The herald., 1895-01-11
WHAT WOULD MICHAEL THINK !?
The Man Who Paints a Land
scape While You Wait.
Impressionism Driven Into the
Ground and Broken off.
Tho Man who Studied Art Work Wills
All the Schools Were Let Oat for
Vacation, and How He Works.

Say, Chimmie. dars great, amt it ?
OATS way out o. sight"
"Great? Git off do cart; great ain'i
no name fer it. OATS hun. 'E's dc
Jo-dsndisst artist ever see; e is."
"Say, Ohimrnis, git i'm to put in q
couple o. kids sorsppin' 'longside o. dat
big tree. OF gosh. look at i'm now. e's
putin in river. Geo whiz"
River? Ha. ha. hal dat amt nc
river. Rivers don't run up no noun
tains like dat. you chump. dat's . wagon
road. Wal. till . gifts more paint on
'is brush; you'll see, den.'
Bat the artist kept up, bis work. Some
artiatu wouldn't care to paint pictures
while gaping throng was standing
around oriticising his work and passing
remarks about his very actions, even.
but this artist didn't mind-he is usod
to it.
A dip OF his brush in the drab paint
again, q few touches here and there,
and tbe road up the mountain side
was finished. for Jimmie was right lit
was road.
This artist paints pictures while you
wait. It's nothing remarkable to 90 to
aphotograph gallery and have your own
picture taken while you wait. but here
You have landscapes and waterscapes
and all sorts OF scapes painted before
your very eyes, and all while you waiE.
Good pictures? Call in connoisseur,
or ask something easy. Pictures that
you can tell what they are intended for,
to cay the least; pictures that remind
you, somehow. OF places where you have
been, some time or other; woodland
acenes, with babbling brooks and spread
ing trees; cows knse deep in clover,
mountains in the blue distance. snow
capped and storm .eoarred, rail fences,
good old.iashioned rail fencer, to relieve
the foreground.
That's the sort OF pictures he psints
and he does 1t in jffy in two jerks Of
lambs tail, az it were. Its no trick at
all for this modern artist to turn out q
couple OF Veresicbsgins, a half dozen
Van Dyke'n. q few Rembrandts and a
small stack OF Millets in half day. And
he does it as gracefully and of.handedly
as come men would paint barn.
1t would be hard to toll what school
OF art this artist who paints pictures
while you wait belongs 60. Possibly it
was along in dog days and the schools
ware let out for gummor vacation when
he learned his trade, but the echool
doesn't matter 90 much; its the pictures
themselves that count.
You csn see this artist ct work any
day out on Spring ctreet on vacant lot.
lie tas3e L canvas all framed and ready
10 hang upon tina wall, except that the
picture isn't there. In about Is min
utes after he gets to work the picture ia
there. Maybe he starts in on the sky.
He thrustB his brush in the blue paint
and attacks tbs canvas. The sky grow q
under his Gexterons touch, but it doesn' |
look like anything when it's done.
Then ho leaves the sky to dry and
gees for the rail fence lie has to mix
little drab and little brown together
to make this effect. Now comes the
river running along the left side OF the
rail fence. Ii looks funny enough with
nothing to hold il up. 1t looks just like
a river flowing through space. The aky
is dry now. He takes little dab OF the
white and puts ON the fieecy clouda,
floating in the ethereal blue.
Now for the COWS. Cows take several
colors. Cows don't want to oil look
alike in picture. So be soon has
blue COW and o red COW and green
COW and varisgated COW. The cows
are floating through space. like the rail
fence and the river. This will never do.
All That's bettsr. He's filing in.
That's the reason the cows' legs we're
cut off at the knees. II makes them
look SO if they were standing in grass
knee-deep when the artist gets around
to put the grass in. He has to wait, OF
couree, for the cows to dry little.
Meanwhile he lie toning up the river,
putting ripples here and there on its
CLASSY surface and dropping in bunch
OF cattsils in the bende. Mountains 90
in the lefthand corner, rough and UNI
promising at first, but toned up after
they dry until they look natural enough
to climb.
All the features are in now except the
trees. Trees are harder to paint than
mountains. but the artist never hesi-
tates. The location of trees in the
picture doesn't seem TO matter much
He slsps in tall tres here and bushy
one there and hangs on some foliage
with green paint, and it begins to look
frat rate. II needs more filling and
touching up; occasionally an old paint
bespattered rag does better than the
brush for spreading purposes, while
there are places where little iab with
the thumb helps the effect, until at
last the picture ia all com plete--a charm
ing rural landscape, regular Keith, a
Landseer. only smoother in effect and
not quite so much attention given to
detail.
Just let it dry and it's ready to
sell. Who'd ever thought OF painting
landscapes in half an hour with the
frames Gil on? What q rapid age we
live in. and what ould Michael Angelo
think II he could only have lived to see
thia?