The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1869-12-02
CHRONOS-HOW MADE.

III
Mr.. James Parton, the most readabl
Of al American magazine writers, ha
published in the atlantic Monthly al
interesting essay on "Popularizing Art,
In which ha describes the complex pro
censby which modern science succeed
In peoduclng those exquisite fac-simile
Of oil paintings, known and admired
everywhere rs Prang's American chro
mos.
Lithography was invented by acct
dent. An impatient, washerwoman ant
the absence OF pieceof paper caused ,
poor actor, named NJ. Senefelder. t.
write his ''list'' on a smooth slab O
limestone with composition of 500
and grease with which he had beer
making experiments in printing. Now
oil or grease has a chemical affinity fol
lime; that is to say, it will mix with it.
while oil and water, on the other hand
are antagonists. The whole secret o I
photography lies in there two facts of
chemistry. To produce a common
Autograph the drawing is made on u
smooth slab of limestone with a greasy
pencil; the surface OF the slab is then
dampened with water, which the draw
ing sheds while the blank places retains
it. The color, which is mixed with oil,
= then applied aud the opposite effect
- produced; the plain parts refuse to
take the color, while the greasy parts
that is the drawing retains it. An
impression Is then taken and n perfect
copy made from perfectly smooth sur
face. 1t is singular that the quarry
from which Senefelder took the slab is
the ouly one yet discovered that pro-
duces a limestone fit for the purposes of
lithography.a For the limestone must
be hard enough to receive IA fine polish,
and only the Bavarian quarry furnishes
that quality of stone.
Chromo-lithography, says Mr.. Parton,
by which our houses aud school-rooms
are now filled with beautiful pictures,
is combination of Sene.eldcr's inven-
tion with an ancient method Of print
ing in colors by using two or more
blocks. Antiquity, however, only
gave the hint, which has been devel-
oped with wonderful rapidty by ac-
complished artists and artisans in Ger
many, France, England and the United
States-the German-Itng lemanll, being
the chief originator of methods. The
Gn1k sHrt r..ln 70. t,s. .
graphy bear date 1888, and in these
thirty-four years the art has made such
progress that copies of iine oil paintings
are now daily reproduced, which con-
tain ali of the original picture, which
the public can see, and which none but
close observer can tell from the origi
nal. Mr.. Parton adds
Sat Prang's nufactory of chromos
in Boston, there is a gallery in which
the proprietor sometimes hangs, side by
side, All oil painting and the chromo-
Autograph taken from ii, both framed
alike. l think that not even the artist
who painted the picture could always
tell them apart, and i am sure that few
others could. Ii would be Il safe thing
to wager that the critics who have en-
deavored to write down these beautiful
productions would not be always able,
without handling them, to decide which
ssas brush and which was printing
press
After describing how The barefoot
Boy" Prans's celebrated and beautiful
chrome of Eastman Johnson 5 painting,
illustrative of Whitters poem is grad
ually produced, that is by being print
ed, here little, there q little, now with
one color, then with another tint, until
il has gone through tic press 10 less
than twenty.siX times, Mr. Parton says
that it is then passed through the press
still again, upon stone which j.
grained in such a way As to impnrt to
the picture the roughness of canvass,
after which it is mounted upon thick
pasteboard and vanished. "The re-
semblance TO the original is then such
that it is doubtful if Mr.. Eastman
johnson could pick out his own boy if
he were surrounded with number of
copies.'
Mr.. Parton adds that it is not every
picture that admits OF such successful
treatment as this, nor does every chro-
ino-lithographer bestow upon his pro
ductions so much pains and expense.
A saleable picture could be made of this
boy inten impressions; but, as we have
seen, he receives twenty-siN.
1T is an error" he says, "to regard
these Interesting works As mechanical
A mere mechanic, 1t is true, by a GER
tain Chinese servility of copying, can
produce close, hard imitation Of an
oil painting: and much work Of this
kind is done IN Germany and England
But in our Boston establishment 80 me
chanic puts pencil to one Of the stones
employed in producing fine pictures.
theartistic work is executed by artists
of repute, who have themselves pro-
duced respectable paintings oi lie kind
which they are employed to initiate
Any one who watches Mr.. Earling
transferring to a long series OF ltho-
graphicstones Mr.. iIi!!'s painting OF the