PICTURE HINTS

PICTURE HINTS

a single highly suggestive concrete detail. This is the spark that kindles the imagination to a clear and satisfying portrait.

The secret is the power to see, the power to select and to use the individualizing detail that sets each person apart from all others.

He [ Rembrandt ] seems to have been the very first artist who could draw a part of the form, leaving all the rest in absolute blackness, and yet give the impression to the, casual onlooker that he sees the figure complete. Plain people with no interest in the technique of art will look upon a " Rembrandt " and go away and describe things in the picture that are not there. They will de¬clare to you that they saw them—those obvious things which one fills in at once with his inward eye. For instance, there is a por¬trait of a soldier, by Rembrandt, in the Louvre, and above, the soldier ’ s head you will see a tall cockade. You assume at once that this cockade is in the soldier ’ s hat, but no hat is shown— not the semblance or the outline of a hat. There is a slight line that might be the rim of a hat or it might not. But not one person out of a thousand, looking upon the picture, but would go away and describe the hat, and be affronted if you should tell them there is no hat in the picture. Given a cockade, we assume a hat.

By the use of shadows Rembrandt threw the faces into relief; he showed the things he wished to show and emphasized one thing by leaving all the rest out. The success of art depends upon what you omit from your canvas.

A little history of the picture hint

A withered, thin, elderly gentleman with a cheek like a winter apple and his gray hair partly concealed by a small high hat shaped like a can.

A black-thumbed, leather-aproned, swart-faced knave.

Tony Foster, with his scowling black brows, his bull ’ s head, and his bandy legs.

Silas, a pallid young man, with prominent short-sighted brown eyes.

It was the once hopeful Godfrey, who was standing, with his hands in his side pockets and his back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted parlor.

The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man.

Solomon Macey, a small, hale old man, with an abundant crop of long white hair reaching nearly to his shoulders.

Eppie, with the rippling radiance of her hair and the whiteness of her rounded chin and throat set off by the dark-blue cbtton gown, laughing merrily.

Silas fell on his knees and bent his head low to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child—a round, fair thing, with soft yellow rings all over its head.

Esmond was especially amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a great curling red mustache and blue eyes, that was half a dozen inches taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the stream.—Thaekeray.

Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and bottle beside him.— Dickens.

He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him.—Ibid.

Captain Seth, a middle-aged little man with ear-rings.—Heman White Chaplin.

They chatted of this and that,

The nothings that make up life;

She in a gainsborough hat,

And he in black for his wife.—T. B. Aldrich.

A slight, slim-built boy about fifteen, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.—Kipling.

His glasses were tipped forward at an angle so that he had to elevate his chin to focus them, and he did not even see his friends as he strode up between the rows of desks [ in the reporters ’ room ].


 * Jese Lynch Williams.

Here an old fellow in a butternut suit, with a half-moon of white whiskers tied under his chin, leaned forward in rapt attention.

A thinly constructed military gentleman, all sword and mus¬ta ch e. —I bid.
 * F. Hopkinson Smith.

The Frenchman, in highly polished boots, bent over the small, delicate, bejewelled hand.—Ibid.

A little old woman with dirty white hair and with dried tobacco juice in the corners of her mouth was smoking her pipe at the door of the shanty-boat.—Ibid.

Other sences

With my pease—table d ’ hôte pease are always a separate dish in this part of the world—came the rustle of silk and the bubble of talk, broken by little gurgles of laughter as the expected guests appeared.—F. Hopkinson Smith.

Then he moved to the door, took down an oilskin from a peg, and saying that he would get the boat ready, went out into the night, shutting the door behind him, his bare feet flapping like wet fish as he walked.—Ibid.

A shuffling footstep was heard, and the door opened to admit an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth.—Ibid.

The man had rough, red hands and smelled of fish.—Ibid.

By means of hints portray several of your friends so accurately that other friends will at once recognize them.