Charles I and Painting

1895

The national bias in favor of portraiture received in King Charles' time a most powerful stimulus in the naturalization of probably the most notable genius in that walk of art whom the world has seen — Vandyke. An earlier and in some respects even greater portrait painter, Hans Holbein, had, it is true, in the preceding century planted the germs of the art in British soil. Holbein's example developed itself in after time in England chiefly in the direction of portrait painting in miniature, in which he himself had contributed inimitably beautiful works, and by Nicholas Hillyard, the Olivers, Cooper Hoskins and other native professors of the art, his successors in the land, the great school of English portrait miniature painting was rapidly developed. This national specialty, be it said, by the way, down even to our own times unrivaled in any other country, we have ourselves seen virtually extinguished by a deadening frost of scientific discovery — photography, that democratic leveler in art and inevitable bane of true genius.

Charles I, with all his artistic instincts, seems nevertheless to have had but comparatively narrow views and aims in the matter of collecting. At the very time that he acquired the famous Mantau collection of pictures or soon afterward he had expatriated a wonderful and most precious series of works of art, nothing less than the ancient gatherings of the English crown in goldsmiths' work and jewelry — historic treasure of infinite interest, which at the present time would be of untold pecuniary value. — Nineteenth Century.

Prisoner Eats the Evidence

1916

Man Is Said to Have Swallowed Marked $10 Bill.

NEW YORK — Herman Horowitz, who said he was a delegate of the Painters' Union, was arrested by Detective Giery on a charge of extortion. On the way to the station it is alleged that Horowitz seized a marked ten dollar bill, which Giery was holding as evidence, and swallowed it.

The complainant against Horowitz, who is 30 years old and lives in Brooklyn, is Louis Wall, a boss painter. It is charged that Horowitz threatened to call a strike of painters employed by Wall unless Wall paid $10. Wall, it is said, told him to come back later.

Wall complained to the police and Detective Giery was assigned to the case. It is alleged Wall gave a marked $10 bill to Horowitz. Afterward, it is said, Giery arrested Horowitz and says that he found the bill in Horowitz's pocket.

As the detective and his prisoner were on the way to the police station, Horowitz engaged Giery in a fight and wrested the bill from the detective's hand. This done, Horowitz is said to have swallowed the evidence while the detective struggled to save it. Then Horowitz accompanied the detective to jail without further trouble.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Novel Experiment In Art

1901

Tony Robert Fleury Paints Portraits In Three Colors.

Tony Robert Fleury is making some curious experiments in three color portraits, and the results have astonished the Paris art world. They are interesting not only from their originality and harmonious combinations, but for the variety obtained through limited resources. M. Fleury said to the New York Journal correspondent:

"The idea of attempting portraits painted in the three mother colors only was suggested to me by the lines of Pliny remarking on the fact that red, blue and yellow, which are the base of all hues in the prism, are also the fundamental colors of nature.

"It occurred to me to see how far this could be carried in portraiture, since no form of art requires a greater scale of tones to render life. I have now executed five portraits in this way, and in no two are the combinations alike. For these experiments I was compelled to confine myself to half size figures. In a large canvas so treated predetermined method would have been necessary, and method is impossible in art."

Made It Fit the Name

1901

"Red Rock, N. Y.," said a man who spent some time there, "isn't much of a place, but there is something interesting about it that I fancy all the world doesn't know. The present name is not the one it has always borne, and what its other name was I don't know. Whatever it was the people did not like it and concluded they would change it. There was no particular reason why they should call it Red Rock, but that was determined upon, and so Red Rock it became.

"Then in the course of time strangers of an inquiring turn of mind began to ask why the place had such a name, and as no reason could be given newcomers to the neighborhood began to want a name that meant something. This insistence grew so strong that the old residents began to look around for a reason for the name of their place, and at last they found a huge boulder nearby which they said was what had suggested the name. But the boulder was gray instead of red, and the progressists insisted that that would not do. At last the old timers hit upon a new plan, and, procuring a barrel of red paint, they painted the big rock red. Red Rock indeed it was now, and not only was all opposition to the name overcome, but the painting of the rock every spring has become an annual festival, and the people celebrate it with a big picnic and general celebration.

"It was a new idea to me, and if there is any other town anywhere on earth that is christened every spring with red paint or any other color I don't know where it is." — New York Sun.

How Landseer Worked

1904

The man who can accomplish work at a dash is probably the one who has spent patient years in preparation for it. An enthusiastic English sportsman, Mr. Wells, of Redleaf, Penshurst, had engaged Landseer to paint the portrait of his favorite dog. But the artist was one of those who put off their duties as long as possible, and one day Wells, who had been growing more and more impatient, showed his feeling by some sharp expression.

"I know I have behaved shamefully," said Landseer, "but I will come down next Thursday and stay till Monday, and the picture shall be done before I leave."

On Thursday he arrived, just in time to dress for dinner, and his first remark was, "Oh, your man tells me you are going to drag the great pond to-morrow! Hurrah! I am just in time. That is a subject I have often meant to paint, and I shall get any number of sketches done."

This was an unpleasing announcement; but the host bore it. Landseer did a capital day's work for himself, and the next morning, when he came down to breakfast, he said:

"Mr. Wells, I hear you are going to shoot to-day, I've been looking forward to that for a year or two." So it went on until Sunday morning, and then Wells, who was very particular about seeing his guests at the early service, said to Landseer:

"I suppose you are going to church?"

"I don't feel like going," said Landseer. "I think you must excuse me."

"Oh," said Wells, in a blaze, "do just as you think best! You know well enough that this is liberty hall — for you, at all events."

"Thank you," said Landseer. "And I am going to ask you to let me keep Charles Mathews with me, to amuse me."

Wells vouchsafed no answer, and away the people went, leaving these two to their own devices. The minute the house was clear they hurried to another room, which Landseer had specially arranged for the purpose. The head gamekeeper was there, holding the dog, and Mathews assisted when there was need, at the same time amusing Landseer. When the party returned from church the picture was painted, finished, and framed on the wall. Written on the trunk of a tree in the background were the words: "Painted at Redleaf in two hours and a half."

Making Artificial Pearls

1907

What a Little Silver Fish Taught a French Beadmaker

"I'll tell you," said a jeweler, "how the wonderfully perfect artificial pearl came to be invented.

"A rich French beadmaker, Molse Jaquin — he lived in the seventeenth century — found a pond in his garden covered one morning with a lovely silvery luster. Amazed, he called his gardener, who said it was nothing — some albettes had got crushed; that was all.

"Albettes were little silver fish, bleaks the Leuciscus alournus. The gardener explained that if you crushed them they always gave the water a pearly sheen like that. Jaquin put on his thinking cap.

"For six years he worked with beads and bleaks, wasting millions of both, but finally he achieved success. He learned how to extract the pearly luster from the bleaks' scales and to cover a glass bead with it.

"What he did — and his method is still used — was to scrape the scales from the fish, wash and rub them and save the water. The water, decanted, gave off a lustrous fluid of the thickness of oil, a veritable pearl paint, a magic fluid that imparts a lovely pearly sheen to everything it is applied to.

"It takes 1,000 bleaks to yield an ounce of this pearl paint. — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Sign Painter's Work – Advertisements on Fences, Billboards

1887

The Sign Painter's Work

Interesting Information About the Advertisements We See on Fences

"That man is a sign painter by trade," remarked a contractor, pointing to a man who was erecting a fence before a building that was to be torn down, "but he finds it pays better to put up fences where building is going on and let out the spaces to advertisers. The big profits in the business have brought about a healthy competition, and everything is now reduced to a fine art. I remember a few years ago this sign painter came to me and offered to put up a new fence free of charge in front of a building I was erecting providing he could use the boards for advertising purposes. I jumped at the offer and thought the man was a fool for making it. The shoe was on the other foot, however, for I should have received several hundred dollars to boot for the privilege.

"This man has brought the business down to a science. He has scores of agents scouring the city for eligible sites, as well as canvassers to drum up advertisements. His fences, which are very neat and attractive, are built in uniform sections and join together on the groove principle. An advertiser can thus have his announcement changed to different localities at will without going to the expense of having a new sign painted. The old method of building a new fence every time made this mode of advertising very expensive, and the lessees often lost money by being unable to let out all the spaces; but the cost is now reduced to a minimum by making the sections to slide in and out like the lid of a box.

"The rates, of course," he continued, "depend upon the location. A sign on Broadway costs the most, but many of the cross streets are nearly as desirable. The big advertisers make contracts by the year. Some of their signs are very elaborate. As soon as one building is finished they are put up elsewhere. The lessee who has a number of these contracts runs no risk in leasing a privilege, because he has his advertisers beforehand, and their signs are ready to slide into position. The first charge is made for the painting of the sign, and then so much per day for its use as an advertisement. The artistic appearance of the signs has improved very much since the introduction of the movable section, for enterprising houses no longer look upon it as extravagant to have trademarks or pictures of specialties correctly painted on a fence. These signs don't remain long in the same place. A building is soon put up in New York." — New York Evening Sun.

Edward Lear — More Than Nonsense Maker

1917

Edward Lear, Known to Most as Gentle Humorist, Was Also Famed as a Painter

Most of us when we think of Edward Lear think vaguely of someone who wrote delectable rhymes of nonsense and fun, a man who made queer pictures of impossible creatures to go with his rhymes, who compiled a weird natural history and botany all his own, and spent his life making odd jokes.

We have sung, or heard someone else sing, his "Owl and the Pussy Cat"—and—and—well, that's about all.

But Edward Lear's nonsense books were the very smallest part of the work of a long and busy life, and his real labor was that of a painter rather than a writer.

More than what he did, even, was what he was — a lovable and charming man, adored by children, with the gentlest heart in the world, a great lover of beauty and devoted to his friends.

Lear's real character and work have been described in St. Nicholas, by Hildegarde Hawthorne. Though Lear's work was in general so serious, to the end of his life in 1888, Miss Hawthorne says, he continued to write his ridiculous verses and make his funny sketches in letters to his friends.


Accidental Nonsense

1909

Things That Amused Lear, the English Artist and Writer

It is not surprising that the gifted inventor of such classic imaginative nonsense as "The Jumblies" and "The Owl and the Pussy Cat" took a keen delight in the real nonsense or real life whenever he chanced to encounter it. During a doleful stay in a dreary little mining village where it rained all the time and he was not well and could not accomplish the work he had set his heart on doing, the late Edward Lear, although a good and decorous churchgoer, found his source of cheer in the parish clerk.

"Oh, beloved clerk," he wrote gratefully to a friend. "He reads the psalms enough to make you go into fits. He said last Sunday, 'As white as an old salmon,' instead of 'White as snow in Salmon,' 'a lion' for 'alien to my mother's children' and 'they are not guinea pigs' instead of 'guiltless.' Fact, but I grieve to say he's turned out for the same and will never more please my foolish ears."

Even funnier was the erratic English of a foreigner which once enlivened for him the prolonged formalities of an official dinner.

"Sitting next to the captain of an Austrian frigate at Sr. H. Sterle's on Thursday evening," he recorded, "the German officer said to a subaltern — the conversation was about the good looks of women — 'I do not think the English woman conserve her aperient galship (girlhood) longer than all the women, even as far as her antics' (antiquity, age.)

"The subaltern withered with confusion till I ventured to interpret, 'The Englishwoman preserves her appearance of youth longer than all women, even if she be old.' " — Youth's Companion.


The world will never grow old so long as it has little children and flowers in it. — Edward Lear.

The Luxury of a Great Porch in the Summer

1912

SUMMER PORCHES

The Luxury of Living Outdoors in Hot Weather

WHAT PAINT WILL DO

Get Out Your Own Chairs, Buy Two New Wickers, Give Them a Green Coat and Then Dress Them Up In Gay Chintzes

It seems a pity that all country homes are not built with roomy, spacious piazzas. After all, the principal reason that any one has for living in the suburbs and going through all the trouble of commuting is because he wants to live in the country. Of course six months in the year it is too cold to sit out of doors, but when spring comes the suburbanite wants to enjoy the country to the utmost. He cannot do this by sitting indoors, certainly. He wants to read his paper and smoke his pipe where he can see nature's beauties spread all out before his eyes — namely, on the porch.

Modern architects are realizing more and more the need for big porches, no matter how small the house. Of course the suburbanite who owns his own home can always add to the porches if he wishes. But the others must make the most of what they have and do the best they can to make their piazza cozy and comfortable, no matter how small it may be.

You women who live in the country will find that a can or two of paint and a bolt of pretty chintz will do much to transform your porch furniture. If you have no comfortable chairs for piazza use do buy one or two. They need not be expensive pieces, but be sure they are comfortable and have pretty lines.

The wicker or reed furniture is really the most attractive for verandas, and it is not at all expensive.

You need not worry if you have two or three pieces of one kind and a couple of pieces of another variety. After you have given them all a coat of the same paint and made chintz cushioned seats and backs for them they will look enough alike to fool any casual eye. Besides, no one expects rigid formality in porch decorations.

If your house is white or gray you will find that green porch furniture will look best. Give all the chairs, tables and settees a coat of green paint and one of green enamel paint. The chintz for green furniture should contrast with it, and a figure with a good deal of red in it will be found most effective.

It may be wisest to have a cheap upholsterer make the seat cushions and backs if you are afraid to tackle so tricky a job. Have them made with some white goods as a cover. Then you can yourself make slip covers of the chintz for them. The reason why it is better not to have the chintz put right on as the first cover of the cushions is because it may soil very quickly, being where the street dust can easily reach it. If the chintz is made into slip covers they can be removed and washed when soiled.

If your house is any other color except white or gray brown porch furniture is prettiest. So you can paint your furnishings brown and use almost any gaily colored, pretty bright chintz for cushions.

—The Kingston Daily Freeman, Kingston, New York, June 24, 1916, page 7.

Toys of the Zuni Indians

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Zuni Toys
Zuni Indians make their toys out of clay and bake them hard so that they will not crumble. They know how to model dolls and goats and frogs and cows, and birds that warble when one fills the hollow body with water and blows through a tube inserted in the back. And they make all kinds of curious clay rattles.
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The Imagination of Corot
Imagination and invention are often taken as the same thing, whereas they are as different as wit and humor. The question of imagination in a painter's work is not to be estimated in terms of literature, but in terms of paint. The delicate silver grays and cool, translucent greens of Corot are of the essence of imagination, as I understand the word. -- R. B. Cunninghame Graham.
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Horse for Sale (Advertised in 1911)
Mildon 41876. This handsome six year old standard bred and registered, sound trotting stallion for sale. Sired by Don Roma 27667. As pretty as a peacock, good disposition, and will be sold at a great bargain. Will sell on all or part time for good paper. Call and see him at Hays, Kansas, at my barn. This horse holds a certificate from the Kansas State Live Stock Registry Board. If you want to buy a first-class horse cheap, call, write or phone, E. F. MADDEN, Hays, Kansas.

--The Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas, 1911.