Rocky Ford enterprise., 1912-05-10


self-defense the part of the hard-pushed quarry
when the antlered monster charged down upon
MIN. crushing him to death before he had time
to 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
of an Infinitely less remote age, but which as
samples of finished drawings of sporting scenes.
yet rank among the Oldest we have
Florentine of the Forentines though Flemish
by birth. for he born in Bruges In the year
1928, Giovanni della Strada, 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 heaviy-maned
steeds and gantlimbed men discloses Strada-
nus was born at 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 ear
ler art critics. insist that this craving helped
more than any other circumstance to prostitute
art debasng the divine inspiration OF the painter
to common craft. it must not be forgotten that
but for men like Stradanus. Theodore de Bry.
Hans Boil. the multitudinous Gale family at Ant
werp. Collaera Wierx. Maery, Sadeler and Colt
zius, as well as 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 i'm that tempestuOus CEN
tury would De nOtnlnR ike as correct anu
mate as 1t is. What progress. for instance. art
made in the half-century between 1917 and the
year 1867. when Stradanus drew his one hundred
and four Venationes sporting pictures a glance
at "Tbeuerdank." Emperor Maximilian's famous
book of adventures and at the prints appertain-
ing to the irst-named series. will show. Both the
designer of the pictures and the wielder OF the
graver had made giant strides in the interval. and
from reproductions of original
drawings by Stradanus hand, many master OF
the eighteenth century would have done well to
study the Italanised F1eming'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-vz.. the chase OF the
chamois When first the print of this
picture and ones astonished 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, disclosed when the
original came into ones possession. for there.
immortalized by master hand, prance about not
one but several chamois 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 Angelo-like limbs
strappng steigeisen, or crampons. to his naked
ieet which, of course. was never done. 10 turn
to another form of sport-ele phant and ostrich
hunting-Stradanus in the former picture drew
his quarry of very understood dimensions, mis-
take not usually made either by him by other
artists OF his age who. as rule, magnihed the
size OF foreign animals. Take as an instance
our reproduction of engraving after another
drawing by the same Florentine artist Here we
have elephants which II 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-dweller. race who we're believed
to be OF dwarf stature. the dsproportion is In
tended to be as great as 1t is, AS an early pic