THE HUMORS OF ARTISTS' MODELS.

Evening Star, Issue 11662, 24 September 1901, Page 8

THE HUMORS OF ARTISTS' MODELS.

Mr Lnke Fildes, the well-known Royal Academician, tells many amusing stories of his models: and certainly one of the best of them is the following, told of a rustic who sat. to him as a model for the bridegroom in 'The Village Wedding.' Shortly after the sitting began Mr Fildes observed that his model was becoming very pale, and he suggested that he should rest until he had recovered from his indisposition. After a rest, work was recommenced; but again the young man began to show signs of great physical distress, and was becoming positively ghastly. "I am afraid you are not very well," the artist sympathetically suggested. '' I'm a'right, zur," gasped the model, " only for holding my breath bo long." The poor fellow had imagined that his portrait eould not be taken unless he held his breath during the process. Mr Solomon J. Solomon, A.R.A., tells an equally good story which illustrates the refreshing innocence of the rustic model. "Some time ago/' he says, "when I was painting a picture, a nude figure against th« pea in sunset, I chanced to see among a number of boys bathing as Eastbourne the very figure I wanted for my painting. Summoning the lad I arranged with him to stand for me while I painted him, for a fee of one shilling. The painting occupied longer than I anticipated, and some time before it was concluded the sun had gone down, and it had become decidedly chilly. When I had finished, the boy came up to me Bhivering with the cold, and looked at the picture over my shoulder. 'Wen, is it like you?* I asked. 'Yes, it's very like, guv*nor, but it am t a-ahivering !' " Mr Arthur Hacker, A.R.A., was once painting some peasants on the outskirts of Paris, and when the work was finished one of them was so charmed with the result that ho exclaimed: "Ah! but it is magnifique > "Vou shall paint my wife. I don't care what it eosts—three francs, four francs—anything!"' Another of his rastio models ventured the speculation that a picture of Mr Hacker's, completed and framed, "must be worth 10s, at least." Among Mr Solomon's models was a man who had once occupied a good position in life, and who vu most ingenious in inventing pretexts for borrowing money from the artist, which he invariabhr spent in drink. On one occasion, after borrovring £2, he was found in a half-dead condition as the rare* of swaflowing half a bottle of turpentine under the delusion that it was Erin. — 'ttt-Btta.' s -