Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1912-05-10

Mcteu as a desperate act of
sef-defense on 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
boneencased rock-what tragedies of the Stone
Age does it 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.
F1orentine of the Florentines, though Flemish
by birth, for he was born in Bruges in the year
1923, Giovanni della Strada, to 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
a glance at Stradanus' prancing, heavily-maned
steeds and gantlimbed discloses. Strada-
born at a most opportune moment, for
the craving for pictorial matter making itself
felt In the second half of his century Great
ing q demand which far exceeded the supply, and
though your Bodies and Tschudis, and even ear
Her art critics, insist that this craving helped
more than any other circumstance to prostitute
art debasing the divine inspiration OF the painter
to common craft 1t must not be forgotten that
but for like Stradanus, Theodore de Bry,
Hans Boil, the multitudnous Gale family at Ant
werp, CoIlaera Wierx, Mallery, Sadeler and Colt
zius, well the De Passe family who all
pictures of the day." our knowledge of the daily
life and of occurrences in that tempestuous CEN
fury would be nothing like as correct and inti-
mate it 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
ut "Theuerdank" Emperor Maximilians famous
book of adventures and at the prints appertaln-
ing to the first-named SERIES will show. Both the
designer of the pictures and the wielder of the
graver had made giant strides in the interval and
as can see from reproductions OF original
drawings by Stradanus hand, many a master OF
the eighteenth century would have done well to
study the Italianised 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-viz., the chase OF the
chamois. When first saw the print of this
picture and ones astonished gaze rested upon the
delineation Of the agile mountain beast carrying
horns chat crooked forward instead or back
ward. naturally assumed that this extraordf-
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 would have done the busy Antwerp en-
gravers injustice as was disclosed when the
original came into ones possession, for there,
immortalized by master hand, prance about not
one but several channels with this curious NAL
formation.
In other respects. too. Stradanus drew upon his
imagination in concoctng this drawing for he
represents the man of Michael Angelolike limbs
strapping steigeisen, or crampcns to his naked
feet, which, Of course was never DONE To turn
to another form of sport-elephant and ostrich
hunting-Saadanus in the former picture drew
his quarry Of very understood dimensions, a mis-
take not usually made either by him or by other
artists of his age who, rule, magnifed the
foreign T8 Io as
our reproduction of engraving after another
drawing by the same FIorentine artist. Here we
have elephants which If we accept the ordinary
human form as our scale, must have stood some
thing like eighteen feet high though probably,
as the inscription below tells us that the man In
the act of hamstringing his quarry is a troglo-
dyte or cave-dweller race who were believed
to be of dwarf stature, the disproportion is In
tended to be as great as it is AS an early pic