ARTISTS CAUGHT TRIPPING.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2337, 27 January 1913, Page 7

ARTISTS CAUGHT TRIPPING.

UNCONSCIOUS HUMOUR IN PAINTINGS.

When a distinguished botanist was examining Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema’s famous picture, "The Finding of Moses,” he was especially struck by the exquisite painting of the larkspurs whirh form the foreground. “They arc perfect, my dear sir,” he said, tuming to the artist; ‘‘but—surely there were no larkspurs in those remote days ; they are of much more resent growth.” ‘‘So I thought,” the Academician answered with a laugh, ‘‘until dried specimens of them were discovered dn some of the recently explored Royal tombs of Egypt.”

But all artists have by no means the same painstaking regard for accuracy as Sir Lawrence. Even the late Mr. Goodall, R.A., who prided himself on this desirable virtue, was once only saved from an egregious blunder by the timely criticism of a friend. One day, when ho was engaged in painting an ancient Egyptian scene, in which a number of meu were pictured dragging a monolith over the desert, this friend, a well-known, scientist, chanced to enter his studio.

After looking intently at the canvas for a moment or two, he said, ‘‘Look here, Goodall, you arc giving those men an impossible task. To drag that enormous weight you should; have at least twice the number.” ‘‘Dear me,” answered the Academician, "bow stupid of me ! Of course you are right,;” and when the picture appeared at Burlington House there was no fault to he found with it on the ground of cruelty to humans.

But even such a blunder as this, if it had been allowed to remain, would be venial compared with many which greater artists than Goodall have, unhlushingly handed down to posterity. Albert Durer, the famous Hungarian artist, was such a flagrant offender that in his picture of "Peter denying Christ” he actually puts a very modern pipe in the mouth of one of the Roman soldiers, who thus anticipates the solace of tobacco by more than fifteen centuries.

In his painting of the Fall he p.i'ctures Adam 'and Eve flying from the Garden of Eden at the bidding of an angel garbed in a flounced petticoat, which would not have disgraced midVictorian days, and on a third canvas a Homan gladiator struts in a suit of armour such as Sir Nigel Goring or Lord Marmion might have worn in the days of chivalry.

Cigoli pictures St. Jerome seated beside a clock such as never kept the time until many a long century after the Saint was dust ; and Simeon looks on at the ceremony of circumcision through a pair of spectacles such as our grandfathers wore. Poussin, more thoughtfully than, accurately, provided a. supply of boats for the Deluge, thus demonstrating, that Noah was not the only man wh 0 had provided for such a contingency, and Verrio represents Christ in the act of healing the sick, surrounded by interested spectators’) wearing wigs.

Bolin’s “Virgin and Child” listen raptly to the strains of a violin, of which Stradiivarins or Amati need not have been ashamed. St. Anthony is shown preaching to an audience; which includes several entranced lobsters ; and another artist arms Abraham with a formidable pistol for the sacrifice of Isaac. Other well-known pictures which set history and all probability at defiance show a '“Roundhead” officer equipped with a revolver of distinctly modem make; Adam and Eve in proximity to a sportsman busily bringing down wild-ducks with shot-gun ; the Virgin Mary seated at a tea-table which would grace a suburban drawing-room ; and knights of .Norman times sporting arms on their shields before heraldry was cradled.

Turner, supreme artist as he was, made more than one grotesque blunder in Ms pictures, as when he painted ships with sails black as ink, and with rigging that might well make the veriest tyro in seacraft smile. In one famous picture he has put a rainbow round the sun, instead of placing it, as Nature does, at a discreet distance- opposite that lumi-

i nary. { In the Royal Exchange, you may see j a picture by a living Academician, i representing the escape of terrified I London citizens from the Great Fire, ! by way of the river- It is a tbnlli ji]£ scene, painted with amazing skill and realism ; but the boats in which the fugutives are fleeing are such as were never seen on the Thames or any other river of England. The late Frank Holl cnee painted a portrait of a distinguished naval officer, his right hand resting on a table draped with the Union Jack. 1 The portrait is a magnificent piece of work ; but, alas, the flag has one glaring fault, calculated to make the youngest middy shudder it is painted upside down I In one of the finest pictures in the Louvre, Napoleon is presented, while in Moscow, in a short, smart pelisse, j with openings in the front—a garment | which would certainly have brought his career to a speedy end amid the j snows of Russia ; another French aij tist pictures the Children oi Israel I gathering manna, equipped with up- | to-date shot-guns, as if on a sportI jng expedition; and a few years ago I there was to he seen an the Salon j walls a canvas representing a rcvolj ver such as you might buy to-day ' in the Strand. i After this one can look without a | twitching of the lips on the Virgin pouring a cup of coffee from a chased silver coffee pot ; on a Swiss landscape dotted with cattle which flourish i only in our own islands ; and on a ; gallant ship driven ashore by a wind ! which is evidently blowing from the ; land. ! And these are but. typical of the countless blunders from which few artists seem to he quite immune. In 1 recent Academy Exhibitions we have

seen one of Wellington's soldiers) with the Victoria Cross of later years proudly displayed on his chest : au interior, of early Georgian days, with a picture of a locomotive on one of its walls ; and a gallant soldier with a linger too many on his right hand —probably to take tlm place of his thumb, which is missing. Nor arc the illustrators of books more free from this amiable weakness than the painters in oils Cruikshank pictured Bill Sikes dangling at the end of a rope ludicrously short for hanging purposes, and only a 1 bird of the length provided by Dickens ; and he presents Nancy, “pale and reduced from watching and privations” (according to the author) as a girl with the robust proportions of a dairy-maid. In Burnaby Budge.” Phiz draws Joe Willett, now lacking his right arm and now the left, indifferent to the fact that Joe never parted with both his arms. —“• Weekly Telegraph.”