How to Show Pictures to Children/Chapter 10

by Estelle May Hurll

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STORY PICTURES

A child’s love of stories is well-nigh universal, and no argument is needed to prove the value of gratifying this taste. Whether it is regarded from an educational standpoint, as a training for the mind, or merely taken for pure amusement, the story is the child’s natural pabulum. How pictures may facilitate and enrich the story-telling process I have tried to explain in a previous chapter. It remains to make some suggestions in regard to story-picture material. For as there are stories and stories, some good for children, and some not, so there are pictures and pictures, from which to choose. Some subjects attract a child at once, and others make no impression on him. Some which appeal to him with an obvious story interest may be wretched specimens on the artistic or mechanical side. Some which interest an older person very much, deal with themes which a child is incapable of grasping. Worst of all, some have an unwholesome or artificial, sentimental or silly, story to tell. On the whole, it is much better to have a few good things than many inferior prints.

In one sense any and every picture is a story picture. An active imagination may weave a drama out of the most meager material. The figure of an animal, Landseer’s Newfoundland Dog, let us say, may sug- gest all sorts of exploits to form an endless tale. A portrait, like the head of Van Dyck’s Prince Charles, may be the starting-point of the life-story of the Merry Monarch. This story use of the picture is perfectly legitimate, but it is not the original intention of the artist. A real story picture differs from one upon which a story may be based as the Adoration of the Shepherds differs from a simple Madonna, or Boughton’s Pilgrims going to Church from Stuart’s portrait of George Washington. The real story picture is dramatic in character and contains a story by implication, the story the artist meant to tell, and to draw this out is quite another matter than building one of our own upon a picture not designed for the purpose. The line cannot be rigidly drawn, but it seems to me well to keep the distinction clearly in mind. We do not want to fix the “literary habit” upon a child so that every picture necessarily means a story to him. In a real story or anecdotic picture, the position or action of the figures and the accessories of the composition all point out a story, and if the artist has done his part, we ought to read it easily.

The first story subjects we give our children are naturally those dealing with child life. We begin by looking for pictures illustrating the doings of the average boy and girl in the home, with his playmates, and in the great outdoor world. Few artists have in any sense specialized in these lines, and we pick up our material among scattered examples from many countries and many periods. The most satisfactory

Fr. Hanfstaengl, photo. John Andrew & Son, co.

THE FRUIT VENDERS
Munich Gallery

pictures of this sort are general and typical in character rather than local in interest. The good old stories which have been retold from time immemorial retain their hold upon us because they deal with the typical elements of human nature and child life. They have no local color to fix the time and place. So with story pictures. If they reach the heart of child life, they last forever, but if they depend too much upon transient elements, the next generation will not understand them. I can best explain my meaning by illustrations. About three hundred years ago the Spanish artist Murillo painted some groups of beggar boys playing in the street. They were ragged and unkempt, not particularly pretty and not over-clean, but they were full of the joy of life. Happy-go-lucky as the birds of the air, they are feasting on melons and grapes, and kings of the earth might envy them. There are at least eight of these subjects, the best-known being the group in the Munich Gallery, and they are among the most popular and delightful pictures in the world. Though painted three centuries ago in Seville, you can find their counterparts to-day in the streets of New York, or Boston, or Chicago. To the end of time boys will flock together to loaf in the sun, devour stolen fruit, and play games on the ground. Murillo’s pictures will never need explanation and will never go by. Now many story pictures which seem very funny and clever at first sight lose their interest as time passes, because the details are too definitely localized. In the latter part of the nineteenth century there were various painters whose works had great vogue, but which are already going out of fashion. Meyer von Bremen’s pictures of Swiss child life and J. G. Brown’s of New York newsboys and bootblacks are of this class. They deal with local customs which are already passing. We speak of them as “old-fashioned”; but it never occurs to anybody to call the Spanish Beggar Boys old-fashioned. Fashion has nothing to do with them. Nor does the seventeenth-century setting prevent our enjoyment of the merrymaking in some of Jan Steen’s Dutch pictures. This painter did more children’s subjects than seems to be generally known. We debar, of course, any which are coarse in vein, but scenes of simple hilarity, even if it is of a boisterous kind, are good to have. Steen’s contemporary, Peter de Hooch, is at opposite poles in his choice of subjects, gentle, quiet, refined, and poetic. His demure little girls helping their mothers about the housework are the pattern of dutifulness. One can scarcely imagine them doing anything naughty, but they are not too prim to be thoroughly childlike and lovable. Among modern painters the French Millet and the Dutch Israels seem to me the most natural and spontaneous in their delineations of children’s occupations and amusements. In fact, the doings of country children seem to make a wider appeal than city subjects. It would be foolish to insist that a child’s pictures should be only those which have stood the test of years. As well give up all magazines and newspapers. It is well, however, to keep in mind the difference between the permanent and the transient. The pictures which we select as birthday and Christmas gifts for our little ones, pictures to keep as special treasures, should be of the higher order. For the rest we hail gladly any child pictures with good drawing, good story interest, and a natural rather than an artificial or forced situation.

To limit a child’s story pictures to subjects of child life would be a mistake which no wise educator is likely to make. It would be like shutting him up in a Lilliputian kingdom. We must help our children to grow up, and pictures are an invaluable means to this end. They should open to the young mind many avenues of thought and enjoyment. They may reflect the life of the workaday world about us, make the past vivid, or awaken visions of the fairyland of fancy. Sometimes they arouse an interest in something we should not otherwise care for by investing the subject with the glamour of art. It was the peculiar charm of the seventeenth-century Dutch school to interpret homely domestic themes. These painters were wonderful realists and clever story-tellers, with good dramatic sense and much humor. Their pictures suggest to the quick imagination endless stories of everyday life—the goldsmith weighing his gold, the old market-woman haggling over her fruit and vegetables, the lady at her piano, or the cavalier with his lute. We look into the parlor, the kitchen, the chamber, the banquet-hall, the tailor’s shop, the market, and the inn, and imagine all sorts of pleasant things about the occupants. With Gerard Dow and Maes we see touching scenes among the poor, the old woman saying grace over her frugal meal, or working at her spinning-wheel. With Terburg we get a glimpse of fashionable life, peeping into the homes of the wealthy, where slender ladies, in satin gowns, are completing their toilets, playing on musical instruments, or engaged in polite conversation. A French genre painter of the eighteenth century, whose domestic subjects are closely akin to those of the Dutch school, was Chardin. There is, however, a delicacy and sentiment about his work which distinguishes it from the Dutch. Even his cooks and housekeepers, with their coquettish frilled caps, have a vein of the poetic in their make-up.

It is because the occupations of daily life appeal so strongly to children that Millet is a great favorite with them. They are much interested in the simple French peasant-folk pursuing their common tasks in the house and field. The sense of strength and efficiency in these figures is an important element in their attractiveness, and there is usually a placid content in labor which is good to see. They take their tasks seriously, almost solemnly sometimes, as if performing a religious rite. The Potato Planters (man and woman), the Sheep-shearer, the Sower, and the Gleaners illustrate these qualities. The Angelus, the best-known, but by no means the greatest, of Millet’s works, represents a man and woman in the field at the close of the day’s labor, bowing in prayer at the sound of the Angelus bell. When the laborers lack facial beauty, their pose is as majestic as Greek sculpture. The Man with the Hoe, notwithstanding his stupid vacant expression, has a monumental dignity and the plainfaced Milkmaid is as graceful as a caryatid. The Churner’s beauty is in her vigorous handling of the dasher, and her satisfaction in the results of her work. Even the cat who rubs up against her feels the cheerful atmosphere of content which pervades the room. The Little Shepherdess and the Woman Feeding Hens are really pretty and are the children’s special favorites. A wide horizon and a long vista are other features of Millet’s pictures which make them restful and uplifting. One does not weary of such subjects.^[1]

Jules Breton is another French painter of peasant labor whom the children love. The Song of the Lark is a picture of a young woman at work in the field, pausing scythe in hand to listen to the wondrous bird at which she gazes transfixed. As in Millet’s Angelus there is here a suggestion of the idealism which lightens toil. Companion figures to the girl of the Lark Song is the Gleaner, with a sheaf of wheat on her shoulder, and the Shepherd’s Star, who carries a big bundle on her head. Other subjects relate to the close of the day’s labor, like the End of Labor, and the Close of Day, and the Return of the Gleaners. It will be noticed that not one of these subjects shows the actual process of labor as in Millet’s works. Some other French pictures to include in this group have to do with haymaking. In Bastien-Lepage’s Haymaker a woman sits in the foreground at rest, with a man stretched full length behind her. Dupré’s Before the Storm shows the haymakers hastening to load the wagon under a cloudy sky. Adan’s End of Day shows a solitary haymaker tramping across the field, and in L’Hermitte’s La Famille the entire family group sits in the hayfield in which the father is at work. With this class of pictures belongs Ridgway Knight's Calling the Ferry, a representation of French country life which shows the splendid physical development of the women who live and work out of doors.

Horatio Walker is an American painter whose works are naturally compared with those of Millct as interpretations of farm labors. Such subjects as ploughing, wood-cutling, ice-cutting, feeding sheep, pigs, and turkeys have been treated very vigorously. These pictures are mostly in private collections, but a few are available as reproductions. For the most part we must go to the art of distant lands to show our children the primitive tasks of life. In our own country the use of modern machinery and the life of the factories have for the time being removed the subjects of labor from the field of art. It is for the artists of the future to interpret American industrial Life in its modern form.

The story of the whaling industry, now rapidly becoming a thing of the past, was the special subject of the American painter, William Bradford, some of whose works have been reproduced in prints for schoolroom decoration. The Arctic Whaler and Homeward Bound are of this class. In more recent times Winslow Homer has done more than any other artist, perhaps, to show us the lives of the toilers of the sea. In the Boston Art Museum are two of his famous pictures. In one we see the sailor at the lookout calling, “All’s well,” as the bell behind him swings out its measure of the hour. In the Fog Warning a fisherman in a dory pulls a strong ear to race with the fog which is just rising above the horizon. The Gulf Stream in the Metropolitan Museum is in a more tragic vein, where a wrecked fishing-boat is rolling in the trough of a heavy sea. Another very thrilling and more cheerful subject is the Life Line. Across the surging waters the rescuer carries his human burden, swinging from the cable on which they are both drawn to safety.

Nearly all boys like pictures of ships which suggest romantic adventure. Turner’s Fighting Téméraire is a great historic masterpiece which, rightly read, tells a thrilling tale of naval prowess. A stately old battle-ship, no longer fit for service, is towed to its last anchorage by a steaming little tug. A glorious sky gives dignity and distinction to the event, like a triumphal funeral march. The frigate Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” corresponds to the Téméraire in our own American history, and this has been painted by a contemporary artist, Marshall Johnson, in two subjects, one showing the ship in full sail alone, and the other showing the victorious frigate in contrast to the dismantled Guerrière. A few other sea subjects are in our list.

A fascinating class of story pictures, and one which is very conspicuous in the art of the old masters, is that dealing with the lives of the saints, heroes, and martyrs of Christianity. Here are some thrilling dramatic situations, and incidentally a “moral” which is plain enough to need no pointing out. I have previously spoken of the group of legends symbolizing the triumph of good over evil, the most important subjects being St. Michael and St. George. St. Margaret is the maiden counterpart of St. George. A wicked king had cast her into a dungeon where a dragon appeared and devoured her. Whereupon he burst open and she stepped forth unharmed and radiant, just as we see her in Raphael’s charming picture in the Louvre.

The gentle St. Francis, who preached to the birds, called all the beasts his brethren, and went about doing good, is a character whom children should be taught to love. The church at Assisi is full of quaint decorations by Giotto and other early Italians illustrating the life of the Saint. Some of these are very acceptable to children, but we need not go so far afield for the material, since Boutet de Monvel has given us the whole story in the series of designs for “Everybody’s St. Francis.” The story of St. Anthony of Padua, to whom a vision of the Christ-child was vouchsafed, makes a very tender picture which touches a child’s heart readily. This was a favorite subject with Murillo, and in many schools and homes prints are to be seen from the Spanish painter’s works, showing the good man kneeling with the precious babe in his arms. St. Christopher wading through the stream with the Christ-child on his

shoulder is another favorite picture subject with the

Anderson, Photo.

SAINT CHRISTOPHER

children. They love to hear how the giant buffeted

with the storm-tossed waters, as his burden grew heavier and heavier, till he set the child safely on the farther bank and learned that he had been carrying the Maker of the world.

Of St. Cecilia, whose music drew the angels down from heaven to listen, of St. Ursula, who voyaged to distant shrines with ten thousand maiden attendants, and of St. Genevieve, the little French shepherdess whose name is revered in Paris, we also have many attractive story pictures.

From legend to allegory is but a step, and allegory is very common as a subject of mural decoration in public buildings. Such pictures are often very interesting and suggestive to children if properly explained, and possess a certain kind of story quality. The works of Puvis de Chavannes in the Boston Public Library are particularly appropriate for school, as they illustrate various branches of learning. The subjects in the Congressional Library, at Washington, are widely circulated and extremely popular for schoolroom. I refer to these more particularly in making recommendations for “The Use of Pictures in the Schoolroom.” In that chapter, too, are included the story pictures which illustrate subjects of chivalry, classic mythology, and history.

Of all the world stories none is so important religiously or educationally as the story of the life of Jesus. The subject has been the inspiration of the noblest art of past centuries, so that no one can in any measure understand the history of painting without studying this class of pictures. Happily all this material is available in many forms of prints illustrating the complete life from the promise of the angel to the ascension from Mount Olivet.

List or Story Pictures

Stories of child life.

Murillo. Beggar Boys. Munich. (Two ragged urchins seated by ruined wall, eating grapes and melons.)

Beggar Boys. Munich. (Two boys seated on a stone, eating, with dog.)

Fruit-Venders. (Boy and girl with fruit baskets seated on ground counting earnings.)

Dice-players. Munich. (Two urchins playing dice on flat stone. Child and dog watching.)

Chardin. Grace before Meat. Louvre. (Two little girls at table, Mother standing over them directing them to give thanks.)

Jan Steen. Feast of St. Nicholas. Amsterdam, (Dutch interior with family group on Christmas Eve, the children discovering the gifts in their shoes. Boy crying to find switch instead of gift. Very merry scene.)

The Cat’s Dancing-Lesson. Amsterdam, (Dutch interior. Merry group about a table on which a boy holds the cat upright on hind legs. A girl plays accompaniment on flute and dog barks. Homely, simple amusement.)

Christening Feast. (Dutch interior, with many figures. Baby in cradle at left; little boy and girl dancing at right.)

Millet. Feeding her Birds. (Doorway of cottage with three children seated on sill, fed by mother from bowl.)

The First Step. (Dooryard. Mother steadying baby who tries to toddle toward father kneeling at a distance with outstretched arms.)

Knitting-Lesson. (Old woman teaching tiny girl how to manage knitting-needles.)

Millais. For the Squire. (Little girl in quaint quilted sun-bonnet carrying letter.)

Millais. Princes in Tower. (Illustrating historical incident of murder of sons of Edward IV. Two boys clinging together on stairway, hearing approach of murderer.)

Sir Isumbras at the Ford. (A noble presentation of an aged knight riding a splendid horse, with two little children, a girl and a boy, whom he is carrying across the stream.)

Boyhood of Raleigh. (Two children sitting near the beach, one, the boy Raleigh, listening to the tales of a tramp sailor who points across the sea.)

Israels. Little Brother. (At the seashore. Boy wading ashore carrying small child pickaback.)

Interior of a cottage. (Mother sitting by cradle watching baby.)

Little seamstress. (Little girl sewing.)

Boy sailing a boat.

Blommers. Little Shrimp Fishermen. (Group of children in shallow water dragging for fish.)

Curran. Children catching minnows.

Meyer von Bremen. Little Brother. (Cottage interior. Mother standing with young babe in her arms stooping to show him to children.)

The Pet Bird. (Swiss interior. Four children gathered about table on which is open cage. Bird perched on boy's finger.)

Renouf. The Helping Hand. (Open boat with old sailor at oars,a little girl putting her hand over his to help.)

Leighton. The Music-Lesson. (Young mother and daughter seated side by side playing lute.)

T. C. Gotch. Pageant of Childhood. Liverpool Museum. (Procession of boys and girls in costume, marching by twos, graded in size.)

T. Couture. Day-Dreams. Metropolitan Museum. (Boy seated at table, leaning back in reverie, holding pipe from which he has been blowing bubbles.)

P. A. Cot. Paul and Virginia (also called the “Storm”). Metropolitan Museum. (Illustrating the story by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Youth and maiden fleeing before the storm.)

Kever. Sewing-School. (Two rows of little girls in chairs outside cottage, bending assiduously to their sewing tasks.)

Kaulbach. The Pied Piper. Illustration of Browning’s poem, (Courtyard with flight of stone steps up which a crowd of merry children are rushing in pursuit of the piper.)

Elizabeth Gardner. Two Mothers. (Young mother and child, hen and chicks.)

Three Friends. (Two little girls and calf.)

Peter de Hooch. Interior, Metropolitan Museum, (Little girl bringing jug into house from outer door. Mother seated within. Dog.)

Storeroom. Amsterdam. (Little girl and mother.)

Courtyard. National Gallery, London. (Mother and little girl hand in hand.)

Plockhorst. Christ Blessing Little Children. (The Saviour seated with group of children pressing about him.)

Titian. Tobias and the Angel. S. Marziale, Venice. (Illustrating story in Apocrypha. Boy led by angel and accompanied by dog. Child carries fish for his father.)

Presentation of Virgin in Temple. Venice Academy. (Child Mary walking up long flight of Temple steps, at top of which High Priest is standing. Many spectators.)

Tintoretto. Presentation of Virgin in Temple. S. Maria dell’ Orto, Venice. Same subject as above in different composition.

 

Miscellaneous story subjects of home and outdoor life.

Gerard Dou. Poulterer’s Shop. National Gallery, London. (Young lady bargaining with market-woman for hare.)

Spinner’s Dream. Munich, (Old woman saying grace at meal.)

Maes. Old woman spinning. Amsterdam.

Old woman paring apples. Berlin.

Terburg. Lady washing her hands. Dresden Gallery.

Terburg. The Concert. Berlin. (Two ladies, at violin and cello.)

Woman peeling apples. Vienna Gallery. (A pert-looking little girl stands behind table, with very modern wide-brimmed hat.)

Vermeer. Woman at Casement. Metropolitan Museum.

Woman pouring milk from jug. Amsterdam.

Lacemaker. Louvre.

Chardin. The Cook. Lichtenstein Gallery, Vienna. (Young woman seated, with vegetables on floor and in dish beside her.)

The Housekeeper, or “Home from the Market.” Louvre. (Young woman leaning against heaped-up serving-table, and carrying a large sack of provisions.)

Millet. Potato-Planters.

Woman churning.

Sheep-Shearer.

The Sower.

The Gleaners.

The Angelus.

The Shepherdess.

Woman feeding Hens.

Going to Work.

Breton. Song of the Lark. Chicago Art Institute.

The Gleaner. Luxembourg, Paris.

The Return of the Gleaners. Luxembourg. (Full of life and action.)

Horatio Walker. Spring Ploughing.

The Woodcutters. St. Louis Art Museum.

Bastien-Lepage. Haymakers.

Dupré. Before the Storm.

Adan. End of Day.

L’Hermitte. La Famille. Buffalo. (Hayfield, father at work, mother and babe, little girl and grandmother seated on ground.)

Ridgway Knight. Calling the Ferry.

 

Sea Subjects.

William Bradford. Arctic Whaler.

Homeward Bound.

Winslow Homer. Lookout. Boston Art Museum.

Winslow Homer. Fog Warning. Boston Art Museum.

Gulf Stream. Metropolitan Museum.

Life Line.

Turner. The Fighting Téméraire. National Gallery, London.

Marshall Johnson. The Constitution.

The Constitution and Guerrière.

Mauve. By the Sea. (Hull of a dismantled ship drawn on the shore by horses.)

Sadee. Portion of the Poor. (Women and children in shallow water picking up small fish cast away from the newly arrived fishing-vessel near by.)

 

Illustrations of legends.

Raphael. St. George and the Dragon, National Gallery, London.

Tintoretto. St. George and the Dragon. National Gallery, London.

Carpaccio. St. George and the Dragon. Church of S. Giorgio, Venice.

Raphael. St. Margaret and the Dragon. Louvre, Paris.

Raphael. St. Michael and the Dragon. Louvre, Paris.

Guido Reni. St. Michael and the Dragon. Church of Cappuccini, Rome.

Van Dyck. St. Martin dividing his cloak with a beggar. (Illustration in Van Dyck, Riverside Art Series.)

Murillo. Vision of St. Anthony. Berlin Gallery.

Vision of St. Anthony. Seville Cathedral.

Vision of St. Anthony. St. Petersburg.

Van Dyck. Vision of St. Anthony. (Illustration in Van Dyck, Riverside Art Series.)

Titian. St. Christopher. Doge's Palace, Venice.

Raphael. St. Cecilia. Bologna Gallery.

Carpaccio. Story of St. Ursula in series of paintings in Venice Academy. Special favorite: The Dream of St. Ursula.

Puvis de Chavannes and others. Life of St. Genevieve, in decorations of the Pantheon, Paris.

1. All the pictures here referred to are illustrations in the volume on Millet in the Riverside Art Series.