. A child's guide to pictures . fined; every figure is rendered with aboutequal distinctness; no effort has been made to rep-resent them in relation to one another, with varyingdegrees of clearness and obscurity. A similar arti-ficiality appears in the representation of the ice. Itis true the lights and shadows and gleam of thesurfaces of real ice have been studied; so that thepainting conveys the idea of ice; but this is a verydifferent thing from the painted blocks representingthe effects of real ice, as seen in real light. So we find that Leutze, though wishing to giveus a vivid representat
. A child's guide to pictures . fined; every figure is rendered with aboutequal distinctness; no effort has been made to rep-resent them in relation to one another, with varyingdegrees of clearness and obscurity. A similar arti-ficiality appears in the representation of the ice. Itis true the lights and shadows and gleam of thesurfaces of real ice have been studied; so that thepainting conveys the idea of ice; but this is a verydifferent thing from the painted blocks representingthe effects of real ice, as seen in real light. So we find that Leutze, though wishing to giveus a vivid representation of the incident, has ne-glected a number of important facts relating to thehour of the occurrence and to the conditions of at-mosphere and light, as they must have affected theappearance of the scene. He was simply not inter-ested in these matters. Then, what of the point onwhich he evidently relied — the grouping of thefigures in the foreground? It is a ticklish job topull a boat through a mass of floating ice-cakes. 140. b£ Sh ^ a 03 r: i, ii,. 4 Form and Color Do jou think that Washington and the flag-hearerwould have increased the difficulty and peril hystanding up? Dont you know that to stand up ina boat even on smooth water is a foolhardy thingto do? It is a frequent cause of accident and lossof life in pleasure parties. On an occasion so seri-ous as this would the leader have been guilty ofsuch folly? Certainly not. Washington and everyman, not actually engaged in navigating the boat,would have been sitting low down, so as to helppreserve the balance and offer as little resistance aspossible to the wind. Here, then, is another indif-ference to facts in this so-called historic Leutze did not care about facts. His motivewas to bring out the heroic character of the he made Washington strike a heroic is the way in which a popular actor takes thecenter of the stage and strikes an attitude and waitsfor the applause. Leutze wanted a cent
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidchildsguidet, bookyear1908
