The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1908-12-25
PAINTERS BLUNDERS
Reckless Franks Played With
Heavenly Bodies.
IMPOSSl2lLITIES IN NATURE.
A Rainbow Depicted Wrong Side Out
and Moons In Positions and Forms
That Could Not Occur - Amusing
Anachronisms by Old Time Artists.

/
tonlshing that they are not found Of
tener at fault in view OF the great
variety OF knowledge required In their
work. Despite this, however, there Is
no manner OF excuse for certain abb
/ suIdities.
! For example, there Is the case OF an
English painter who depicted an elab-
Drate rainbow. Unfortunately he
painted it wrong side out. But we
forget amazement at such stupidity In
admiration for the artists magnificent
hudacity when we learn that he
charged E20 additional for repainting
| the rainbow colOred in accordance
with natures arrangement.
! Painters are very prone to distress
the astronomers by their reckless
pranks with the heavenly bodies, par
tlcularly with the moon. One artist
presented scene in which was q
crescent moon low I'm the eastern sky
directly opposite setting sun. More
over this genius disdained the criti-
clsms OF the learned. He insisted that
this arrangement was necessary for
! the composition, inasmuch as the rest
Of the picture would be destroyed by
a full moon-the only one possible In
such n situation.
Other artists have trined with the
moon by turning its convexity away
| from the sun, which IS, OF course, I'm
! possible In nature. In one picture the
moon was placed near the constella-
tlon Of the Great Bear, though as a
matter Of fact the satellite never ven
! lures into this part Of the heavens.
There are, too, oft recurring errors
I made I'm the bulk OF the orb. An
American astronomer amused himself
! by measuring the moons I'm number
Of paintings. He established the fact
that by reckoning from the satellites
size the average height OF the hills In
! these landscapes was forty-three
miles. One Of the mountains, indeed,
had the stupendous altitude Of hun
drcd miles.
| Artists of old time were often out
ragcously wrong, sometimes necessari-
| ly by reason Of the limitations imposed
| by the ignorance OF the period. A
Dutch artist painted the garden of
Eden with well clipped borders and
yew trees trimmed into fantastic
shapes. He wrought In all innocence,
| for Of such sort were the only gardens
Of his experience. But the excuse
does not apply to a Dutch painting Of
1904 This showed Abraham about to
slaughter Isaac by means OF blunder-
buss-thc product Of an age 5000
years after the time OF the patrlarche!
Yet this mistake occurs again and
again. There have been elaborate
| paintings of the children OF Israel
crossing the Red sea WITH, muskets on
their shoulders. A beautiful ivory
| tankard, an Augsburg carving Of the
early seventeenth century, was sold
for high price in London not long
ago. The design, which is exquisite
In workmanship. shows the good Sa-
maritan, with his attendants, In the
Jericho road. One of the SERVANTS
| carries n gun!
Many n child as well as some older
persons has puzzled over that "beam"
I'm the eye of which the New Testa-
ment speaks. 1t Is not always under
stood that this means beam Of light.
But II was left TO Solomon Bernard,
in his woodcuts illustrating the Bible,
published at Lyons in 1853, to picture
this beam rs one Of wood rectangular
I'm section and several feet In length!
The matter of costumes offers vast
opportunity for flaws, which the paint
ers have not failed to seize. In the
national gallery ut Edinburgh Pha-
raoh's daughter and her accompanying
women are exhibited garbed In the
| long waiSted bodices and hoopcd
skirts of Europe in the sixteenth cen
tury. The national collection In Lon
don has n picture Of Joseph and his
kindred in Egypt, where the buildings
shown are not at all Egyptian in their
style of architecture, but distinctly
Italian. In the same gallery Paolo
Veronese's "The Family of Darius at
| the Feet of Alexander After the Battle
of lssus" displays the women Of the
group In the pointed waists and inflat-
ed skirts that made the familiar dress
Of Venetian women In the painters
! time.
Errors that have to do with armor
may be more readily pardoned, though
the artists fail lamentably In knowl-
edge as TO the earlier forms OF metal
| protection. Thus In some paintings
showing the time Of Christ the war
! rlors are seen clad In beautifully da-
masccned mail. yet this form of armor
| did not come into actual use until half
n thousand years later
Similarly. in other pictures VI Christ's
time. monks are portrayed in their
robes. with tousureS. In fact. how.
ever. they did not exist In the church
prior to the fourth century \. II.
4 curious illustration of the limita.
/ tions set on genius 10y circumstance Is
exhibited In one Of the worlds most
| famous paintings. "The Last supper"
Leonardo da Ninci simply did not
know that the table, the cloth. the
/ no l.pt,-,, opt a,J co1f