The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-07-09
Farewell to the Chrome.


There is no mistaking the fact that the
chrome, as q work of art, has had it's day
and has now turned its face to the wall.
Its remarkable green and red effects, it's
startling landscapes and lurid sunsets,
its moons which no connoisseur on earth
could distinguish from its suns, its chro-
mo yellow and olive green storms, its
wonderful flowers and exuberant fruits
with their glaring disregard of nature,
it's exaggerated pretensions when it
aspired to copy Rembrandt or Claude
Lorraine, all those memories will soon
be relegated to that unknown limbo into
which pins and peccadilloes vanish.
Yet, there was time when the chrome
| was welcome guest in every family.
Who does not recall that period in our
country's history when ''Wide Awake"
and EAST Asleep" were let loose on the
community, and hung in o conspicuous
place in every parlor, to reach by slow
stages the sitting room, the nursery, and
finally the garret? They were pretty and
panty, with an atmosphere of varnish
and a color that no sun could fade. Ger
tainly, they were the prettiest of all the
lot, and had the chromotype stopped
with these little daisied cherubs, as a
first and last effort, we would never have
endured nightmares of high colored emo
ton or inflicted this TRADE upon our
friends. The mills of the gods ground
out other chromos, however, and they
were worse than the first. They sent us
o much lauded effort, Mamma is in
Heaven" It represented red and
white angel, in floating garments, with
corkscrew curls, kept on by very green
wreath of earthly laurel, and flying on
some sort of celestial trapeze over the
| L 10 of ~ hi <rraI o1,ilIray,
seated in red and blue row on an orange
colored sofa. This ran it's course, and
was followed by ''Vesta the Goddess Of
the Hearth" lackadaisical young
woman with long neck, holding in one
hand an ancient oil can, and smiling in
sipidly at nothing. We cannot be too
thankful for the development of home
talent which has crowded out the chro-
mo, for, even though we grope in a
maze of uncertainty as to the object in
the foreground, whether it is a cow, or a
windmill, or patent lawn mower, we
are not likely to be struck color blind
while examining it.
And we had never been confronted with
the interrogation: "Have you had your
chrome taken?" That would, indeed,
have been calamity, for there would be
even less satisfaction in showing dead
| duC0SbOI, oOuO LII Cu1OhO, Ullol ohOAO An
in bringing out the family group in
daguereotype-a presentment that has
no likeness to anything in the heavens
above or the earth beneath.
| Yet the chrome brightens as it takes its
fight and we recall the lender solicitude
with which we saw it hung on the parlor
wall, just where the startled light would
strike it's glowing canvass and where adj
miring friends gathered in pleased COM
ment. Our cup was full. =.
"How be-a-utiful!'
Perfectly lovely, isn't it?''
'sJust as handsome as an oil paint
ing
''Given away. Yes, actually given
away without price. Thrown in for a
years subscription to the Christian DIS.
atni0n."
ssWhy, how can they afford it?''
The good people had no idea that
thirty thousand copies of this work Of
art could be ruled off in day and at an
expense of a few cents each. Familiarity
with the artists methods would certainly
have bred contempt.
"Where Ignorance is bliss
'Tis folly to be wfse."
A prominent lawyer wished to ann1h1-
late witness of the opposing counsel.
| ana, aIGoT he udu uA6u ucT Will LIS Sl1u'
tering eye, slowly and forcibly remarked
"Can you believe the testimony of q
woman who resembles the decoyed
chrome of Queen Elizabeth" and by
this fearful comparison won the case.
Farewell to the chrome. It takes its
beak from out our hearts and it's form
from off our doors and we may imagine
that it takes the solitude of some distant
Plutonian shore, but, at least, we can
buy newspaper or a pound of tea with
) out having fearful caricature of color
and design thrust upon us as ''The
Fisherman's PRIDE OF ''The Italian
Peasant Boy" in thirteen original colors.
by Bang & Co.-Detroit Free Press.