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PICTURES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW


A SELECTION OF THE WORLD'S ART MASTERPIECES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE


BY DOLORES BACON

Illustrated from Great Paintings



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Besides making acknowledgments to the many authoritative writers upon
artists and pictures, here quoted, thanks are due to such excellent
compilers of books on art subjects as Sadakichi Hartmann, Muther,
C. H. Caffin, Ida Prentice Whitcomb, Russell Sturgis and others.



INTRODUCTION


Man's inclination to decorate his belongings has always been one of
the earliest signs of civilisation. Art had its beginning in the lines
indented in clay, perhaps, or hollowed in the wood of family utensils;
after that came crude colouring and drawing.

Among the first serious efforts to draw were the Egyptian square and
pointed things, animals and men. The most that artists of that day
succeeded in doing was to preserve the fashions of the time. Their
drawings tell us that men wore their beards in bags. They show us,
also, many peculiar head-dresses and strange agricultural
implements. Artists of that day put down what they saw, and they saw
with an untrained eye and made the record with an untrained hand; but
they did not put in false details for the sake of glorifying the
subject. One can distinguish a man from a mountain in their work, but
the arms and legs embroidered upon Mathilde's tapestry, or the figures
representing family history on an Oriental rug, are quite as correct
in drawing and as little of a puzzle. As men became more intelligent,
hence spiritualised, they began to express themselves in ideal ways;
to glorify the commonplace; and thus they passed from Egyptian
geometry to gracious lines and beautiful colouring.

Indian pottery was the first development of art in America and it led
to the working of metals, followed by drawing and portraiture. Among
the Americans, as soon as that term ceased to mean Indians, art took a
most distracting turn. Europe was old in pictures, great and
beautiful, when America was worshipping at the shrine of the chromo;
but the chromo served a good turn, bad as it was. It was a link
between the black and white of the admirable wood-cut and the true
colour picture.

Some of the Colonists brought over here the portraits of their
ancestors, but those paintings could not be considered "American" art,
nor were those early settlers Americans; but the generation that
followed gave to the world Benjamin West. He left his Mother Country
for England, where he found a knighthood and honours of every kind
awaiting him.

The earliest artists of America had to go away to do their work,
because there was no place here for any men but those engaged in
clearing land, planting corn, and fighting Indians. Sir Benjamin West
was President of the Royal Academy while America was still revelling
in chromos. The artists who remained chose such objects as Davy
Crockett in the trackless forest, or made pictures of the Continental
Congress.

After the chromo in America came the picture known as the "buckeye,"
painted by relays of artists. Great canvases were stretched and
blocked off into lengths. The scene was drawn in by one man, who was
followed by "artists," each in turn painting sky, water, foliage,
figures, according to his specialty. Thus whole yards of canvas could
be painted in a day, with more artists to the square inch than are now
employed to paint advertisements on a barn.

The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 came as a glorious flashlight. For
the first time real art was seen by a large part of our nation. Every
farmer took home with him a new idea of the possibilities of drawing
and colour. The change that instantly followed could have occurred in
no other country than the United States, because no other people would
have travelled from the four points of the compass to see such an
exhibition. Thus it was the American's _penchant_ for travel which
first opened to him the art world, for he was conscious even then of
the educational advantages to be found somewhere, although there
seemed to be few of them in the United States.

After the Centennial arose a taste for the painting of "plaques," upon
which were the heads of ladies with strange- hair; of
leather-covered flatirons bearing flowers of unnatural colour, or of
shovels decorated with "snow scenes." The whole nation began to revel
in "art." It was a low variety, yet it started toward a goal which
left the chromo at the rear end of the course, and it was a better
effort than the mottoes worked in worsted, which had till then been
the chief decoration in most homes. If the "buckeye" was
hand-painting, this was "single-hand" painting, and it did not take a
generation to bring the change about, only a season. After the
Philadelphia exhibition the daughter of the household "painted a
little" just as she played the piano "a little." To-day, much less
than a man's lifetime since then, there is in America a universal love
for refined art and a fair technical appreciation of pictures, while
already the nation has worthily contributed to the world of
artists. Sir Benjamin West, Sully, and Sargent are ours: Inness,
Inman, and Trumbull.

The curator of the Metropolitan Museum in New York has declared that
portrait-painting must be the means which shall save the modern
artists from their sins. To quote him: "An artist may paint a bright
green cow, if he is so minded: the cow has no redress, the cow must
suffer and be silent; but human beings who sit for portraits seem to
lean toward portraits in which they can recognise their own features
when they have commissioned an artist to paint them. A man _will_
insist upon even the most brilliant artist painting him in trousers,
for instance, instead of in petticoats, however the artist-whim may
direct otherwise; and a woman is likely to insist that the artist who
paints her portrait shall maintain some recognised shade of brown or
blue or gray when he paints her eye, instead of indulging in a burnt
orange or maybe pink! These personal preferences certainly put a limit
to an artist's genius and keep him from writing himself down a
madman. Thus, in portrait-painting, with the exactions of truth upon
it, lies the hope of art-lovers!"

It is the same authority who calls attention to the danger that lies
in extremes; either in finding no value in art outside the "old
masters," or in admiring pictures so impressionistic that the objects
in them need to be labelled before they can be recognised.

The true art-lover has a catholic taste, is interested in all forms of
art; but he finds beauty where it truly exists and does not allow the
nightmare of imagination to mislead him. That which is not beautiful
from one point of view or another is not art, but decadence. That
which is technical to the exclusion of other elements remains
technique pure and simple, workmanship--the bare bones of art. A thing
is not art simply because it is fantastic. It may be interesting as
showing to what degree some imaginations can become diseased, but it
is not pleasing nor is it art. There are fully a thousand pictures
that every child should know, since he can hardly know too much of a
good thing; but there is room in this volume only to acquaint him with
forty-eight and possibly inspire him with the wish to look up the
neglected nine hundred and fifty-two.



CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

I. Andrea del Sarto, Florentine School, 1486-1531

II. Michael Angelo (Buonarroti), Florentine School, 1475-1564

III. Arnold Boecklin, Modern German School, 1827-1901

IV. Marie-Rosa Bonheur, French School, 1822-1899

V. Alessandro Botticelli, Florentine School, 1447-1510

VI. William Adolphe Bouguereau, French (Genre) School 1825-1905

VII. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, English (Pre-Raphaelite) School, 1833-1898

VIII. John Constable, English School, 1776-1837

IX. John Singleton Copley, English School, 1737-1815

X. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, Fontainebleau-Barbizon School, 1796-1875

XI. Correggio (Antonio Allegri), School of Parma, 1494(?)--1534

XII. Paul Gustave Dore, French School, 1833-1883

XIII. Albrecht Duerer, Nuremberg School, 1471-1528

XIV. Mariano Fortuny, Spanish School, 1838-1874

XV. Thomas Gainsborough, English School, 1727-1788

XVI. Jean Leon Gerome, French Semi-classical School, 1824-1904

XVII. Ghirlandajo, Florentine School, 1449-1494

XVIII. Giotto (di Bordone), Florentine School, 1276-1337

XIX. Franz Hals, Dutch School, 1580-84-1666

XX. Meyndert Hobbema, Dutch School, 1637-1709

XXI. William Hogarth, School of Hogarth (English), 1697-1764

XXII. Hans Holbein, the Younger, German School, 1497-1543

XXIII. William Holman Hunt, English (Pre-Raphaelite) School, 1827-

XXIV. George Inness, American, 1825-1897

XXV. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, English School, 1802-1873

XXVI. Claude Lorrain (Gellee), Classical French School, 1600-1682

XXVII. Masaccio (Tommaso Guidi), Florentine School, 1401-1428

XXVIII. Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, French School, 1815-1891

XXIX. Jean Francois Millet, Fontainebleau-Barbizon School, 1814-1875

XXX. Claude Monet, Impressionist School of France, 1840-

XXXI. Murillo (Bartolome Esteban), Andalusian School, 1617-1682

XXXII. Raphael (Sanzio), Umbrian, Florentine, and Roman Schools,
1483-1520

XXXIII. Rembrandt (Van Rijn), Dutch School, 1606-1669

XXXIV. Sir Joshua Reynolds, English School, 1723-1792

XXXV. Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish School, 1577-1640

XXXVI. John Singer Sargent, American and Foreign Schools, 1856-

XXXVII. Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Venetian School, 1518-1594

XXXVIII. Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), Venetian School, 1489-1576

XXXIX. Joseph Mallord William Turner, English, 1775-1831

XL. Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish School, 1599-1641

XLI. Velasquez (Diego Rodriguez de Silva), Castilian School, 1599-1660

XLII. Paul Veronese (Paolo Cagliari), Venetian School, 1528-1588.

XLIII. Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine School, 1452-1519.

XLIV. Jean Antoine Watteau, French (Genre) School, 1684-1721

XLV. Sir Benjamin West, American, 1738-1820

Index



ILLUSTRATIONS


FRONTISPIECE

The Avenue, Middleharnis, Holland--_Hobbema_

Madonna of the Sack--_Andrea del Sarto_

Daniel--_Michael Angelo (Buonarroti)_

The Isle of the Dead--_Arnold Boecklin_

The Horse Fair--_Rosa Bonheur_

Spring--_Alessandro Botticelli_

The Hay Wain--_John Constable_

A Family Picture--_John Singleton Copley_

The Holy Night--_Correggio (Antonio Allegri)_

Dance of the Nymphs--_Jean Baptiste Camille Corot_

The Virgin as Consoler--_Wm. Adolphe Bouguereau_

The Love Song--_Sir Edward Burne-Jones_

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine--_Correggio_

Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law--_Paul Gustave Dore_

The Nativity--_Albrecht Duerer_

The Spanish Marriage--_Mariana Fortuny_

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan--_Thomas Gainsborough_

The Sword Dance--_Jean Leon Gerome_

Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizi--_Ghirlandajo (Domenico Bigordi)_

The Nurse and the Child--_Franz Hals_

The Meeting of St. John and St. Anna at Jerusalem--_Giotto (Di
Bordone)_

The Avenue--_Meyndert Hobbema_

The Marriage Contract--_Wm. Hogarth_

The Light of the World--_William Holman Hunt_

Robert Cheseman with his Falcon--_Hans Holbein, the Younger_

The Berkshire Hills--_George Inness_

The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner--_Sir Edwin Henry Landseer_

The Artist's Portrait--_Tommaso Masaccio_

Acis and Galatea--_Claude Lorrain_

Retreat from Moscow--_Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier_

The Angelus--_Jean Francois Millet_

The Immaculate Conception--_Murillo (Bartolome Esteban)_

Haystack in Sunshine--_Claude Monet_

The Sistine Madonna--_Raphael (Sanzio)_

The Night Watch--_Rembrandt (Van Rijn)_

The Duchess of Devonshire and Her Daughter--_Sir Joshua Reynolds_

The Infant Jesus and St. John--_Peter Paul Rubens_

Carmencita--_John Singer Sargent_

The Miracle of St. Mark--_Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)_

The Artist's Daughter, Lavinia--_Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)_

The Fighting Temeraire--_Joseph Mallord William Turner_

The Children of Charles the First--_Sir Anthony Van Dyck_

Equestrian Portrait of Don Balthasar Carlos--_Velasquez (Diego
Rodriguez de Silva)_

The Marriage at Cana--_Paul Veronese_

The Death of Wolfe--_Sir Benjamin West_

The Artist's Two Sons--_Peter Paul Rubens_

The Last Supper--_Leonardo da Vinci_

Fete Champetre--_Jean Antoine Watteau_



I

ANDREA DEL SARTO


  (Pronounced Ahn'dray-ah del Sar'to)
  _Florentine School_
  1486-1531
  _P