The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-26
MADONNA FACES IN DEMAND.
New Uses For Religious Pictures Now
 a-Days.

From the New York Sun.
 A big business Is done in religious pie lures now, and girls whose features and expression will do for illustratlons of the sort are in demand as models.
 The banners and posters of the tenn perauce societies and evangelical revival meetings are customarily made attrac- tive with pretty feminine heads in de- votional poses. The calendar makers and hymn Illustrators also want faces of this kind. Quantities of ideal heads are used for lantern-slide pictures of Bibli- cal scenes and for pictures given as prizes in Sunday schools and elsewhere
 Formerly a few stock heads and faces were used for these purposes. Now the increased facility for Photographic repro duction and the extensive use of pictures of a semi-religious character for trade purposes have brought about a demand for original and exceptionally pretty models.
 The girl who has delicate, regular feat ures and a pensive expression, or who can enter into the spirit of the artists design and look calmly renunciative or radiantly happy will be kept busy posing. She will be pictured on wall tapestry for public halls and class rooms will form
 
 of sheet music and maybe will do duty for the morning star" or other device on the programmes and banners used at a great tent service or prohibition re- union
 The girl having naturally the Madonna look is a serviceable model, but the one who has beside this the actress's capacity for changing her facial expression is a i prize to the Illustrator of religious sub jects There is a dark-eyed girl of this mobile type who by a slight alteration of garb poses for the ancient heroines of Israel and for the penitents and peasant women of the New Testament. as we'll as for the modern subjects Tor household notices.
 Many religious pictures with distinctly modern heroines are sold. The average backwoods church has pictures of pres ent-day life to enliven it's plain walls In one picture perhaps a girl is seen breaking in on a card party of young men and finging the cards into the fire A barroom with a beautiful girls face looking in at the window, pleading and anxiety depicted upon it, may be the subject of a second. A girl may be ex- hibited wrestling a wine-glass from her lover's or husbands hand and dashing 1t to the ground.
 Sometimes the privations of the circuit riders wife or daughter are illustrated in a series of pictures or the hardships of a woman missionary workers in for eign lands All the heroines are repre- sented with earnest, exalted looking faces. but of a distinctly plump, attrac- tive type.
 The pictures sent out as gifts by the makers of agricultural implements are most frequently of a semi-devotional serious character. It has been found l that such subjects are more generally appreciated by the average household than the gayer types would be-
 A wistful pretty Ruth gleaning in the fields will be given to the purchaser of a reaping and binding machine. A calen- dar illustrated with Scriptural texts and girls faces with rapt and serious ex- pressions is New Years present from the big fertilizer company or a bid for custom from the nurseryman or from the dealer in hoes and ral1es
 At one time the girl of pure Jewish type of features was the stock model of Biblical illustrations. but of late the mod ern American girls face is preferred if 1t be of a suitable cast. The average re- clpients of the typical religious pictures are not troubled about lapses from his- torical accuracy of this sort.
 The fair unworldly-looking girl is util- ized in Illustrating catalogues sent out by the tombstone dealers. The illustra- tons for the year books of the great charitable societies and religious month- lies are always on the lookout for ap- propriately attractive girls faces to be used In photograph illustrations of re- lief or rescue work And these publica- tions are gotten up at considerable ex- pense for the illustrations, since the more inviting they are the better they will arouse interest and create a desire to contribute. There never was so much activity in the matter of religious illus trations as now. and the young woman of suitable pious mien never had such good fortune in her face.