A “Follow-My-Leader" Picture.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 1, 5 July 1911, Page 33

A “Follow-My-Leader " Picture.

yrT HERE is an amusing Japanese II I game which might be spoken of I as a sort of pictorial pool—and “snooker” pool at that. Each artist “plays on” to his predecessor, and does his best to snooker his successor. “One artist,” says Mr. Arthur Morrison, “will Hing a few strokes on the paper and stop, leaving it for the next to interpret these first touches as best he may, and add to them. Then follows the turn of the third artist, and the fourth, if so many be present.” It struck the editor of an English magazine that the idea might be tried among English artists. The results of the experiment are interesting and amusing. It was decided to appeal to nine wellknown black-and-white artists for their co-operation—Messrs. Granville Fell, Dudley Hardy, Rene Bull, John Hassall, 11. M. Broek, E. .1. Sullivan, Joseph Simpson, Alec Ball, and 11. R. Millar. Each was to add his instalment to that of his predecessor, sending to the editor at the same time a drawing showing the completed design he had in mind and of which his instalment made a part. These finished drawings, of course, were seen by the editor alone, and the next artist, after each addition had been made, started with no information beyond the fragments contributed by his

predecessors. The “pool-picture” was photographed at each stage of its progress, and here is the result. Mr. Granville Fell began. He placed on the blank sheet the simple branching lines reproduced in the first illustration. A twig, perhaps, one might say. In that view the next artist might go on to draw a tree, or a water-diviner with his forked hazel-stick. Obviously it might be a river on a map. and the map might hang on a wall, thus beginning a school scene. Further, in the hands of an ingenious artist it might grow into the branching horns of a deer, or it might be a fissure in a rock or a hillside, beginning a landscape. One might make a hundred such guesses and never divine what Mr. Fell had in mind which was no other than the scene reproduced in the second illustration, the 'branching lines belong to the throat and chest of a horse, with the beginning of the jaw-bone and a little of each foreleg. And the horse is our old friend Rosinante, with Don Quixote astride. At anv rate, the idea of the horse never occurred to Mr. Dudley Hardy, or if it did he preferred an idea of his own. He left the branching lines standing bv themselves, and contented himself with dotting in the mysterious detached marks seen in the third illustration. Of course, as the illustrations appear here the drawing is placed in the way intend ed by the artist last working on it; but it must be remembered that as it came to each artist it had no right or wrong way up, and might be taken any wav. So that the drawing must be turned about in all directions if one is to understand the problem presented

after each instalment. Already, as we see, Mr. Granville Fell lias begun with the paper placed laterally, and Mr. Dudley Hardy has turned it end up. Mysterious as Mr. Dudley Hardy’s blobs and dashes seem, they are clearly enough explained by his finished sketch, which is a Japanese scene. The line of the horse’s chest and neck is turned into a flowering branch on which lanterns hang, and beneath which stands a lady with a fan. The thick black lines, which might seem to have been the stable-yard paving for Rosinante to walk on, have become the side of a thatched cottage or pavilion looking out toward the distant mountain. Already we are whisked from Spain to the opposite side of the world, and from Cervantes’ comic epic to a poetic view of old Japan in blossomtime. But this again was not what Mr. Rene Bull saw in Mr. Hardy’s blots and lines. Something weird and strange was what they obviously suggested, and Mr. Rene Bull trumped the trick with something weirder and stranger. Out from the jaw of Mr. Fell’s horse he drew a firm, thick double curve, reaching to the edge of the picture. From the last of Air. Dudley Hardy’s row of strokes he drew another double curve, thinner and less pronounced in bend, with a hook at its end; and at the opposite side he

threw in a grey wash irregular and puzzling in outline. The rest he left for the bedabement of Air. John Hassall. It was indeed a difficult problem, for Air. Rene Bull had been aiming at a fantasy wholly of the imagination, as a glance at his finished drawing will show. Air. Dudley Hardy took us at a stroke from a Spanish tale to a Japanese garden, and now Air. Bull, finding the whole width of the world already covered by Air. Hardy’s leap, struck away out of the world altogether, “east of the sun, west of the moon.” to the planet of the fantastic. To be sure, he borrows a hint from Japan in the queerly-designed signature on the label in the corner; but then every idealist who imagines something wholly unreal is driven to use earthly elements, and a touch or two of suggestion from Japan is always useful to strike the outlandish note. Here we have a seated female figure in a costume perhaps distantly suggested by a combination of Chinese and Japanese elements with a touch of the European in the \’-shaped neck, of tin* Indian in the ornaments, and of the Egyptian in tin* vase in the foreground. Air. Dudley Hardy’s lantern-designs have become an ear-ornament and part of a shoulderstrap, and Air. Granville Fell’s Rosinante is swallowed up in the folds of the Alartian (or Utopian) cloak. Truly Air. John Hassall was set a. terrible task if he were to scent out this exotic design; but his native ingenuity gave him a design of his own, so entirely fresh and unexpected, yet so exactly adapted to the puzzling (dements put Im»fore him, as to make his performance

perhaps the most striking and successful of the lot. Mr. Bull’s weird curves and wash are left exactly as they stood, and a few almost shapeless touches of ink are added here and there, as tin* illustration shows. The puzzle for the new comer is as great as ever—greater, in fact. But see and admire Air. Hassell’s complete design. Could anything be more wholly unlike what has gone before, and yet more completely adapted to the clues left by Air. Bull? Once again the picture is turned about and placed as Air. Fell placed it in the beginning. But here is no horse, no Japanese garden, no lady, no lanterns, no quaint citizen of the Citv of the Odd. Noth-

ing but a peaceful group of lop-eared rabbits eating carrots, with the title of the picture beneath! Air. Rene Bull’s grey wash is adapted exactly to the contours of three of the rabbits; Air. bell s horse-outline serves for a rabbit’s ear. eye, and paw. and a part of another rab bit’s eye: but it was obviously one of Air. Dudley Hardy’s lantern-decorations that inspired Air. Hassell’s idea, with the outline of Air. Rene Bull’s grey wash placed so suggestively above ’t. That lantern-decoration became without addition or alteration the eye of the bunny to the right. The double curve that

marked the outline of tin* I’topian lady’s back is now the midrib of a leaf destined for immediate nibbling; and altogether there never was such another transfor mation in the whole history of black and white art except, perhaps, tin* next one. For here Air. 11. Al. Brock has clearly imagined as complete a change as Air. Hassall’s, but in an almost opposite direction. And yet the additions to the fragments already existing aie b\ no means large. The chief, and one of the cleverest in the whole series, is the adaptation of Air. Fell’s rudimcntal horse, which has already been used as a branch, a dressfold. and a rabbit’s ear, to the outline of a dog. this is clear, and almost complete*. So much so indeed, that, as will be seen, it practically decides the fate of the picture in all its succeeding instalments. Beyond this dog-outline Air. Brock’s additions to the growing skeleton are wholly confined to a line or two which convert one of Air. Hassall’s carrots into a pretty obvious sleeve and cull and a touch or two above it, the intention of which is almost, if not quite, as clear. Tin* dog is excellent, but we must turn to Air. Brock’s completed picture to precision of his adaptation. There sits a lady in an arm-chair, with tin* dog reclining partly on her lap and partly on appreciate to the full the ingenuity and a cushion. She wears a great hat with feathers, and Air. Dudley Hardy’s lantern decoration, which was Mr. Rene Bull’s ea r-ornanient and Air. Hassall’s rabbit eve, is now what? Nothing but a mask, seen from the side, which tin* lady is removing from her face. A gentleman with the carrot arm and an eyeglass leans on the back of the chair, and the lantern decoration which has also been i shoulder-strap ami a rabbit’s ear. has now, amplified, become a bodice-decora lion. But more especially to be noted is the ingenuity with which the acciden lai breaks in two of Mr. Hassall’s touches have been utilised to admit the log’s tail, while one of the touches has itself been repeated several times to •epresent a fan in the lady's hand. Also )art icula rl v notice the artfuhi’ss with

which tin* row of straight and curved thick lines, first used by Mr. Dudley Hardy for the side of his cottage* wall.

has been worked into one of the stripes of the chair upholstery. Every break between these lines is left, an 1 is logically accounted for in Mr. Brock’s design, first by the curve of the “roll' on the arm of the chair, next by the intrusion of the end of the cushion, and last by the* seam across the side upholstery. Once more wo have the drawing turned up on end. and Mr. Brock’s adaptations, in

their own way. are quite as ingenious as Mr. Hassall's. But the lap-dog has done the trick, and

very radical alterations of design are no longer possible. Mr. lx. .1. Sullivan receives the incomplete picture and adds his contribution. He fills in the big hat that Mr. Brock has left to the imagination, but his hat and the one in Mr. Brock's mind are of different patterns. All the rest he leaves, except t had he throws in unmistakable indications of evening dress for the gentleman. In the

sketch, showing Mr. Sullivan’s complete idea we see that the ehair is now of wicker, that a curtain hangs behind the

lady's head, and that her dress has a cross-over bodice, while her neck is

adorned with collar and necklace and her arms are at her sides. So the game reaches Mr. Joseph Simpson, who. though he finds no scope for wide changes, still manages some very good notions of his own. Oddly enough.

Mr. Brock’s idea of a mask occurs to him in a totally different way, and he paints if across the lady’s face. Plainly he contemplates a scene at a masked ball. He places a touch to give the contour of the lady’s neck, and another to hint his opinion that the gentleman should grow a heavy moustache. Two strokes more of the brush, one just below the gentleman’s cuff and another diagonally across where one now inevitably places the chair, and Mr. Simpson passes on the task. But he shows us his full intent in the complete sketch that follows. The arm-chair is abolished, the lady is in the character of a Watteau shepherdess, her costume covered with a black domino, which she has Hung back from her shoulders. Mr. Dudley Hardy’s long-suffering cottage-wall is now the shepherdess’ crook, which the gentleman has taken up and is now using to rest his hand upon. Lastly, Mr. Rene Bull’s grey wash is now the sky, from which a new moon shines. Mr. Alex Ball receives the picture with the lines so far laid down for him that he cannot be expected to effect any revolutionary change. He brings up the

lady’s hand and what has been a bodice ornament is a cull’. In the hand he places a paper—a ball-programme, evidently; and to correspond he seizes on the lines which Air. (Shmpson meant to make part of the shepherdess’ crook

And makes that part of the outline of the gentleman’s programme. He carries out the face also, and the gentleman’s hand, as well as his programme, is finished, with his collar, tie, and stud. More, the lady lias no black domino, but one of white, with a flounced edging. Finally, Mr. Ball will not cover the (hair as Mr. Simpson desired, but carries its outlines farther. Now conies Mr. 11. R. Millar. What can he do? Precious .little, indeed, and it is scarcely fair to expect much. He gives the lady's domino its patterned design, and straightway the drawing goes to its completion at the hands of Mr. Granville Fell, who started it, thus completing the circle and bringing this round game of the co-operative picture to its end. The detached mask which was Mr. Dudley Hardy’s lantern-ornament and Mr. Hassall’s rabbit-eye becomes the head of a

bonnet-pin fastening the large hat. The pattern on the domino is spread to the white space beyond the dog’s tail, which thus becomes part of the garment; and the chair which has gone through so many vicissitudes has settled down to a peaceful existence as a chair of bamboo.