The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-01-14

| being big and round and rosy, he bears
no resemblance to the lean, scrawny
cowboys. Indians and soldiers that
form the principal figures in his illus
trations They are all scrupulously
drawn from life but occasionally he
throws in a few accessory figures out
1 of his head, and whenever he does you
are pretty sure to find Remington IN
the group. Howard Pyle, who is prob
ably the most gifted of all our Aneri-
can illustrators, is another good exam
pie of what l mean. He is a smooth
shaven, sedate, austere- looking gentle
man, and needs nothing but knee
breeches and a tapped coat to make
him perfect duplicate Of the colonial
characters he loves so much to draw
Arthur B. Frost is, or at least used to
be, rather angular in frame and belongs
to the shrewd-faced, humorous New
England type that he depicts with so
much remarkable subtlety / have seen
his own portrait, dozens of times, in
his larger drawings. A man like Fred
B. Opper, who is frankly a caricaturist
and erinds out an immense amount Of
work for the daily and weekly papers,
has very little use for models, and the
consequence is that he draws himself
continually. He figures in all kinds OF
roles-millonaire, tramp, policeman,
Bowers politician, missionary, dude,
pugilist, fiat-janitor and longshoreman;
they vary as widely as day and night,
but throughout the series is the same
lurking suggestion of Opper. When
met him in New Orleans the other day
I hold him ] would have recognized
him at once. by my portrait"' said he
mo, by your pictures" I replied.
How do you account for this odd
tendency" asked friend, who had
been listening with some interest
VERY easily replied the other
when an artist is working without a
model as a guide, he unconsciously re-
fers to himself for details of the figure,
He imagines how he would stand in
this or that pose, and the consequence
is he works at least a suggestion of his
own character into the picture. This
reminds me, by the way, that there is
q good deal of mystery about the men
tai INSTALLATION of artists, and ] have
never heard it clearly explained Eve
rybody who can draw, and especially
those who can draw readily from mem
Dry, can call up, at will, more or less
distinct image before the minds eye
and, with some little effort, can change
the posture in any manner described.
THE subject has always interested
me and I have talked with a great
many artists about it. I find that
some exercise the faculty in one way
In, Jrot1 c
man, for instance, gets his picture as
he expresses it, by lying down on his
back and shutting his eyes. Then he
concentrates his mind upon what he
wants, and the figures appear In light
lines on the black canvas of his brain.
He can rearrange them as he wishes,
and while somewhat vague, they give
him good idea of the general effect of
the composition. Another man stares
at blank, white wall, and by simple
of will power produces a
sort of feeting gray silhouette of what
ever he has in mind. He told me he
found it difficult to change the original
posture of the appearance, and after
doing so once or twice the brain seemed
to tire, and refused to work until rest
ed. Still another artist of my acquaint-
ance centuries up his pictorial appari-
tions without closing his eyes or look |
ing at any particular place. They
come somehow in the air. he says, and
can give no better description of the |
1t is certainly an uncan-
ny power, and l believe it is often eXer- |
cised unconsciously. People without |
the artistic faculty do not possess it, as
far as I can acertain or, if they do, it |
Is in such faint and rudimentary form
that they are unaware of its manifesto /
tons New Orleans Times-Demo- |
crat.