Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1904 — SEEING A PICTURE. [ARTICLE]

SEEING A PICTURE.

Try to Look at It Through the Eye* of the Artl*t Who Painted It. The first necessity for the proper seeing of a picture is to try to see it through the eyes of the artist who painted it. This is not a usual method. Generally people look only through their own eyes and like or dislike a picture according as it does or does not suit their particular fancy. These people will tell you, “Oh, I don't know anything about painting, but I know what I like,” which is their way of saying, “If I don’t like it right off I don’t care to he bofliered to like it at all.” Such an attitude of mind cuts one off from growth and development, for it is as much as to say, "I am very well satisfied with myself aud quite indifferent to the experiences and feelings of other men.” Yet it is just this feeling and experience of another man which a picture gives us. If you consider a moment you will understand why. The world itself Is a vast panorama, ami from it the painter selects his subject—not the copy of it exactly, it would be impossible for him to do this even if he tried. How could he represent, for example, each blade of grass, each leaf upon a tree? Bo what he does is to represent tlie subject as he sees it, as.it appeals to his sympathy or interest, and if twelve artists painted the same landscape the result would be twelve different pictures, differing according to the way in Which each man had been impressed by the scene—in fact, according to his separate point of view or separate way of seeing it, influenced by bis individual experience and feeling.—Charles U. Coffin in St. Nicholas.