The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-25
Willis Brooks in Brooklyn Eagle.

WtlllG bTOOkB HI DTOOhAyh
 There's no Gibson girl"
 Now, wha' d y'u thing O that Ana
 here you and and all the rest or the world have been talking about her TOT years. Seeing her. too, in her dainty lawns at the seashore, eyeing ner through our glasses at the opera. ao- miring her everywhere. Yes. anu "o read her name and address in the news papers, how Charles Dana Gibson nrst happened to see her, how he recognineo her on the spot as the very It or young American womanhood, how she instantly took possession of his heart and mind and soul and just woulant let him so much as dream of any other type of feminine beauty. Worse, ana more of 1t, a dozen young women Tn thus country have claimed to be the origipai Gibson girl And now to think there isn't any such thing!
 Tommy nonsense!" is the sententious tway a famous New York artist puts it. "No illustrator has more various types than Gibson has"
 But isn't there a certain-er-some- thing about Gibson's girls-
 "There you go. talking about CID sons girls That is a very different proposition from THE Gibson girl TO be sure, there Is a certain something about Gibson's girls. They are Gipson- esque, if you like; but that IS que 10 Gibson, not to the model. The piain truth about it is that Gibson gets very near to the American types in both his men and women. Every now and then we hear of somebody who. we. are toid' is initiating him, or trying to. The chances are 100 to that he is doing nothing of the kind. Ineed, people Who set out to initiate such men as Gibson seldom get near enough to have their | imitation recognized as such. Tne iao' 1 Is the so-called imitator is simply ap- preaching some American type. and the nearer he comes to 1t the more ne seeii' | to be initiating Gibson. Y Let me tell you something tnat know to be true. The editor" of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle recently wisheo | to know what the future American is going to look like-the typical inteliec- | tual American man, l mean, aiteE .S process of assimilating foreigners mas gone on for a few more generations. 80 | the editor turned over to a we'll known New York artist a photograph or an m tellectual type of each of the natlons which are now contributing most largely to the population of this coun- trv- They were a Jew. O German. an Italian. an Irishman, a Russian ana an Englishman, The artists task was 10 make a composite picture incorporating the strongest features of eacn type. Now. of course, he had no more thought ] of initiating Gibson than he had of ny | ing to the moon. He simply sat dowh and studied the features Of those photv- | vraDhs until he had determined wnicn
 t.,ara tbe dorminant ones of each face. These he blended into one face' ana A'1s result. as you may see by turning ID | Tha Eagle of May 2S, was-a Glpsoil | n,an' Gibson himself couldn't nave
 drawn a more typical intellectua'
 pmt all this was aside from my main
 purpose. was looking for inform9' | tion about models.
 Paucity of Good Models an New
 well" said tho artist mere N.., l great A paucity of good models m New
 XorE as there is profusion of them m | porIs Rut then the demands aFe | H.raotar here Over there 1t IS more l 0uestion of lines and color. II SCu | don't talk about lines ana coioF III ..A ai "a | noonla won't know you are an aftlst' fJere if Is different. It Is the charac.eI
 nicture that is most in demand go Iso Y | model must have somethlns peo.Se = beauty of figure or color ne ot ,,'n
 r,mst have imagination for one thihs'
 a r,mst he able not only to under
 ston6 what the artist Is trying 10 ac-
 oonnnl,sh but to get sufficiently into tne .e l SoaIino oF the character to represent !. r,ore ar less faithfully in ms pose 4.
 ,at he must be able to suggest U nrattv clearly to the imagination ot 1h0
 artist. ..or,, Illustrative oP what I mean. A well-Kno"n ,
 .nr ,n Paris was modelling piece
 sont eoL n winner of one of the oio Iept Toot races Of course. he nao
 c.,'5Ied the subject thoroughly learned | a.,,thino tha tthe histories teh VI | low the Olympian games "eIe @
 5,cted how the participants uIeseou
 and ali that. It seems that eaeh p~A
 ,icInant in 8 race had ms g,ouP u friends in the grand stahu' ta,
 S,,,, sonewhat after the manner of our
 n1,n rooters at college field sports ~
 s,,as aIso customary for the winner lh | ,acb event, at the moment or Wihhihs'
 e .,,rn toward his friends and cry g | oortain word-I have forgotten what N
 ,,as hut that doesn't matter; IL was as | ,r the winner of one of our toot racSs should turn his face toward ms iIienuS S l ,n their particular part Of the sIdhu
 stond and triumphantly cry, Eureka! os he crossed the line. You understano
 tha runner had everted every muscle every fibre of his body to win the race
 ana was pretty thoroughly exnausteu
 at the end: yet. as the sculptor lIlas
 nation told him, there was an instan!
 when the winners triumphant spiri'
 rose above all fatigue and he put his
 whoIe glad soul into that cry of VIC
 tory That was the instant in wnicn
 inc sculptor wished to catch him. Well
 he tried model after model but none of them could satisfactorily represent
 the runner at that instant of combined
 nhvsical exhaustion and mental tri-
 nmph. so he did the work almost wholly 1 from his own imagination. But II did not quite suit him. It lacked l something, and he could not find what that something was. At last he ar
 ranged with the best model procurable for the purpose and turned the streets of Paris into a veritable Grecian race course, In his studio he hung several
 portraits on one of the walls to rep grand stand. Then he made the model run at his topmost speed around sew eral blocks, covering sufficient distance
 to make him thoroughly tired. and rush | into the studio. where the race was to end. As he crossed the studio threshold | AkA ,.NA ha