The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-09-06

enough to guide the handles; he had
paid for the hire of plough-horse OF
to-day bv the money from the hire of
himself the day before. So his legs
were tough and in training for the
long walk ahead of him. He had pick
ed up a little schooling at the free
school-enough to fit him to teach a
free school himself at townsville, Lin
coin county.
Who would wish to follow that boy
on his tramp from the steep corn-field
on the side of his mountain home? The
story of that walk need not be told.
Men and women can know it without
the hearing. 1t is one of the lines of
the picture not necessary. Let that
walk be untold, except this much; he
1 did ride from Greensboro to Chapel
/ Hill-that was ALL
/ And so he went to the University.
/ There are some who remember how
he looked when he arrived, DIR. Chas ID.
McTver among them.He was there wit a
heart as big as it now. And all noticed
the lad They had never seen such an
entrance.
But he had not come to enter
He had heard of the great place of
! learning, and he hardly dared to be-
lieve that he was to enter. But he
thought it might be something to be
in the atmosphere, of a place where
men became learned. He knew what
atmosphere" meant. He didn't have
to learn that at school. That is some
thing in which artists envelope their
pictures. He knew by intuition what
atmosphere" meant, and that was all
he dared hope for at first.
So he had landed in the University
/ atmosphere, with only thirty cents
all the money be had in the world. 1t
was Charles McIver that found this
out too: he has a way finding out those
who need help-and, of helping them
the others he don't bother with
much. Randall, however, ask d no
fayors. He preferred to work his way
which he did-and to live on $3.50
a month--which he did-mending his
own clothes and his own shoes-doing
all his own work, and enough for the
other students to enable him to force
his way along.
At first, his determination to 90
through the University was hardly talk
en- seriously. 1t seemed to be prepos-
ferrous piece of humor. But in looking
back over it all, the humor of it has
quite faded away. One can imagine
face chastened white for the pro-
bIems in front. and that Christening has
not yet left the face of the artist. In
his eyes--1arge mellow blue. there lie
deeply buried struggles tenderly hid
den by the partially realized dreams of
later years hidden somewhat after
the fashion of the storntstricken
OF aIi Col H. A.
draperies woven by wears that have
followed And yet the artist considers
his work but yet begun. He has
reputation chiefly as a portrait-paint-
er, and this reputation viii grow more
and more as the people of the State be-
come acquainted with Vance as he
speaks again from Randall's canvass at
the Greensboro Normal School.
The power to make a portrait re-
quires genius of the first order. and
the copying also, that Mr.. Randall has
done in the galleries of Paris has at
tracted much attention. He does not
underrate portrait work, much Of
which he has done, but he has always
had a tendency toward genre pieces.
As to portraits Mr.. Randall ranks
Sargent as the first master in this coun-
try and VIM. NJ. Chase, as probably
second. Those who have seen Booths
full length picture standing over the
generous Fireplace in the Players
Club will admit, without question all
that Mr.. Randall says about Sargent
specially when they read the lines
near by from Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
And Rembrandt, Titan, Van Dyke
Velasquez are imperishable names.
Ruskin says somewhere that
no one has ever succeeded
in painting a wave, though Turner
came nearest to it. He probably might
have said almost as much about a por-
trait. The human face like the seas
face is ''full of countless wrinkles and
crows feet and passions and dreams"
and it is to gather these together in
the man that constitutes only a part
of the portrait painters problem. A
successful portrait is not only a mans
biography but should almost be his
autobiography.
But as to the genre work, it is in this
line of work that Mr. Randall may be
able to do North Carolina most good,
even though the same eminence may
not await him as that which would
certainly be won by him in portrait
painting. Mr. Randall referred feel
ingly to one of Millet's pieces which
he took from one of his portfolios. 1t
represented a peasant resting, and he
pointed out in the figure and knotty
/ wrists and weary, dumb resignation
of the face the story of suffering, and
almost unbeara'ble labor that had rem
dered such a product possible. 1t was
this view which brought out the cold
cruel fact of his condition as nothing
else could do. More than that it was
contemporary history that Millet was
writing, as portrayed in the Angelus,
also. Murillo's character studies stand
out now in the Dresden gallery as
1 eloquent bits of life. In New England,
Longfellow has given Evangeline, and
Cable has given Creole life, as Thomas
Nelson Page has given negro life.
What Page did with his pen, Randall
is doing with his pencil. And he is
doing this work with an eye that is
colored and warmed with his native
L. 4 y II tfaHyl VaC