap, who stands a little farther up the staircase, beside that shrinking, slatternly matron in the plaid shawl. The man has an air of having seen plenty of just such sights before, and knowing how much they are worth. Just see the air of wise reserve with which he stands there, by no means condescending to lean out over the parapet in the eager fashion of his neighbors. If we had but a chance to ask him for in- formation, we should get not only the facts in the case, but some homely, sententious comments thereon, without extra charge. The girl next beyond is absorbed, heart and soul, in the spectacle. But what about her companion with the heavy hair and downcast eyes, who lays one pretty white hand on the first girl's shoulder ? That young woman PICTURES THAT TELL A STOKY 45 has a story. Can it be a wedding procession approach- ing, and had she hoped to be in the bride's place? The saucy girl at her elbow, who deliberately turns to stare at her, may be looking, with the calm cruelty of pre- cocious childhood, to see how she takes the disappoint- ment. Or, possibly, this little side scene has nothing to do with the procession at all. There may be a quarrel between the families represented by the white-handed young person and the saucy girl, and those discreetly downcast lids may be meant only to " cut " the imperti- nent damsel. That is, unless the old priest is the cause of the serious face and the down-drooping lashes. Has she some reason for wishing that the severe father shall not see her here, and is she overdoing, just a little, her pretence that she does not know he is near ? Some dramatic intention or other is hidden behind that hand- some, heavy face of hers, we feel sure. The boy in the white shirt, just beyond the dignified priest, has probably very few intentions in life other than to have a good time as he goes along. His happy-go- lucky type we all know — and sometimes envy. Envy? No ; if we were going to envy anybody, should it not rather be the buxom girl who stands on the next higher step, one hand on her hip, with that smile of good-nat- ured, "superior" satisfaction on her round face? If it is a wedding procession drawing near, here is one girl who has no jealousy of the bride --not she! This girl knows for a certainty that her own sweetheart is hand- somer than the bridegroom of to-day, and that her own wedding gown will be even more becoming than the finery in the approaching gondola. She can well afford to patronize the procession with an approving smile. And what of the substantial citizen at the top of the 46 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES stairs, his head towering against the sky ? And what of the hooded figure at his elbow, and the crowd on the farther side of the bridge ? Have Ave been all wrong in our surmises ? Is the sight they flock to see a company of soldiers, starting for the wars ? — or a criminal being haled to prison? — or, maybe, the infant heir of an old name, borne to his christening by a gay company of sis- ters and cousins and aunts, godfathers and godmothers, all in their best clothes ? And all this time, that problematic gondola in the corner of the picture has not advanced an inch. See how gracefully the artist managed to avoid an ex- actly diagonal division of his picture space by introdu- cing that elbow in the parapet at the foot of the stairway, where the young girl stands with the baby. (By the way, how clevei; it was to put the plump, large-eyed morsel of humanity there in the foreground, with his solemn, absent-minded gaze quite away from the show, emphasizing, by the contrast with his cheerful, vague indifference, the sharply focussed interest of all the rest.) And see how the painter utilized the open space at the top of the stairway, beyond the old priest, giving us two more girls in quaint, picturesque costume, in attitudes that make so pleasant a variety from the poses of their neighbors, though they fit naturally enough into the idea of the general situation. The girl who stoops with her hand on the bucket, the lines of her body all curving the other way from the lines of the people near the parapet, makes the picture, as a whole, much pleasanter to look at. Compare the outline, Figure 2, on page 149, where the lines curving to the left balance those curving to the right. In arranging a bouquet of curving flower or foliage sprays, we naturally like to have some unobtrusive effect PICTURES THAT TELL A STORY 47 of this sort ; it gives the eye more pleasure than would be afforded if the lines curved all one way. This artist evi- dently has an eye for beauty of line in composition as well as interest in human nature and a sense of humor. He has, too, feeling- for beauty in the combination of light and dark spaces. Though these are mingled in such a way that the changes from light to dark have the effect of shifting change (almost of what we call " twin- kling" in a candle flame or a star), making us feel the stir of life in the scene, there is nothing staring or harsh in the contrasts. The spots and streaks and gleams of light color seem to lead easily and naturally towards the larger light space of the open sky at the top of the picture, and down to the strong, conspicuous light masses of the broad stone coping in the foreground, reflecting in its turn the light of the overarching heavens. During the Franco-Prussian War many clever young artists were enrolled in the armies of both nations. Detaille 1 was one of the Frenchmen who made conspicu- ous use of his talents in this connection, studying the dramatic aspects of war, and portraying these with much the same sort of spirit and dash that other men put into the writing of short stories. The charm of a picture which thus tells a story is likely to be evanescent if the picture does nothing more than tell a story, but when such a picture is well done, it is sure to be attractive in its own way. Detaille called this L'Ahrte, The Alarm. The horse- man has evidently brought serious news. The horse is 1 Jean Baptiste Edouard Detaille, a Parisian, born in 1848, well known for his military pictures. 48 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES panting and steaming from the haste of his gallop. The attitudes of the officers plainly show how important they consider the message. Notice the intentness of look on both sides — that of the man on horseback and of those on foot ; see how cleverly the artist has tilted all four heads at such angles as to direct the men's gaze at each other, though on very different levels. In one sense this is a trifle. We say, " Of course they ought to be looking at each other. " True. But let us try to draw a spirited group where people are on different levels, and we soon find it is far from being a trifling and easy matter to make our people look each other straight in the eyes. See how wet and sloppy the ground is under the new- fallen snow. The blackness of the footprints betrays that, for the overcast sun could cause no shadow effects so black. The air must be raw and chilly ; if we cpuestion the men, more than one is ready to testify on that point. Collars are turned up, shoulders shrugged together ; cold and dampness are felt in shivering combination. Nearsighted people have so many disadvantages in life, it is a pity for them to miss any of the small pleasures which might be theirs as compensation. To such readers it is suggested that they take off their glasses and walk into this picture boldly. Bring the page up near enough to see the foreground with perfect distinctness without glasses, and to cut off from view everything outside this one page. Behold ! The spectator actually seems, him- self, to be standing in this soggy snow, staring up at the man on horseback, and shivering while he stares. The village street stretches away before him, losing itself in snowy haze, and the waiting soldiers, their bodies and guns at varying angles with the ground, actually give the impression of shifting, kaleidoscopic motion in the THE ALARM. — Detaille. 50 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES restless individuals. We probably get this impression from having to adjust our eye to tirst one slant of line and then another and then another, all slightly different. This way of looking at the picture is, it is true, a good deal like playing a game. It is a method which would be equally disrespectful and disappointing if we tried to apply it to the Sistine Madonna or Sargent's Old Testament Prophets. But Detaille's style of drawing is very different : here the minute finish of all the par- ticulars (even to the chilly, huddled-up look of the far- thest soldier in the background) invites a different kind of study, and awakens a different kind of admiration. There is in this picture, besides its immediate story, a succession of striking contrasts, giving it accent, so to speak, like the vigorously marked accent of military music. Thus, we have dark figures of men against white snow ; the ancient building crumbling at the sills over against the sturdy young officers so full of life and strength ; the decisive alertness of these few responsible leaders with their distinct individuality, set off by the ready, acquiescent passiveness of the private soldiers, grouped in a mass like some huge weapon to be wielded by a will quite outside itself ; and, most suggestive of all from the " story ' point of view, we have the almost microscopically clear detail of the foreground and middle distance (the present tense of the story), contrasted with the blank uncertainty of mist and haze beyond. What is to be the fate of this little company with its alert, athletic leaders, now so full of vigor to plan and to execute ? Will the day's end find that boyish, blonde officer in the tall boots and the fur-trimmed coat still energetic and gay, equally ready for a dance or for a mad gallop across smoky fields ? Or will he have PICTURES THAT TELL A STORY 51 finished this chapter of his career, and be beginning a new one somewhere in the Next Country, where there is no more warfare with bullets and swords ? The Othello of Becker 1 is one of the pictures which tells a story with dramatic spirit and local color happily combined. We could construct quite a part of the old play for ourselves on the strength of this clever pic- torial rendering of one suggested scene. The old man and the young girl must be father and daughter. The swarthy guest with the picturesque costume is evidently watching the effect of his own exciting story. Desde- mona's frankly adoring attention cannot possibly be mis- understood, and the possibilities of parental objection and interference are all to be read in the set lips and square jaw of the senator. Iago and Cassio and Emilia have not yet come into tragic touch with the drama. What we have here is the idyllic prologue as sketched by Othello himself, in the account of his courtship given to the Duke (Act I, Scene 3). Aside from the interest of the suggested story, the picture has attractions worth noting, — color, for in- stance. We can hardly help thinking of the picture as gorgeous with color, so full it is of the indications of rich hues and textures. Brabantio's robe must be of velvet by the way in which it takes the light on its thick folds. The gleam of Desdemona's gown suggests satin. It is an interesting experiment to fill out the colors in our minds, planning combinations of hues that will be gorgeous yet not gaudy, against the background of marble walls and pillared balustrade. Othello him- 1 Carl Becker, a contemporary German painter. 52 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES self must certainly be brilliant as a tropical bird in that magnificent confection of doublet and hose, sash and hanging sleeves, dagger and chain, all contrasted with the Moorish complexion ! And, as if the artist could not give us enough color, we find still more in the seat which Othello has just quitted, in the rug upon the floor, in Desdemona's embroidered cushion, in the stiff brocaded and satin-lined curtain behind the open book, and in the gleaming glass and metal of the lamp swing- ing before a panel of the Maddnna and Child. The picture is crowded as full of color as a fruit-cake is of sweetmeats, onl} r we must paint in the actual hues with our imaginations. The soft, hazy atmosphere about the buildings on the other side of the canal suggests warmth and languor, yet there is no clear, brilliant sunshine : mark the absence of all sharply defined shadows. The sun seems to be veiled in a luminous mist, lending to the distant view an air of delicious vagueness. It is a place for a damsel of Desdemona's temperament (no scholarly Homola — she !) 'to be driven to some great emotional outburst by the monotony of elderly companionship and big, dry books. This picture is a good one to study at short range, like Detaille's soldiers, holding the page near enough to the eyes to cut off surrounding objects, so that one seems to be actually on the spot, close beside the people. See how beautifully the mottled coloring of the marble pillars is suggested. See the severe elegance of the darker-colored marble behind the father, so beautifully carved. See how Desdemona's fair hair is set off by contrast with her father's velvet robes, and how the two faces — that of the stern old man and the bloom- ,*£k> 54 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ing young woman — insist on a certain family resem- blance underlying all their detailed differences. Yes, the girl does look like her father. No wonder that, when she had once made her choice, she stood by it ; there is a vein of obstinate resolution underneath all her surface prettiness and flower-like delicacy. Ill-fated Desdemona ! We like best to think of her here in her father's house, an ignorant, lovely, lovable girl, with a heart aching full of adoration for her chosen hero, dream- ing vague, girlish dreams of a long life together, made all of valorous deeds on his part and wifely devotion on her own. When the matrons of to-day were children in the nursery, they were delighted with the drawings of a German artist named Oscar Pletsch. His style of work- ing is a little old fashioned now, but his exquisitely sym- pathetic understanding of childhood is something that never can go out of date. This simple, homely, domestic interior is what most appealed to him — an interior where mistress, maid, and babies cheerfully take life as it comes, full of common- place duties and innocent fun. Here preparations are making for dinner. The kettle is steaming on the stove. The girl at the cupboard is taking down a huge loaf of bread for the coming meal. The plump, capable house- wife, with the neatly braided hair, is absorbed for a minute in some thrifty plan about making over the children's clothes. Although she stares so intently at the stick in her hand, she is not thinking of it at all ; it is some project of housekeeping that is taking shape in her flaxen head. And meantime the children, in blissful ignorance that clothes have to be planned for at all, are PICTURES THAI' TELL A STORY 5"> absorbed in the fascinating spectacle of the fishes in the tul) and on the floor. The serious intentness of the small boy's inspection is something we have seen and smiled over many and many a time. They have so responsible an air, these wee men with tousled heads, as they watch gravely over the occupations of the carpenter and the cook and the street workman ! The roly-poly body leaning- on the edge of the tub is likely enough to slip and fall in. She has already lost one shoe in the course of the morning's travels. If now she plunges her shoulders into the tub of water, she is lucky to have a good-natured, philosophic mother to pull her out, dry her tears, change her clothes, and put her in the way of different entertainment. There is something irresistibly appealing in the third baby, the funny little figure bent over to see if the queer monster with gaping mouth will dare to bite her fat forefinger. Suppose she should accidentally touch the scaly thing — ugh! what a jump and recoil would be there. This round little maiden is not the first to find bravery easier at a generous distance from the danger. There is nothing heroic about the people this artist loved to draw, but they live in an atmosphere of such sunshiny content that the sight of them warms our hearts. Children love pictures like this for their faithful, precise portraying of things which they recognize or which sug- gest episodes easily built up in their own imaginations. And grown-up people hold them dear like the memories of their own childhood, when " The world (was) so full of a number of things " that it read like a big, hazy, marvellous picture-book from one long day to another. 56 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES In this drawing, where we can see the very strokes of the artist's pen, it is very interesting - to watch him at work, as it were, and see how he gets his effects. Notice, for one thing, how he puts space into the picture, making the farther wall of the room look as if it really were quite a distance beyond the stove and the table. It is chiefly a matter of emphasis or accent of lines. That is, the lines used in showing things in the background are dimmer and fainter. The fact that we see the outlines of the bench and the tub so much more distinctly than we see the outlines of the objects hanging on the wall between the mother's shoulder and the huge, overhanging shelf, makes us feel that the bench and the tub are near and the open wall farther off. The artist's manner of showing us the hair on his people's heads is something interesting, it is so simple and yet so effective. See how few touches give us the impression of the mother's tidy braids and coils ; even the perfectly blank spaces of white paper between the lines make us think of smooth brushed hair, reflecting the light from its glossy surface, and not of white paper. See, again, how the effect of plump roundness is given to her arms and to those of the urchin on the bench, by a few light strokes on the side where the arm is in shadow. It is a pretty touch to make the puffing cloud of steam from the kettle look transj^arent, indicating it by the fewest possible touches where it comes between us and the distant, light-colored wall, and making it, by the addi- tion of more and clearer strokes, seem to take the darker color of the chimney where it comes between us and that different surface. For there is a good deal of color in this picture, even though it is made only with streaks of black ink on white ^ -,\ X \ FISH FOU DINNEE.— Pletsch. 58 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES paper. Look at the valiant mite holding out her fore- finger to the fish. Her long " tyer " and her frock are so managed as to give the effect of a strong contrast of color, only we are left to imagine the detail of it for ourselves. Is it a red frock and a white apron, or a dark indigo-blue frock with a light pink apron, or what? There is a similar suggestion of contrasted colors in the sleeves and the bodice of the mother's gown ; we can see by the way the light and shade fall on and under the arm that the additional strokes on the bodice mean darker or deeper color in the staff itself, and not simply temporary shadow. Again, the heavy lines across the stove door suggest at once that it is of some material different from the body of the stove, — iron, probably, contrasted with the lighter-colored surface of tiles of baked earthenware. Indeed, we should necessarily infer from that nonchalant pose of bare arms on the stove that it could not be all of iron, like our American stoves to-day. What did our good-natured German artist do ? He made a few marks on a sheet of paper, that is all. But those few marks, duplicated for us on our page here, build up by a magic of their own a frugal German home of thirty years ago, with its characteristic furniture and simple belongings, call back some now ponderous dame to the days of her young wifehood ; make children once more of three grown-up people, now heads of their own households. Perhaps the model for that boy is now a soldier under the Emperor. Perhaps each sister now has babies of her own, and tells them at bedtime stories about just such an old kitchen with a tiled stove, and a tall cupboard with double doors, and a brook behind the house where they used to go a-fishing long ago with strings and bent-up pins. CHAPTER V ANIMALS fT^HE Return to the Farm 1 gives us a bit of French coun- try life, but it is of a sort that translates itself read- ily into the American consciousness, at least for those who have had the good fortune to be on intimately friendly terms with country sights and sounds. It is the simplest thing in the world, — just a group of farm ani- mals coming home down a long lane at the close of day, — but, to initiated eyes, it has all the charm of a com- parison of experiences with some congenial acquaintance. Yes, indeed, we know just what he means ! Have we not seen just such grassy roadways and embowering trees ; just such wide, delightful reaches of fields ; just such swampy little ponds where the cattle love to linger, drinking and switching their tails as they drink ? Have not we too watched the play of light and shade over the angular bodies of meditative cows (they seem " all elbows," those large-eyed beasts) and over the cushiony contours of straying sheep? Have we not petted and 1 By Constant Troyon (1810-1865), one of the greatest French painters of landscape and animals. Troyon began work as a porcelain painter in the Sevres potteries, but his heart was in larger, out-of-door work. It is said that during his years of struggle with poverty he used to paint land- scapes till his unreplenished funds gave out, return to the porcelain paint- ing long enough to fill his purse, and then turn once more to his beloved fields. When he died, one of his most careful provisions was for a Pari- sian scholarship for promising young painters of animals. 59 60 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES patted and scolded a dog of just such mischievous procliv- ities as this one with whom matronly mooley has quite lost patience ? And, best of all, do we not know that very touch of late afternoon sunshine, — the kind that lays long, horizontal shadows over the ground, — ■ gestures full of unguessed significance, fascinating us with a myste- rious quality in their beauty, suggestive of some wonder- ful meaning, we know not what ? There is something about this late afternoon sunshine which cannot quite be put into words, though Troyon succeeded pretty well in putting it into his picture. 1 Somebody once wrote a charming little story about a young Swiss girl, who, to help out the slender family 1 " Suppose ye want to paint a field of ripe corn ; will ye get at it, do ye think, by sitting down and pentin' the stalks and the heads, — ay, if ye were to spend a lifetime at it and paint fifty thousand of them ? Ay, and if ye painted a hundred thousand of them as like as could be, ye'd be no nearer getting at your cornfield. For what ye have to paint is what ye see ; and when ye look at a cornfield, ye see na single stalks at all, but a great mass of gold, as it were, with a touch of orange here or paler yel- low there, and a wash of green where the land is wet, and sometimes of warm red even where the stalks are mixed with weeds ; and ye are no going to get that color either by chasing the daylight out of the sky, and taking the thing into a room, and making a clever bit of a fuzzy sketch in gray and green and black. That's easy, — but it's no the cornfield. Ay, and there's more. Ye've got to paint more than ye see. Ye've got to put just that something into the cornfield that will make people's hearts warm to it when they see it on your canvas. Suppose that ye've been ill for a month or two ; laid on your back maybe, and sick tired of the pat- tern on the wall o' your room ; and at last the day comes when the doctor thinks you might be lifted into a carriage and taken oot for a drive. And we'll say it's a fine warm afternoon, and your heart is just full of wonder and gladness, like, at the trees and the soft air, and we'll say that all of a sudden, at the turning o' the road, ye come in sicht o' this field of ripe corn, just as yellow as yellow can be under the afternoon sky. Ay, and what is it when ye see such a wonderful and beautiful thing — what is it that brings the tears to your e'en ? I say, what is it ? For it's that ye've got to catch and put in your picture, or ye'll be a d — d mistake as a painter ! " — William Black in Shandon Bells. o !z 62 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES fortunes, went to Dresden as nurse-maid in a rich man's family. She was sadly homesick, this country maid, shut up in a brick house on a city street, but most of the time her duties kept her from thinking- too much about the old familiar things. Only, late each afternoon, as the sun sank low in the west, sending its level beams in through the house windows, she could not bear just that look, remembering how those same rays fell upon the fields at home. And she used to cover her face with her apron. It might seem at first thought as if Troyon had not done much here beyond holding a mirror up to nature, so like nature's own self the image seems. But we have, in fact, a great deal to thank him for besides just his skill in mak- ing his trees look like trees, his cows like cows, and his sheep like sheep. He had an artist's eye. He knew not only what to see, but also how to look at it. For instance, take the matter of choosing a point of view. Is not the picture a great deal more attractive for showing us not only a vista of fields at the left of the bou- quet of trees, but also a little glimpse of the open country at the right ? Lacking that hint of nearly level reaches continuing at the right-hand side of this causeway path, we should have no good clew to the " lay of the land " off in this direction. Try covering up a half-inch section across the right end of the picture and see how much we lose of that feeling of vast, roomy space above and around us which was before so pleasant. On the other hand, if the artist had chosen a standpoint which brought that cluster of trees exactly in the middle of the picture, with equal sky spaces at the right and left, we should probably not have liked it half so well as now. Exact symmetry in a landscape instantly impresses us as artificial and unpleasant. ANIMALS 63 The repetition of the contours of the large mass of trees by the others over beyond the cows' watering-place is something grateful to the eye. We find it pleasant, somewhat as we find an octave pleasanter to the ear than a single note. And, besides, those farther trees, by their intervention between us and the horizon, help us measure the distance with the eye. They help make a very few inches (here actually only a small fraction of an inch) of space to mean miles of space. That is a part of the artist's magic. And see, too, how, in spite of the fact that the animals are all, in a general way, coming towards us, Troyon man- aged to make us see them in a great many different posi- tions, so as to bring out all their characteristic proportions, their varietv of curves and angles. Each attitude chosen for portrayal is exquisitely true to life, and each gives us some beautiful change from the contours of the others. And this, of course, did not merely happen. Troyon grouped his beloved beasts in such a way as to try to make us see them with his own appreciative eyes. The sun is steadily sinking. Is it possible those shad- ows across the road have grown no longer in all this time that we have been standing looking back down the lane ? It is time for the cows to be milked and for the sheep to be turned into their pen. Let us whistle to the dog, give an encouraging chirrup to that doubtful donkey, and move on towards home. S 64 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Though cats are so common in actual life, compara- tively few artists have been successful in representing them. Lambert * is one of these few, and the family group shown here (page 65) is deservedly popular. But wait a moment. Let us not turn the page after one hasty, approving glance. It is not enough to recog- nize that these are cats, and that they are up on the table where they have no business to be. Any child can see as much as that. The picture can give us a good deal more pleasure than that of merely identifying the animals and the furniture, if we give it a chance. Our artist evidently saw a great deal to admire in the outlines of these graceful creatures and in the exquisite textures and colors of their fur. It was a clever idea to show us five different poses while having only four cats. See how significant is the mother cat's attitude, the long, lithe, curving and recurving outline of her head, shoulders, body, and tail leading the eye from table top to bird-cage, delighting us with the beauty of its curves in themselves, and at the same time suggesting so clearly the movement meditated inside that alert head. The con- trast of sleekness with flufhness in her fur and her chil- dren's is beautifully shown. The profile of the kitten at the left side of the picture irresistibly suggests a lion (compare with the group on page 211) ; yet see how the tail of the same kitten neutralizes this suggestion of dig- nity and stateliness by its babyish inconsequence and fri- volity. This mingling of would-be dignity and inherent silliness is, indeed, for the most of us, the chief charm of a kitten's character, but it takes a clever artist to capt- ure so evasive a quality and put it on paper or canvas. 1 E. Lambert, a contemporary French artist. The original of this picture is in the Luxembourg gallery at Paris. c c e- 66 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES See the solemnity of the eyes of the next kitten reflected in the mirror ; how can so grave an expression belong to the owner of that deliciously fluffy bunch of a body and those diminutive forepaws, braced wide apart in babyish awkwardness? There is something marvellously wise and judicial about a cat's mysterious eyes. When we have studied them a little, we hardly wonder that the old- time Egyptians felt there must be some supernatural power lurking behind that inscrutableness, and so pru- dently paid them special respect and honor. Again, besides being delusively wise looking, cats' eyes are so beautiful in their color and lustre. See how de- lightfully the artist caught the characteristic, jewel-like gleam in the eyes of the wee fellow at the right-hand edge of the table. There are, too, other expressions of color in the picture. There are many variations of color in the fur of the four animals, and many besides in the furniture and other accessories. The black-and-white reproduction leaves us to imagine for ourselves the actual color effects at which it hints ; let us supply the colors from our own imagination. It is entertaining to fill these hints out in fancy, seeing the picture in our mind's eye with table, chair back, chest of drawers, bird-cage, earthenware dishes, and the rest in harmonious coloring. We may not hit upon the artist's exact idea; but, if we follow the hints of the print as well as may be, we can make it mean much more than it meant at first sight : the table and the chest of drawers, the shallow plate, and the odd, three-legged vessel with the projecting handle taking their places as parts of a harmony in colors as well as of a harmony in masses and lines. The condition of the mirror-lined cover of the work- box is eloquent of past experiences and exploits on the ANIMALS 67 part of this lively family ; and, as we see when we study their poses carefully, we have also clear testimony as to what they mean to do next. It is interesting to notice how, although all four animals are still just for the mo- ment, we have a vivid suggestion of movements that each one is just about to make. The mother-cat, as we have already noticed, is planning for a spring upon the bird- cage. The left-hand kitten in another instant will have sent the ball of yarn spinning to the floor, and the absent housewife's scissors, we may well believe, will go clatter- ing down after the ball of yarn. After the reflected puss has studied her duplicate a few seconds longer, she will be inaugurating a quarrel or a game of romps with the kitten behind the looking-glass. And then, with all these interesting things happening, will the jewel-eyed morsel be long content merely to lean on the edge of the table, a passive spectator ? It is a lively drama that we find sug- gested here. And does not the artist really show us a great deal more of feline beauty and feline disposition by representing the dainty, mischievous creatures at momentary rest before spirited movement, rather than by showing us the actual movement ? From these charming, motionless poses w r e can easily supply the coming move- ments in our own imagination, so that we have practi- cally both pictures to enjoy ; whereas, it would not be nearly as natural or easy for most of us, given the repre- sentation of swift, complicated movement, to complement it in our minds with images of the same figures grouped in repose. $ 68 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Among the few women who have attained distinction in painting, Rosa Bonheur 1 is probably the best known. Her long life has been spent in the shrewd and faithful study of animals, — horses, cattle, donkeys, lions, all sorts of four-footed creatures. The picture of cattle ploughing, shown on page 69, was painted some fifty years ago when the artist was a young woman, and its homely, wholesome vigor and truth earned prompt recognition. Nothing could be more simple, and in one sense commonplace, than a team of oxen, plough- ing an open field ; but to such an artist's eye the scene has endless attractions. Let us find what the gifted French woman saw in this bit of nature and life. Was not the tremendous strength of the awkward creatures one of the things that most appealed to her ? Certainly it is one of the tilings which she most vividly shows to us. Notice the hind leg of the forward ox and see how its lines of bone and muscle can be traced away up into the hip joint. Look at the forward leg of the ox next behind and see how the vigorous thrust of this member can be traced from the veiy shoulder. The power acting through these living levers shows much more forcibly for our being able to trace these lines through- out. Imagine what a difference there would be between the impressive effect of an athlete's naked arm and that of the same arm hidden from shoulder to knuckles in a bishop's voluminous sleeve ! Rosa Bonheur knew ox anatomy by heart ; she had studied every one of the curving ribs and cunning joints that show through those tough hides, and she knew, "besides, just how much to show us in order to make us feel the chief characteristic 1 Rosalie Marie Bonheur, born in France in 1828 and still at work. The original of the picture on page 69 is in the Luxembourg in Paris. a to a a z o o 33 <1 33 > 35 5 o & o 1-1 70 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES of the patient brutes she loved. Strength they have, and strength indeed they need for a task like that. Observe the long, gradual, upward slant made by the lines of the backs of the animals as they drag the clumsy old-fashioned plough through the tough, caked soil. It is not obtru- sively emphasized, but, taken in connection with the upward slant of the breast bones, it gives one the feeling of a long, hard pull. The gearing of the oxen is after a fashion little known to most of us, though still practised in some farming regions. Instead of wearing a yoke across the shoulders, these cattle carry the central pole or beam by a primitive sort of harness fastened to their horns. Shouting and prodding on the driver's part are fashions which have probably held about the same since ploughs were first invented. It is easy to see which of that middle pair of oxen is the sufferer just now. The rolling eye of the magnificent fellow nearest us seems to express pain and repressed indignation, as if to say, " Stupid ! Why can't he see I am doing the best I can ? I just wish he could try my end of the job for a while." And his mate has the patiently meek and neutral look of one who realizes it may be his own turn next. The varied colors of these wrinkled hides and the play of the sunshine over them are beautifully shown even in this little print. The whole picture has a fresh, hearty, out-of-doors effect. It almost seems as if we could smell the delicious, earthy fragrance of the up- turned sods and feel the warmth of the sunny air. Before we leave the page let us give one glance towards the woods in the distance. Perhaps they meant to the artist chiefly an opposite sloping diagonal, to pleasantly balance the slant of the oxen's pull and keep the picture as a whole from seeming likely to slide out of its frame. ANIMALS 71 Perhaps the purpose was partly to give a strong mass of color, different from that of the brown earth and the sunshiny sky and the brawny oxen. And possibly it was also in the artist's consciousness that this bit of woods, giving delinite limits to one part of the field, would sug- gest to us the idea of other enelosing boundaries, and so of the simple, self-respectful satisfaction of managing a wee section of the big earth's surface for oneself, com- manding the brute creation into loyal service and making ten blades grow where one had grown before. Artists' jokes oftenest turn on the follies and absurdi- ties of us humankind. Probably w r e ourselves really are more ridiculous than any of the other inhabitants of this amusing world. But now and then we find a man whose imagination has a whimsical bent, ena- bling him to conceive the quaint humors of animal life. Church 1 is famous for this quality, portraying all sorts of incredible, fairy-story situations with an air of demure good faith which is exquisitely '"taking." We have all read many times the old fable of the race between the hare and the tortoise, when the hare, pre- suming too far upon his established reputation, lay off for a nap, and the tortoise, by keeping at it, came out ahead. But who, save Mr. Church, could see in his mind's e}-e the closing scenes of the drama as we have them on page 73 ? One who thoroughly enjoys the fun of these drawings is sorely tempted to talk too much about them, but it is well known that a joke analyzed is 1 F. S. Church of New York, an artist of wide reputation, especially in illustrative work. 72 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES a joke assassinated. Let us each discover the subtile excellences of this one for himself. It is only after we have taken in the delicious humor that we begin to notice the cleverness of the composition and the workmanship. Could a turtle's shell be better shown in all its hard, brilliant, mosaic effects than this artist shows it with pencil and paper? And how charm- ingly graceful is the fashion in which the two scenes are clearly separated for the eye, yet held together for the thought. The two drawings are really nestled in- side the principal curves of a long scroll shaped like a reversed S. The scroll begins unobtrusively in the outline of the distant hillside at the top of the page, comes down through the " goal " post, trails off towards the left in that wandering spray of bindweed, and, after taking another downward turn around the turtle's back, curls about and ends in the bending spray, where four giggling little birds talk the whole thing over. J ^ \Q®AL i i ' i THE HAKE AND THE TORTOISE. — Church. CHAPTER VI PORTRAITS /"\NE of the most famous portraits in existence is that ^^^ of Mono, Lisa (My Lady Lisa), by Lionardo da Vinci. 1 Very few pictures have ever received so much admiration as this one, during the four hundred years since it was painted. If we feel the charm of it at once, so much the better ; still, we shall be quite par- donable if at the first glance we have thought the smil- ing lady not particularly pretty, but strange and puzzling. Only we will not on that account pass the picture by. A portrait over which one of the world's greatest painters spent years of patient work — considering it even then not quite finished — must have a great deal in it. If we do not see much in it, the fault is ours, not the painter's. If we do not all see just the same things in it, we have each a right to our own impressions. A great picture may bear a dozen dissimilar messages to a dozen dissimilar types of mind and temperament. Until the critics are agreed upon uniform understanding of Hamlet, we need not be disturbed by finding that many 1 One of the greatest geniuses of Italy (1452-1510). He was eminent in a great many different ways, — as painter, author, architect, sculptor, scientist, musician, and mechanical engineer. The original of this pict- ure hangs in the Louvre. Mona Lisa was the wife of an Italian named Francesco del Gioconde, and her portrait is sometimes called La Gioconda. 74 PORTRAITS 75 men tire of many minds in regard to this problematic picture now before us. ( hi one point our admiration is a unit. The hands of this lady of olden days are as exquisite as hands can well be. The more we study their lovely outlines, com- paring them with the hands we see on every-day people around us, the more we feel that they are the perfect i'ullilment of a sort of ideal beauty, an ideal only dimly suggested and clumsily approximated in most of the hands that come under our own direct observation. But the head with that strangely haunting smile, rising between us and the fantastic landscape such as we have seen in dreams ! How much of the mysterious quality of the smile is in those e} r es? Cover up the lower part of the face, from the eyelids downwards, and we find their look very little changed. Cover all the upper part of the face, leaving the nose and mouth in sight, and we find the expression almost the same as before, so much of it lies in the mouth. (Notice, by the way, how little the lips tend to part, for all their smiling. They are lips behind which the owner's secrets would be forever safe.) Now try one more experiment, if the shade of Lionardo will pardon us the liberty. Make the Lady Lisa close her eyes. We can do it by laying a sheet of paper across the upper part of the picture in such a way as to cut off the iris and pupil of the eyes, while still showing the softly shadowed under lids. These under lids seem transformed temporarily into upper lids. And still that same baffling expression, even while she sleeps ! The moral implications of the expression actually seem different at different times. Sometimes the look seems one of innocent archness and coquetry. Sometimes we seem to feel an uncanny element in it ; was she possibly 76 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES one of those strange, fascinating creatures who could poison her husband, strangle her babies, and stick an opportune dagger into the heart of an unfaithful lover, all the while walking before the world with a show of virtuous calm ? Biographers tell us that the painter spent four years try- ing to make this portrait just what he wanted it to be. It is natural to build up a little romance in our minds on the strength of this tradition, picturing him as held under the spell of a personal infatuation, tossed to and fro by the changing humors of the capricious mistress of his heart, and consoling himself as best he could with the artistic satisfaction of immortalizing her strange person- ality. But it may be that, if we drop the solution here, we are losing the great in the little. Lionardo may in- deed have been in love with this inscrutable woman ; but the fact is that something of this same facial expression is traceable in others of his pictures that have nominally nothing to do with Francesco del Gioconde's wife. Some idea, for which this smile stands, seems to have haunted him. It would seem as if the painter meant more than just painting that one woman's portrait. For Lionardo was a great deal besides a painter ; his mind was many- sided to a marvellous degree. He believed that science and art had deep interrelations, and he was continually probing deep into the nature of things and the philosophy of things. In several lines of research — as his note- books and published writings show — he was accom- plished far and away beyond the times. He designed mills and hydraulic machinery, guns, cannon, war vessels and paddle-wheel boats, civic and religious buildings, musical instruments. He studied fossils, and all but reached — quite by himself — the idea of their being MONA LISA (LA GIOCONDA). — Da Vinci. 78 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES remnants of prehistoric life. He studied botany, chem- istry, and physics, making endless laboratory experiments, and inventing ingenious scientific apparatus ; he practically anticipated the invention of the telescope, and almost grasped the principle of the pendulum. With all the rest, lie was a friend of the explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, and we can imagine what surging emotions the stories of a vast new world beyond the Atlantic must have brought to a man of his alert intellect and imaginative temperament. And what has all this to do with Mona Lisa? Perhaps a great deal. Lionardo studied people just as he studied the rest of the marvellous world around him, only with still deeper interest, because of that mysterious, spiritual something which sets humanity above all the rest of visible creation. And Lionardo had a theory that every- thing has some bearing on everything else. What then so natural, for a man with his cultivated sense of beauty, as to wonder and ponder over the meaning of the human face, especially over the unknown reality behind a woman's beauty and charm? More than one great writer has been haunted by the desire to penetrate into its meaning. Both men and women feel it, Browning muses : — "But the time will come, — at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) In the lower earth, in the yeai'S long still, That body and soul so pure and gay. Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, And your mouth of your own geraniuni's red — And what you would do with me, in fine, In the new life come in the old one's stead." And .George Eliot philosoymizes : — "... The beauty of a lovely woman is like music; what can one say more? Beauty has an expression beyond and far above the one woman's soul that it clothes, as the words of PORTRAITS 79 genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them ; it is more than a woman's love that moves us in a woman's eyes — it seems to be a far-off, mighty love that has come near to us, and made speech for itself there; the rounded neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their prettiness — by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace." It seems as if our painter, four centuries ago, over beside the Mediterranean, had puzzled over the same insoluble problem : insoluble because of the psycho- logical chasm which separates every two human souls. Near as we come to our nearest and dearest, is there not always an impassable space between, implied by the very fact of distinct, personal identity? " We are spirits clad in veils ; Man by man was never seen ; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen. " Heart to heart was never known ; Mind with mind did never meet ; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete. . . ." Was it partly his sense of this everlasting mystery of personal existence in the flesh, which made the old Floren- tine artist put so fascinating and baffling a look into the face he had studied so long, so intently, so ardently ? Those who have given the longest and wisest study to this masterpiece see in it still more than all this. Walter Pater's critical rhapsody over Mono, Lisa is, in its own way, almost as famous as the painting itself, and many readers will like to be reminded of it while the picture is before them : — " La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Lionardo's masterpiece, the revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In 80 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES suggestiveness, only the Melancholia of Diirer is comparable to it, and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and graceful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that cirque of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled it least. As often happens with works in which invention seems to reach its limit, there is an element in it given to, not invented by, the master. In that inestimable folio of draw- ings, once in the possession of Yasari, were certain designs by Verrocchio, faces of such impressive beauty that Lionardo in his boyhood copied them many times. It is hard not to connect with these designs of the elder by-past master, as with its germinal principle, the unfathomable smile, always with a touch of some- thing sinister in it, which plays over all Lionardo's work. Be- sides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this image defining itself on the fabric of his dreams ; and but for express historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his ideal lady, embodied and beheld at last. What was the relationship of a living Florentine to this creature of his thought? By what strange affinities had she and the dream grown thus apart, yet so closely together ? Present from the first, incorpo- real in Lionardo's thought, dimly traced in the designs of Ver- rocchio, she is found present at last in II Gioconde's house. That there is much of mere portraiture in the picture is at- tested by the legend that by artificial means, the presence of mimes and flute-players, that subtle expression was protracted on the face. Again, was it in four vears and by renewed labor never really completed, or in four months and as by stroke of magic that the image was projected? The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years man had come to desire. Here is the head upon which all " the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little by little, cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantas- tic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiq- uity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed ? All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the out- ward form, — the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the PORTRAITS 81 reverie of the Middle Age with its spiritual ambition and imagi- native loves, the return of the pagan world, the sins of the Bor- gias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits ; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secret of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea." x The portrait by Titian 2 on page 83 is worth study both for its subject and for its style. Compare it for a mo- ment with the portraits on pages 77, 87, 91, and see how individual it is in its character. We should feel quite sure from its general effect that it did not come from the same artist as any of these, just as we feel sure that Henri/ JEs- moncl was not written by the author of Paradise Lost or of Crawford, or of Soldiers Three. Not only the subject, but the painter too, is some one with strong individuality. Let us study the subject. He is evidently a person of consequence ; satins and furs and triple loops of gold chain speak of magnificence and state. Though we have here only black and white in fact, the impression given is one of rich colors and elegant textures. The pose has something essentially commanding about it. A prince 1 From Studies in the History of the Renaissance - Tiziano Vecelli (1477-1570), accounted the greatest of the Venetian masters. This portrait is now in the Berlin gallery. 82 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES might sit thus among his cabinet advisers. The eyes are searching. We feel sure that whatever the)* chose to look at would yield up its secrets to the active brain behind them. And those steady eyes have been studying the world for many a long year, that is evident ; for the haughty, masterful face in which they are set is lined and wrinkled with years, the beard is gray, and we feel certain that the close cap setting off the handsome head with such effectiveness is serviceable as well as ornamental, covering a scantier growth of hair than used to flourish. The hands are interesting too, — perhaps not exactly beautiful in this little print where we lose their color, — but there is a deal of character in them. They look distinctly strong and supple. The square tips so plainly visible on the fingers of the right hand suggest skill and deftness. We imagine that this wearer of satin, fur, and gold had the use of his hands as well as his eyes. Even the left hand, spread out on the knee with an air of meditation and judgment, has an intensely " capable " look. It seems to lie partly in the hand itself and partly in the intimate connection of the hand with the shoulder and trunk and commanding head. The portrait is quite remarkable in this respect of making us feel the vital unity of the whole body. The exquisite hands of Mona Lisa (page 77) attract the eye at once by their intrinsic beauty ; but, while the drawing of the arms is unimpeachably correct, we hardly think of the arms one way or the other. It scarcely occurs to us to trace them from the shoulder down to the wrist, or to imagine the hands doing anything in particular. In the portrait of this man we instinctively trace the strong lines of shoulder and arm under all their fine trappings, feeling that they are essentially avenues down which messages go from that imperious head to PORTRAIT. - Titian. 84 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES those accomplished fingers. It is the everlasting miracle of mind's command of matter that is demonstrated to us. It is demonstrated by the magic of line. A great artist can show us whatever he will with just the right motion of pencil or brush. We see, and wonder how on earth he does it. It is another phase of the same magic whose power we feel in words. Every syllable of Rudyard Kip- ling's Recessional, for example, was in the dictionaries for years, nay more, it was on everybody's lips in common speech. But Kipling touched those common, simple Eng- lish words and made them take shape in five stanzas that will live for centuries. And all artists are brothers. The writer of the Recessional and the painter of this portrait belong to one family, working in different ways for the inspiration and delight of all us simpler folk from one generation to another. Like children watching a master at his work, we won- der why our artist proceeded just as he did. Was that table introduced in order to give the eye the pleasure of a few straight lines, making variety from the curves of feat- ures, limbs, and elaborate costume? Was it partly for the sake of an added touch of color, and for the establish- ment of a dignified, elegant transition from the strong lights on the waistcoat to the strong lights on the hand, giving opportunity at the same time for an easy and effective pose of the right hand entirely different from that of the left ? Possibly all these surmises may be right. At all events, we can see that these purposes are admirably served by the introduction of this simple detail. Hold the page off at arm's length and see how beautifully the lights and darks in the picture blend into each other and set each other off. We can see, too, how precisely right the general proportions of the picture are. Surely POETEAITS 85 a great man, such as this one must have been, ought to sit high up in the space. It suits his character and tempera- ment better than being lower down in the same space and much better than being placed alone in a wide, horizontal space. Have we recognized the sitter ? The picture is so fre- quently reproduced that most of us may have known, at once, that this is Titian's portrait of himself painted when he was over seventy. We can well believe that, besides being a masterly piece of art in and for itself, it was an admirable likeness of the painter, for whose productions every nobleman in Europe was covetous, — the painter for whom Charles the Fifth, the head of the Holy Roman Empire, gladly stooped to pick up a fallen brush, saying, as he laid it in that right hand, " Titian is worthy to be served by Caesar." Reproductions of pictures by old masters often have a dingy, smoky look, as in the case of Rubens' 1 portrait of his wife and children. Something of this dingy look is unavoidable in a photograph taken direct from a canvas dulled bv time ; but, if we realize that the effect is that of age, like the yellowing of a book's worn pages, we can forgive the blemish, and even find it interesting in its own way. Which of these three figures was first in the thought of the painter ? It is easy to see. That handsome boy, meeting our eyes for the moment with such bold frank- ness, yet ready to bury his face in his mother's bosom the next moment in babyish coquetry, was plainly the centre 1 Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1040), the leading Flemish artist of the seventeenth century. This portrait group is now in the Louvre. SQ HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES of the group in his artist father's eyes. A son and heir is traditionally of much more importance than the woman- kind of a family, and Rubens in his day felt about the matter just as other European gentlemen felt. Besides, he was always painting his blooming young wife in one guise or another, and could easily afford to make • her temporarily a minor figure. And is it not beautifully managed — this emphasis on the bright-eyed youngster in his mother's lap ? See how the mother clasps him in her arms and gazes admiringly at him ; see how the gentle little sister comes bringing an apronful of treasures for him. The large, flowing curve on the right side, made by the outline of the mother's neck, shoulder, and sweep- ing gown, and the curve on the other side just hinted at in the outline of the sister's head drapery, surround and infold the baby boy as the petals of a flower enclose the heart of it. The painter did two things at once when he thus planned the relative positions of the sitters in his family group. He made every one look first and fore- most at the heir of whom he was so proud, and he made the principal lines in his composition so beautiful that people still love to pore over the picture, whether they care anything about his wife and children or not. Until we study the print quite carefully, we are not likely to notice that the three heads make an oblique line across the picture. When we do first notice it, we wonder, perhaps, how this rather awkward arrangement can look so well. We know that when an ordinary pho- tographer poses three people in a flight-of-stairs fashion, the effect — though it may be "taking" at first sight — soon seems foolish and tiresome. But this grouping of Rubens does not grow tiresome ; it is always a pleasure to the eye. For one thing, the heads are placed at un- RUBENS' SECOND WIFE WITH CHILDREN. -Ei-rkhs. 88 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES equal distances from each other, not at regular intervals like steps. The boy's position in his mother's lap natu- rally brings him nearer to her than to the sister, and, besides, her head is bent a little to meet him. Then, again, does not that column or tree trunk, rising between the heads of the boy and the girl, have a good deal to do with softening the otherwise stiff effect of the diagonal, leading the eye and the thought up away from the slant- ing line ? The substantial comeliness of the young matron is something very pleasant in its way. She was evidently neither an angel nor a club president, but " A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food." Rubens thought the plump curve of her shoulder lovely, and quite right he was. We are much obliged to him for calling our attention to it by echoing its outline just above, in the hat brim with the drooping feather. Her gown, too, with its big double sleeves and voluminous skirts, was evidently a joy to the painter. The play of light and shade on long curving folds of woven stuffs, working all sorts of transformations in their color and sheen, is something as delicious to such an artist's eyes as the flavor of meats and drinks to his palate. If the graceful disorder of Madame Helen's rjetticoats seems at first sight (in the absence of color) to have insufficient reason for being, study the delicate changes from light to dark, and back to light again, which are caused by the looping and drooping folds, and imagine how much more beautiful the rich stuff of the gown is, thus arranged, than it would be if it hung in one straight, unbroken surface. PORTRAITS 89 With all the rest, see how much the heavy, carved chair does for the beauty of the whole picture. It gives us a few strong, straight lines to balance the delicate curves of faces and hair and drapery, making us enjoy the look of dimpled flesh and flowing robes a great deal inure through their contrast with what is severe and rigid. Of course the painter could have represented the mother seated without actually showing us the chair itself, but in that case we should have lost this fine contrast of lines and surfaces. Even in the print we can see how the dark, deep color of the chair sets off the airier colors of the mother's gown. Some of the most interesting portraits are not paint- ings at all. For instance, that of the Young Man, Musing, on page 91, by Rembrandt, was originally etched on a copper plate. 1 Nobody knows now, after two hundred and sixty years, who this moody young man may have been, but when we are once familiar with his portrait we never forget it. Although he looks at us, we can see perfectly well that he is not thinking about us at all. He is puzzling and frowning over affairs of his own. Note the narrowed eyes, the vertical wrinkles between the brows, the com- pressed lips, the downward settling of the neck inside the fur collar and the voluminous muffler. One could make up a hundred theories as to the reasons for his 1 Chapter XI, pages 240-243, gives notes on the processes involved in etching, to which readers may like to refer. The print there is reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, from a proof of the original plate. Something is unavoidably lost in the reproduction, still it gives an idea of the style and general effect of the famous Dutch artist's work. 90 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES rather sulky attitude and the smouldering gleam in his eyes, but all we really know about him is that the great Rembrandt van Ryn thought him picturesque enough to be worth immortalizing, clothes and all. Those of us who have watched a landscape slowly shape itself into hill and hollow, projection and depres- sion, under a sunrise sky, will not soon forget what magic the sun worked there. A neighboring hillside, for ex- ample, in the soft half-light before dawn, looked like an evenly rounded surface, all of nearly the same color ; but, once the sun came up, variations of light and shade began to appear on this same hillside, revealing myriad varia- tions of its roundness. Every contrast of sunshiny and shadowed spaces betrayed something of the form of the hill, — here a deep hollow, not yet lighted but full of the lingering dusk of night, there a prominent ridge reach- ing out to catch the glow with brilliant emphasis, and trailing a long veil of sweeping shadow behind it on the side away from the sun. Each sunbeam was like a magic touch, waking the hillside into life and character after the vague, formless void of the night. It is a secret that every artist knows, and into which some artists are never tired of studying. The one who signed this picture of the Young Man, Musing took end- less delight in watching the play of light and shade, not only over the landscape, but over the human face and figure. In this particular instance he seems to have lin- gered with keen appreciation over the fashion in which light and shade told their tale of the moody young person in the fur-trimmed coat. See, for one thing, how boldly the strong, decided nose stands out from the rest of the face. Its own shadow, thrown on the right cheek, contrasted with the strong A YOUNG MAN, MUSING. — Rembrandt. 92 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES light on the other side, makes its prominence unmistaka- ble. 1 See how the shadows in the corners of the eyes suggest the forward projection of the brows above, and how the shadows below the under lip indicate the concave curve of the chin. Do not the dusky spaces about the left ear and the back of the neck show that the hair is in loose locks standing out a little from the head rather than plastered tight against the scalp ? Even the three nar- row vertical shadows between the eyebrows have their tale to tell ; they must be grooves in the flesh, that is to say, they must be furrowed spaces or wrinkles. It is the sun that betrays them. The sunlight can play a much livelier game with that rakish cap and its reversed curves than with a modern gentleman's plain cylinder of polished silk. Just notice how the variations of light and shade on its surface tell us the whole story of its varying curves, the places where it is hollowed in, the places where it stands out full and round, the places where its corded edge lies in narrow, parallel ridges and grooves. When we look at the coat and the neckcloth, we see they too were studied with this same thought in mind, — the way in which light and shade make them real to the observer's eye. We see the hollows where the sunlight is cut >ff, and they tell us of folds in the loose coat outlin- ing the form within. The delicate, shallow pencillings of shadow in the neckcloth suggest the stringy folds of a soft silken stuff. And note how cleverly the artist showed just enough of the radiating effect of the shadows 1 There is a tradition that Queen Elizabeth of England, when sitting for her own portrait, painted by an artist of distinction, failed to see the reason of a shadow on the cheek similar to this, and peremptorily for- bade the painter to represent her face as disfigured by any such "dis- coloration " ! PORTRAITS 93 among the course hairs of the fur to make the identity of the material unmistakable, while yet he gracefully de- clined the futile task of trying to draw every separate shadow. See again, in the contrast between the background and the drapery over the right arm, how a difference in the lighting of the two grays makes one stand out clear and clean from the other. Did Rembrandt put in that scrawly suggestion of an open book for the sake of making the picture space better balanced (the man himself, we see, is away over in one corner), the downward sloping diagonal of book and back- ground making an effective contrast with the opposite sloping diagonals of shoulder and fur collar? And was there possibly another idea also in the suggestion of the book, giving us the notion of a scholarly bent in the medi- tative young man ? Perhaps both thoughts were in the artist's mind, perhaps neither purpose really crystallized into conscious thought, — the artist etching in that back- ground with an unconscious instinct of just the right thing to do, his quaint signature up in the corner giving the final touch of completeness to the whole. CHAPTER VII STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER r I ^ H E greatest work in portraiture necessarily involves deep study of human nature : but. besides the life portraits of distinguished historic personages and other real people, we rind artists drawing and painting a great many other pictures which specially interest us from the standpoint of character study. In order to enjoy such pictures thoroughly, one needs to remember that artists choose subjects for the pictu- resque or decorative effectiveness with which they can be worked out rather than for their moral perfection. Dramatists and novelists have always done the same thing. We enjoy Shakespeare's portrayal of Iago and Lear. Lady Macbeth and Queen Katharine, no less than that of characters in themselves serene and admirable and enviable, though Shakespeare's presentation of them makes us feel with added force the blackness of sin and the awfulness of sorrow. We need sometimes to remind ourselves, when looking at pictures, that artists are no more bound than authors to show us simply the agreeable and "pretty" aspects of things. ■• Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate. Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed hath sate. — He knows ye not. Ye Heavenly Powers." 94 STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER 95 Putting out of account the frankly coarse and brutal pictures which coarse and brutal men sometimes make from sheer, perverse love of ugliness and uncleanliness, it is safe to assume that every picture which is artistically good is worth our study, whether it strikes us at the first glance as attractive or the contrary. Regnault's Salome 1 (page 97) takes for its subject the daughter of Herodias, who danced for the entertain- ment of the Judsean king, and, at her mother's instiga- tion, asked for John the Baptist's head in payment (Mark vi. 17-28). We can see at a glance that the original painting must be gorgeous with color. This color can be imagined as one examines the black-and-white print, and the experi- ment will be well worth while as a bit of play and train- ing for the imagination. The general impression we get from it is that of bar- baric, oriental luxury. The tangle of Salome's abundant, glossy hair, the gleam of bare flesh through her shimmer- ing gauzy draperies (that shimmering, silken, transparent stuff is wonderfully well represented), the glint of metal in the heavy basin or "charger," in the sheath of the knife and in the girl's bracelets, the elaborate decoration of the piece of furniture on which the dancer rests, the suggestion of sensuous comfort in the shaggy furs upon the floor, — all these give one a feeling of being close to the land of the Arabian Nights. Notice the perfect animal health and vigor of the 1 Alexandre George Henri Regnault was a French painter, mainly of his- torical subjects, born in 1843; he died in 1871. The model used for this picture is said to have been a Spanish girl. 96 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES seated figure. The attitude has no look of weariness. We feel that it was assumed, not from exhaustion, but only for the sake of the physical pleasure of a change from dancing. That vigorous young body could not be easily tired. The slipping of the- drapery from the shoulder, showing the union of the arm with the chest, is suggestive of a firmly constructed skeleton under the glowing flesh, of reserve strength like that in the strong, supple joints of a beast of prey. The legs and feet are full of life ; the feet especially look ready to go on with the dancing at a moment's notice. The heavy mass of the hair, by its luxuriance and un- conventional tangle, gives one the same sort of impression as that obtained from a tropical forest or a swamp where vegetation runs riot. The eyes, the lips, and the teeth add gleams of vivid hue and color, like birds or flowers in the shadow of the tree masses. But notice how little there is in the face suggestive of other than an animal nature. The parted lips show a feeling of satisfaction, — a sense of pleasure in the exercise just abandoned, a sense of anticipated pleasure too in the coming reward ; but there is no more soul in them than in the parted lips of a dog that comes back to his master after performing some task, to receive a luscious bone. The leopard skin under the girl's feet, while a perfectly natural part of the accessories of the scene, not dragged in for the sake of symbolism, gives a clever touch of suggested emphasis to the portrayal of lfer own nature. You feel that she is rather closely related to the creatures of the jungle. Or, if this Salome must be measured with men and women rather than against leopards and such graceful, strong-limbed beasts, she is to be counted a grown-up woman with a brain arrested in its development. There SALOME. — Regnault. h 98 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES is something not childlike but childish in that irrespon- sible laugh of her eyes and her lips. It is the look of one who is morally "lacking." The easy, matter-of-fact way in which she holds the knife and platter that wait for the prophet's head shows that she was incapable of taking in the reality of what she did. The mother who instigated her to ask for the ghastly reward did so delib- erately. " Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," or a woman who has been held up to public scorn. Hero- dias knew very Avell what she was about. But this splen- did savage with the tropical hair and eyes ? She danced a prophet to his death with smiling unconcern. This feeling which one has, in looking on the picture, of the hopeless unreachableness of the girl's soul, the use- lessness of effort to make her see what she was doing, is unobtrusively strengthened by the very plan and arrange- ment of the drawing. Notice that, as you look at the picture, } r ou see but a little way into the metal basin which Salome holds. You see it (and were intended to see it) as if your eyes were only a little above the level of the edge of the basin as it rests in her lap ; that is to say, you see Salome as if you were on your knees before her, looking up. She is above, dominant. It is often interesting to notice little points like this about a picture. Artists plan these details with the greatest care. A half-tone reproduction of this photograph destroys some of its fine effects of detail ; still, much remains accessible to the observer. The effects of the different kinds of surfaces and textures were admirably brought out by the artist. The metallic basin evidently is metal- lic, not wooden. The glint of the light on its burnished surfaces is unmistakable. It actually looks hard and STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER 99 polished. By contrast with it both the flesh and the drapery over it arc heightened in effect. The firm flesh gains in delicacy by contrast with the unyielding metal; the curves of the legs look rounder by contrast with the thin, flat margin of the basin ; the transparent gauzy skirt looks all the more filmy by contrast with the hard lines of the basin and the chest on one side, and with the shaggy heaviness of the fur rug on the other side. The depth of color in the mass of curling hair is made doubly effective by relief against the lighter mass of the silken curtain behind the seated figure. In striking contrast to Regnault's barbaric beauty with her knife and charger are the school-girls of Eugen Blaas 1 in Punch and Judy at the Convent. Here the atmosphere is not that of lawlessness, but of the strictest conven- tionality, both secular and spiritual. The scene is within the charmed precincts of a convent where young girls are taken as boarding pupils, taught by nuns of the order con- trolling the institution. It is recreation day. Properly ac- credited visitors are allowed to enter the adjoining room and talk with the pupils in a subdued and decorous fashion through ornamental gratings or screens set in the partition wall, — a sort of spiritually antiseptic gauze, to prevent the bacilli of worldly ideas from drifting into young souls and finding lodgment there ! For the entertainment of the other girls, who have no visitors, a Punch-and-Judy show has been brought in. Probably, in the minds of the sedate sisters, the little drama of Punch and his wife seems sufficiently unlike real life to be quite safe in its effect on impressionable girlish minds. 1 An Austrian artist of the present generation. 100 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES The most evident value of the picture lies in its show- ing so many different kinds of girls in their teens. Almost every variety of the school-girl type is here, and to any one who feels the charm of just this phase of life — the half-way stage between child and woman — the picture is well worth some detailed study. Look at the separate figures and see what differences are to be observed in their dispositions and temperaments. Notice, for ex- ample, the farther girl in the front row of chairs, the one who leans far forward in her close attention to the marionettes. She is a rather slow, matter-of-fact girl, not particularly brilliant at her lessons, often deficient in imagination, yet now and then showing a surprising amount of clear, level-headed common sense in questions of practical judgment. Her dark-eyed neighbor, with the pretty head tilted to one side like a flower, is much more emotional, and takes to innocent little coquetries as naturally as to eating and sleeping. She can (and does) cry easily, but her tears are rather becoming than otherwise. Her nose and eyes never grow red and swollen in the process. As she grows up, men will adore her ; but women may be a little severe with her. The serious maiden in the seat nearest us is a lovely bit of } r outhful life. We have all seen girls like her. She is just at the age when life begins to take on new beauty and new solemnity at once ; new worlds of spiritual ex- perience open hazily before her wondering eyes, like far- off horizons seen for a moment in magnificent perspective from a misty mountain top, cut off from view the next minute by enveloping clouds of near-by circumstance full of absorbing demands. She lives half in the simple daily round of school-room tasks and duties, half in untold 2; > o o w to Q <1 to 102 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES dreams. They may be dreams of religious devotion ; they may be dreams of romantic love. The beautiful lines in the head and neck of this particular figure in Blaas' picture are most pleasant to look at. The two girls in the seats just behind have quite for- gotten their manners. Theirs is a dreadful indecorum from the standpoint of convent precepts. To laugh aloud, to point with outstretched forefinger, to twist one's ankles with such recklessness between the rounds of one's chair in the delirium of giggling — what a sin ! The demure prize scholar who sits next turns to warn them that Sister Angelique is frowning from her post over by the visitors' window. It is useless ; they can take no hints. All the principles of drawing-room etiquette have vanished from their consciousness as completely as last year's geography lessons. Sister Seraphine is actually obliged to lay her cool, dry hand on the shoulder of the nearest ne'er-do- weel to recall the erring pair to a sense of the proprieties. Will they be put en pSnitence for their transgressions ? Maybe; but even if they spend the next three recreation hours over irregular verbs, the memory of this gay, good time will pull them cheerfully through the ordeal. They had their fun. They are not the girls to grudge paying for it. The prim little damsel with the straight back,* just beyond the culprits, answering her elegant mother's inquiries about her progress, has certainly a creditable report to offer. No girl who carried her shoulders like that would ever get bad marks for misbehavior. In fact, if the discipline of the house depended on that plump, substantial sister standing near, nobody would ever re- ceive any bad marks. She is not above enjoying the Punch-and-Judy show herself, this placid image of a STUDIES OF LIFE AM) CHARACTER 103 woman; even if the quaint little drama were not thus absorbing her attention, she would not for a moment be comparable as chaperone with the vigilant sister who stands at the opposite side of the room intent on two responsibilities at onee. The two wise senior pupils, sitting in rather stately reserve at the back of the room, are only politely tolerant of the puppet show. They evidently feel that the affair is just a little beneath their dignity. The excpiisite daintiness of their girlish gowns is well matched by the grave courtesy with which they refrain from casting the least fraction of a glance towards the visitors' gratings. The dark-haired one has force of character in her face? She has less beauty than some of her mates, but she will be a woman of decision and influence. She will do some genuine thinking before she is forty. The picture gives one a very strong sense of the shel- tered remoteness of these flower-like figures from the con- flicts and perplexities of common work-a-day life outside the sheltering convent walls. Though the greatest interest of this picture lies in its character study, it has many other excellences of other kinds. For instance, the contrasts of lights and darks are beautiful. If we hold the picture far enough away to lose all detail in the figures, and get simply an impres- sion of masses of light and masses of dark, we find the effect is very pleasant to the eye. This did not happen accidentally. The artist composed his groups in such a way as to give variety and contrast while avoiding a spotty, patch-work effect. If again we bring the picture nearer, so as to observe details once more, we see how the airy colors and textures of the school-girls' gowns are at once set off and relieved by the severe, strong masses of 104 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES darker color in the robes of the nuns, in the hanging' draperies under Punch and Judy, and in the deep shadows of the outer room as seen through the gratings. Again, there is (at least, for the most part) a nice rela- tion of lines to each other. Even if we do not stop to analyze this effect, we feel that the pretty curves of the girlish figures and faces are some way more effective in this room, where the main architectural lines are so strong, straight, and imposing, and where the grown-up people are so heavily statuesque. Girlish curves alone, indefinitely multiplied, would become insipid. Vigorous, direct, straight lines entering judiciously into the compo- sition keep it energetic in character. George Eliot says, in Adam Bede : — " All honor and i - everence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children — in our gardens and in our houses; but let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep, human sympathy. Paint us an angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the celestial light ; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face upward, and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, — whose rounded backs and stupid, weather-beaten faces have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world — those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER 105 pains of a life to the faithful representation of commonplace things — men who see beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light of heaven falls on them." Nicholas Maas, 1 in his picture called The Spinner, gives us just this sort of homely beauty. While the soft con- trasts of light and shade are lovely in themselves (look at the page from such a distance as to lose its details, and you find the opposition of light and dark spaces is so managed as to make a serene sort of harmony, like certain chords in music), the main impression of the picture is upon the heart and the sympathetic imagina- tion even more than on the aesthetic sense. This old housewife evidently belongs to a humble rank in life. The bare-, rough walls stand for a very simple, primitive sort of home life. Yet the suggestion of self -respectful comfort is complete. The roof over the head of that tidy, capable old woman is unquestion- ably a whole roof, not a leaky one. She sits near a great fireplace ; the tongs, besides making a pleasant variety in the detail of lines, and giving a gleam of metallic surface to contrast with all the wood and plas- ter, remind one of the cheerful comfort of a blaze on the hearth. The earthen pot in the corner is just where it is for many reasons at once : its robust curves break the monotonous, upright surface of the wall and lessen the severity of the three tall, parallel, vertical lines along the right-hand edge of the composition ; again, the texture of the bit of quaint, rude pottery (and, in the original, its color) adds to the interest ; besides all this, the homely earthen pot is full of suggestions of 1 A Dutch painter whose life (1032-1093) was spent mainly in the Netherlands. 10(3 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES good things to eat and drink, — of .sweet milk, or sa- vory stew, or toothsome fried cakes set away on a high shelf. The pose of the thrifty old mother herself is eloquent of homely industry. The seamed and wrinkled face is that of one whose whole life has been a ceaseless round of patiently borne responsibilities. The rough hands have been used to constant, unsparing labor. They are a little stiffened now with age and rheumatism, yet not so much as to forget their former skill. There is no need for any officiously cleft granddaughter to offer help in this momentary emergency- — not at all. Give her time, and those callous fingers that have handled flax so many long years will prove that they have not for- gotten their accustomed cunning. The serious intent- ness of the woman's face as she bends over the task is exquisitely true to life. The coarse gown and apron and kerchief, the close cap protecting the temples where once abundant hair now grows thinly, these all have a simple dignity of their own. She never had high-flying ambitions, — this good soul at the linen wheel, — but she has lived with self-forgetful faithfulness up to such duties as were plain before her ; and her children, if they are anyway worthy of their descent, rise up and call her blessed. Look once more at the picture as a composition, and see how perfectly it was planned. The tall distaff at one end of the flax wheel, with its own soft shadow behind it, helps break what would otherwise be a glar- ing triangle of light on the wall, and leads the eye easily across from the dark mass of the spinner's left shoulder to the shadows in the edge of the fireplace. Notice, (in the other hand, how the light on the legs THE SPINNER. — Maas. 108 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES and the inner rim of the wheel keeps the shadows in the lower part of the picture from being too dense. The deep shadows in the lower left corner of the picture seem transparent, for all their depth ; this is partly because the form thrust into the shadows (a circle with inner radii) is a form particularly easy for the imagination to trace. We think we see even more than we actually do see in that dim corner. The hint given of the back of the spinner's chair is a very slight hint, but it serves several purposes. In the -first place, it gives satisfactory evidence as to the old woman's real pose. Lacking it, we should suppose there must naturally be a seat of some sort over behind the wheel, but we should have to take it on trust. The suggestion of a substantial seat for the bending figure gives us unconsciously a feeling of repose and satisfac- tion. Besides this, the ornamental post of the chair back makes an end for that curving line of light beyond the woman's shoulder, much more diversified and so much pleasanter to look at than it would have been had the light space finished abruptly in contact with her dark petticoats. The light behind her would have had, in that case, the forced, theatrical look of a manufact- ured halo. As it is, the effect of the mellow daylight on the conscientious, stooping figure has just enough remote suggestion of a halo contained in its perfectly natural, unobtrusive, every-day effect to give us a serene sense of blessing and of peace. % STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHAEACTEE 109 The Joan of Arc, by Bastien-Lepage, 1 represents the French heroine listening to the supernatural voices that called, her to save her country from a foreign foe. The marvellous chapter of fifteenth-century history in which she figured has been made freshly familiar during the last few years by American writers. We recall her humble, peasant parentage, the visions which impelled her, a girl in her teens, to go to the aid of the French prince against Henry VI of England, her military victories, bringing about the coronation of the prince as Charles VII, and then her cruel death in Rouen at the hands of the British. The figure of this strange girl — seer, warrior, and. woman all in one — had been a favorite subject for painters and sculptors for four hundred years before Lepage's day, but he treated it with as fresh originality as if he had been the first who ever pondered and wondered over the mystery of her short life. Unlike most other artists, he pictures her as a genuine peasant girl, not as an angel of beauty, condescending to the help of distracted human- •ity, but an honest daughter of the soil with a common, peasant frame, rough hands, and coarse clothes such as poor peasant women Avore about the commonplace tasks of kitchen, field, and farmyard. He shows her leaving work for a moment to wander out into the woods near her home, and listening to the heavenly Guides who called her from barnyards to battle-fields. Near by, seen in- distinctly through the shrubbery, a Vision is shaping it- self, the vision of a warrior in armor and two accompany- ing figures whose details are less clear. St. Michael, St. Catharine, and St. Margaret are said by tradition to be 1 Jules Bastien-Lepage, a French artist, born in 1848. lie died in 1884. The original of this picture is in the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York City. 110 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES the celestial ones who came to instruct and lead the humble country maid ; hut the artist wisely left their forms vague and incomplete, — sufficiently made out to be suggestive to the imagination, yet not so definitely figured as to rival Joan in the appearance of reality. It was Joan herself, not the guiding Saints, whom he had most in mind. It is difficult, and indeed hardly necessary, to identify the figures beyond a doubt. A Vision like this, shown in a picture, may be not unreasonably compared with shapes seen in drifting clouds, in flames, or in waves breaking into foam. Each of us translates the shapes according to his own inward bent of fancy and sympathy. But on the whole the distracting confusion of this Vision, all tangled up as it is with the crowded disorder of the shrubbery where lights and shadows play hide-and-seek, sends us back to study with more care the silent figure over at the other side of the picture, leaning against a tree. It is a fascinating figure. Joan has no girlish beauty such as belongs to the "teens." Her square jaw, her ugly hands and arms, her shapeless body and* careless dress give the aesthetic sense very little satisfac- tion. But, when we look at her eyes, we see why this picture is counted a masterpiece. Those eyes, certainly do see more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. They are the eyes of a mystic seer, a devotee, a martyr. One can readily believe that she who looked out through them was no dull peasant after all, but a "strong excepted soul " shut by some strange freak of fate in that particularly common, clumsy box of bone and muscle which served her for a body. George MacDonald says somewhere that it is a serious blunder to teach a child that he has a soul. It is not true that he has a soul. He is a soul. What he has or possesses, — a matter « o o o 112 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES quite secondary to what he essentially is, — what he has is a body. This is no mere dictionary quibble ; there is a real truth involved in the choice of phrase. And the longer we look at Lepage's Joan, the more we feel that the canny MacDonald is right. The real Joan we see looking out through those great eyes as through windows in a wall. The bodv which she inherited from her sim- pie, plodding ancestors was only a convenient tool for temporary use. Incidentally we may notice the square- ness of the jaw, as a token that its owner had not only the gift of spiritual divination, but a goodly share of what in small affairs we call obstinacy, in great affairs resolution and hrmness. It would have been a much easier matter to give us a beautiful girl in armor, riding a galloping horse to glory. But Lepage chose to paint a great soul. About the middle of the seventeenth century a great Spanish artist, Velasquez, 1 painted a picture of JEsop, which has since obtained world-wide fame. In Velas- quez' day, as in ours, iEsop's fables were household clas- sics ; indeed, as far back as the first century A.D., Quin- tilian, the great Roman writer on rhetoric and oratory, advised that iEsop's fables should be used as a first read- ing book for children. Translated as they have been into the languages of all civilized peoples, and used the world over to answer the perennial demand of childhood for a " story," the tales of iEsop are now the common intel- lectual property of the race. 1 Don Diego Rodriquez de Suva Velasquez, born in 1599, died in 1660. His works are in various European galleries, an especially large number of them at Madrid. This picture is in the Madrid museum. STUDIES OE LIFE AND CHARACTER 113 Authorities differ in regard to the personality of iEsop himself. According to the more commonly received tradition he was a slave in the sixth century B.C., ;i part of his life being spent in Athens under a Grecian master, and a part in Asia Minor in the service of Croesus, the king of Lydia. Modern research tends towards the the- ory that the fables attributed to him were not the work of one man, but were a gradual compilation from many sources, including old Egyptian literature. The gradual compilation of a series of quaint old fables is something unpaintable. A poet might do something with this idea, but an artist never. What the old Spanish master did was to set before us his conception of the kind of mind and the kind of life experience out of which the fables seemed to him to have grown, and he expressed himself in seventeenth-century forms. The costume worn by the old man is something quite unknown to Greece or to the court of Croesus, and the book cannot be taken seriously as belonging to an age six hundred years before Christ; yet these details were not blunders. Velasquez was no archaeolo- gist, and was not trying to paint an exact image of the clothing and furniture of an earlier civilization. Let us see on the other hand what he did undertake to do. Notice how exquisitely the artist combined the evi- dences of a humble, hard-working life and of a philo- sophic mind. The face and figure are those of a poor man, old, weather-beaten, bent by the carrying of heavy bur- dens both on his shoulders and on his soul, yet in an- other sense made independent of "... the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," i 114 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES by the shrewd insight which made him aware how little the proud man's contumely amounts to. There is some- thing about the figure which suggests the sober, kindly patience of the husband in the old story, asked by his neighbors why in the world he allowed his shrewish little wife to beat him. " Oh, well," he explained, " it amuses her, and it doesn't hurt me!" There is a subtle pathos in the tired droop of the shoulders and arms, the sagging of the hips, the clumsy, outward roll of the foot in its coarse shoe. The physical vigor of youth has all gone by. Yet, in spite of this, in spite of the deep lines of care and suffering in the face above, we should not presume to pity any man with so strong a face, any man who could stand off and look at the tangled affairs of life with the clear, true-seeing common-sense of this pilgrim and wayfarer. His is a face capable of laughter, yet not much given to laughing. The eyes look as if in their time they had known the feeling of hot tears, — but tears shed when there were none to see. The firm-set mouth tells volumes about the growth of self-control. The lips that framed this man's thoughts in imperishable phrase knew also how to keep inscrutable silence. They were far from uttering all that their owner thought. Once more it is interesting to see how the artistic composition of the picture helps give this impression of serene self-poise and mastery to the figure of the shabby old man, standing one-sided in a narrow space with no imposing accessories. For one thing, the very propor- tions of the picture space are significant. The narrow boundaries around the standing figure are not so narrow as to seem to crowd the man's form. You feel that he has room enough to throw out his arms and throw up J2S< iP. — Velasquez. 116 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES his head if he chose. But on the other hand, the figure completely dominates the space. A single human figure under a great open sky almost inevitably suggests the littleness and powerlessness of man in contrast with the inscrutable mightiness of the universe enfolding him. On the other hand, the complete tilling of the given space with a single figure, as in this sEsop of Velasquez, produces an exactly opposite impression, — that of human- ity as essentially superior to chance conditions ; of man able to say . . I am the master of my fate ; I am the captain of my soul." Notice, too, how the chosen standpoint of the artist strengthens this effect of quiet, dignified mastery. The picture was so drawn that our eyes seem on a level but little above the knee of iEsop. This is evident if we notice the top of the tub which rests on the floor. If the spectator were standing, his eyes on a level with those of iEsop, he would necessarily see the top of the tub as a very broad ellipse, almost a circle ; and, on the other hand, he could not in that case see, as now, the under surface of the chin and the cheek bones. The spectator is obliged to look up ; he has a sense of looking up, though the feeling may not be consciously analyzed. And, as in the case of a very different sort of picture previously cited (see page 97), the result is a subtle impression of power or command in the main figure of the picture itself. The sad, wise old face, from which the eyes gaze out with so wonderful a look of reserved judgment, is the face of a large-minded old pagan, even though Velasquez doubtless did use some devout son of the Mother Church for a model. He has the look of one strong through STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER 117 sturdy human philosophy like Socrates, rather than strong through the rapt, ecstatic visions of a mediaival saint. Did he look forward to another world beyond this, " where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest " ? Perhaps not. His shrewd, humorous phi- losophy was a lamp to walk by through crowded, erooked, terrestrial paths, not a search-light for sweeping the heavens. But, as we look up to the worn face, in its strong, simple, self-respecting ugliness, we feel that we are indeed in the presence of one whose sayings are as full of vital truth to-day as they were twenty-five hun- dred years ago. The First Step, by Millet 1 (page 119), makes its appeal at once to our instinctive human sympathies. The people in the picture are far from beautiful. They are ordinary, hard-working peasant folk. But the self-forgetful love of this man and woman, guiding their baby's uncertain feet, makes them akin to everybody who has a warm heart of his own. As we look at the page we seem to be nearly on a level with the kneeling man ; we see the things in the picture at about the angle at which we should see them if our eyes were on the same level as his. The people are not drawn as if we were looking down on them, in either a literal or a figurative sense, but as if we were one of them. The heavy awkwardness of the man's pose is undenia- ble, emphasized by the uncompromising ugliness of those 1 Jean Francois Millet (1814-1875), one of the most celebrated French artists of the nineteenth century. Fame came to him after a great many years of patient work with meagre recognition. This print is reproduced from a pastel drawing. 118 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES shapeless wooden shoes and of the trousers, baggy and overtight by turns. And yet see what a subtile min- gling of brute strength and fatherly tenderness there is in the outstretched arms. We can trace so plainly the union of the right arm with the trunk, and the union seems so strong and firm and flexible, that it impresses us with its pure animal vigor, like that in the limbs of the cattle on page 69, or the lions on page 211; and yet the gesture of the man's limbs is full of affectionate invitation and encouragement. See the character in the mother's arms too ; how sure their lines are. There is nothing seductive or siren-like about them (compare Circe on page 125), but they have a certain " dependable " look that is full of homely at- tractiveness. If they tried to play Avith a fan, they might be as clumsy as a cow ; but let them be trusted with a load to carry or a helpless baby to protect, and they can be relied on for faithfulness and tenderness. Every line of her honest, awkward, bent figure speaks of a life full of hard work, like the man's. The whole make-up of the picture emphasizes this impression of humble toil. There are no tall vertical lines in it, suggestions of majesty or of aspiration. Almost everything is horizontal — as we say, figuratively, "on a dead level." The heavy spade and wheelbarrow, the clumsy garden fence, the rough earth in the fore- ground, and the little cottage in the background, all so closely shut in Avithout any suggestion of a far outlook, even into the sky, — these unite to make us feel the bare simplicity of these peasant lives and the narrowness of their spiritual horizons. And yet, — evidently even this dull, small scrap of a world is large enough for real, human happiness, and e 02 ^< o:> PS ) 120 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES these people have the key to it ! Though backs may be bowed and muscles may be stiffened in the endless rou- tine of toil, yet there is a solid satisfaction in the man- agement of a cottage and a patch of vegetables all one's own ; there is the satisfaction of coaxing tender young plants to grow out of inert earth, and the delight of aiding tender young lives to grow out of helpless infancy into conscious, self-active power. The man and the woman do not directly look at each other at all in this picture, yet the artist makes us feel the frank oneness of their lives, linked as they are by that toddling baby figure. Indeed, the three figures practically make one. The outstretched arms of the father and the child make a line to all intents and purposes continuous, like the horizontal line of a broad, irregular H shape in the centre of the picture space. The little gap that is left we fill in with our own imagination. The simple theme of family affection is quite perfect, and the picture, as a picture, — that, Ave find, is beautiful too. The better we know this drawing, the more we see in it. We begin, perhaps, by pardoning its rude, common- place subject and details for the sake of the tender human feeling underlying it all ; but after a while we see that the picture is actually beautiful in itself. The lights and darks melt into each other so softly ; the strong masses of dark in the clothing of the two older people are so unobtrusively saved from looking separate and " spotty," and made to look as if they belonged to each other by the out-reaching, uniting shade of the man's arm and the baby's arm ; the dark spaces of tree foliage over- head repeat the emphatic note in the figures below, bend- ing over them in so kindly, protecting a way, somewhat as the parents bend over the child : yes, this artist, who STUDIES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER 121 cho.se to spend the best years of his life painting simple peasants at their work, did know how to make something wonderfully beautiful and impressive out of that seem- ingly unpromising material. We cannot quite tell where the charm of the composition lies, but we feel it. There is something about the way the picture is put together, like the " something " inside the wordless melody of an old Irish song, which wins a place in our hearts and keeps it. Millet had his own characteristic ways of working. He showed us what he wanted us to see with him — nothing useless or irrelevant to the main idea. He was not, in this sketch, concerning himself at all with the detailed features of this particular Jean and Marie. It was the tender fragrance of rude, ignorant, toil-worn lives that he wanted to make real to us, not the exact image of any one particular couple identifiable in the parish records of one particular French village. If we would be sure that it was intention, not carelessness, which left the faces blurred, let us notice how perfectly the artist ex- pressed all the small details about which he did care to spend his time. See, for instance, the sagging hang of the garden gate ; see the suggestion of muscle in the man's right arm, closely outlined by the clinging shirt sleeve. And see how perfectly the stooping woman and the baby stand out against the background of the fence. The grayness of the woman's right arm, for example, is almost the same as the grayness of the fence pickets, and its outline seems entirely unobtrusive ; yet there is no con- fusion between them as there would be in an amateur's drawing. We feel that the woman and the child are much nearer us than the fence ; there is actually an open, airy space between her right shoulder and the wooden 122 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES palings. How does Millet give us this feeling of airy space between two solid bodies, just by laying gray lines, almost alike, side by side on a sheet of paper? That is one of the fascinating mysteries of a master's workmanship. CHAPTER VIII ILLUSTRATIONS OF LEGEND AND^FANCY r I ^HE Circe of Burne-Jones 1 deserves careful study, both for its masterly handling of a subject so old in story, and for the charm of its composition in the matter of forms and lines, lights and darks. The picture takes its theme from the tenth book of the Odyssey, where the wandering Ulysses reaches the island of the enchantress. The artist lias chosen a moment when Circe, in her palace by the shore, makes ready a fatal banquet for the men whose approaching boats are seen through the open window. She is dropping into the wine jars some secret potion destined to hold the voyagers under her magic power. Two wretched beings who drag out their days transformed into panthers plead dumbly for mercy on their brother men, but they are evidently utterly helpless to save the advancing sailors from a fate like their own. See how irresistibly the vessels are borne on towards the enchantress. The swelling of the sails shows that a strong wind is blowing the boats directly on shore. The oars, too, are at work ; not merely blown upon the coast, the men by the sheer perversity of fate are hastening their own misfortunes, hurrying to meet them. The odd, processional grouping of the vessels, one behind another, 1 Sir Edward Burne-Jones, an English painter (1833-1898). He was a distinguished member of the Royal Academy. 123 124 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES intensifies the feeling that the coming is something ordained. Such a repetition of one detail in a picture almost always lends to what might otherwise be without great significance an effect of ceremonial rite, and so of symbolic meaning. The wide expanse of open horizon suggests the mysteri- ous isolation of Circe's land from the common, honest ground of homes and firesides. We feel that the voyagers have come a long, long way. We wonder if they will ever recross that great, trackless sea and meet their own once more. The palace of witchcraft is a beautiful spot. We can see how exquisite it must look to sailors tired of wind and storm and rough fare. The walls are carven with vines and garlands. The seat of the mistress is magnificent in its air of dignified repose. The wait- ing feast is set out in a fashion to delight the eye, with immaculately fresh linen, flowers, and great jars of wine. The witch lady herself is evidently robed for the occasion in some filmy, diaphanous stuff that Avill later reveal the seductive curves of her lithe figure, now only hinted at under a calyx-like wrap of heavy stuff with sweeping folds. Her delicately modelled face is intent on the measuring of the magic philter. She is mistress absolute in this fateful palace ; the panther captives may safely see all that goes on, for they can tell no tales ! Yet it is ingrained in her nature to be sly. She steps with the noiseless grace of a cat, merely for pleasure in the process. She does not refuse the mute petition of the panthers ; worse than that, she does not trouble herself to notice that they are begging her to relent, to let her slaves go free. And meanwhile, seen through that queer, wide window-slit, as through an eye with dropped lid nar- 126 • HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES rowing it to a sinister, level line, — the ships come nearer and nearer. . . . The singular contrasts between long straight lines and curved lines in this picture strike the eye and the imagina- tion at once. We are all the more impressed by the feline quality of Circe's figure, comparing its long, sleek supple- ness with the outlines of window frame and horizon and table. The repetition of lines is another important element of beauty here. Repetition of line in a picture is in a cer- tain fashion analogous to the repetition of sounds in poetry, or what we call musical prose. Take the famous line of Lorenzo's speech to Jessica, in Portia's, garden at night : — • " How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." We all feel that the phrasing is melodious. Besides its being an effective figure of speech to speak of moonlight as sleeping, the echo or reflection of the same sounds in sweet and sleep is something charming to our sense of hearing. Or take this passage from the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson : — " It was a long look forward ; the future summoned me as with trumpet calls ; it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and beseeching, and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life like a childish bather on the beach." Even when we read silently to ourselves, we pronounce the words in imagination with sufficient distinctness to be touched by their music. Everybody who cares for poetry at all knows how much his pleasure in it is in- creased by noticing these graceful touches in an author's workmanship. It is much the same way with pictures and their repetition of masses or of lines, or of lights or ILLUSTRATIONS OF LEGEND AND FANCY 127 darks. In this Circe, for example, see liow the bending stalks of the flowers beside the wine jar and the crouch- ing figures of the panthers, repeating in certain varieties the general effect of the principal figure, emphasize the impression of that effect. One might again compare it to the repetition of a motive in music which develops further the musical idea. The creases in the hanging table- cover echo that oppressive wide level of the vacant, help- less horizon. The tall, slender-necked vase by the right end of the table reflects the stately uprightness of the throne-like seat whence the mistress is to preside over the feast. The forward-stretched paws of the beasts, seen dimly through the shadows, repeat with a fascinating sort of grotesqueness something of the pose of Circe's own exquisite white arm. One of the most popular American illustrators of the day is Charles Dana Gibson. Everybody who sees the leading magazines knows the type of woman he draws over and over again, — a tall, erect young person with an athletic figure and tailor-made clothes, her head haughtily thrown back, and an expression either of elegant bore- dom or breezy self-assertion according to circumstances. She might not be the most agreeable of girls to live with, week in and week out ; but plenty of people are delightful in stories and in pictures whom we find less desirable in the flesh. Gibson's enthusiastic, reiterated practice on this one theme has given him perfect mastery of it in his own way, and his drawings in Harper 's, Scribner's, Life, and other magazines are always worth study. it is interesting to see what admirable effects this artist secures with very simple means. The illustration on page 128 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES 129 is from a pen-and-ink drawing, 1 illustrating the old story of King Midas. Midas was offered by one of the gods the fulfilment of his dearest wish, and chose the power of turning into gold whatever he touched. Haw- thorne, in his version of the legend, relates how the king kissed his daughter, and, in dismay, saw her change before his very eyes into a gleaming metal statue. The princess here is the very same " Gibson girl " whom we have often met both in Life and in life. But see how perfectly the artist shows her terrible transformation. We feel certain, as we look at her, that her face and neck are not of flesh and blood. They actually look hard and metallic. The way in which their surfaces reflect the gleam of the light shows that they are of some dense, polished stuff, not of living, throbbing tissues. And notice the rippling locks down over her shoulders. They, too, look not so much like living hair as like shining masses of metal, hardened into permanent curves. The draperies have the same appearance of rigidity ; their long, straight folds give a singular impression of weight. When we have studied the figure a little, we find its effect of being heavy, rigid, and shining is something quite won- derful as the result of a few pen strokes. One of Mr. Gibson's favorite bits of humor is to show how the typical American girl rules her parents. One cannot help surmising that the horror and despair of the poor old king here have an admixture of terror at the thought of that tall daughter's severe judgment of him and his latest blunder. Is there not something appre- hensive as well as remorseful in the way in which the poor fellow huddles himself together, clenching his hands in his straggling beard ? Notice, in this figure, as well as in 1 Originally made for the Prang Elementary Course of Art Instruction. <- o J/ \ of the carved chair on which the Mother sits. It is evidently a bit of her chair, yet at the same time it is a beautiful bit of ornament for the picture-corner, put in somewhat as a monk, at work copying a sacred manuscript . might fill up a blank corner of a page with a decorative scroll, just for the sake of added pleasantness to the reader's eye. Quite different in its general style is the Holy Family, by Murillo, 1 on page 153. Elizabeth kneels at one side, her left arm affectionately clasping the little St. John. The Christ Child, standing on His Mother's knee, steadies Himself with one hand on her breast, and, with the other, takes from John (His prophet-to-be) a cross, the symbol of His laying down of life. Above, in the clouds, the Father is seen, stretching out His hands in benediction ; and midway between Him and the lower group a dove is poised in air, emblematic of the Holy Spirit. The lamb stands for purity, innocence, and self-sacrifice. In the lack of any more detailed explanation of the scroll in John's hand, Ave may assume that it was meant to remind us of the ancient Scriptures and their Messianic prophecies. Murillo is said to have been a man of exceptional devoutness, painting his religious pictures in the same spirit in which he said his prayers. And, besides, he was, like Abou ben Adhem, one who loved his fellow- men. He delighted in the simple types of humanity to be met with every day, — common Avorking people, peas- ants, and street urchins, even beggars sunning themselves 1 Bartolome Est^ban Murillo, one of the old masters of Spain (1618- 1682). The original painting is now in the Louvre. Another famous picture by this same artist is shown on page 175. 152 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES lazily in a corner ; and he used their faces over and over again in his various pictures, even of sacred subjects. There is a certain frank lovableness about all the figures in this particular picture which makes it go to one's heart. We do not wonder that the original painting attracts admiring travellers, and that photographs and prints of it find their way quite around the world. The Mother's clasp of the Child shows something of the same reverential element that is noticeable in Botti- celli's Madonna of the Louvre (page 147) ; there is the same shielding of the baby flesh from the direct touch of her hands, by the interposition of drapery. But notice how different the Mother's face is in the two pictures. It is a serious sweetness we have here, but not a look of sorrow or of dread, — rather a half-shy, half-proud, girlish confidence in her Son. Notice how the artist managed to have her, though holding Him protectingly in her lap, yet look distinctly up to Him. Although the little group seems charmingly simple and informal, all the people nearly on a level with each other and with the spectator, with no enthronement of the chief person- ages to separate them from the others, still, Mary, Eliza- beth, and the little John all have to look up to see the Child's face. And notice how wonderfully significant is the expres- sion of the older woman's eyes and mouth. Does it not seem to express relief and satisfaction as well as affec- tionate reverence, as if she were thinking, — " The won- derful Child indeed has come. I am an old woman ; I have Avorked and waited a weaiy, long time. But surely this is He at last " ? The Christ Child Himself, with His babyish dimples and His serious, dark eyes, His appealing, childish help- llol.V FAMILY. —Murillo. 154 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES lessness and ye*t His commanding dignity, is one of the most beautiful of all the children this old master drew with such affectionate pains. Just see how His more refined and spiritual type of face is set off by the commoner boyish features of John. John is a kind of small boy that every primary school-teacher knows. They had no primary schools and compulsory education laws in Spain two centuries ago ; the urchin who served as model for this little fellow doubtless played all day in the streets at his own sweet will, and was not greatly scolded if he came home dirty at night. We of to-day wonder a little at the naive daring which ventured on a definite, visible representation of our Father. But in the days when this picture was painted most people had a more blunt, childlike way of putting these things than we have now. To this devout old Spaniard's imagination there seemed nothing irreverent in figuring the One in whom we live and move and have our being as a bearded man, with sleeves of colored stuff draping His outstretched arms ; and, indeed, as we feel the benignity of the venerable face and the comforting assurance of the gesture which crowns the picture, we would not wish it changed. The form of the Father crowns the picture in more than one sense ; for, besides its significance in idea, its lines have a good deal to do with the artistic impressive- ness of the picture as a whole. We can test this for ourselves b} r laying a sheet of paper across the top of the page, coming just far enough downwards to hide the dove. What we have left is certainly a beautiful picture, but it is not the same as before. The Child is as win- ning as ever, the Mother as lovely, Elizabeth breathes the same long sigh of satisfaction, yet something is lack- PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES loo ing. Is it the feeling of airy space and Light and color? Let us sec it once more, complete as Murillo designed it. Yes ; it is better so. We do not wish to lose that glow of light and color up in the left-hand corner of the picture. We could not quite spare the cherubs at the right, their dimples melting into clouds and then taking shape again out of the mist. And now Ave see, besides, that the head and downstretched arms of the Father, repeating the arched or pyramidal outline of the three heads grouped just below, emphasize this outline and unobtrusively strengthen the spiritual significance of the Child's central position above the others. This detail of the composition is in one sense a trifle, in another sense it is far from being a small matter. It is like having just the right bit of harmony for an accompaniment to the voice. If it is taken away, we begin to realize how much it had to do witli the perfectness of the whole. Another famous picture of Mary with the baby Christ is known as The Madonna of the Burgomaster. 1 The picture takes this name from the fact of its having been ordered by Jacob Meyer, then burgomaster of Basle, who had himself, his first and second wives, and three children introduced into the picture as accessory figures, in devo- tional attitudes. There is a tradition that the picture was a thank offering to the Virgin for the recovery of the Meyer baby from some dangerous sickness. Whether or 1 Painted by Hans Holbein the younger (son of another Hans Holbein), who lived from 1497 to 1543. He was German by birth, but travelled widely for those times, and did a good deal of work in England. Of this particular picture two slightly different copies exist, this one at Dresden and another at Darmstadt. 156 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES no this be true, it is on record that Burgomaster Meyer remained a devoted son of the Mother Church through stormy times when the new thoughts and theories of the Lutheran movement were causing serious upheavals in the church and in society. Whether or no we sympathize with him in his views, we honor his evident loyalty to what he felt to be the right. His homely, commonplace features are lighted up into something almost beautiful by the spirit of honest devotion shining through them ; and the somewhat stubborn build of his face makes one feel sure he was master in the family. If he said " as for me and my house we will serve the Lord " after any one particular fashion, we may be sure there would be no straying away from that one path on the part of members of the Meyer household ! See how the somewhat formal arrangement of the group expresses at once the Virgin's dominance and her benign protection. She stands on the same carpeted floor upon which the others kneel, but her attitude brings her head and shoulders above them, and the gently rounding arch of the odd little alcove or niche where she stands has the effect of adding a good deal of stateliness to her really very mild and gentle figure. On the other hand, the sweeping folds of her mantle almost enclose the near- est worshippers, and the columns on either side of the alcove, with the low walls running' off to left and right, suggest the idea of protecting arms ready to ward off danger from this faithful little company. See what a sweet and lovable face the Mother has, and how exquisitely pure and unworldly her whole air is, in spite of the modish crown with which the German sim- plicity of those times thought to honor her. The Christ Child here is a rather sad little figure, His MADONNA OF THE BURGOMASTER. — Holbein. 158 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES head resting wearily on the Mother's breast and one hand stretched out in benediction. There have been several different interpretations of this detail of the picture. The story has been told that, when the Virgin was ap- pealed to for help during the sickness of the burgomas- ter's baby boy, she took the child up into her own arms for a little while to cure him, letting the infant Christ take his place temporarily in the cradle. According to this fanciful idea, the child in Mary's arms may be really the ailing baby, cuddled and comforted back towards life and health. But it seems more likely, since we know something of what stormy times those were just then in ecclesiastical history, that the Child's weary attitude was meant only to express the sorrow supposed by the artist's devout patron to be felt in heaven over the strife and dis- cord stirred up by men in connection with church affairs. The kneeling woman nearest the Virgin is usually sup- posed to be the deceased wife of Meinherr Meyer, ar- rayed in her burial clothes. Beside her kneels the second wife, an anxious, conscientious-looking dame in a fashion- able collar and head-dress (the Meyers were prosperous people, that is evident). In the foreground, slender and demure in her festival gown, and with her own best head-dress set carefully over her close-braided hair, kneels the daughter of the house. The half-grown son and the debatable baby are grouped with the father on the oppo- site side. Considering that the artist undertook to put three peo- ple on each side of the Virgin, --one behind the other, the older ones in the background, and the younger ones in front, it is quite remarkable how successfully he avoided any disagreeable monotony in the poses. We find in the left-hand group each figure proceeding from back to front PICTUEES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 159 is moved a little nearer the centre of the picture. In the right-hand group, the relative places of the three women are entirely different. The shrouded figure in the back- ground is nearest to the centre of the composition; the living wife kneels almost at the outer edge of the picture, and the prim young girl only a shade further forward. Notice also, that, although there is great decorum in all the faces, no two are looking in just the same direction, and no two have the same expression. Each keeps its individuality, and so the picture is saved from any stiffly " set " appearance. We cannot help wondering whether that remarkable wrinkle in the carpet was put in for the same purpose, of avoiding too stiff regularity, or whether perhaps the painter was merely amusing himself here, as he finished the details of his drawing, trying to see and show the effect on the elaborate border pattern of the rug if it were rolled up into alternate waves and depressions. Such experiments are always interesting to any one who has a quick eye for alterations in the appearance of form ; but it takes a skilful hand as well to show the transformations truly to other eyes. On each side of the picture the arrangement of the ornamental pillars and the background wall leaves a little open space, and here we find the painter seizing the oppor- tunity for a bit of ornamental leaf tracery. But see again how cleverly he avoided making the two spaces monoto- nously alike. (We expect the two pillars to match ; that is the accepted thing in an architectural composition like this alcove. But it is naturally different with the sur- rounding spaces and with family portraits.) In one case he shows the complete right angle made by wall and pil- lar, in the other he hides the corner by Frau Meyer's 160 HOW TO ENJOY PICTUKES head-dress. And see the interesting differences between the outlines of the leafy twigs so gracefully silhouetted against the light backgrounds. Either one would make a beautiful decoration for a book-cover or an inlaid panel. It is interesting, besides, to see how beautifully Holbein managed the arrangement of light and dark colors in this picture. With eight necessarily light-colored faces appear- ing against a rather dark background, it took a good deal of artistic sense and feeling to avoid an effect as of light spots and splashes dotted over the given space ; but the painter did very successfully avoid any such "spotty' look. The figure of the Christ Child, with its delicate variations of light and shade, leads the eye naturally from the strong light of the mother's face to that of her hands ; and the middle tone of her sleeves and girdle makes a gradual transition back to the darker masses of her robe. In both groups of worshippers we find the masses of strong light unobtrusively connected with each other by the ar- rangement of attitudes and costumes, so that, while the contrasts between light and dark are pronounced and vig- orous, they are never harsh or startling. If we take one last look at the picture as a whole, we feel its simple dignity very clearly. Though we actually see only a little part of the vertical edges of the alcove and of the pillars, we are half-conseiously aware of their presence complete, suggested as they are by the long lines of the Virgin's erect figure ; and this loftiness of line gives us a dim sense of lofty thought and feeling. Then the horizontal lines of the pillar capitals, reemphasized by the level band of darker space above, give us somehow the impression of strength. (Do not broad, square shoulders on a man always give us a feeling of strength?) And the gentle outline of the young Mother's head, repeated PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 161 by the curve of her diadem, and again (as rippling circles widen in the water) by the overarching curve of the shell-shaped roof above her, softens the severity of plain verticals and horizontals, and lends a gracious sort of bene- diction to the whole. Van Dyck's * Madonna with the Donors divides our interest quite evenly between the holy Mother and Child and the portraits of the two patrons by whose order the picture was painted. It is difficult now to trace with any certainty the identity of these " donors " ; we are not sure where the picture was originally hung after its com- pletion. We only know that, in the days when kings and princes were ordering pictures from this famous painter, none but the rich could afford to pay for the work he did. This particular picture may have been ordered for the adornment of a private chapel or oratory, — such as was often a part of a great man's establishment, — or, as the word " donors " implies, it may have been intended as a gift to some church, — such a gift as would take the form of a memorial window if made to-day in our own country. This representation of the Madonna, contrasted with those chosen from Botticelli (page 147), Murillo (page 153), Raphael (page 169), and Holbein (page 157), shows what a wide variation of treatment the main subject receives according to the time and the place, the temperament and the training, of the artist. Van Dyck was not only a man of great gifts in his own profession : he was also a man of 1 Anthony Van Dyck (1 ",90-1041), one of the most famous Flemish painters ; a pupil of Rubens. This picture is now in the Louvre at Paris. M 162 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES elegant accomplishments, of wide travel and large acquaint- ance ; a man of the world in an era when European society was given to all sorts of gay extravagance; a courtier knighted by King Charles I, of England, at the time when the Pilgrims and the Puritans in self-imposed exile were building their bare, rough log-houses on the Massachusetts shore. The virgin Mother as we see her here is as far as possible from being a Jewish peasant girl. For that mat- ter, artists have very seldom kept to historical facts about her nationality and social station. They have had other ideas about her which they cared much more to emphasize. Van Dyck's fastidious preference for what was refined and dainty made him give the Mother the look of a gracious, high-bred gentlewoman, simply clad, as one with simple tastes, but never to be mistaken for the daughter of common working folk. She holds the Child on her lap, not in any close embrace of passionate affec- tion, and not with any mystical awe of His person, but with a quiet confidence as if she knew He must soon be about His Father's business, and she would not hold Him back from a divine mission. He for His part holds the Mother's ringers with one dimpled baby hand, and with the other touches, in a rose-leaf sort of caress, the cheek of the man who kneels close by. He is a live, warm, human baby, "trailing clouds of glory" to be sure, but showing them only to the inward eye of the beholder. He wears no halo, He carries no cross, His benediction is so much like the blessing of any dear baby's affectionate touch that apparently none but His own see anything to wonder over. It would seem as if Van Dyck amused himself by indicating, in a delicately satirical fashion, which one of MADONNA AND CHILD WITH DONORS. —Van Dyck. 104 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES the kneeling donors was His own and which one was a stranger. Just look at the man. His whole body bends eagerly forward; his hands are devoutly joined; his face — in spite of the rakish little beard and the loose love locks which speak of fashion and frivolity — shows complete absorption in one idea or one ideal that has newly dawned upon him. He has not been very good all his life. No ; but he does have in him the possibilities of a fine type of manhood. If the Christ message had come to him earlier in life ! Ami his elegant lady wife with her ruff and her rings, her jewelled buttons and her lace-bordered cuffs ? She too is kneeling, but her hands are studiously arranged to dis- play her rings (to be quite just, this may mean vanity on Van Dyck's part rather than on the lady's, for he was notoriously fond of showing off beautiful hands) ; her head is calmly erect above her expensive buttons. No sudden gusts of pious emotion, if you please, for the wearer of that marvellous ruff. Most significant of all, her eyes, — as we see when we trace their gaze, — do not regard the Child or His Mother or the companion of her mature prosperities ; they look calmly, placidly off into space, without the slightest consciousness of the spiritual drama going on at her elbow. Not that she is a bad- hearted woman — not at all. She looks like a "capable " house-mistress, a person who could be depended upon for the orderly performance of every-day duties and the maintenance of a high standard of dignified respectability. But how hopelessly wooden ! We may be sure she never saw anything to which to object in her own portrait, as painted by the most fashionable artist of the day. Her ruff and her laces and the rest of her matronly finery PICTUEES WITH KKLIGIOUS THEMES It',.', were carefully immortalized ; and as for her face, did not all the neighbors declare with respectful admiration thai it was as natural as life? There is little doubt that she was perfectly satisfied. There is one more curious bit of character study in this picture. At what is the Virgin looking ? If we examine the picture closely, it seems evident that her gentle, ques- tioning gaze rests, not on the devout, repentant man, eager to vow allegiance to her Son : she leaves him in those baby hands ; it rests on the figure of the decorous wife beside him, who has no passionate sins to be repented, and no passionate love to lift her above the level of respectable commonplace. Van Dyck gave a great deal of pains to other things in this picture besides the interesting expression of atti- tudes, gestures, and faces. He meant that the picture, as a whole, should be a pleasure to the eye ; and we can see, even in this little black-and-white copy, a part of his idea in the composition. The main light in the picture evidently comes from some source off at the left ; we can trace this by the way shade falls on the faces. The effect of light is carried on across the picture into the open sky in the upper right-hand corner. On the other hand, we find large spaces or masses of distinctly darker color ex- tending across from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right-hand corner. There is a consistent idea in this ; it did not simply happen. But, to make these con- trasted portions of light-colored space and darker-colored space blend happily together, some further thought had to be given to their details. So the dark draperies be- hind the Mother were carried out a little way beyond the line of her shoulder in drooping, slightly oblique folds, and their effect of darkness was delicately continued still 166 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES further by branches of foliage whose irregular outlines and openings make a graceful transition from the heavy folds of hanging stuff to the airiness of the floating clouds in the sky. The sky space itself, being almost an even square of light in the upper right-hand corner, might easily have given the picture an awkward look, as if a quarter of its space were unfinished ; but the pro- jecting foliage and the chubby cherubs, with their gay variety of curves and their combination of lighted and shadowed surface, save this quarter of the picture from looking bare and empty. They also serve to attract the eye upward from the monotonous, level line made by the three heads of the Child and the donors, and so add greatly to the pleasant impression of the picture as a whole. Among the hundreds of pictures of the Virgin and the Christ Child, there is probably none more widely known than Raphael's 1 Sistine Madonna, or, as it is sometimes called, the Dresden Madonna. Details of the picture are often published by themselves, — the cherubs are familiar to almost everybody, — yet, perhaps, some of us have not yet seen in the picture, as a whole, all that we might see to admire and enjoy. The picture was painted for a little company of people bound by vows to a life of religious devotion and self- denying labor, and its main idea is that of a Vision of 1 Raffaello Sanzio, of Florence (148o-1520), one of the most widely known and admired of the Italian masters. The original of this picture was painted for the Benedictine monastery of St. Sixtus at Piacenza, in northern Italy ; but about the middle of the eighteenth century it was sold by the monks to the Elector of Saxony and taken to Dresden. Napoleon seized it, and carried it to Paris as a trophy ; but it was after- wards returned, and is in the Dresden gallery now. PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 107 divine love to cheer the down-hearted, and bring new in- spiration to the faithful. From this point of view, the curtain arrangement on either side is an appropriate bit of detail, helping carry out the idea of a revelation-for- the-moment. It seems as if the heavy folds might fall in another minute, shutting off the radiant group from our sight. It is the Mother who most attracts our eyes. The more we study the noble proportions of her figure, and the calm benignity of her serious face, the more we are impressed by her dignified beauty. The image of a tall woman, standing on rolling clouds, might well have something grotesque about it, portrayed by a common draughtsman; but see what a master did! The figure seems to be pausing for an instant in its forivard motion (motion indicated by the folds of the draperies blowing back from head and shoulder, and by the backward sweep of the lower draperies around knees and ankles), and this effect of forward motion so balances in our consciousness the downward pull of gravity as to make the Virgin's airy pose seem mechanically possible and altogether beautiful. The artist makes us look up. Even when we hold the picture exactly on the level of our eyes, we have a sense of looking up from what is low to what is high. Com- pare the picture in this respect with the Spinner of Maas (page 107) or Rubens' Wife and Children (page 87). In these two latter pictures we see the portrayed people as if we were frankly on the same level with them. But here, where Raphael made the page for us, we find ourselves seeing the lower side of the Virgin's arm and the Child's thigh, the lower surfaces of the drapery about her head and her elbow, — that is to say, we see the central figures of the picture at about the angle at which 168 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES they would appear if we were kneeling on a floor, and they appearing above a church altar. And this sense of looking up with the eyes instinctively associates itself with looking " up " in a spiritual sense. Besides this, the picture gives us a feeling of airy space, in spite of the fact that the actual picture limits are nearly filled with details. The more we look at the central figures and the space around (the original has hosts of cherub faces in the background, but the print shows only a few of these dimly above the Mother's head), the more we feel that there is really endless room above and behind and around them. The wind that blows aside the Virgin's draperies seems to speak of infi- nite energies acting through infinite spaces. We feel that it is the world this side of those drooping curtains which is small, confined. A whole boundless universe belongs to that Mother and her Child. Raphael painted many Madonnas in an age when every- body tried to paint Madonnas ; but most people who know this one well agree that its noble beauty has a certain impressiveness not to be found in any other picture. For there is wisdom as well as sweetness, energy as well as purity, in the lines of that face and figure. Those wide- set and far-seeing eyes look not so much at us as through our present selves into our far-off destiny. Those strong- arms so tenderly upholding and cradling the Child seem to promise protection without end for them who need. Raphael's conception of the Christ Child in this picture is different in many ways from the Christ Child of his other Madonnas and those of his brother artists. It is interesting to compare the picture with those of Botti- celli, Holbein, Murillo, and Van Dyck (pages 147, 153, 157, 163). We have here no dramatic pose or gesture on the SISTINE MADONNA. — Raphael. 170 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Child's part, — many people think He is less beautiful here than in other famous pictures, — but there is something marvellously winning and commanding that looks out through His large eyes, lighting up the baby face with solemn meaning. The accessory figures — St. Barbara on the right, and St. Sixtus, the patron of the monastery for which the picture was painted, on the left --have a place both by virtue of the religious idea of the painting and on account of the plan of its composition as a piece of beautiful deco- ration. Saints were often introduced by the old masters into representations of the Madonna, carrying out the idea of their mediation between the divine and the human. To understand the significance of the two figures intro- duced here, we must turn to some dictionary of names or a volume of lives of the saints. According to old tradi- tions, Sixtus was a bishop of the church at Rome, away back in the third century, and chose death by imperial persecution rather than disloyalty to his faith. What more natural for the brethren at Piacenza than the thought of the old man for whom they had named their house, as caring for them up in Paradise in a fatherly way, and praying that they might be kept faithful too ? As for the stiffly o-oro-eous vestments in which Sixtus appears, we must grant that "... if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being." There is probably small historic authority for robing a third-century martyr in so magnificent a fashion ; but the heavy folds of these draperies are very effective in their own way. That ponderous, three-story tiara resting on the parapet has its technical significance, as indicating his PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 171 pupal rank. The artist realized this, and put it into the picture as a bit of decorative detail down in the corner ; but, mark well, he was far too great an artist to spoil the beautiful outline of the saint's head by crowning him with so heavy a construction in the way of head- gear where it would come in strong relief against the light ! Just see what a beautiful old head this is, upturned with such dignified humility ! (By the way, is it not strange that there should be so radical a difference be- tween the relations of age to beauty in the respective cases of men and of women ? If a man has any genuine beauty at all, he usually grows handsomer as he grows older.) St. Barbara, kneeling on the other side, complements the tribute of venerable experience with that of youthful impulse. The tradition attached to her name is that of a beautiful girl, shut up in a lonely castle by her father, who meant to keep from her all knowledge of the new faith called by Christ's name. (A glimpse of the castle is seen here just over her shoulder.) But, in spite of all these precautions, Barbara learned the story of the Mas- ter, vowed allegiance to Him, and allowed the exasperated father to take her life rather than prove false to the light that had dawned upon her. Notice what exquisite differences of detail keep this balanced arrangement of the two saints from being stiff or "set." We have already noted that we have an aged man balanced by a blooming young girl. One head is up- lifted and shown in profile with upturned eyes ; the other head is bent downward and turned almost facing us, with the eyelashes sweeping the cheeks. One head is shaven ; the other crowned with soft braids. One figure is wrapped 172 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES in heavy, official vestments reaching to the chin, and hanging in long, sweeping folds ; the other clad in simple, girlish clothes, with bare neck and shoulders, the lines of her draperies falling into curves, short and rounding like ringlets of curly hair. The attitudes have been inter- preted by critics as being respectively that of pleading for a blessing on the monastery brotherhood (St. Sixtus), and of inviting the faithful to join in adoration of the Vision (St. Barbara). Again, the looped-back curtains are in a general way symmetrically arranged ; but, if we look more closely at their lines and colors, we find there is no dull, mechan- ical "matching" about them. No line on the one side is the precise duplicate of a line on the other side, and the light and shade effects are different in the two cases. The meditative cherubs down below are so beautiful as to need little other excuse for being. (Is there a strong resemblance between the right-hand cherub and the Child in the Mother's arms ?) But, if we look at the picture a little further, we see that besides being so charming in themselves they have a great deal to do with the beauty of the composition as a whole. Try the experiment of cutting a slip of blank paper three-quarters of an inch wide and two inches long, and laying it over these little fellows, blotting them out temporarily. At once the picture seems unfinished. That empty cloud space at the bottom looks too hollow, the figures above, in spite of the buoyant, upward trend of their principal lines, seem to need something more beneath them, some mass darker in color than the clouds, to keep the composition from being top heavy. Take away the screening slip of paper, and, behold, we see that what Raphael did was precisely PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 173 the right thing — as might have been expected. It is always safe to assume that a really great artist lias excel- lently sufficient reasons for what he does. It is not at all necessary for his sake that we should prove his judgment good. But it is sometimes, as here, a pleasant thing for ourselves to find that we can follow his thought part way with our own. Before leaving the page, look at the beautiful grada- tions of light and dark. Even in the absence of all posi- tive color, we have exquisite transitions from bright illumination to deep, dark tones made partly by shadow and partly by the original colors of the painting. We find the principal light comes from above. The soft shadows, thus made to fall under the brows of both the Mother and the Child, add intensity to the radiance of their eyes — eyes beautiful as stars, but looking down not "... with cold, Sweet invitation, like a star Fixed in the heavens old ; " rather with the kindly glow of living hearts that under- stand and love. Before printed books were cheap and plenty, and before there were any provisions for the education of ordinary people's children, the church walls were depended upon much more than at present for instruction in sacred his- tory. The saints of old-time legends have always been dear to the imagination, with their pathetic or heroic mingling of human weakness and divine strength ; and, naturally enough, artists living in times and countries where such legends were most honored have used them over and over again as subjects for pictures. 174 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Murillo's 1 St. Anthony of Padua gives us an imagi- native picture of the Franciscan brother, blessed, by a Vision of the Christ Child come down from heaven to cheer and strengthen him. The kneeling Anthony is clad in the conventional robe and sandals of the Francis- can order, with shaven head and a girdle of coarse rope showing his renunciation of personal luxuries. The back- ground vista of hills indicates his withdrawal from the bustling, business affairs of this world into solitude with its opportunity for devout meditation. His face is honest and kindly, as w r ell as handsome, not yet made harsh by conflict or sharp by suffering. One can easily conceive him a disciple of large-hearted St. Francis, who called the birds his brothers ; indeed, there is a legend that Anthony himself once preached to the fish in the sea, tell- ing them of the love of their Creator, and that the water creatures listened gladly. The Christ Child has seldom been shown in a more adorable guise than here, where He trusts Himself with such winsome confidence to His follower's arms, reaching out His own dimpled hand to caress the strong man's cheek. We can make out just enough of the Child's left arm to guess that its gesture is equally tender and affec- tionate. There could hardly be a more exquisitely lovely and lovable sight than this baby with His blossom-like beauty, so appealing in its delicacy, and His loving nature, so joyfully shown in look and gesture. The monk's face, with its look of rapt devotion, is well worth thoughtful study. Notice, too, the exquisite delicacy of his own response to this gracious Vision. His hands hardly venture to touch the Child's person. 1 Bartolome" Esteban Murillo, one of the great Spanish masters (1018- 1G82). The original of this picture is now in Berlin. o E-1 o is 15 176 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES They shield it from their own contact by interposing a bit of drapery between the man's strong fingers and the baby flesh. 1 The playful cherubs attendant on the Child are de- lightful in their own childish way. One suspects that the dark-haired mite, thumbing the saint's abandoned book, is the immortalized image of some real, live street urchin, who once played in ragged, sunshiny contentment in the streets of an old Spanish city. Let him rumple the leaves to his heart's content ; St. Anthony no longer needs to con the records of other experiences to gain comfort and inspiration, since such a Vision has come to him direct ! The chubby fellow bearing the stalk of lilies (emblems of purity and unworldliness) may be call- ing the others to come witness the honors paid to a holy man ; but it really looks quite as much as if he were shar- ing with the three above him in a game of romps, hold- ing the lilies aloft to prevent their being captured by that other round-bodied morsel reaching down so eagerly from his vague support among the clouds ! Why, indeed, should not these celestial babies have their fun ? The pair hovering just over the chief figures in the picture are of a more sedate sort, and seem to be gravely talking the whole thing over in some cherubic dialect. 1 It is interesting to know in this connection that Murillo painted this same subject (the appearance of the Christ Child to St. Anthony) many times, making significant changes in his compositions as the idea changed its shape in his poetic imagination. The first time he painted the subject he represented Anthony kneeling on the ground, the Child being revealed as a Vision high up in the air above his head. The second time he at- tempted the same subject, he showed Anthony kneeling before a reading- desk, the Child standing on the open pages of the book upon the desk, one hand laid very lightly in the saint's hand. On a third canvas the Child sits upon the open book, one hand lifted in benediction. Still another version is that which is reproduced here. All these originals are now in different European galleries. PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 177 See how beautiful the light is in this picture, cen- tring on the baby Christ and fading softly away into the surrounding dusk in the illumination of the half -open book by the light reflected down from the Child's body ! Did the devout old painter mean to suggest the flooding of old knowledge with new importance and beauty when looked at in the light of personal, spiritual experience ? Or did he just wish to finish out that corner of his pict- ure with a bit of added pleasantness for the eye, by lead- ing his lights and shadows a dance over the contrasting surfaces of a dry, old book and a warm, live small boy ? It is not necessary to decide the question. We are richer if we hold to both interpretations at once. We can readily see how much the dusky trees in the right-hand side of the picture add to its beauty of gen- eral effect. They cannot do much for the story part of the picture beyond helping out the thought of Anthony's retirement to forest solitudes ; but certainly they are of great importance in filling in the space behind the kneel- ing man. This space itself is of more importance than one might at first think. Just try the experiment of laying your hand or a sheet of paper across the right- hand portion of the picture, cutting off everything be- yond the toe of the nearest sandal. The shape of the remaining picture as a whole is not half so agreeable. We immediately feel that it needs more breathing room. If we had the full space in the proportions chosen by the old master, but left quite empty, that again would be very unsatisfactory. The eye wants something to break the monotony of that dusky space, and yet something not so distinct as to make a strong call to the eye, attracting it away from the principal figures and the circling cherubs. On the whole, then, we come back to 178 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Murillo's own idea, and see that his trained artistic in- stincts led him to do precisely the right thing in the right place. Have yon ever sat in the evening in a room lighted only by the glow and flame of an open fire, watching the play of the firelight on faces and furniture, walls and ceiling, as it alternately dulled and brightened, and worked mysterious transformations in the aspects of the most commonplace, familiar things? The memory of such experiences often helps one appreciate the beauty of Rembrandt's 1 interiors ; for what he delighted in above all things was the rich contrast of warm lights and shades. He enjoyed these as ardently as other ar- tists have enjoyed excpuisite outlines and beautiful colors. The picture shown on page 179 is a reproduction from Rembrandt's Pilgrims at JEmmaus. The original paint- ing is in the Louvre. The text, so to speak, was evi- dently taken from the Gospel of Luke (xxiv, 30, 31). The same subject has been treated by a great many artists in a great many different ways. This is the way in which it appealed to the fertile fancy of the most famous of Dutch painters. To see it rightly, one needs to look at it first from a little distance so as to get the effect of the whole, at arm's length, let us say, to see the beauty of its central light, rippling off into the darkness above and around. This beauty is almost the same in whatever position the picture is held or in whatever attitude the observer looks at it. Just try the experiment of tilting your head side- 1 Rembrandt llermanzoon van Ryn (1607-1669). It is interesting, when one is studying this picture, to know that Nicholas Maas, who painted The Spinner, shown on page 107, was one of Rembrandt's pupils. THE 1TLGEIMS AT EMMA US. —Rembrandt. 180 IIUW TO ENJOY PICTURES wise towards one shoulder and looking at the print with half-shut eyes. The loveliness of it, even in a little re- production of this sort, is something surprising to one who tries the experiment for the first time. It was probably this impressive effect of light and shade, made a hundred-fold more impressive and beautiful by its play into the colors of the painting, for which the artist chiefly worked ; but there is much besides this to enjoy in the print. The source of the light is a little puzzling. It seems to come partly from an unseen window, rather high up in a wall at the left (indicated by the slant of the shadow on the partly lighted pillar beyond the left-hand figure), and partly from the figure of the Master. This effect of radiation of light from His figure in the big, bare dusky room, in itself gives one a sense of something wonderful, beyond the every-day nature of things. The sudden dawning of the truth upon the consciousness of the two disciples is finely shown ; the instinctive movement of the one at the right of the picture, as if to spring to his feet, is beautifully true to human nature. One wishes he could see the other face ; what is its expression ? What ought it to be ? The great painter takes us into friendly counsel with him here, leaving us to work out the detail of the picture with him. He could easily have drawn the second disciple in such a position as to show his face and have given him any one of a hundred different kinds of features and expressions ; but, instead, he paid the public (including you and me) the compliment of letting us imagine that bit of the picture for ourselves. And what is it these two disciples see? The face of One who has passed through vigil and trial and martyr- dom ; One whose eyes have a strange, far-off look, gazing PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 1*1 not on His companions but away into heaven and judg- ment and eternity. . . . The unearthly pathos of the central figure, all aglow with softly radiant light, and the amazed conviction of the two disciples, are given exquisite emphasis by the dense, good-natured unconsciousness of the black-eyed boy bringing a plate of food to the modest supper table. He evidently sees only three guests who are or ought to be hungry, and he is doing his humble best to serve thefn as they should be served. His utter obliviousness of what is going on before his eyes is like the pathetic un- consciousness of a little child, offering some well-meant, childish service to grown-up people too absorbed in a deep tragic experience to notice or to care. The dark colors of the boy's hair and eyes and gar- ments make a fine contrast with the lighter clothing and white hair of the disciple by whose side he stands ; and the gentle deference with which he bends to place the dish upon the table gives the outlines of the right half of the group a beautiful curve around the figure of the Christ, thus adding to the emphasis of the centring lights of the picture. This arching curve, suggested in the outlines of the right-hand figures and traceable — though less distinctly — in the left-hand figure, is repeated, we see, a little farther off in the picture, by the faintly dis- cernible arch, intentionally left indistinct, just as the lower one was intentionally left incomplete, only hinted ; but both help make up the beauty of the whole as it appeals to our eyes. Look once more at the light and dark before we leave them. See how gently the transitions from strong to lesser light are managed. At the left of the central light, the upraised hand and the half -turned face of one disciple 182 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES take the illumination in a subdued fashion, and lead the eye off to the wall just faintly aglow. The overhanging edges of the table-cloth are a little less light than the table top, and the curiously curved legs of the table are still a little less light, leading the eye down to the shadowy floor. At the right, the heavy table-cover and the clothes of the other disciple make still another avenue of transition, leading from the central light awa}^ to the dusky wall, where the strange glow seems almost to flicker and change while we watch. There are few things in life more terrible than broken despair in a strong man. The sight of stalwart shoulders, accustomed to practical burden bearing, bowed with grief, and eyes accustomed to steady far seeing filled with tears, is almost as appalling as the calamity which caused it. We instinctively hush our own voices and walk with gentler tread. It is something akin to this feeling which comes over us when we look at this bearded man, bowed in such hopeless sorrow on his throne-like seat. The frieze above his head and the arched spaces below hint that we have before us a part of the decoration of some great building. On the tablet at his feet we read the Latin form of Jeremiah. He it is, Jeremiah, the old Israelite prophet, as Michelangelo 1 portrayed him three hundred years ago on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Our familiar English phraseology speaks of " heavy '" 1 Michelangelo Buonarotti, one of the greatest of Italian masters (1475- 1564). He was eminent, not only as a painter, but as sculptor, architect, ami poet. The Sistine Chapel is a part of the Vatican, the papal palace at Rome. It takes its name from its builder, Sixtus IV. JEREMIAH. — Michelangelo. 18-i HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES grief, of " crushing " sorrow, of " sinking " under the burden of despair. The figure of speech is rooted in a deep reality of human experience, so close, although so subtile, is the analogy between outward facts and inward states. See how this phase of spiritual life took form in the imagination of a great artist. As we look at the picture, we are almost overpowered by a sense of dragging heaviness. The seated figure, built on the massive scale of the giants of ancient days, gives us a feeling of enormous weight, bearing down as under an awful load. The huge shoulders, meant to be mag- nificently square, are bent in a curve whose lines lead the eye steadily down. The powerful legs, that seem built for a steep climb or a long march, are bent into impotent curves, still tending downward. The hands, that were made for heroic gestures of exhortation and command, have lost their indwelling temper. The right hand dully lifts itself to the lips to stifle a groan ; the left hand hangs limp and nerveless over one knee. The feet on which this Titan was wont to stand erect have forgotten their vigor, and, in dumb misery, are pushed back so far under the seat that, even if he would, their owner could not use them at a second's notice. It looks as if he hardly expected to ever stand again. The majestic sorrow of the downcast head is something which, once known, cannot be forgotten. Thereafter it links itself with all the grandest poetic passages in the Hebrew writings that bear the prophet's name — pas- sages where a great soul cried out in hopeless sorrow over an ignorant, perverse, though still beloved, people, whose sins deserved all that divine justice sent upon them : — PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 185 SEfjeg fjabc forsaken trjc fountain of lining maters, ant> fjcrncrj tfjem out cisterns tijat ran liolti no mater. . . . &\)c jou of our fjcart is ccascrj ; our turner is turnrrj into mourn* trtcf. E\)t croum is fallen from our fjcarj ; mac unto us trjat inc fjauc sinncrj ! Jor trjts our fjcart is faint ; for ti)is our cges arc turn QErjc fjarucst is past, tl)c summer is cnrjcti, anej foe arc not sabcti. . . . If we take pains to learn some particulars about the painting of this picture, we find the strange shape of the composition accounted for in an interesting fashion. This odd triangular space is one of several around the edge of the oblong ceiling of the famous chapel. It might well have seemed impossible to do anything serious and imposing in a space like this ; but the old master in charge of this work saw how he could use these seemingly unpromising conditions as great opportunities. The fan- shaped spaces were saved from any accidental and scattered look by having a practically continuous band or frieze, with a dignified, architectural effect, run through them all, extending quite around the ceiling. But each space was closely confined, the heavy frieze shutting it in with severity as well as dignity. On the high ceiling of a chapel built for the head of the church, what could be so fitting and impressive in these niche-like spaces as the solemn, meditative figures of the sibyls of ancient days, unearthly, awful beings, to whom human destinies were known from the foundations of the world, and prophets who had seen visions in their youth and dreamed dreams in their old age, and who had told both the visions and the dreams with passionate insistence to man's careless ears ! 186 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Volumes have been written about the frescos of Michelangelo, for ever since they took shape under the master's hand men have recognized in them something as real and imperishable as life itself. 1 They have inspired many poets ; and few have sung of them more fittingly than Cranch in his slow, sonorous verses on their great painter : — " In his interior light Awoke those shapes of might Once known, that never die ; Forms of Titanic birth, The elder brood of earth, That fill the mind more grandly than they charm the eye. " Like some cathedral spire That takes the earliest fire Of morn, he towered sublime O'er names and fanes of mark, Whose lights to his were dark ; Facing the east he caught a glow beyond his time. " A heaven of larger zone Not theirs, but his, — was thrown O'er old and wonted themes ; The fires within his soul Shone like an aureole Around the prophets old and sibyls of his dreams." 1 "Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun. The gayest charm of beauty has a root in the consti- tution of things. The Iliad of Homer, the Songs of David, the odes of Pindar, the tragedies of JEschylus, the Doric temples, the Gothic cathe- drals, the plays of Shakespeare, all and each were made not for sport but in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and loving men." — Emerson in Society and Solitude. * PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 187 The figures of Moses, Elijah, and Joshua, from Sargent's Old Testament Prophets} constitute the middle section of a long frieze containing in all nineteen figures of heroic size. Above this horizontal space, on the walls of the building where the pictures are placed (the Boston Public Library), are others whose theme is taken from the Egyptian and Assyrian mythologies and from the earliest struggles of the Hebrew nation out of political bondage and pagan polytheism. The frieze of the Prophets continues this thought into that of growth towards the nobler spirituality of faith in one all-ruling Jehovah, and the expectation of a Christ to come. One understands better a little section of the painting when knowing the general idea underlying the work as a whole. This Moses, as might naturally be inferred from its general appearance, is the central figure in the long line of the prophets. All the other figures (nine on each side) are paintings on a flat surface. The Moses alone is a piece of combined modelling and painting, the colossal figure standing out from the wall in low relief, face, beard, shoulders, and arms, as well as the Tables of the Law, having the effect of massive, sculptured stone. He stands there holding the whole composition together as the keystone of an arch holds that structure together. The eye is involuntarily drawn to him first. The artistic dependence on his massive figure, as the central weight of the composition, in itself immensely emphasizes one's sense of the majestic import of his per- 1 John Singer Sargent is an American artist of the present day, horn in 1856. The great wall painting, of which this shows a small section, is in the Public Library of Boston. Messrs. Curtis & Cameron, of Boston, publish, in their series known as the Copley Prints, photographs of the Sargent pictures, and it is to their courtesy that the authors of this volume are indebted for the privilege of reproducing the present example. 188 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES sonality in the great drama of Hebrew history — that drama of religious development which still shapes the inward life of all Christian peoples. Moses stands there with a sort of monumental dignity, at once supporting and supported by the Tables of the Commandments, and enfolded by the wings of cherubim and seraphim as one dwelling close to the very throne of God. His severely straight figure with its stiffly conven- tionalized drapery, his solemn face with its deep-set eyes, his massive shoulders and arms, do actually make one think quite as much of some magnificent monument as of a man, sharing men's qualities and circumstances. And this no doubt is the way the artist meant that we should feel. In no other manner, perhaps, could he have so deeply impressed our imagination with a sense of this ancient Hebrew's exceptional destiny — a destiny which set him marvellously apart from all human kind in his own day, which forced upon him the most majestic isolation. The great-minded, spiritually endowed leader of a restless people incapable of grasping his intellectual conceptions, or sympathizing in any permanently loyal fashion with his spiritual convictions — his was inevitably a life of magnificent loneliness. We gather a faint hint of the experience from the lot of men and women here and there to-day, forced to be strong and brave for the sake of others dependent on them, constantly meeting demands upon them for sympathy, counsel, and encouragement ; yet, by the very fact of their position of leadership, de- barred from asking in their own turn for the commonplace comfort of friendly sympathy and encouragement in their anxieties and perplexities. Moses bore the spiritual responsibilities of a whole nation of ignorant, turbulent idolaters, and through that nation, of the long procession 190 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES of all the Christian peoples on this earth. It is well that his image here should speak to ns not at all of flesh and bone and the other temporary physical accessories of an Israel- ite citizen's career among his fellows, but rather of a spiritual giant, who talked with God upon the mountains, and who laid the solid foundations of a highway over which we walk to-day in our own quest after the Eternal. At the right, as Ave look at the picture, the warrior Joshua sheathes the sword so vigorously wielded in the cause of the infant nation. The main lines of his figure are severely plain and simple, fitting the virile simplicity of Joshua's energetic character, and harmonizing with the lofty grandeur in the lines of the Moses. Notice how the effect of strength in the figure is brought out by its pose, where the most significant lines are at right angles witli each other : the folds of the drapery are mostly vertical, the muscular forearm is almost horizontal, the sword sliding into its sheath repeats the vertical. A figure whose main lines are thus plain verticals and hori- zontals naturally gives the impression of stability and strength. Compare the capital H with the capital Q. The Bible student, reading the book of Joshua over and over (as indeed the artist seems to have done), will be more and more impressed by the perfect appropriate- ness of this figure to stand for the type of character which shines so clearly through the Scripture story. It is, in fact, a much finer touch of artistic insight to show the warrior king sheathing his sword, than it would have been to show him brandishing it in the heat of military conquest ; for the wisest strength of a strong man often lies in Ins ability to make other people rise into strength. This picture of Sargent's sends us back to read again 1 1 Joshua xxiv, 1-28. PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 191 how the Hebrew ruler forced his people to make a stand, to decide for themselves whether they would take the side of the God of Jacob or of the pitiful, ugly divinities of their barbarian neighbors; how he set up a monument to serve as a reminder to them of their self-imposed vows of loyalty. He bad long led them, commanded them, cheered them. It was time they should learn to stand on their own feet and quit themselves like men. Elijah, at the left-band side of the picture, strikes the observer at once as an enthusiast, a man of violent emo- tion. The rigid pose of the neck, the intense feeling of the worn, ascetic face, the nervous strain in the muscles of chest and arm and bands, all speak of the seer and devotee. The uplifted, arm with the tall staff, and the other arm across the chest, combined with the long lines of the rude drapery, give once more the effect of firm- ness and energy to the figure in itself, and at the same time make a beautifully harmonious balance for the Joshua at the other side. It is interesting to notice how like, and yet how unlike, are the main lines in these two figures. Both are tall, straight, severe, with bare feet and clinging draperies, and with an effect of dark rich color about them ; each has an arm across his breast, each carries something involving long vertical lines (sword and staff). When one holds the picture off at a 'distance, the two figures have the dignified beauty of two tall, dark columns, one on either side of the Moses. But, as soon as one begins to look at the figures in detail, it is surprising to see what characteristic differ- ences there are in the two figures, and bow completely the artist avoided monotony and dull repetition. Joshua's head is bowed ; his face is nearly bidden in the deep shadows of overhanging drapery ; Elijah's head is bare 192 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES to the mountain winds and storms, his face uplifted. Joshua's right arm crosses over to his left side, and holds a defensive weapon, pointing downwards. Elijah's left arm crosses over to his right side, where the other hand grasps a staff reaching upward. Joshua's draperies hang in discreet folds, reposeful as those of a judge upon the bench. Elijah's are full of careless disorder, like those of an advocate who quite forgets the conventional pro- prieties of life in his zeal for a cause. Even the feet of the two figures are entirely different in position and drawing. Once again, Sargent sends us with fresh enthusiasm to our Old Testament reading. The more we study the picture, the better we grasp the story of the fiery old prophet and his doings. The more appreciatively we read the story, the more we find to admire in the pict- ure. Is not this truly the very image of the old man who poured out such fierce, dramatic sarcasm on the un- happy priests of Baal, taunting them with the hopeless impotence of their lumpish divinity : — (£ry alouo ; for fjc is a goo : cttiirr lie is talking or fjc t's pursuing or fjc ts on a journru, ax pcraoucnturc fjr slccpctfj ano must be arnakco. And, again, is not this the very image of the prophet who stood alone on the heights, when a great ano strong un'no rent ti)c mountains ano brake in pieces tijc rocks . . . ano after tfycinino an earthquake . . . ano after tlic earthquake a fire . . . ano after tfjc fire a still, small rjotcc. .3 no it roas so, rofjen lEltjafj Jjraro it, tfjat fjc rnrappro fjis face in tjt's mantle. . . . And even this is not all that Sargent put into the picture. Suppose we look at it again, this time not so PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 193 much for its intellectual and religious suggestiveness as for its beauty of mass and of line, and of light and dark. Color we must perforce be content to miss. The level lines across the top of the picture (which in fact separate the long horizontal panel of the prophets from another portion of the composition just above) are broken by the curving wings of the cherubim behind the head of the lawgiver. In no other case, in the whole length of the panel containing nineteen figures, is this Hue touched by any part of the figures themselves. Only in the space where Moses stands, the artist carried the lines of the prophet up higher. By so doing, he marked in an unobtrusive, yet easily recognizable, manner the exact middle point of a long line reaching across the end of the large room for whose decoration the pictures were planned. Our instinctive love of symmetry and balance is (per- haps unconsciously) gratified ; furthermore, our minds, following our eyes, are led at once to identify the principal figure -- Moses — as being the principal figure. And in order that the overlapping of the wings upon the cornice may show itself to be a dignified intention, not an acci- dental miscalculation of distances, it is repeated by the tips of another pair of wings over the prophet's shoulders. Yet again, besides their overlapping the cornice, the wings project slightly over the side edges marking the right and left extremities of the space where Moses stands. This is still another quiet device for emphasizing the middle point of the composition, as well as the point of leading interest in thought. Of course, from a purely pictorial standpoint, it is not at all necessary that the principal figure in a composition should occupy its geometric centre. There are many 194 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES other ways of indicating, pictorially, the centre of thought and interest. But when an artist paints a picture, as here, for the express purpose of making a given wall space in a building as beautiful as possible, his work naturally takes on certain new qualities as a result of considering its adaptability for the special setting. 1 The wings themselves are crossed in variations of the X shape, giving us lines radiating from centres, and the feathers in the wings repeat this suggestion of radiation. Even as we see them here, in the absence of all positive color, they give us the idea of beams of light streaming out from a luminous source. The variety and sharpness of the angles of their lines set off in strong contrast the upright rigidity of Moses himself. We appreciate the restful calm of his lines all the more because of the almost bewildering complexity of the wings enfolding him. When we are studying the composition of a picture, we not seldom find we have a strong sense of the beauty of a certain choice or arrangement of forms without being quite able to decide in just what the advantage consists. The placing of the Tables of the Ten Commandments may be a case in point. We all see the beauty of their simple spaces and of the Hebrew characters, so ornamen- tal with vigorous strokes and graceful curves. We some- way feel too that the effect of the picture as a whole is immensely more beautiful to look at with the tables placed, 1 -John Ruskin, the famous English art critic, says: "The only es- sential distinction between decorative and other art is the being fitted for a fixed place, and, in that place, related either in subordination or in command, to the effect of other pieces of art. And all the greatest art which the world lias produced is thus fitted for a place and subordinated to a purpose. There is no existing highest order of art but is decorative. The best sculpture yet produced has been the decoration of a temple front ; the best painting the decoration of a room." PICTURES WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES 195 as now, at slight angles to the floor level, than it would have been if both tables had been set down, square and even, the edges of each one exactly parallel with the edges of the other one. But why ? It is not absolutely necessary that we should know ; the main thing is to be able to feel the beauty which a great artist put into so simple a matter as these angles. Perhaps the secret may be partly in the fact that this slight leaning of the Tables makes the lines of their severe shapes partake of the nature both of the oblique-rayed wings and the mainly vertical figure of the prophet. An effect thus midway between two strikingly contrasted effects often adds to their beauty, by helping blend them into one con- sistent whole. The likenesses and differences which we have already traced (191-192), in the figures of Joshua and Elijah, are quite as important from the decorative standpoint as from the standpoint of character study. Think them over once more. Notice, too, in each case, how the light falling on the head and arm of the prophet makes a gentle transition from the glory of the heavenly wings to the darker masses of heavy draperies. The light on Elijah's face and breast is echoed, so to speak, by the light on the lower half of his garments ; the light on Joshua's right arm repeats itself in the long, sweeping folds of the cloak below. The grouping of the two dark figures close beside the Moses, one on either hand, has its intellectual significance, — they seem to support him faithfully, one through ecstatic insight into the far-off and the other through executive ability in affairs close at hand, --but, besides this, the grouping has great beauty in the very massing of darks and lights. Hold the picture off once more till 196 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES you lose most of its small details, and you see the dark masses on either side (softened in their darkness by the play of light upon them) enclosing the central figure with its stronger lights and more conspicuous variations of color. The effect is most grateful to the eye. It would be beautiful to look at, even if we never heard of the prophets and had no idea what the picture meant. We feel here quite plainly what artists mean when they talk about the harmony of a composition. Our impres- sions of the three figures blend into the impression of one closely related group, dominated by one central figure, as musical notes blend in a chord. CHAPTER X THE PAGES OF A MAGAZINE TT7"E who read the new magazines each month, often fail to get from their illustrations anything like the amount of pleasure and profit which they might give us. We sometimes pass, with a moment's careless glance, drawings to which an artist with a national reputation devoted whole days. This is, perhaps, because as a peo- ple we " take " to literature more naturally than to the pictorial and decorative arts, assuming that the one func- tion of a magazine illustration is to elucidate the text, like an explanatory foot-note. The fact is, this is only a part of its function, and by no means always the most important part. A really good drawing always has a value of its own, over and above its explanatory bear- ing on the context, and the study of such drawings is greatly worth while, whether we ourselves can draw or not. The daily newspapers and some of the lesser magazines do publish a good deal of rubbish in the shape of poor drawing, just as they publish a good deal of rubbish in the shape of poor writing ; but the leading magazines, like the Century, Harper 's, and Scribners, do not print anything which has not genuine merit of one sort or an- other, and the minor magazines sometimes show very good work by comparatively unknown artists. Besides this, the 197 198 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES inexpensive magazines often give us attractive "half-tone" reproductions of pictures by old masters. Suppose the next few pages of this present volume were the pages of one of the best magazines. Let us see what we are likely to find for our entertainment. Perhaps the first article is on the great libraries of America, and, among other pictures, we find this one 1 (page 199), showing the Boston Public Library Build- ing at night, as seen from Boylston Street, across an angle of Copley Square. Let us not turn the leaf as soon as we have made out the identity of the building and given a moment's admiration to the cleverness of the effect of inner illumination; rather, let us linger a little to observe what else there is particularly good about the building or the drawing, and possibly to see a little into the artist's way of making his effects. How solid and dignified the great library looks ! The artist's choice of a standpoint had something to do with that. A position just opposite the middle entrance, with only the front of the building in sight, could not have commanded half so impressive a view. This sketch brings out beautifully the stately simplicity which is, perhaps, the greatest charm of the building as a whole. It looks, be- sides, as if it had room enough on which to stand ; it looks as if the lower story were substantial enough to bear the weight of the upper stories. These features make the eye grateful, after seeing so many buildings towering above painfully limited standing room, and (in the retail shopping regions) piling story after story of ponderous 1 Drawn by Peixotto, and reproduced here from Scribneys Magazine, by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. o o E-i to O a 200 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES brick and stone on the top of a ground section made merely of spider-web girders and plate glass. And it looks as if it were built to last. That effect is partly a matter of noble proportions in the whole building itself, and in its details of window and door spacing ; but, be- sides that, the artist's way of making his sketch has some- thing to do with it. The suggestions of motion in the things around — in the people coming and going, and the electric cars tearing by with insistent gongs — emphasize by their contrast the serene stability of the big building, with its cheerful glow of lights. If we choose to think of it in that way, there is a pretty bit of dramatic effect in the strong lights about the entrance, contrasting with the soft darks of sky and street, inviting the passer-by to come in where there are always good company and good cheer. Then, to look at the same artistic effect from an en- tirely different standpoint, hold the page off at arm's length, and see how beautifully the strong light, half-light and soft, transparent, deepening shadows melt into each other. Right side up or sidewise or reversed, the page is pleasant to look at on account of the harmonious blend- ing of these different effects. The beauty of it is com- parable in a rough way to the color variation in a leafy twig in spring : here it is faintly rosy, there the rose somehow melts into a tawny yellow, then the yellow turns into a sunshiny green, and last into a full, deep leaf green ; yet we can hardly tell where one effect leaves off and another begins. Just notice, by the way, how the brilliant effect of the library lights is produced. All we really have in fact are tiny streaks and dots of blank paper, but they seem to glow and shine. Has not the strong contrast of these THE PAGES OF A MAGAZINE 201 white spaces with the dark spaces of the entrance door- ways, and with the heavily shadowed sides of the oblong pedestals in front, a good deal to do with the apparent brilliancy of the light? It was a delicate touch for the artist to show the globe of the tall are light close against one of the most brilliantly lighted windows. Light against li O a fe. o K o s O o o « 216 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES tant pupils could be, at the moment, little more than a pleasant blur of caps and collars and quiet, oval faces. Notice how graceful as well as natural the grouping is. The quadrant-shaped curve of the class in the floor secures a much more interesting variety of pose than would have been given by a martially straight row. There is just enough difference in the stature of the girls to bring their heads at different levels, and so avoid stiff monotony in that direction. And mark the delicate appreciation of effects which led the artist to seat the teacher, not in the very corner of the picture, but a little removed, leaving space for the tiniest pupils of all to cuddle cosily in beside her. The eye involuntarily com- pares their proportions and lines with hers, feeling, even though unconsciously, the subtile charm of the mingling of likeness and unlikeness in the relation of the child to the adult. The baby figures echo the woman's seated pose with a grave dignity prophetic of coming years, and yet at the same moment contradict their own pretty pre- tence of sober age by their roly-poly curves and by the light of those wide eyes, full of endless, unspoken curios- ity and wonder. Over them "... Immortality Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, A presence which is not to be put by." * THE PAGES OF A MAGAZINE 217 Turn over the pages of our hypothetical magazine once more. We come now to a story, illustrated with drawings by Gil (son. 1 The story, we will suppose, is a fanciful retelling of Pandora's fatal thirst for general information, its setting and details being a mixture of classic vagueness and end-of-the-century explicitness. One of the Gibson drawings shows the fabled heroine, as on page 219, kneeling before the closed casket in an agony of inquisitiveness, yet trying with all her might to keep from lifting the lid. This drawing by a master is worth careful study, both of its effects and its means of producing effects. As to the expressiveness of the pose, there can be but one opinion. If ever a woman was " dying " with curiosity, this is the one. See how the backward slant of the thighs and the forward pull of the trunk demonstrate her strife against herself. See how the intentness of her stare at the mysterious casket is complemented by the rigid clasp of her hands behind her back, the parted lips shoAving breathless, excited interest in her own experi- ence. One cannot help thinking that her present curi- osity extends even to the question how long she can hold out against the temptation to investigate. When we look more closely at the picture, examining its lines in detail, we are very likely surprised to find how few and scratchy the lines are, and apparently how incomplete. If we try to trace the lines of the neck and bust, for example, we find actual gaps in them as if the 1 Charles Dana Gibson, at present the most popular of American illustrators in subjects where women are introduced. The drawing here reproduced, originally made in pen and ink, was, as a matter of fact, prepared as an example of sketching from the pose, and was published by the Prang Educational Company in one of their text-books of element- ary art instruction. 218 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES lines had been accidentally broken. Accidentally ? Not at all ; that is just the point. These open spaces are so left with definite intention. They prevent the outline from being hard and wiry, and (as we shall find if we once more hold the page off at such a distance as to see only the effect of the drawing as a whole) actually give the eye an impression that strong light is falling on the surface of flesh and gown, and that the exact outline is lost here and there in the play of light and shade. There is another break in the line at the woman's bare right shoulder. Here what we should really see, in a live woman thus posed, would be a curving space of flesh around the top of the arm, foreshortened into nothing whatever. The whole width of this volume's cover may be similarly foreshortened into nothing, if we hold the book horizontal in front of us with the upper surface just on a level with the eyes. How can that sort of elusive fact be expressed with a pen dipped in ink? Mr. Gibson, being an artist of resources, leads his outline towards this point and then leaves it altogether, making us feel the rest in imagination. Only a clever draughtsman can do this as successf ully as Gibson does it ; but, if it is well done, it adds greatly to the effect, as here, where strong light falls on the softly rounded limb. We feel when we first look at this kneeling Pandora that she is nervously alive from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Have not the clinging draperies a good deal to do with this effect ? The folds of stuff be- tween her knees take the light in uneven masses mixed with shadows ; the part falling down her right side is smoother and takes the light evenly, filled out as it is by the long, lithe curves of her body. And, again, the part of the drapery which lies behind her takes the light o o I < Pi o 220 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES evenly just where the drapery lies smooth over the leg beneath ; but on either side, where it falls into rumpled masses, the stuff is largely in shadow. So the mere in- dication of light and shade on the draperies, in a rough, sketchy way, is made to show that there is a substantial creature of flesh and blood behind the rippling folds of the classic gown. Following the story of Pandora's curiosity and its consequences comes an illustrated article about a great flower show, with critical notes on the latest methods of floriculture, and reminiscences of former favorites now gone or going out of fashion. And here we will suppose we come upon (page 223) Mr. Ross Turner's 1 drawing of a simple potted geranium. Nothing could be much farther from the sort of flower drawing one sees in cheap catalogues sent out by average seedsmen. From an artistic point of view, the hard, wiry outlines and confused multiplicity of details in the cata- logue drawings are to this drawing of the geranium what the crude, scrawly illustrations in the colored supplements of the Sunday newspapers are to the magazine illustra- tions which we are considering in this chapter. If the catalogue draughtsman made his hard-lined sketches ab- solutely accurate, we should perhaps not find fault with him for their lack of beauty, assuming that his aim was merely scientific, not assthetic. But, in too many cases, the drawings are equally unbeautiful and untrue. Mr. Turner's geranium does not profess to give us 1 Mr. Turner's paintings of landscape and flowers have had a wide reputation for years, and his work in pencil is receiving increasing recognition. THE PAGES OF A MAGAZINE 221 definite points about its precise technical variety. It gives ns not so much a formal lesson in botany as a lesson in beauty. In the first place, the artist asks us to look at it, with him, from one side rather than from above, and from a quite low level, so that we may actually look up into the flower cluster — even up under some of the spreading leaves. Those of us who have ever lain flat on the ground among growing grasses and clover, know what a revelation it brings to thus put oneself on the level of green, growing things, seeing life and the world from their standpoint. Here we do almost the same kind of thing, thanks to the angle at which Mr. Turner chose to show his geranium. See how exquisitely the artist caught the characteristic upward and outward thrust of the leaf stems. There is a certain robust vigor about the up-springing curves of a healthy geranium which is irresistibly attractive and cheery. Although the beginnings of the stalks are hid- den from sight by the nearer leaves, we can see in imagination just how they start from the short, sturdy, main stem. The geranium has its own distinct and self- respectful way of growing, and this the artist shows, un- obtrusively, but with clear comprehension. He wants us to see, too, the exquisite, curving veins into which the leaf stalk divides its fibres at the upper end, spreading them out like the ribs of an umbrella or the sticks of a fan, to support the broad, heart-shaped expanse of tender, breathing tissue, the velvety green leaf. Notice how perfectly this wonderful bit of plant engineering is shown in that further leaf, which is a little tilted to one side. Engineering? That is too mechanical a word for it. As we look up under the leaf in this way, the stem 222 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES seems more like a live arm with flexible fingers at the end, consciously holding up its own soft palm to the sky to receive the gifts of air and sunshine. Then look at the flower cluster, borne so proudly on that tall stalk which grew up and up on purpose to dis- play it. Geraniums almost always carry their flowery heads high, with the gay audacity of those who take our admiration for granted. There is nothing shy about their dispositions, although the individual blossoms do gather together in a bunch, like bright-eyed girls pre- tending to need the support of each other's companion- ship. See, again, how perfectly the artist caught the characteristic angle at which the separate blossom-stems leave the summit of their common stalk ; notice what a charming hint we have of the shadowy spaces among and under the blossoms, between them and the upper end of the single, long, straight stalk. Mr. Turner has a master's eye for color, and, as we see, knows how to show us something of the colors of this vigorous plant, even when his fingers hold nothing more than a lead pencil. The variations of dark and light on the leaves suggest at once differences in color effect, — differences mainly inherent in the actual leaves, but here and there intensified by the influence of light and shade to dilute or deepen the color effect as the case may be. See the charming difference between the upper and lower sides of the extreme right-hand leaf. See how the skele- ton veins show through the two leaves in the immediate foreground, in one case lighter than the rest of the leaf, in the other case deeper, like spreading streaks of stain. We may not be able to satisfy ourselves as to the exact hue of the blossoms, but the artist surety must mean us to see them, in our mind's eye, with some delicate tint no GERANIUM. — Koss Tuhner. 224 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES stronger than that light-colored leaf which overhangs the edge of the pot, — that is to say, they cannot be a very deep, dark red ; they must be something airier and more ethereal than dark red. And see how, even then, the sun- light falling on the curving petals is reflected here and there from their satiny surface, giving us, in those spots, just gleams of light with only a faint flavor of any color at all. What have we next ? A poem, let us say, full of the mystery and music of a summer night, and down at the foot of the page this little wood-cut for a tail-piece. 1 We get the most beautiful effect of it if we hold the page at arm's length. Simple and unpretentious as it is, could anything be more perfect after its own fashion ? We have seen a silver moon and gossamer clouds look just like this. The fleecy masses seem to float by while we watch them. The silvery disc of the moon almost seems to change the intensity of its light, growing dim behind its veils, then shining out again, brighter than ever. The dark masses of the trees in the corner, by their contrast with the rest of the picture, give the clouds a far-off look (at least, far off in comparison with the distance of the trees themselves ; clouds on a moon-lit night almost always look nearer than clouds in the daytime). Besides, see how much more filmy and silvery the clouds look for being contrasted with the trees in point of color and den- sity. See those little gleaming touches on the edges of the clouds here and there, and especially the little pool 1 This is one of Ernest Longfellow's illustrations to the poet's works, engraved by Andrews. It was made some years ago for a special quarto edition of Longfellow, and is reprinted here by permission of the pub- lishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ' - w " «#■■ a o © IX X O ~A O o 3 a j H 2'2Q HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES of light just below the floating disc, where the moonlight seems to have dripped liquid silver. We feel like saying to the artist, " Oh, I know just that look. I have seen it so a hundred times. I understand exactly what you have in your mind to show me." If we care to go a step farther and say — "But how did you do it?" — we find ourselves on the threshold of a magician's workshop. We have already noticed that the trees in the corner have a great deal to do with the effects of distance and of gossamer texture and of silvery color in the clouds. And does not the dark bit of open sky close by the moon help (by its suddenly strong contrast of color) to make the moon look a great deal lighter and brighter than the clouds ? We should almost say at our first glance that the moon is brighter than the blank space in the margin of the page, though we know that is, as a matter of fact, impossible under the circumstances ; indeed, if we look closely at the moon's disc, we discover it is really less light than the margins of the page, being covered with tiny dotted lines of black. Its apparent brilliance is purely the effect of contrast with the darks of the sky and the trees. (In parenthesis, just look at those trees and see how, as our eye becomes more accustomed to them, they show delicate differences in their degrees of darkness. Gradually, we can distinguish a good many separate masses of foliage, one beyond another. They stand out, after a little, as objects stand out, after a while, in a dusky room, where on our first entrance we could see only one conglomerate mass of shade.) If now we examine the print near by, and quite closely, we may be amazed to see by what .means and methods we have been given all these effects of dusky tree masses and THE PAGES OF A MAGAZINE 227 flouting" clouds and deep distances of sky. What we actu- ally have on our page of white paper is merely a series of delicate lines, sometimes almost straight and parallel and of even width, giving equal spaces of black ink and white paper, sometimes zigzagging and tangling themselves into knots of black, sometimes thin and wavy with the white spaces wider than the black ones, and now and then (as, for instance, close to the moon) we have blots of solid black. And all these whites are nothing but paper, and all these blacks are nothing but printer's ink. Talk about oriental magicians ! When four square inches of paper irregularly streaked with ink can give us the delights of looking more than a quarter of a million miles into the summer sky, we have little need to envy the spectators at the shows of India. The simplest stay-at- home of us all has marvels waiting at his elbow to be appreciated. Let us give the picture one more glance as we turn the page, noticing how beautifully the narrow oblong seems to have been planned. It is as unlike Castaigne's Land- ing (page 203) as it well can be, yet we recognize the presence of an element common to both ; we have here a certain intangible harmony and beauty born of the inherent relationship of the dark and light masses to each other, and of the long oblique lines and the tall vertical lines to each other. Someway, regardless of their repre- senting beautiful things, they seem beautiful in them- selves, arranged thus, in just this given space. We may not be able to determine just why the tiny picture is more beautiful with that one tall poplar, standing high up into the sky, than it would have been without it, still we are conscious that the result would not be half as pleasing in its absence. We may not be able to determine just why 228 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES that big, irregular, slanting rent in the clouds in the upper right-hand portion of the space makes the picture more beautiful than it would have been were the corner left a soft, even gray ; but we feel its beauty, and that is enough. CHAPTER XI THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER A RCHJEOLOGISTS tell us that one of the oldest drawings now in existence is probably the rude out- line of an animal scratched on the surface of a reindeer bone by some prehistoric man, and now treasured in a foreign museum. It is " a far cry, ,, as our transatlantic cousins say, from that day to the present, and, in the interval, many are the ways that have been thought out and worked out, both for making original drawings and for preserving and multiplying copies of them. Some readers of this little book — without caring to go deeply into the science of modern processes of reproduction — may like to trace the chief stages through which such illustrations as these pass on their way from the artist's hand to the reader's. Most of the illustrations in this book were printed from what are called " half-tone " plates. The Sistine Madonna, for example, on page 169, is a half-tone " engraving," so called, though the word " engraving " is not quite correctly used in such a case. 1 A half-tone print can be identified as such by the division of its chief 1 The word "engrave" comes through the Latin from a Greek root mean- ing to cut ; and in half-tone proper no cutting is done. Such changes as are made in the surface of the plate are made hy the corrosive action of an acid and not by a knife or graver. However, most good half-tones are made so by retouching the plates by hand, as explained on page 236, so the word '-engraving" becomes appropriate, after all. 229 280 HOW TO ENJOY PICTUKES surfaces, both dark and light, into tiny spaces, the dividing lines crossing at right angles to each other. Far-sighted eyes may need a microscope to distinguish these fine sub- divisions, but to others they are quite easily perceptible. The very darkest parts of a half-tone print, e.g. the dee}) folds of the curtains in the Sistine Madonna, seem to be a blurred mass of black. The lighter parts of the curtain reveal themselves, on close observation, to be made up of a network of black lines enclosing tiny white spaces. Look next at the drapery over the Mother's head and shoulders. It will be found that its variations of light and dark are produced by variations in the close- ness and thickness of the black network. On the outer- most folds of the drapery about the Mother's left shoulder, the network shows through a microscope that it is very thin ; here and there are breaks in its lines, as in a bit of cloth worn to gossamer thinness. And, in the sky just behind and beyond the shoulder, the network has grown so thin that the lines are no longer continuous, but broken up into a series of mere dots, these dots marking the points where two lines should cross. The lines between the dots have apparently melted into open Avhite space. In fact, if we examine the surface of the print closely, we find that its differences of color, all the way from black to a faint, vapor-like gray, depend upon the relative pre- dominance of black lines or of white spaces. The manner in which these variations of the network are produced will be explained in the following pages, for those who are interested in the ingenious devices of modern art industry. 3 THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 231 Raphael's original painting of the Sistine Madonna was made in oil colors. The actual canvas lias done an un- usual amount of travelling- in its day (as noted on page 166), but it seems to be permanently located now in the famous gallery at Dresden. The picture has been photo- graphed several times, and it was from one of the photo- graphs that our print was made. We are so used to the word " photograph " that we sel- dom think what marvels it stands for. In this particular case, we had, first, Raphael's canvas, coated by him with various colored pigments and protected by an outer coat of transparent varnish. The photographer's camera was set up before the picture as it might have been before a liv- ing sitter, the light reflected from its vari-colored surfaces passing through the arranged lenses and falling on a plate of glass coated with a stuff whose chemical condition made it exquisitely sensitive to the influence of light. What the light actually did to this sensitive substance was roughly analogous to what it does to the pigments and dye-stuffs in our carpets and curtains and wall papers ; indeed, to our own skin, turning the surfaces darker or lighter according to their chemical make-up : it broke up the original chemical constitution of the sensitive sub- stance and changed it into a different compound. Light reflected upon it from a dark red surface had a certain degree of influence to change it. Light reflected from a blue surface had a different degree of influence, and so on ; and, besides, variations in the intensity of the light produced different degrees of change in the uniformly sensitized surface of the glass plate. Wherever a very strong light fell (e.g. from the Mother's forehead, from the clouds immediately around her, etc.), the chemical condition of the coating on the plate was very much 232 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES changed. Wherever a light of medium strength fell (e.g. from Mary's feet, below her draperies), the coating was less affected. Where comparatively little light fell (e.g. on the parts receiving reflections from the shadowed folds of the green curtains in the top of the picture), the plate's coating was but little affected. All the inter- mediate variations in the light produced correspondingly varying degrees of change on the plate. This plate, known in photographic parlance as the " negative," was taken out of the camera after a proper length of exposure, and put through a series of chemical baths and water baths to " develop " the image cast on it through the lens. The effect of these baths, on the whole, was to dissolve away those parts of the sensitive coating which had not been changed by the impact of any strong light (i.e. in the dark portions of the picture), thinning, in various delicate degrees, the same coating in places where it had been slightly affected by medium light, and leaving it practically intact upon the glass in places where the strongest lights had fallen on it from the more highly illuminated spaces of the picture. After being thus developed, the " negative " appeared complete, the glass plate being quite transparent in places where the picture should be dark, veiled by a thin film in parts where there should be a medium light, and covered with its opaque coat in the places where there should be very light effects. The next process was " printing " on paper coated with another composition of chemicals extremely sensitive to the influence of light. The glass negative was laid over the paper and the two were exposed together to the light of the open sky for a suitable length of time. Wherever the glass was transparent (darkest parts of the picture), THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 233 the light passed through to the paper underneath and turned the coating of the paper a rich, dark brown. Wherever the glass was protected by an opaque coating (lightest parts of the picture), the coating of the paper underneath was protected and left unchanged, i.e. light colored. Wherever the glass was more or less thinly veiled by a half-removed coating (parts of the picture intermediate between very light and very dark), the light penetrated more or less through to the coated paper underneath, and changed its color in varying degrees. After a suitable length of exposure, the paper was re- moved and put through a series of baths which " fixed " (i.e. made permanent) the various degrees of color change on the paper, washing away such chemical ele- ments as would tend to continue the changes in color. As a final result, the paper appeared dark where dim light fell from the dark parts of the picture, light where strong light fell from the light parts of the picture, with all sorts of intermediate degrees, — in short, there was the finished photograph, such as travellers bring home from the foreign shops and dealers import for those of us who stay at home. 1 Next came the making of the half-tone block for the printer. Our photograph sat for its own picture, in turn, with a pair of specially prepared sheets of glass interposed like a screen between the lens and the " negative " plate, in the camera. Each one of these 1 Sometimes the photography of an original painting involves compli- cated problems, owing to circumstances of situation and lighting. For instance, Michelangelo's Jeremiah (page 183) is on the ceiling of a room whose lighting is far from ideal. In such cases artificial lighting and reflecting mirrors are often necessary to help out the camera. 234 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES glass plates had been covered with parallel lines ruled with the greatest precision, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred lines being ruled to an inch, and cut or rather eaten into the surface of the glass by an acid, the grooves being filled with a black pigment. The two screens, when in use, were set up closely face to face so that their ruled lines crossed each other at right angles. The negative taken through this inter- vening screen bore the image of the original photograph covered by a microscopically fine network of cross lines, the shapes in the picture being practically divided into myriads of microscopic spaces. Instead of printing from this negative to a sheet of prepared paper, as in ordinary photography, the next procedure was printing from the negative to the surface of a finely polished plate of copper. This copper plate had been prepared by coating with certain chemical preparations highly sensitive to the action of light. When being printed 1 the coating of those parts of the copper plate which were exposed to strong light (i.e. the parts under clean, clear glass in the negative, the parts corresponding to dark portions of the picture and to the fine network of the screen) were so changed as to become insoluble in water. The coating over the light parts of the picture could be, and was, washed off after printing. Then the plate was exposed to a strong heat, which changed the still adherent parts of the coating to a hard, protecting enamel. Next, the surface of the plate was treated to a bath of corrosive acid which ate away the surface of the 1 Printing both on paper and on copper or other metals can now be done by strong electric light, without depending always on strong day- light as used to be the case. THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 235 copper wherever it was unprotected, that is to say, in all the tiny spaces between the cross lines where the picture was light-colored and no enamel coating adhered to the plate. In the lighter parts of the picture the acid ate more deeply into the open spaces within the network, even encroaching a little on the boundary walls of these spaces (the lines of enamel-coated network), thinning them, and making their upper edges, i.e. the network lines, narrower. In the very lightest parts of all, the acid, which began by attacking the open dots of white space between the lines, went so far as to eat away most of the boundary lines, leaving only dots of enamel-tipped copper standing where two lines had crossed. The whole surface of the plate was thus changed from uniform smoothness into fine alternations of relief (enamel-coated parts) and depression. In the darkest parts of the plate a great deal of the surface was left in relief, untouched. In the lightest parts of the plate most of the surface was depressed, tiny dots only being left in relief ; in parts midway between light and dark, the portions in relief and the depressed por- tions were, on the whole, about equal in area. The copper plate was then mounted on a block of wood to bring it up to the height of ordinary printing type. When inked and pressed against the paper of our book page, the parts in relief naturally left their imprint, the depressed parts leaving blanks ; where the relief parts were in the greatest majority, with strong, close reticulations, the print came out dark ; where the relief parts were reduced to mere dots, standing up out of comparatively large depressed areas, the print came out light ; all sorts of delicate, intermediate gradations in effect ("half-tones," i.e. tones between dark and light) 236 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES were produced by differences in the proportion of relief space to depressed space. 1 Sometimes handwork is necessary, in addition to the " process " work, to make a half-tone plate give a satis- factory effect. See, for example, in the print of Hol- bein's Madonna of the Burgomaster (page 157) the fine streaks of actual white in the veil which partly covers the forehead of the middle woman kneeling at the right- hand side of the picture. The delicate shade of differ- ence, shown by the photographs, between the uncovered flesh about the eyebrows and the covered portion with the clinging veil, was lost in the course of the mechanical processes of half-tone reproduction ; but it remained pos- sible to bring out a difference between the two by using a hand tool on the metal block. What the workman did was to cut out parts of the veil with a sharp en- graving tool, leaving delicate grooves in the plate deep enough to prevent the plate from carrying any ink at all to the paper in those streaks where the tool cut ; that is to say, so that, in printing, the streaks would be left quite white. These white lines are unobtrusive, but they serve their purpose, restoring to the veil the filmy effect which it had in the photograph, and saving us 1 The difference between the relief and the depression, i.e. the depth of the acid's corrosion, was in fact extremely slight, so slight that one unaccustomed to the examination of half-tone plates might not have sup- posed that one part stood out enough more than another to produce any effect ; but, inked and pressed against a finely finished paper, such as is always used for half-tones, each change from relief to depression betrayed itself. Any one who cares to see what slight variations in the " relief " of a surface are printable, so to speak, can experiment by rubbing his own finger tips in the dust made by sharpening a common lead pencil, and then pressing them on a smooth, finely finished paper. Every microscopic ridge and groove in the skin will be found to register itself, in alternate dark and light. THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 237 from the loss of the artist's beautiful contrast between the upper and the lower parts of the forehead. In the reproduction of Peixotto's picture of the Boston Public Library, on page 199, there is also a bit of judicious tool work, e.g. in the globe of the arc light, and the strong lights on the ground at the foot of the tall post, etc. The artist's vivid effects of light here were more or less dulled in the course of the mechanical processes of reproduction, and were restored by cutting out specks and streaks of the surface of the plate in these places, so as to keep the paper here perfectly free from even the finest dots of ink, i.e. brilliantly white. Such retouching of half-tone plates, in order to be successful, must be done by people with good artistic appreciation as well as manual skill. In the best establishments it is, in fact, usually done by men or women who would be equal to the task of thus cutting or " engraving " the whole picture, without the mechanical aid of the corrosive acid at all. The time and expense involved in having a block prepared entirely by hand by a thoroughly accomplished engraver are, how- ever, so much greater than in the case of a reproduction by mechanical processes, that book and magazine illustra- tions are now done almost always according to the newer methods, the engraver reserving his artistic feeling and skill for the retouching of the metal block to remedy its defects and increase its excellences. Half-tone plates are often made from other originals besides paintings or photographs of paintings. Turner's Geranium (page 223) and Church's Hare and Tortoise (page 73) were reproduced in half-tone from pencil draw- ings, the artist's original sketches being taken for starting- points, just as Raphael's painted canvas was taken for a starting-point in the Sistine Madonna. 238 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES The domestic interior by Oscar Pletscli, on page 57, gives us a case where the main work of reproduction was that of the wood- engraver, mechanical processes serving to copy the engraving after that was finished. Here we had first the artist's drawing done in pencil on the smooth-finished surface of a block of boxwood, sawed across the grain. Then the engraver took it in hand. With sharp, steel tools of different shapes, like fine knives, gravers, gouges, etc., he cut away the surface of the wood between the artist's pencil lines and over those areas where no lines were drawn, leaving the lines them- selves raised above the level of the rest of the block. On the part of the block representing the deep shadows under the table, for example, considerable areas were left almost intact, the engraver merely picking out a few very small specks from the surface here and there, in order that it should not be a perfectly plain, unbroken space. On those parts of the block representing the distant wall of the room with the open shelves of dishes, the ridges of wood left standing to correspond to the artist's lines were intentionally made finer and somewhat broken ■ — not firm and continuous. When the relief portions of the finished block were inked and paper was pressed against the whole, in a print- ing-press, the lines and areas standing in relief left im- pressions corresponding to their shapes. The almost intact spaces under the table left broad expanses of black. The clear, sharp ridges outlining the mother's face left strong, distinct lines. The fine, broken tracery of the hanging shelves left faint, hesitating lines, and so on. The artist's drawing stood transformed into a print. THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 239 But the original wooden block would not survive long service in a printing-press. A metal duplicate would stand much better the wear and tear of printing ; so the publisher of the picture-book in which the illustration was to appear had it stereotyped. 1 The stereotype plate was made by pressing the face of the wooden block into a soft mass of fine clay, plaster, or other suitable composition, forming a hollow mould. Molten type metal was poured into the resulting mould, and, on cooling, this gave a metal duplicate of the wooden original, producing exactly the same effects in printing. And even this is not quite the whole of the history of our picture of the German household. When it was desired to reproduce the print from a foreign picture-book, neither the original wooden block nor its stereotype duplicate was available. The repro- duction had to be made by still another process. A good clear print of the picture on the German book page was treated just as it would have been treated if it were an original drawing in pencil or pen and ink. (Such subjects as this are now very seldom engraved by hand upon wood, the newer processes being at once quicker and less expensive.) The print was photographed on a glass "negative, 1 ' the second or "positive" plate being not a sheet of paper as in ordinary photography, nor yet a copper plate as in half-tone work, but a sheet of zinc, coated with a chemical preparation with special qualities of sensitiveness to light. The parts of the zinc plate where the black lines of the picture fell were " fixed " or 1 That was the German custom of thirty-five years ago. Electrotyping would now be done in such a ease, instead of stereotyping. See page 247. 240 HOAV TO ENJOY PICTURES made permanent, then the block was exposed to the action of an acid which dissolved away the surface between the protected lines, leaving those lines in relief. Very large open spaces, requiring a long time for the corrosive work of the acid, were dug out or " routed out " by the sharp, cutting edge of a machine tool made for the purpose. The degree of relief in this zinc plate was considerably greater than in a half-tone block, the lines standing up conspicuously from the rest of the surface. When finished and mounted on its wooden block, the zinc plate was, to all intents and purposes, just like the original wooden block produced by the German engraver and the metal-faced block produced by the German stereotyper. Mr. Gibson's pen-and-ink drawings, shown on pages 129 and 219, were reproduced by this zinc-plate process ; so were the explanatory diagrams on pages 137 and 149, the photography being done from the original drawings. The picture on page 241 has had a varied history. It came originally from the hand of Rembrandt, 1 the famous Dutch painter and etcher ; his signature appears in the lower edge of the picture, at the end of the sloping bank. The print is generally known as Rembrandt's Cottage with White Palings. This landscape has here the effect of a pen-and-ink drawing, but as a matter of fact Rembrandt did not draw it on paper. He etched it on a sheet of copper. The copper was coated with a waxy composition adhering closely to the surface, and the drawing was done with fine, steel tools, cutting through the waxy coating down to the surface of the metal, leaving the latter exposed 1 Rembrandt van Ryn, Holland (1607-1669). •A a a S a 32 < o E-i O R 242 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES wherever a streak of the wax had been removed by the etching needle. The plate was then given a bath of nitric acid. Where the waxy coating still adhered, the acid had no chance to affect the plate. Where it had been scratched away, the exposed streaks of copper were attacked by the acid, each line being eaten into a groove, the depth of the groove varying according to the length of time during which the acid was allowed to work. The width of the grooved lines depended partly on the width of the space originally opened to the acid, and partly (since, after it had once begun work, the acid could eat to the right and left as well as downwards) on the length of time the plate remained in the bath. After remaining long enough to sufficiently etch the lines intended to be tine and shallow, the plate was taken out, and those lines temporarily filled with a pitchy com- position which would prevent the acid from attacking them further. Then the plate was returned to the bath, that the other lines, which it was desired to deepen and strengthen, might be again acted upon by the acid. The removal of the plate to fill up finished lines, and then its replacing in the bath for still deeper etching, probably took place several times before the work was completed. Then, when all was done, the pitchy stuff was removed from the shallow lines, and the waxy composition from the untouched spaces, and the plate was ready for printing. In this case, the appearance of the plate was exactly the reverse of that of a wood-engraved block or a zinc plate as described on pages 238-240 ; the lines, instead of standing out in relief from the background, were sunk into the background. In order to print from the plate, its surface was inked, the ink filling all the grooves, big and little, and the smooth even surface of the plate was wiped THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 243 partly or entirely clean, leaving ink in all the grooves. Then the close pressure of a sheet of paper against the plate drew the ink out of the grooves on to the paper, in lines and spaces exactly corresponding to the lines and spaces etched by the artist. The comparatively thin plate of metal from which an etching is printed cannot be used in a common book printing-press side by side with half-tone blocks, zinc plates, and printer's type. For the present purpose, Rembrandt's etching had to be translated, as it were, into zinc plate, just as the wood-engraving on page 57 was translated into zinc plate, i.e. by photographing the image of a good original print and proceeding from that as if it had been the artist's first drawing. The result, as printed here, does not give precisely the effect of the real etching. There are many line points of differ- ence between the two, but one of the chief differences is that here, on page 241, the paper is merely streaked by coming in contact with an inky surface of metal, whereas, in a true etching, the paper has a sort of ridge of ink deposited on it from the hollow in the plate out of which the ink is drawn by the attraction of the paper. The two kinds of printing look quite different to an ex- pert eye. The portrait of A Young Man, Musing, on page 91, was reproduced from an etching in the same manner as the Cottage with White Palings. The Study of Lions, on page 211, was also reproduced from an etching, but, in this case, the etching was trans- lated into a half-tone print. The etching was photo- graphed through a glass screen ruled off into microscopic squares, just as with the Sistine Madonna, whose history we have already traced out in detail. The diagonal lines 244 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES iii the background of the Lions were worked up by hand after the practical completion of the block as a whole. Flaxman's Thetis and the Nereids, on page 141, was reproduced from a steel or rather cop>per-plate engraving. The first engraving was done on a plate somewhat similar to that used in etching ; but the lines were cut into the metal direct, by means of sharp tools in the engraver's hand, not eaten out by acids. This particular print was made by a process similar to that followed with Rem- brandt's etching : the original engraving in an old book was photographed and used to make a zinc plate, all the sunken lines being thus transformed into lines standing out in high relief and printable like any book type. Blake's Death's Door (page 133) was also reproduced from a steel engraving ; but, in this case, the reproduc- tion was made by the half-tone rather than the zinc-plate process. The wood-engraving reproduced on page 57 was of a very simple sort, little more than mere cutting to an outline. The tail-piece by F. E. Clifford, engraved by Caroline A. Powell (page 245), shows something of the artistic pos- sibilities of wood-engraving. 1 It is now the almost universal custom in wood-engrav- ing to have the artist's drawing or painting photographed on the finely finished surface of the wood — just as it might be photographed on to a sheet of paper, — the 1 Mrs. Gifforcl is a well-known New York artist, the wife of R. Swain Gifford. Miss Powell is one of the leading engravers of the country, — the tirst woman member of the American Association of Wood Engravers. This print is reproduced from the Century Magazine with the publishers' permission. 24G HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES original remaining - intact, for comparison with the en- graver's block, instead of being destroyed in the process of engraving, as was necessarily the case when the artist drew in pencil directly on the block itself. In this case, the artist's drawing was made with brush and india ink on paper and then photographed on the surface of the engraver's block, the engraver having the original draw- ing also at hand for comparison of effects during her own work. Here, as we see, there are no actual outlines at all. The beauty and effectiveness of the engraving, as an engrav- ing, consist in the exquisite perfection of its minute lines and in its expression of different kinds of color and different intensities of light, all through skilful uses and combinations of lines and spaces cut or ploughed out of the wood by tools in the engraver's hand. Notice how the engraver cut fine depressions out of a large, relief - space (producing, when inked and pressed against paper, white lines on a black background), or left ridges stand- ing in relief on a depressed space (producing black lines on a white" background), according to the effect she wished to produce. In the feathery grasses we have mostly white lines on black space. In the moon's disc we have broken black lines (dots) on white space. In the clouds, and in the sky seen through the cloud rifts, we have varying effects of light and dark, according to the varying proportions of relief to depression on the block. Notice how delicately these gradations were managed. And see how perfectly the textures of the moths' wings and bodies are shown, the fluffy, downy body of the nearest moth, the satin-like surface of its outspread wings, and the flut- tering, airy fragility of the wings of the other moths, seen against the sky. THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 217 The moonlight sky on page 225 is another example of wood engraving. The good effect of all wood engravings depends very much --as in the case of half-tones-- on being well printed upon paper of the proper texture. The print which we have here was not made direct from the engraver's block, but from a metal duplicate known as an electrotype. It serves practically the same pur- pose as a stereotype (see page 239), but is better adapted to delicate detail, and so oftener used in fine illustrative work than the quick, cheap stereotype. The engraved face of the original wooden block was dusted with finely powdered graphite or " black lead " and pressed into a sheet of prepared wax so as to leave an exact impression of every relief and depression. The resulting mould next had its inner surface washed with a solution of iron filings in blue vitriol to make it a good conductor of electricity, then it was immersed in a bath containing sulphate of copper. This chemical solution was broken up by send- ing through the bath an electric current produced by the action of a dynamo or electrical machine, the effect being that a thin coating of copper was deposited all over the inner surface of the mould, the resulting shell of copper of course exactly reproducing the shapes of the surface of the original wooden block used to make the mould in the first place. The copper shell was then removed, its back coated with a film of tin-foil, and then all its hollows filled in with molten type metal. When cool, this pro- duced a strong solid plate of metal. The whole was then mounted on a wooden block to bring it to the height of printer's type. The resulting block was practically an 248 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES exact duplicate of the original wooden block, producing the same effects in printing. Two general classes of printing plates have been alluded to thus far, — those where the lines of a drawing are sunk into the surface of the plate (etching and steel or copper- plate engraving), and those where the lines stand up in relief (wood-engraving, half-tone, and zinc plates). There is still another method of picture printing where the sur- face of the plate has no reliefs and no depressions, but is perfectly smooth, i.e. in lithography. The portrait of Lincoln, by De Camp J (page 249), was printed from a half-tone block, but the half-tone was made from a lithograph print. And this is the story of the lithograph : — ■ The artist made his drawing, not on paper, but on the fine-grained surface of a slab of lithographic stone. (This is a certain variety of limestone, usually imported from quarries in Bavaria.) The black crayon used in making the drawing was also of a special kind, containing fatty substances. Variations in the lightness or darkness of the lines were made just as in drawing with a soft pencil on an}^ rough-surfaced paper ; where the crayon rubbed lightly over the grained, i.e. uneven surface, its substance adhered to the fine elevations, leaving tiny open spaces be- tween, untouched, producing a mark considerably diluted in color, that is to say, light gray. Firmer pressure in drawing rubbed more or less of the crayon substance into the grain of the stone, producing darker lines. Where the artist wanted the very strongest darks, he drew with his heaviest strokes, completely filling in the grain of the stone so that his lines had no breaks or open spaces at all. 1 Joseph De Camp, an American artist of to-day. PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN. — De Cami- 250 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES After the completion of the drawing, the stone was given a bath of acidulated gum arabic solution. This bath chemically affected at the same time, though in different ways, both the crayon lines of the artist's drawing and the blank portions of the stone. The effect upon the crayon lines was to fix them more permanently on the stone, and to give them a great attraction for fatty substances, like printer's ink. The effect on the blank spaces of the stone (where no lines had been drawn) was, on the contrary, to make them repel all fatty substances. In this condition the stone plate became ready for print- ing. Its surface was, as has already been said, plane and approximately smooth, the lines of the drawing being neither depressed nor raised, but differing from the rest of the surface simply by virtue of the fact that they had a strong affinity for fatty substances, like printer's ink, while the rest of the plate had not. To take an impression from this plate it was moistened and then gone over with a roller covered with black printer's ink. The ink from this roller adhered to the crayon-covered parts of the stone, but stuck nowhere else ; the rest of the stone refused the ink and remained clean. Then a sheet of paper was laid on the face of the stone and the whole subjected to even pressure in a printing- press. The result was that the ink was transferred from the lines on the stone to the surface of the paper, produc- ing lines exactly like those drawn by the artist. Where the artist's line had been light, i.e. broken, the grain of the stone giving microscopic spaces of light between the touches of crayon, the ink had been correspondingly attracted and then transferred, producing open, grayish lines in the print, e.g. on the cheeks, the side of the nose, the shoulder of the coat, etc. Where the artist had THE JOUENEY FEOM ARTIST TO EEADEli '2~>l used his crayon more heavily, partly filling up the grain of the stone as he drew, and producing darker strokes, there the surface of the stone had attracted still more ink, producing, in the course of printing, correspond- ingly darker lines on the paper. (Beard, shadowed side of throat, etc.) Where the artist, in working for his darkest effects, had rubbed the grain of the stone quite full of crayon stuff, the ink attached itself in practically unbroken masses ; and, under pressure in the printing- press, these places came out sharp and black, with the same " accent " that the artist put into the original draw- ing. (Pupils of eyes, parts of hair and necktie.) The result, as a whole, was consequently an exact facsimile of the artist's own work, with this single difference, that the right and left of the picture were reversed in printing, just as the right and left of a man's face are reversed when he confronts a mirror. 1 Woodbury's Old Street in Siena (page 39) was also reproduced by lithography, but in this case the artist made his sketch on ordinary drawing paper with ordinary pencils. The sketch was afterwards transferred to stone at the lithographer's, a more complicated process being followed in this instance than with De Camp's Lincoln. But in neither case could the lithographic or stone print- ing be done in a common printing-press side by side with printer's types and relief blocks. In order to make it pos- sible to print the Siena sketch and the Lincoln portrait on the same press, and at the same time with the other illus- trations of our book, half-tone plates were made from the 1 Artists drawing on stone for lithographic reproduction make allowance for this mirror-like reversal when at work on the stone. Mr. De Camp, for example, drew his portrait of Lincoln with the face turning towards the Jpft. 252 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES lithographic prints, following essentially the same steps that have already been described in the history of our print of the Sistine Madonna (page 169) ; only, in the case of the Siena sketch, the portions of the plate repre- senting the very lightest parts of the picture were after- wards entirely cut away with hand or machine tools, in order to keep those parts of the plate from carrying any ink at all to the paper in printing, i.e. in order to leave those parts of the picture entirely white. "We find, on the whole, that all the leading modern processes of picture reproduction have been put at our service to bring even these few works of a few represen- tative artists into our very hands. Interest in these processes is, of course, something quite distinct from our enjoyment of the pictures for their own sake ; but, to many of us, a little realization of the clear-headed thought and marvellous skill which went into the processes inter- mediate between the artist and ourselves makes the study of pictures all the more attractive and pleasurable. It is true the artist himself is in each case the one we have most to thank. Still, if the world contained only the one picture which came direct from the artist's hand, most of us could never know anything of it save through unsat- isfactory descriptions. When the photographer, the en- graver and the electrotyper, the half-tone maker and the printer all fall to and do their best to bring their artist's thought home to us, we have a very significant instance of the cooperation of the sciences in the service of the arts. Take, for instance, Botticelli's Madonna of the Louvre (page 147). In the days when the painter lived and worked in Florence, modern science was hardly born. THE JOURNEY FROM ARTIST TO READER 253 The very first printing of hooks on a hand-press from clumsy wooden types was a great event during his life- time ; most of the books in existence were manuscripts, patiently copied by scholars and clerks in the monas- teries. Photography had not then been dreamed of. Stories of the existence of land west of the Atlantic Ocean were brought back before he died by the sailors under Columbus and Vespucci ; but the land was far, far off, peopled by dancing savages, — who knows ? perhaps by dragons and devils, — reached only by long, long sail- ing under mysterious skies. Not a steamship then in all the world's oceans, not a railroad train in all the world's continents, not a telegraph line nor a factory with steam or electric power under the sun. A bewildering dream, indeed, it would have seemed to our old-time Florentine, if he could have foreseen the way in which the picture he painted with such loving enthusiasm would reach our hands to-day — dwellers in the midst of a marvellous new civilization, with heat and light and electricity for ser- vants, bringing us our share of the legacy he left behind him for his fellow-men. CHAPTER XII PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM "ONJOYMENT is the first and final purpose of pictures in the school-room. But between the simple, unques- tioning delight of early childhood and the thoughtful, intelligent appreciation which develops with the growing years, there is as wide a difference as between the naive drawings of little children and the later purposeful ex- pression which follows conscious study. The early years are precious, and we do well if we make the most of them Avhile they last; for, as naturally as the child grows in body, so he grows in spirit, out of the childish attitude of mind into the " long, long thoughts " and vague question- ings of youth. School children become acquainted with pictures through seeing them on the school-room walls, — a more or less permanent feature of their daily environment, — and also through seeing small photographs, prints, and book illustrations. The movement for placing good art examples on the walls of our public schools is rapidly growing. In many places, however, much preparatory thought and work have to be given to the matter, to insure the placing of good pictures before the children in such a way as to be worthy both of the art examples themselves, and of the educational purpose which they are to serve. 254 PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 255 In any plan of school-room decoration, its purpose and the use of the room should be borne in mind. The school-room is first of all a study, a workroom, not a parlor. The very construction of the room, its propor- tions, divisions of spaces by doors, windows, and heating and ventilating apparatus, should be determined by its use ; but these proportions and spacings should be as pleasing as may be while conforming to the requirements of a school-room. Architects willingly cooperate with art teachers or others interested in these matters, and. so far as practicable, carry out offered suggestions. No invariable rules can be laid down concerning color schemes for a school-room, but some suggestions may be of value. 1 The color note of a room is usually determined by its Avoodwork, especially as the use of natural woods is superseding that of painted wood. No one color or tone is suited to an entire building, where light comes by turns from various points of the compass. With natural pine or oak woodwork, a creamy tone on the wall surface (technically, a tint of brown or orange gray) is pleasant for a bleak northern room which seldom has a ray of direct sunshine, and to some extent compensates the children for their loss of the sun. On the south side, where the sunlight comes streaming in, a very warm tone 2 on the walls might seem disagreeable ; here a cool, gray-green tint 3 is grateful. We must remember, how- ever, that too cool a tone, i.e. one containing too great 1 Art for the Eye, by Ross Turner (Boston, 1898, The Prang Educa- tional Company), is valuable for reference in this connection. 2 Colors tending toward orange are called warm ; those tending toward blue are called cold. Warm colors are those that partake of the color nature of sunshine or of fire. 3 Tint is used here as meaning a light tone, in distinction from shade, which is a dark tone. 256 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES a proportion of blue to the yellow, would by contrast intensify the warmth of the woodwork. It is a matter of relationships ; all should be considered together, — woodwork, blackboard (which let us hope is not black at all, but the soft gray of natural slate or a dark green-gray mixture), wall surface, and window shades. The latter should be selected with reference to their color at the window, when light shines through them, as well as taking into account their local color when unaffected by light. In an old-fashioned building, where the woodwork is nearly black with age, a warm, softly pinkish tint on the walls is cheerful, and enlivens the deep tones of the wood. Where woodwork is painted, it is well to choose the same color for both wood and wall — a warm or cold gray, according to the lighting of the room, the woodwork being enough deeper in tone to give a pleasant accent, while window shades, carrying the same color if possible, add the necessary depth of color. Ventilators and heat- ing ajjparatus, when forming a part of the wall space, should be colored as such ; if within the dark black- board area, the usual japanned finish is not especially objectionable, but it should not be tolerated on a light wall. It is possible to have any color desired for the finish of these register and ventilator surfaces, when a room is being painted. S PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 257 When we consider the framing and hanging of pictures, again it is a question of relationship, and of purpose, or use. Compared with the number and arrangement of pictures in our own particular sanctum at home, or with the principal's office at school, there are certain differ- ences to be borne in mind. Our own pictures represent a gradual acquisition, one or two at a time, covering perhaps a space of many years, and implying a corre- spondingly gradual assimilation of their charms. Besides, the home is supposed to be a permanent abiding-place, not the scene of an annual or semi-annual game of " Stage-coach," in Avhich all players change to another room, scarcely regaining their mental equilibrium before still another change is called for. Remembering this matter of school promotions and considering the imma- turity of the child mind, it may be better to have but few pictures in any one class-room. The hallways and the principal's office, being familiar ground for several consecutive years, might be made richer storehouses without danger of overloading and distracting children's minds ; but in the special class-room, where the child does most of his work, a single picture, carefully chosen and judiciously hung, may exert a deeper and more abiding influence than half a score of pictures selected with less care, and scattered about the room, calling the attention hither and yon, until it settles upon nothing in particular. If we agree that it is better to hang but few pictures at a time in a class-room, we find that the area of wall space is great in proportion to the picture area. Sup- pose we have selected a photograph of some fine build- ing, the Parthenon, St. Mark's, perhaps the Capitol at Washington. Were this to be hung in the principal's 258 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES office, 1 where wall space is restricted and the view at close range, it might be desirable and pleasing to enclose it in a broad moulding, placed directly against the edge of the picture. But if the picture is to hang in the wide area in the front of a class-room, to be viewed from vari- ous points in the room, a moderately wide margin or mat between picture and frame usually increases its effective- ness, and brings it more into harmony with its surround- ings. In short, the same rules which apply to dress should govern the selection of frames for pictures. The frame should set off the picture, as the dress sets off the wearer. Showy, elaborate frames are as much out of place in a school-room as rich clothing and profuse jewellery. In surface, a picture frame for school service should be smooth and free from grooves and projections which invite the dust. In choice of color, the woodwork of the school-room and the general tone of the wall as well as the picture itself enter into the practical problem. For example, a heavy, dark frame would be manifestly discordant in a school-room with very light woodwork and white walls. In general terms it may be considered 1 The art interest of a school building should centre in the principal's office. Here is opportunity for the exercise of individual taste and for establishing high standards. Here may be placed pictures a little beyond the comprehension of the children of the school, showing that there are art treasures yet unknown and beckoning them on, e.g. such a series as Alexander's Evolution of the Book, Blashfield's Progress of Civilization, Maynard's Discoverers, or some other of the beautiful decorations of the Congressional Library at Washington. For the teachers' rest-room it may seem well to adopt the suggestions of the Japanese and choose just one beautiful thing on which the eye may repose and be satisfied, — perhaps one of Corot's forest scenes or one of Turner's sea-views. Much as a teacher may love her work, there come times when she seeks refuge from it; and what but nature can so renew a faint spirit ? PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 259 a safe custom to make the frame correspond with the middle tone of a picture, that is, to have the color of the frame about midway, as to lightness or darkness, between the highest lights and the deepest shades of a picture, each appearing enhanced in value by the more neutral average of the frame. Sometimes a slightly suggestive color effect is pleasant, as a green-gray frame for a water view, a warm brownish gray on a picture representing freshly overturned earth, or a silver gray for a delicate moonlight scene ; but such choice must depend also in part upon the actual color of the photograph or other print. Photographs made from the same negative often differ greatly in the matter of warmth or coolness of effect, owing to differences in printing and toning. In the main, plain inexpensive ash, birch, and oak frames are safe, durable, and pleasant to live with, like good, reliable, every-day friends. Modern school-rooms are usually supplied with picture mouldings which, for the convenience of the teachers, should be placed as low as a pleasant spacing of the wall area will permit. In hanging pictures in a school-room it is the child's point of view which should be first con- sidered. The very choicest picture naturally belongs in the front of the room where all may enjoy it, hung low enough to be easily seen from every seat. hi some school-rooms the height of the Avindow sills from the floor gives cozy little spaces which may well be utilized for the placing of smaller pictures, for close, intimate companionship and study. S 260 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Several considerations influence the choice of pictures for the school-room. 1 First and foremost is that of art culture ; in choosing pictures we must think of their en- during, artistic qualitiest Only the best should be given a lasting place on the walls. These are the things to live with and to carry permanently in heart and mind. Hut there are also pictures of transient interest, belong- ing to some particular age or experience, which worthily minister to temporary needs or desires, — pictures good in their own lesser fashion, but not of enduring value, pictures which we outgrow as we pass from childhood and youth to maturity. These are like the acquaintances whom we enjoy for the time and who contribute to the largeness of our conception of life, but they are not quite like the friends who become a necessary part of our very lives. And, lastly, there are pictures which relate directly to details of school life and work, to nature study in plant and animal life, to the progress of the seasons, to literature, history, and geography. These may indeed be of intrinsic artistic worth, and may deserve a place on the Avails at least for a time ; but, if they possess only slight artistic value, they would better form part of a portfolio collection, to be brought out when needed for special reference, like a dictionary or other useful reference book, and then put away. 2 1 A list of pictures and casts for public school class-rooms of various grades was recently prepared by Stella Skinner and M. Rachel Webster, of New Haven, Conn., and published in New Haven. 2 Many teachers make collections of pictures illustrative of points treated in school lessons on geography, history, natural science, and the like, and keep these in portfolios or large envelopes, assorted as to subject so that any desired print may be easily found when needed. Others prefer to mount such pictures in scrap-books to save them from the wear and tear of much direct handling. Where the scrap-book plan is PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 261 To the little child who comes, sensitive and shy, from the home circle into the larger community of the school- room, what more gracious welcome could await him than the gentle, loving presence of one of the Madonnas, as- suring him, as it does, of love and care and sympathy in his school home, not less than in the familiar family life ? For surely no teacher under that benign influence can be impatient or harsh with the little ones who trust her so confidingly. They are not cherubs, these little live and six year olds, and when the shyness and strangeness wear away, some of them prove veritable imps of mischief, wriggling and squirming and tormenting their hapless neighbors. It is true these vices are usually but per- verted virtues ; wriggling itself may be only excess of vitality or nervous energy, awaiting guidance into right avenues of expression ; but unless the teacher is wise and patient, her heart must sometimes fail as she sees her favorite theories vanish into the thin, clear air of experi- followed, it is better to attach the photographs or other prints with only a slight touch of library paste or mucilage at the corners, not pasting over the whole surface ; better still, if paste is applied only along that edge of the picture which is to come next to the binding of the scrap-book, the rest of the picture may be turned like an in-set leaf of the book itself, and be almost absolutely secure from wrinkling and rumpling. A single large sheet of heavy cardboard, to which pictures may be temporarily attached with pins or thumb-tacks, is often used by teachers like a bulletin board, giving special information or suggestions bearing on the lessons for any given day. Still another plan is to have wall charts upon which pictures may be pasted. The millboard used by bookbind- ers has been found satisfactory, with the upper edge of the sheet eye- letted and strung with gray tape for hanging. Illustrated articles may often be cut entire from old magazines and fastened into manila covers for use in the school reference library ; or illustrations may be mounted on small cards and kept in envelopes or boxes to be passed around the class for individual study. All these various plans have been found desirable by workers under differing conditions. 262 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ence, and she too will be helped and comforted by the calm, sweet, mother presence beside her. And what of the street urchin whose only idea of home is a place for eating and sleeping, and with whom the thought of " mother " is too often associated with harsh tones and impatient blows? What can a picture of the Madonna mean to him? May it not teach him that, after all, the world is full of love ; that he himself, neglected little waif though he seem, is entitled to his share of it? Fortunate indeed will he be if, in his own teacher, he finds the realization of this motherly ideal. After these youngest children have lived with the Madonna picture for some weeks or months, and it has had time to become a part of their very life, they like to talk about it (indeed, they may wish to talk about it from the first, even before the}* have anything to say), and to tell the story they find in it, which is always " The mother loves the baby." Then they want to tell about the baby at home, and of the love which surrounds it. Skilful questioning will lead the children to look into the picture again and again for deeper meaning. How do they know that the mother loves the baby? How does the baby show that it loves its mother ? Where are they? Do you think it is a cold or a warm country where they live ? Why ? The children will have ques- tions to ask, — questions too deep and serious, maybe, for answer, for who has the skill to tell the Christ story to a little child? The Madonna idea embodies for us all much more than one mother and one child. It stands as the type of motherhood, and of the love which sur- rounds all childhood. " Each new child's a new Mes- siah," a message and a hope to world-weary men, and PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 263 the very highest purpose of education is to nourish this inborn, divine spirit, not to quench it. Children enjoy bringing in pictures of mothers with their babies for a little loan exhibit, —temporary, because many of their selections may be poor. Then, if this inter- est has had timely association with the Christmas season, the teacher may like to give each child one of the inex- pensive prints now obtainable, to carry into the home cir- cle with its beautiful message of peace on earth, good will to men, where it may comfort and cheer a weary mother. Children a little older may become interested in know- ing something about the man who made the picture, espe- cially if Raphael has been chosen ; his boyish portrait will delight them. If they have come to know one Madonna well, others by the same artist and by other artists will interest them, just as we enjoy several books by one author, or several photographs of a dear friend. Care should be taken, however, to avoid over-emphasis on this biographical aspect of picture study. In a few cases, where an artist's life history shines out through his work in a way to be attractive to the childish imagination,- — ■ e.g. in studying some of Millet's peasant pictures, — bits of personal history or anecdote may help even very little people to feel the spirit of a special picture ; but, as a rule, it is safer to postpone artist biographies to the higher grades of school, perhaps, to confine them, for the most part, to written exercises. Farther on in school life, as boys and girls come to know more of art and of history, it will interest them to learn that the Madonna has been a favorite theme for artists and poets for many centuries (appealing as it does both to the spiritual nature and the human emo- tions), and they can then classify and study such pict- 2(34 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES ures by schools, — the Italian, Spanish, French, German. Dutch, English, and American interpretations, noting re- semblances and differences. With older pupils, it is Avell to study the artist's manner of work as well as his subject, to look for the beauty of his composition as a composition, and to notice his ways of treating details to make them contribute to the beauty and impressiveness of the whole. (See the notes on certain Madonnas of Botticelli, Murillo, Holbein, Van Dyck, and Raphael, Chapter IX.) This closer study would of course be out of place with little children. Interest thus aroused may grow on and on beyond the school life, leading into delightful paths of after-school study. The leisure of a series of winters might be well given to the study and enjoyment of this one subject^ beginning with the early Italian conceptions which mark the dawn of painting as an art in itself, — its development in Italy, and its relation to the religion and the home life of the people, comparing the interpretations of one artist with another ; reading between the lines much of the life and environment of the people. Then, moving on from one nationality to another, what an insight may be gained into the lives and thoughts of the people ! Finally, how interesting would be a comparison of contemporary inter- pretations of the one subject by the different nationalities, noting how the life of the period, its religious conceptions, and physical types influence the artist ! All this detailed and mature study is, of course, beyond the province of the school-room, but not beyond the resources of a teacher whose tastes lead her in such directions, and who lias access to a good library. A comparison of subjects of art expression by different nations would be of interest with mature pupils, and valu- PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM ^l~> able in relation to historic study. The preponderance of religious themes with t lie Italians, conquest and national greatness with the French (up to the present century), civic and domestic life with the Dutch, — all these reveal the characteristics of the people and the time. But to return once more to the little people. Picture study has a valuable bearing on school lessons in Ian- guage. From the first, children should be encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings concerning pictures,, not in a stilted, self-conscious way, but naturally and incidentally, as they would talk among themselves upon any familiar subject of interest, the teacher remaining in the background until her help is really needed. Then, from her wider knowledge and broader outlook, let her guide them by skilful questions and suggestions to still greater appreciation and fuller enjoyment. Sometimes the attention of the entire school may be held by a gen- eral conversation, at other times that of only a group ; occasionally it is worth while to give opportunity for separate, individual study and expression. Picture study affords the teacher an excellent chance for the quiet observation of disposition, temperament, and home envi- ronment in individual children. A simple description of a picture may profitably form the basis of reading, writing, and spelling lessons for young children. Occasional memory exercises in describ- ing a picture, one pupil telling all that he can put into words and the others recognizing and naming it from his description, are valuable not only as language exer- cises, but also in strengthening the mental image of a thing beautiful in itself. 266 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Pictures form admirable subjects for compositions, older pupils writing the "story" which they find in them. Artists and their works may be as profitably studied as authors. It is surprising to find what a wealth of mate- rial pupils can sometimes bring in from their homes, once their interest is awakened. The current magazines are searched for articles and illustrations, the school and public libraries are explored, and delightful illustrated compositions are produced about Raphael, Rembrandt, Millet, Rosa Bonheur, Landseer, Abbott Thayer, and other favorites. We count a person uneducated who has no acquaint- ance with Shakespeare, Scott, Hawthorne, Lowell, and Longfellow ; yet artists like Raphael, Murillo, Van D^yck, Millet, Breton, and Thayer should be equally familiar to him. Picture study may often be helpfully associated with nature study. Life and motion appeal to little children strongly, and are embodied in their first attempts at graphic expression. Next to pictures with human inter- est they enjoy those containing animals, and, most of all, those in which child life is associated with familiar animal life. Fortunately we are rich in really admirable pictures of this sort. From Millet, Jacques, Lerolle, Mauve, and Monks we have charming pictures of sheep ; Bonheur, Fromentin, and Remington give us fine studies of horses, Landseer of dogs, Troyon and Dupre of cows, and Ron- ner, Lambert, and Dolph the most fascinating of cats. With such an embarrassment of riches, how shall a teacher choose ? One solution of the problem may be found in the principle of correlation among school studies. If cats are chosen for science study in a certain grade, PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 267 cats are likely to be also the subject for reading, writing, and spelling" lessons, for a certain period. This may be- an opportune time to lead the children's thought up to some charming artistic interpretation of feline life by a famous painter. A temporary loan collection might profitably be made, strengthening the relations between home and school ; if conditions are favorable, pupils might each bring some trifling sum, — ordinarily spent for can- dies, — to be used for the purpose of purchasing and carrying into the home a small print of their favorite picture. This, however, should always be put to the child as a privilege, never as a requirement. Another determining factor in the choice of pictures in the primary school-room is the procession of the seasons and holidays. At the opening of school in the fall, it is natural both to look back upon the summer holidays and to look forward to the autumn occupations. From the haying of early summer to the later wheat harvest, -how delightfully Dupre and Breton tell us these inci- dents through their pictures ! - - we pass to the garnering of fruits and vegetables. Nature is preparing for the winter, the festival culminating in the Thanksgiving season. This would be incomplete without some thought of the early Pilgrims and their first Thanksgiving ; and here we have the most natural opportunity for studying the beautiful, old-time pictures of Boughton. The reli- gious pictures whose interest centres around the Christmas story would naturally follow. In February, when patriot- ism is an especially timely theme, portraits of Washington and Lincoln and pictures of special historic significance may Avell claim the attention. Then comes the gradual awakening of the earth from the long winter's sleep. Bonheur's oxen plough the fields (page 69), and Millet's 268 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES Sower goes out to scatter seeds ; the baby takes its first step out in the garden where the father is at work (page 119), Corot's nymphs and fauns dance in the dewy morning (page 15), Dagnan-Bouveret with his Watering Trough gives us the stalwart young farmer pausing a moment in his labor, and Breton's Song of the Lark carries the joy of life and springtime into the heart. All is movement, expect- ancy, growth. "Everything is upward striving." Eyes tired of lesson books grow soft and dreamy as they gaze and gaze, through these pictures, beyond the school-room walls out into the fields and meadows. Body, mind, and soul grow. One great purpose of picture study is that of opening the eyes to beauty all around, which an artist's trained eye perceives while it is missed by others. "... We're made so that we love First, when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see, And so they are better painted, — better for us, Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out. . . ." Many a boy and girl, after seeing Rembrandt's love for beautiful contrasts of light and shade, will all the rest of their lives notice and enjoy more of the exquisite effects of light and shade in even the most commonplace sur- roundings. That is the essential service of all great men, — to draw us up, in some degree, toward their own level of insight, enjoyment, and aspiration. £ PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 269 The study of Literature would be incomplete without the aid of pictures in the school-room. Not only are por- traits of authors and photographs of their homes and haunts of interest, but our appreciation of a writer's works may be deepened by the sympathetic interpretations of an artist. For instance, take Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Longfellow, parts of whose writings are now studied in primary and grammar schools. The charm of Long- fellow's poems of colonial life and romance may be still farther heightened by associating the verse with Bough- ton's conceptions of The Return of the Mayflower, Pilgrim Exiles, and Puritans going to Church. We love Evange- line the more for having artist as well as poet portray for us the sad-eyed, faithful woman, who "Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom He was already at rest; and she longed to slumber beside him." Many of the subjects treated by Tennyson are rich in art interpretations. In our own country are Abbey's fine pictures of the Quest of the Holy Grail, of which excellent reproductions have been made. Sir Galahad, painted by Tennyson's friend Watts, is a picture to arouse the im- pulses of youth to high endeavor. When we come to Shakespeare, every child is interested in the vine-embowered cottage of Ann Hathaway at Shot- tery, where the young Will spent so many happy hours, and in the beautiful view of Stratford-on-Avon, with the placid river in the foreground and the church-spire rising from among the trees. But these are by no means all to which a teacher may resort. Becker's Othello (page 53) is but one instance of how artists have delighted to portray Shakespeare's characters in a manner worthy of the mas- ter. Millais has shown us the Princes in the Tower. A 270 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES few years ago, Harper s Magazine published a fine series of Shakespearean illustrations by Abbey, and teachers having access to those files have a wealth of admirable study material at their command. The impetus given to mural painting by the Columbian Exposition of 1893 has resulted in some fine decorative compositions, many of which are being reproduced in an artistic manner. Mention has been made of Abbey's decorations in the Boston Public Library ; one of Puvis de Chavannes is shown on page 135. Portions of Sargent's Triumph of Religion (see page 189) are suitable for school- room study, although the composition as a whole demands maturity of thought beyond that of school children. Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims have been portrayed by Sewell as a decoration for the entrance hall of George Gould's home, and reproductions of these compositions might well be given a place in a high-school class-room. These are but a few suggestive examples of the associa- tion of art and literature in school life. 1 Opportunities for such helpful coordination of studies are practically innumerable, as those teachers find who once become interested in the idea. Mythology and legend were written in pictorial forms long before the alphabet came into use. Our knowledge of Egyptian life has been largely obtained from picture writings found in their tombs and temples, which tell us of their beliefs, customs, and occupations. Combining 1 The connection suggested here may sometimes be helpfully presented in reverse order ; thus, occasionally, a bit of good literature sometimes seems to express the same feeling that an artist has put into a picture. (See pages 18, 23.) Older pupils like to make this association in their own minds. PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-KOOM 271 fact and tradition in a most significant manner, these show how their religious beliefs, which to us may seem but myths, formed an integral part of their very lives. Art is the expression of the beliefs and aspirations of a people, and anthropology would be incomplete without its light upon the pages of the past. Among the Greeks we find religion, literature, and art inseparable. In Greek literature the gods hold familiar intercourse with mortals, aiding them in their achieve- ments and punishing them for their misdeeds. What more natural than that art should give tangible form to the imaginings of the Greeks, and embody some of their finest conceptions? Whether the little children study Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, or the older ones read 3Igtlis of Grreece and Home and The Age of Fable, or make a beginning in Latin and Greek readings, a wealth of art material is at their disposal in reproductions, both of paintings and sculptures. With young children the illustration should usually accom- pany the story. In some instances it might precede it, and so awaken the children's interest beforehand ; in others it might be well to have the story, and give the children an opportunity for exercising their imagination in original illustration before showing them the artist's interpretation. Or, again, the children might be given the picture and allowed to imagine and write the story in it before reading the text. Older pupils might make a more comprehensive stud} r of a given subject, as suggested in connection with the " Madonna " idea (page 204). For example, choosing a sub- ject of wide interest, as Athene (Minerva), Apollo, or Hermes (Mercury), it would be interesting to study and compare interpretations of the one subject by different 272 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES artists, trying to discern the thought of each artist and the particular characteristic or episode which he has de- picted. In this as in all picture study, the elements of beauty should be sought : is it the rhythmic lines, the relation of areas, the harmony of mass-composition and idea, or a blending of all these, which gives us the sense of ideal beauty ? We must bring to pictures, as to literature, our best effort at interpretation, if they are to yield up to us their deepest meaning. " Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." Time and effort in geographical study may be econo- mized by the use of pictures. Natural divisions of land and water are more clearly and easily comprehended through a typical picture than through painfully mem- orized verbal descriptions. The Sea, by Alexander Harrison, gives a vastly better idea of the grandeur of the ocean than any definition in a text-book. To Gerome we are indebted for wonderful interpretations of the lonely desert, to Turner for exquisitely beautiful pictures of Venice, the bride of the sea. Such pictures, when obtainable, give children not only topographical facts, such as they might get from photographs direct after nature, but also a spirit and feeling which are greatly to be desired. Of course, photographs direct from nature are also valuable. The wall paintings of the early Egyptians show us, as no words could, the occupations and industries of the time. Blacksmithing, bricklaying, and glass-blowing were depicted in a most graphic manner, and still make PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 273 those early days seem very real. Modern artists arc carrying a similar idea into mural decoration ; Galland's Manual Arts frieze in the Hotel de Ville, Paris, and Baudoin's Cornfield frieze are fine examples. Excellent illustrations of modern industries and occupations may be obtained from the current magazines. The life and customs of different nations have been pleasingly shown through paintings now obtainable in reproduction. Thoren has helped interpret Russia by his vivid portrayals of scenes of life and travel. Schreyer has given us spirited sketches of Arabs and their adven- turous lives. Curiosity (page 43) gives us in a small com- position a great deal of attractive information concerning the every-day life of Venice as well as its peculiar street architecture. Much is told of the simple, provincial French peasantry in the Primary School in Brittany (page 215). Mesdag, in his sketches of the Holland coast, has given us a familiar insight into the lives of the Dutch fisher-folk, through compositions of artistic merit. Blom- mers has shown us child life ; and Hoecker's charming Girl with Cat shows a quaint Dutch costume to advan- tage, and, while emphasizing external differences, con- tains that "touch of nature" which makes the whole world kin. In using such pictures as these, the teacher will do well to distinguish clearly, in her own mind, be- tween those which have genuinely artistic qualities and those which are valuable only (or chiefly) as convenient sources of information. Pictures which mainly give in- formation or " tell a story " are indispensable in their own way, but teachers and children should both realize the underlying difference between those and really great works of art. 274 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES General history covers too broad a Held to admit of detailed suggestions here as to the use of pictures ; but, as a rule, all historic study in the elementary schools should include some thought of the best art produced by the nation or the period under consideration. Text- books on art history are helpful in this connection, giv- ing information concerning art and artists to complement that concerning authors and literature. i The art cata- logues of dealers in photographs give necessary details as to pictures (or photographs of sculptures) by the artists mentioned in text-books, and there is a growing disposition to have school libraries, especially those of high schools, equipped with well-chosen photographs for reference. Where fine photographs are inaccessible, one turns gladly to the less expensive reproductions. One can often obtain, through a public library or by other means, back numbers of standard magazines in which fine reproductions of the best things in art have been printed, together with valuable articles upon the artists themselves, giving insight into some special phase of the subject under consideration at the time. In studying American history, incidents in connection with the early settlement of the country may be fixed through pictures. 2 History and geography are so closely allied, the suggestions already made concerning study of the occupations and industries of a people would be equally applicable to the study of discoveries and inven- tions. A child gains more through seeing a picture of the first steamboat or of the cotton-gin than from the most minute verbal descriptions. The nation's leaders have a warm place in the hearts of 1 See Appendix, page 289. 2 For example, the pictures by Boughton, mentioned on page 269. PICTURES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM 275 American children, Washington and Lincoln most of all. It is now possible to obtain excellent reproductions of the Gilbert Stuart and other portraits of George Washington and Lady Washington. Portraits of Lincoln by De Camp and others are obtainable, as well as photographs of the St. Gaudens' statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park. Each year places at our disposal more excellent material illus- trative of the nation's life in the persons of her greatest men. The crisis through which the country passed during Washington's time yielded fine material for pictorial ex- pression. Willard's Spirit of '76 may well be hung in every class-room where the war of the revolution is being studied. Trumbull's Declaration of Independence is always of interest in this connection. In the selection of battle scenes the most careful discrimination is neces- sary. Carnage is an inevitable result of war, but pictures which display the ghastly details of the battle-field are out of place in a school-room. Let us rather emphasize the spirit of patriotism, as in Willard's picture already mentioned, and the common humanity which no differ- ence of opinion can wholly crush out of the hearts of men. Thus Hovenden's In the Hands of the Enemy, in which the blue and the gray come together in common sympathy, is a truer expression of the sentiment of to-day than any picture which tends to keep alive sectional bit- terness. Photographs of historic buildings and mementos are of great educational value, especially in this country, where we have so little historic perspective. They serve to keep alive our best traditions, and to inculcate a spirit of reverence so sadly needed. In this connection the me- morials to the nation's heroes are of significance. The 276 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES beautiful tombs of Garfield and Grant, recording their achievements as was done by the early peoples, and the statues to Nathan Hale at Hartford, Colonel Shaw in Boston, and General Logan in Chicago, are all valuable object lessons in training for citizenship in a free republic. The architecture of all peoples and ages is a rich inher- itance, and the children have a right to share it. How can we help them to know and to love these beautiful art creations into which the very lives of generations of men have been builded ? " The hand that rounded Peter's dome And groined the aisles of Christian Rome Wrought with a sad sincerity. Himself from God he could not free. He builded better than he knew ; The conscious stone to beauty grew." In one of the leading American art schools, whose walls are enriched with fine reproductions of the choicest paint- ings of the world, the entire staircase and hallway are hung with reproductions of historic architecture and orna- ment. Beginning with the earliest historic remains of the ancient nations, the development from one epoch or style to another may be clearly traced, and the student may, if he will, avail himself of this complete epitome of the archi- tecture of the world. Here is a valuable suggestion for the public schools. Their halls and staircases might well be educationally serviceable to the hundreds of children who pass to and fro, so many times during the week. This need not necessarily banish from the regular class- rooms such examples of historic art as are peculiarly appropriate to the work of any special grade nor such as possess a permanent charm for the pupils. It would, on the contrary, enlarge their idea of their own especial pict- PICTURES IN THE SCH0OL-R< )( >M 277 ure, by giving it an environment or context, so to speak, and showing its relation to the greater whole. If it is especially desired to emphasize American his- tory, the same idea of a hall decoration could be carried out with the patriotic motive prominent, beginning with the discoverers and progressing to the present time. Where teaching is closely specialized, it may be well to have a Greek art room where Greek is taught, a Roman room for Latin recitations, and to have the same idea carried out in rooms where the modern languages are studied. This plan is already in operation in many high schools, where portfolio collections of pictures — ■ listed as library material — supplement the pictures on the walls. This suggestion is equally applicable to recitation rooms for literature and history classes. In fact, all the art re- sources of a building are called into play in the intelli- gent teaching of history to older pupils. 1 Picture study is an essential part of a public school course in elementary art study. While children should be given abundant opportunity for original expression, they need also to form right ideals of art, just as they need to cultivate good taste in literature. It is often well to let small children first give their own original expression, with brush or pencil, to a story or description; then, after they have done their best, they may be helped by seeing how an artist has expressed the same or a similar thought. Very young children are, 1 The use of stereopticon views, accompanied by an explanatory talk, is a profitable way of becoming acquainted with historic art, while, for individual use, many pupils have drawing-books containing examples, and there are inexpensive prints to be had for note-book illustrations. 278 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES in fact, usually more interested in their own drawings than in pictures made by others. Not until they have had opportunity for self-expression do they become recep- tive. One of the most puzzling educational problems is how to lead children from the expression of some nebu- lous, preconceived notion of a thing (producing usually a curious medley of lines or else a diagram standing sym- bolically for the definite idea) toward the expression of what they really do see. For example, they are at first entirely satisfied to draw a large circle with lines at the side for arms and lines from the bottom for legs, and call the result "a boy." It recpuires patient, tactful effort to lead them to really see and express that the body has both neck and trunk. In this connection it is helpful for children to see not only a real boy posed as a model, but also some good picture made bj r an artist, e.g. Van Dyck's Children of Charles I. Literature, histoiy, geography, and natural science all afford opportunities for illustrative drawing to be done by the children. Some conceptions, for instance, those of a mountain, a growing plant, or a piece of physical appa- ratus, can be expressed more clearly and satisfactorily through drawing than through words. But the descrip- tion of objects by means of drawing is not the highest use of art, any more than the description of objects by means of words is the highest use of language. Not until the child becomes creative and expresses what he thinks and feels in an individual way, does he begin to use either drawing or language in its highest sense. The teacher's province is to help him to develop true and beautiful ideas, through the best things in literature, art, and life, and to train him in technical processes ; then to give him opportunity for self-expression and hold him to his own PICTUEES IN THE SCHOOL-BOOM 279 best possibilities. Picture study can do much to aid pupils in original art expression ; but, for this purpose, only the best pictures should be held up as examples. Bad composition and poor drawing should be excluded from the school-room as carefully as triviality or vulgar- ity of subject. " Beauty, which is the natural food of a healthy imagination, should be sought after by every one who wishes to achieve the great end of existence, — -that is, to make the most of himself. If it is true . . . that man liveth not by books alone, it is equally true that he liveth not by knowledge alone. . . . Cultivate admiration. It is by admiration only of what is beautiful and sublime that we can mount up a few steps toward the likeness of what we admire." x Very few of the public school children of to-day may prove to be themselves artists, but almost every child can gradually learn to appreciate and enjoy what is best in the works of the great masters. Differences of tempera- ment incline individuals toward one branch of literature rather than another, for example, toward poetry more than toward history or vice versa, and similar divergencies of taste are to be expected in the matter of pictures. But it remains possible for teachers to see that no kind of truly great art remains absolutely blank and meaning- less to the children under their charge. Simple exercises in the study of picture composition, with older pupils, may be made of great practical value, leading both toward the better appreciation of artists' masterpieces and toward improvement in the quality of a pupil's own drawings and sketches. It is, however, a safe rule to postpone definite, explicit study of picture composition until children are old enough to be working 1 John Stuart Blackie in Self-Culture. 280 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES out its underlying principles in their own drawing. Even then, all will probably agree that there should be no pict- ure analysis just for the sake of the analysis itself. The analytical interpretation o£ a picture should be used only as a means to fuller appreciation and enjoyment of what is especially admirable in any given picture. (See the notes on Botticelli's Madonna of the Louvre, page 1-47, and others.) As a beginning in the study of composition, pupils may advantageously be led to think about the shapes of pict- ures. For instance, the majority of pictures are oblong in shape ; the reason or purpose underneath this fact should be sought. A child can readily see that the circle allows variety only in size, the square allows variety in size and position, while in the oblong we may have variety in size, position, and proportion ; it is plain that this adaj^ta- bility of the oblong has led to its wide use by artists. An exercise in designing oblongs of pleasing propor- tions again sends a pupil to the masters. Is a simple, arithmetical proportion as pleasing as one more subtile ? which holds our interest longer ? Why ? A pupil can be led to see that a long, narrow oblong seems exactly right for Guido Reni's Aurora and a wide one equally satisfactory for Millet's Shepherdess (page 281) ; that the enclosing oblong of Burne-Jones' Hope is best vertical, and that of his Circe (page 125) horizontal. Pupils may profitably be asked to design oblongs with a definite thought for a picture in mind, as, for instance, a marine view, a landscape, a figure study. Such practi- cal problems as these quicken observation and set young minds to working in fruitful ways. Divisions of the enclosing form can also be studied to advantage. If a landscape is in question, shall one have more sky or more land '? if a marine, shall there be 05 as Q « S Ph w s 3D z H 282 HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES more of sky or of water ? Again we learn from the artists. Turning to Millet, Troyon, Corot, Turner, they tell us to emphasize the more interesting portion, or the portion which we wish to make the more interesting. Corot might well give often a large proportion of his picture area to the sky, which forms so luminous a back- ground for his wonderful trees, while Millet, intent upon portraying human life and human interests, can spare only enough sky space to give a pleasing balance to his pictures. In this connection a study of the structural lines of pictures is of value. Millet is considered a master of composition ; let us turn once more to his Shep- herdess (page 281), and study its structure. No- tice into what beauti- fully proportioned parts the horizon line divides the whole area, and see the subtile relation of one portion of the side verticals to another. Did this simply happen, or did the artist consciously aim to produce beauty ? Again, observe the placing of the most prominent figure, the shepherdess. Is that the most pleasing position for her? Fancy her moved to the right or the left ; do we like the composition as well? Finally, draw an oblong of the same proportions as the original picture, divide it horizontally by the line of the horizon and vertically by the axis of the girl's figure, and see what beautifully harmonious areas are the result (Figure 4). Such study may profitably be followed by an exercise in designing the structural lines of a picture, for example, Fig. 4. < a a 8