Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-29
FAMOUS ARTISTS MISTAKES.
One Gave a Roman Soldier a Pipe, An.
other Eve a Petticoat.

other Eve Petticoat.
From Tit Bits
1t is surely one of the eccentricties of
genius that a great artist in painting a
picture which he has perhaps been elabor-
ating in his mind for months or years, will
occasionally make a slip which it scarcely
requires the discernment of an uncritical
schoolboy to detect. 1t is not long since a
well-known artist lowered the hand of a
figure in one of his pictures with five
fingers in addition to a thumb; and there
is story that an Academy exhibitor once
painted a risky lobster the beautiful red
color which is usually considered a post
mortem acquisition.
Even painter careful as Mr. Goodall
X. a.. narrowly escaped a palpable blunder
IN one of his Egyptian canvases. He was
engaged on picture portraying a number
OF men dragging huge monolith across
the desert, when a famous man of science
friend of his entered the studio. After
looking 1ntently at the canvas for a few
moments he said: Il say, Goodall if you
want those fellows to pull that stone YOU
must double their number. 1t would take
Just twice as many to move it, The ac-
ademician took the hint, added as many
men again, and the picture was unimpeach-
able from scientific point of view
But our modern painters, even when they
MAKE the most groteSque mistakes as they
rarely do can plead that they err in good
company. Did not Albert Durer in one of
his immortal pictures, that of Peter deny
ing Christ, represent one of the Roman SOL
dlers IN the act of enjoying a pipe an in
dulgence which was to say the least, pre-
mature: and in the canvas portray wing
Adam and Ewes expulsion from their para
disc he decked Eve in a petticoat with
founces.
Two years ago there was exhibited in
London beautiful picture by an A. r. A.
OF an eighteenth century interior perfect
In every detail but one. for on wall of the
| a lot, aP
to-date locomotive; and in the same year
the writer saw among the Academy pic
lures presentment of a cavalier evidently
waiting impatfently for his lady to keen the
tryst. consulting a watch which would
have done credit to a twentieth century
matchmaker; while on another canvas a
peninsular veteran, who was fighting his
battles over again for the benefit of adj
miring rustics at the village inn was wear
ing an unmistakable Victoria cross about
forty years before this badge of valor came
into existence
The late Mr.. Frank Holl was as Mains
taking as he was clever in his art but on
one occasion he put his foot in it grew
ously. when In a portrait of a naval officer
ne introduced the union jack painted up
shutdown. to the amazement and horror
of service men.
Even the great Turner made some ludi-
crous mistakes. as when he made a rain
bow rub shoulders with the SUM- instead of
taking up respectful position opposite to
that luminary and in other pictures he has
painted his sails black and has gone
wofully wrong over his rigging
In his magnificent picture in the ROYAL
Exchange of scared Londoners escaping in
boats from the horrors of the great fire of
1855 Mr.. Stanhope Forbes has introduced
vessels of type which, IT is said, the
Thames has never known; and another ar
fist of repute armed the children of Israel
with guns, presumably for self -protection
while they were occupied in gathering
mama.
Continental artists are no less prone to
slips of this kind than our own wieIders of
nous painting by eros, which represents
Napoleon amid the arctic SHOWS and frosts
of Russia. clothed in light pelisse, open
at the front, which would certainly have
terminated his career within a week from
pneumonia; and in recent salon picture
Louis Seize is equipped with a revolver
modern enough to have seen service In the
Boer war