DANGEROUS REALISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14145, 21 August 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANGEROUS REALISM.

When a sculptor is also an actor, he has the advantage of being able to model himself in dramatic attitudes. M. Capellani,' who is making a name on the stage, and exhibits at the Salons, has followed this method for obtaining realism in art. He carried the idea out with remarkable thoroughness, and his mise-en-scene was so real that he nearly killed himself and several persons in the process. A sculptured figure of a man sinking in quicksand was exhibited by. him at the salon of the Artist Francais this year. The dying man whom he modelled is himself in effigy, and he very nearly did die in reality. The arrangements for representing the scene were made with elaborate care at Mont Saint Michel, where the sands are as treacherous as those of the Goodwins. Having put on. an old suit of clothes he went out to a dangerous spot, and duly began to sink. At a convenient distance photographers, on lis instructions, put up a cinematograph camera; and began taking pictures of him as he was being slowly sucked under. Meanwhile he acted the death throes of the sinking man with all his might. The mise-en-scene was being thus beautifully carried out when it suddenly occurred to all concerned that the whole performance was approaching dangerously near to reality. The '-actor-sculptor, sucked down almost to his waist, ceased altogether to act, and the pictures taken of him show that his alarm was no longer feigned at all by then. At the same moment the photographers ceased to photograph, because they found that they and the camera were rapidly sinking in the quicksands. Help came, and all were luckily dragged out safe and sound. It had been a close tiling, but the actor-sculptor had secured a fine series of "human documents" for achieving realism in art.