Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1912-05-17

nicted as desperate act of
seh-ueiense on the part Of the hard-pushed quarry
wneh the antlered monster charged down upon
MN, crushing him to death before he had time
70 withdraw his invaluable flint? That bit OF
oone-encased rock-what tragedies of the Stone
age does 1t not suggest?
But we have strayed far afeld from the real
purpose OF these lines, which is none else than
TO make the reader acquainted with the Innings
OIL an INFINITELY less remote age, but which, as
samples OF finished drawings of sporting scenes
yet rank among the oldest have
Florentine of the Forentnes though Flemish
by birth, for he born in Bruges In the year
1928, Giovanni della Strada, or to use his Latin
lied name with which he frequently signed his
work. Joannes Stradanus, had acquired by his
apprenticeship to Michael Angelo many of the
famous artists peculiarities and mannerisms, as
glance at Stradanus' prancing. heavy-maned
steeds and giantmbed discloses Strada-
nus was born at a most opportune moment, for
the craving for pictorial matter making itself
felt In the second half of his century Great
Ing demand which far exceeded the supply, and
though your Bodies and Tschudis and even ear
lier art critics, insist that this craving helped
more than any other circumstance to prostitute
art, dehasing the divine inspiration of the painter
to a common craft 1t must not be forgotten that
but for men like Stradanus, Theodore de Bry.
Hans Boil, the mutitudinous Gale family at Ant
werp, Collaera, Werx, Maery, Sadeler and Colt
zius, as well the De Passe family, who all
worked with extraordinary energy in turning out
pictures of the day" our knowledge of the daily
life and OF occurrences in that tempestuous
fury would be nothing like correct and init
mate as it is. What progress, for instance. art
made In the half-century between 1917 and the
year 1857, when Stradanus drew his one hundred
and four Venationes sporting pictures glance
at 'Theuerdank" Emperor Maximilians famous
DOCK or adventures and at the prints appertain-
ing to the firstnamed series, will show. Both the
designer OF the pictures and the wielder of the
graver had made giant strides in the interval, and
as we can see from reproductions Of original
drawings by Stradanus hand many master Of
the eighteenth century would have done well to
study the Italianised F1emng's method and
touches
The drawings afford amusing evidence of the
widespread ignorance which then prevailed in
connection with certain forms of sport Perhaps
the most characteristic in this respect is the pic
ture of mountain sport-viz., the chase of the
chamois. When one first the print Of this
picture and ones astonshed gaze rested upon the
delineation Of the agile mountain beast carrying
horns that are crooked forward instead OF back.
ward. one naturally assumed that this extraordi.
nary mistake made by the engraver and not
by the artist who drew the animal, whose body
and pose are in other respects correct. But in
this one would have done the busy Antwerp en-
gravers an Injustice. as was disclosed when the
original came into ONES possession. for there
immortaized by master hand, pranee about not
one but several chamos with this curious NAL.
formation
In other respects, too, Stradanus drew upon his
Imagination in concocting this drawing for he
represents the man Of Michael AngeIo-iike limbs
strapping steigeisen, crampons. to his naked
feet which. OF course, was never done. To turn
to another form Of sport--elephant and ostrich
hunting-Stradanus in the former picture drew
his quarry pr very understood dimensions a mis-.
take not usually made either by him or by other
artists OF his age. who. as rule. magnifed the
size OF foreign animals. Take as an instance
our reproduction Of engraving after another
drawing by the same Forentne artist. Here we
have elephants which n accept the ordinary
human form as our scale. must have stood some.
thing like eighteen feet high. though probably
as the inscription below tells that the man In
the act of hamstringing his quarry is a troglo-
dyte or cave-dweiler, race who were believed
to be of dwarf stature. the disproportion is in
tended to be as great as II Is As an early MIC