Smyrna times., 1908-12-30
PAINTERS BLUNDERS
Reckless Franks Played With
Heavenly Bodies.
IMPosSIBILITIES IN NATURE.
A Rainbow Depicted Wrong Side Out
and Moons In Positions and Forms
That Could Not Occur - Amusing
Anaehronsms by Old Time Artists.

Anaehronisms by Old Time Artists.
That artists, like authors, should |
commit many errors of fact is hardly |
a cause for wonder. Rather, it is as
tonishing 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 alb |
surdities.
For example, there is the case of an |
English painter who depicted an elab- |
crate rainbow. Unfortunately he |
painted it wrong side out. But we |
forget amazement at such stupidity in |
admiration for the artists magnificent |
audacity when we learn that he
charged EGO 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.
ticularly with the moon. One artist
presented a scene in which was a
crescent moon low in the eastern sky
directly opposite a setting sun. More
over, this genius disdained the criti-
cisms 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 a situation.
Other artists have trifed with the
moon by turning its cOnvexity away
from the sum- which is, of course. inn
possible in nature. In one picture TIE
moon was placed near the cOnstella-
tiOn 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
made in the bulk of the orb. An
| American astronomer amused himself
| by measuring the moons in a number
| Of paintings. He established the fact
chat 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 a hun
dred miles.
Artists of old time were often out
rageOusly wrong. sometimes necessari-
| ly by reason of the limitations imposed
| by the ignorance of the period
Dutch artist painted the garden of
Eden with we'll 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
1874. This showed Abraham about to
slaughter Isaac by means of a blunder-
buss-the product Of an age 5000
years after the time of the patriarchs!
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. \ beautiful ivory
tankard, an Augsburg carving Of the
early seventeenth century. was sold
for a high price in London not long
ago. The design, which is exquisite
in workmanship, shows the good Sa-
marian. with his attendants, in the
Jericho road. One of the servants
carries a gun!
| a NAAAu elo Wtll elo SOluc OlQeI
persons has puzzled over that "beam"
in the eye of which the New Testa-
ment speaks. 1t is not always under
stood that this means a beam of light.
But it was left to Solomon Bernard.
in his wOodcuts illustrating the Bible.
published at Lyons in 1858. to picture
this beam as one of wood, rectangular
in 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 at Edinburgh Pha-
raoh's daughter and her accompanying
women are exhibited garbed in the
long waisted bodices and hooped
skirts of Europe in the sixteenth cen
tury- The national collection in Lon
don has a 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
o the Feet of Alexander After the Battle
o of Issus" displays the women of the
group in the pointed waists and inflat
n ed skirts that made the familiar dress
. Of Venetian women in the painters
time
Errors that have to do with armoi
may be more readily pardoned, though
20 the artists fail lGnentably in knowl
3 edge as to the earlier forms of meta
i protection. Thus In some painting.
4 showing the time of Christ the war
riors are seen clad in beautifully da
: mascened mail, yet this form of armol
+. did not come into actual use until hall
!. thousand years later.
Similarly, in other pictures of Christ.
time, monks are portrayed in theil
robes, with tonsures. In fact. how
!, ever, they Gid not exist in the churcl
/" prior to the fourth century A. d.
;, a. curious illustration of the limita
y uons set on genius by circumstance i
IS exhibited in one Of the worlds mos
IS Famous paintings, "The Last Sumner
nrIg y