The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-21
SIGHT AND SEEING"

Professor Herkomer Describes How the
 Artists Mind Helps His Vision.
 The professor of painting at the Roy
 al academy concluded his course of lec-
 lures with an address on Sight and
 Seeing" He commenced with an expla-
 nation of the connection of the eye with
 the brain, and the phenomena of seeing
 generally, commenting on the curious fact that iftwenty people saw an acci-
 dent in the street. their descriptions of
 1t always varied in many particulars.
 The professor then turned to the sub
 feet of imagination, or what was usual
 ly regarded as the power of making
 mental images, voluntary and involun-
 tary As an illustration of the volunta-
 ry image, he gave the case of a painter
 who saw nice piece of background,
 but felt that 1t wanaed figure to be
 pictorally complete. What would suit
 it? He thought of model, and his
 mind immediately evolved an image or
 that model in sirelation to the back
 ground before him. The involuntary,
 unsolicited, mental image was that
 which came to our minds when we were
 what was commonly described as struck with an idea, and many of the
 best ideas come in that way. There
 was third class of mental images enforced Authorizations. These did not strike a healthy brain, yet what fine
 border line there was between athe healthy and unhealthy in the matter Of illusions. Surely our whole art was an illusion, and we wanted sensitive or ganization to construct it. Professor Herkomer told curious story of the illusions of some portrait of some DOT trait painter, whose name was not men, toned. This painter wanted only one sitting, of half an hour from his mod els. After this first sitting he could re- call the mental image of the model so vividly that he could paint from it as well as if the man himself were actual ly before him. Personal friends of Schumann had described to him the ef- feet of some of the phases of the musl- clans Authorizations.
 Sometimes when he was conducting an orchestra he would raise his baton and then fall into kind of trance. So he would remain until the leader of the orchestra, who knew of his falling, would give the signal to commence, when Schumann recovered himself inn and never failed to cast a grateful glance at the leader Some | writers seemed to think that painters | never worked till moment of inspira- tion came, and that they then shut l themselves up in room by themselves until their pictures were finished. | There were painters no doubt who could | paint without nature, but the result | was usually strong mannerism If the | artistic qualities of Gilbert and Millais had been combined in one man, that | man would have been the greatest | painter the world had ever seen. It was curious that the great painter was | never a great designer, and the reverse. Gilbert stood higher than any artist he could think of who painted out or ms head. It was commonly said that an artist who painted out of his head had l wonderful memory. What about Gil l pert? How did he draw things that he had never seen? His was the faculty, 'ather, of mental image malling-a nat l lral ability for picture making. It was ] curious fact that children always lrew out of their heads; something, as l rule. that they had seen, but never l directly from nature. He pointed out 1 the strong resemblance between the work of clever modern child and that of the old cave dweller, scratched upon pieces of bone and ivory, and after some i 'emarks on the comparative evolution If art in the history of the world and in he life of single man, brought his lddress to close by thanking the stu Tents for their attention to his lectures. lrd expressing the pleasure it had eiv- n him to speak to them about their raft and Its bearing on life generally London Standard.