USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 30
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She was the first president of the Daughters of American Revolution.
Mrs. Cleveland was a social success. A clerk in a dry- goods store said to me, "Mrs. Cleveland has traded here, and always carried home her small parcels, only last week she ordered them sent and then I knew it was Mrs. Cleveland." She overcame all prejudice and returned calls if she so pleased.
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She had the rare talent of knowing just what to say or do at the right moment.
Mrs. McKinley adored her husband and no sacrifice was too great for her. She believed he was worthy to be President of the United States and sustained his courage.
Mrs. Roosevelt is a woman of rare good sense, wears the same white dress to most receptions and the family keep their home feeling intact.
Although we no longer tell the schoolboy he may some day be President of the United States or a girl she may be first-lady of the land, there are many places of power and influence women should prepare to fill.
Men choose for their wives the handsomest and the best physical beauty, and in this way we have the survival of the fittest. Cleanliness, nutrition, exercise and rest are necessary to full development.
To know something of the results of club life let me quote from Mrs. Steiner of Toledo in her paper read at the state federation in Cincinnati.
"If we desire the training of the whole child, instead of a part, we should have kindergartens in every school. Mothers have little time and few appliances, manual training develops the muscles and tissues and strengthens the brain."
General Francis Walker of Boston Institute of Technology said, "This is only an uncomfortable place for youths who are strong in perception, apt in manipulation, but not good in memorizing and they are unfitted for intellectual gym- nastics. The boy who does not care who were the Kings of England or the productions of Borneo yet has a good head by the standard of the merchant or manufacturer. It would relish the lathe or blowpipe or anvil. There is an infinite
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gain by introducing these things into our common schools, for the mind of our average boy. It also teaches the dignity of labor, so despised at the present day. It will keep them longer in the school and help them to choose their vocation in life."
A New York club has taken an interest in the small parks and playgrounds.
The disposition of garbage which was carried out to sea (or lake) and washed back again, producing typhoid germs in the drinking water has now become a commercial fer- tilizer, bringing in a revenue of thousands of dollars. Also, that fruits and vegetables should be protected from street dust when exposed for sale. That police matrons must take a course of instruction to tell the difference between intoxication and illness.
In the Mother's Congress was the topic, "Mothers the Makers of Nations." "Educational importance of the Home."
The Culture Extension of Philadelphia is to have on John Dickerson Square a permanent playground, where two houses will be built for exercise in winter as well as summer. A bicycle track laid out and trees planted.
The Chief of Police of San Francisco said, "If there were kindergartens enough for all children, no police would be necessary in the next generation." Thus, there would be a source of revenue, for we would have the money spent on station houses, jails, reformatories and prisons, to say nothing of the lack of misery they now produce.
Ruskin said, "Woman is to blame for all the wars and the wickedness there is in the world, not that she was its promoter, but, that she did not hinder it. Men will fight and woman must tell them what they must fight for." We are in a revolution of ideas, let us help on the good and suppress the evil, and
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be filled with good thoughts and an ambition to be worthy of a place in the Heaven beyond the grave."
The continuity of life is taught in the transformation of the moth to the miller or the caterpillar to the butterfly. These are not accidental displays of God's power, but are given to show what can be done in extending the sphere of the crawling worm to the largest life of the woods and fields.
No one can be surprised at it. We cannot be surprised at what is so continually happening, but we can get from it the truth that will be of use to us in another world. All the planets are like earth, therefore stars of which they form a part are, if we study earth, we will be ready to understand them, when we will go to them.
Life here is for the knowledge it contains and the charac- ter it develops, for it is an instinct to admire strong minds and good characters.
FRENCH SCHOOLS AS COMPARED WITH DUTCH AND FLEMISH
Read Before Novelist Club.
The art galleries of Europe exhibit paintings of the best artists without regard to schools. It is in the smaller towns where you will see the work peculiar to its people.
In Basle, Switzerland, which I visited in 1894, the paint- ings of the museum were by home artists. The background was of gold leaf, the trees dark green, and the sky very deep blue. It was difficult to get a good light on them. In 1366 Jan Van Eck made the discovery that boiled linseed oil mixed with paint would give a lustre better than varnish on gold leaf.
Oil painting was practiced before this, but Jan Van Eck found that linseed oil thickened in the sun and mixed with nut
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oil and rosin in proportion of an ounce to a pound of nut oil, would promote the process of drying and be what the painter had long desired.
Their school was at Bruges, Flanders, and became famous because of this method of using oil.
Van Eck's method was known in Italy by a young painter who saw one of Van Eck's pictures in the gallery of King Alfonso of Naples and went to Bruges and remained until he had mastered the process. This painter, Antella, settled in Venice in 1470; he died in 1496.
The principal scholar of Van Eck was Roger Von du Verzde of Brussels. He divested the Flemish style of its rig- idity and was the first to paint on fixed canvas for the dec- oration of apartments. Flemish art was changed by artists who had studied in Italy the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo.
Albert Durer, the founder of the Dutch School, was the son of Albert Durer, senior, of Nurenburg.
The center of art in the 13th century :
In the middle ages, this city was in the great highway from Venice to the Northwest. His father did not marry until forty years old and to a girl of fifteen in which family he had boarded since she was an infant. She bore him eighteen chil- dren, but only nine survived infancy.
Albert learned wood-carving with his father, at sixteen he was sent to cities in Italy to study art. After four years he returned at the urgent request of Agnes Frey, to whom he was engaged. She was called a scold; he was married to his art. He had seen large paintings in Venice and Rome and Spain and he tried to imitate the classical, by the Battles of the Tritons, Orpheus and the Bachantes, Penanse of Chrysostom, and of Jerome.
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The Prodigal Son, The Dream and the Love Offer, and it is on these engravings on copper, that his fame depends.
The artists of Italy had lost their Christian faith, but the Germans still believed in a future. Durer's collections are in the home of Northumberland, Munich and British Museum; also the Earl of Arundal bought 200 of his sketches and water colors. Durer wrote to his friend Purkenham, son of one of the wealthy families of Nuremburg, Venice has some well brought up folks, good players on the lute, skilled pipers, very friendly to my face, the pleasantest possible fellows, but some warn me not to eat or drink with these painters.
Durer was the originator of a new and noble thought. He published fifteen wood-cuts on the Apocalypse of St. John, his boldness in attempting this ideal world made a new era in wood carving and the next twenty years he devoted himself to this art. His work-shop was the chief art school in Nurem- burg. He died on the 6th of April, 1528.
Raphael died on the same day eight years before. The list of his works occupy ten pages, double column, in the cata- logue.
When I visited Nuremburg in 1900 his house still stood, restored from time to time.
The churches are very ornate but lacking in symmetry. Some roofs have six or eight rows of windows. The museum is cannon shape, as that city invented cannon; also typewriting.
The towers have the instruments of torture of the Spanish Inquisition; a cradle with spikes, a closet with a wheel of knives to cut the person in pieces. Near here a part of the old city wall is preserved.
Rembrandt is also called of the Dutch School, when a boy of fifteen he began to study nature in its light and shade.
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Rembrandt's school was his father's mill, where one small window admitted one ray of light. If you throw a few flowers on the floor, so lighted, you get the effect of Rembrandt's pictures.
The beautiful effect of interiors is produced by light and shade, light and shade were his colors. Shade is more pleas- ing than light, but it is only by light that the shade is per- ceptible. "So, style is that of an illumination by a flash of lightning."
Rembrandt's paintings are so peculiar, many of them together fatigues the mind. It is better to scatter them through the gallery.
IN AMSTERDAM
We all went to see the Night Watch. It is an assembly of the populace to preserve order, and represents a mass of citizens in the night time. The originality is in some so per- manent they will not do what has been done, simply because it has been done. It is by such men styles of art are developed; many simple contrivances are of recent origin. Rembrandt's was an illuminative object in a dark place. In making the background black and the faces in deep shadow except cheek, nose, and shoulder, he introduced a new shading, he conquered all opposition. It had vigor and delicacy.
He had some pupils whose works would pass for Rem- brandt's. Saskia, William de Pooter and Jacob Bacher. He said to his pupils, "What is the fundamental rule for good ordering?"
"How can you tell a good painter in a scholar?"
Rembrandt studied with Stomberg who had learned art in Italy.
Two architects from Venice guided the architecture of
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Amsterdam. The front of citizens' houses had Biblical scenes, or scripture texts, or proverbs, or jokes. One man said, "By the time one begins to know things one is worn out."
Italy only paints her nobles, Spain her Princesses, Germany her citizens, merchants, manufacturers and literary persons.
He married Saskie's sister in 1634.
Rembrandt did not travel. His landscapes were in his own neighborhood.
The preaching of St. John had in it one hundred figures. After his wife's death he went to live with his son Titus and his collections were sold to pay his debts.
His old pupils were wealthy, and he again resumed his work in his old neighborhood. Titus was given $6,000, and and at fifty-eight years of age Rembrandt married and began life anew. One hundred and thirty of his paintings were from the Bible, forty-three of himself, two hundred and forty- seven portraits of men, one hundred and six portraits of women, twenty landscapes, sixty-five etchings. Genius is the art of concentration they say.
Flanders, which includes Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges, was the center of art in the seventeenth century.
Paris art began with Francis the 1st and had a tendency to theatrical effect. The famous masters were indeed masters and compelled others, by their success, to imitate them.
RUBENS
Reubens was born in 1557. In 1600 he visited Italy, went to Spain and to Milan, where he painted the nobles.
He married Elizabeth Brout and lived in Antwerp. In 1620 he went to Paris and began work for Maria de Medicis. He was fifty years old.
The alcove devoted to them is the most brilliant in the
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Louvre. It has Her Marriage to Henry IV, Baptism of Louis XIII, and others.
In the exile of the Queen mother, he came back to Flanders and his pupils finished many of his paintings. He went to Charles of England to negotiate. Charles' wife Henrietta was the daughter of Maria de Medicis. He said, "I amuse myself as an ambassador sometimes." He married in 1620 a girl sixteen years old, and died ten years afterwards.
Fifteen hundred of his pictures have been discovered, 42 are in the Louvre, 54 in St. Petersburg, 54 in Munich, forming a separate museum.
THE FRENCH SCHOOL
Read before the Novelist Club by Mrs. W. G. Rose
Claud Lorraine was the founder of the French School, his name was Gallie. He was one of six sons, whose father was able to educate them, but he was so poor a scholar, in two years merely learning to read, that he was sent to Jan Gallie, his married brother, who was a painter.
Some advised that he make him a priest, but one day a man called, collecting laces to sell in Rome. These peasants manu- factured lace in their homes, and Claude was so delighted with this collection of beautiful lace that he accompanied the man to Rome. In a few days this man left him, and at fourteen years of age he attempted to paint some pictures himself. He had a room near the Parthenon and engaged himself to an artist to grind colors and as a general drudge.
Here he listened to criticisms of other painters. After two years his brother wrote him they could no longer send him money; he must earn his own living.
In his painting he came across those of Godfreddo and he ad
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mired their mingling of architecture with landscape. He de- termined to see the man and learn from him. He walked the one hundred and fifty miles almost penniless.
Godfreddo, after hearing his stories and that he admired his pictures, admitted him at once to his academy. Probably here he kept the studio in order and was man of all work.
Godfreddo or Godfrey had been taught by an artist in Genoa, who was an architect and with mathematical exact- ness made every arch or temple-tower exact.
Claude, like Godfrey, always included architecture with pastoral scenes, a river with ruins or buildings, or a palace, with three trees standing in the foreground.
Claude would spend the day on a hillside mixing paints to suit the various shades of light. He was pensive and de- lighted in Arcadian scenes; they would suggest nature in a serious mood or art in desolation. His temples and towers were accurate in dimensions and true to reality.
Claude again went to Rome in the service of Tassi, taught by Paul Bril, a student of Rembrandt. He excelled both Tassi and Brill.
Pope Gregory X gave to Tassi the decoration of Council Hall and Claude assisted in the work. He there heard the conversation of the ecclesiastics and artists upon it. He opened a studio of his own. He was a recluse; he did not care for the revelry of the artists.
Salvator Pousson and Claude were in Rome at the same time and living on the same hill, but unknown to each other. Salvator Rosa had a stately home, richly furnished and mingled with a company of gay, witty artists and poets.
Pousson was a venerable master and the young listened to his talk as the Athenians listened to Plato.
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Nicholas Pousson, born in 1594, in Normandy. His father served Henry IV, he said.
Genius consists of great power of attention. His works are Rebecca at the Well, Judgment of Solomon, Blind Man of Jericho, and others.
Claude Lorraine, born in 1600, died at 82, his best works are: Crossing the Ford, Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus When Summoned by Anthony, David in the Cave of Abdullum, Em- barkation of Queen of Sheba.
In London there are fifty paintings, in Italy six, where he spent his life.
Salvator Rosa, when eighteen years old, walked from Naples to Rome. He was with Gaspard, a brother-in-law, of Pouson. He took from Claude, the architecture, grasses and groups of people in an open country. He etched eleven pieces for King Ferdinand of Austria.
John Milton was in Rome two months at this time. When it had fifty noble families and 120,000 people. Cardinal Glorio gave Claude seven pictures to execute for his villa on the Jacinto hills.
The number of Claude's paintings fill eight pages of the catalogue and are at Paris, London, Munich, St. Petersburg, Brussels, and in Scotland, and in London.
Claude returned home in 1628, when 28 years old, by way of Venice and Tyrol. Ruet, the Court artist, put Claude on decorating a Carmelite Church, he had an assistant as builder. The fastening gave way and Claude hastened to save his assist- ant, but said to Ruet, "This is not my work," and he returned to Rome.
He resolved not to marry, and when thirty-six years old he sent for his cousin to take charge of his household, which he
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did well, even to buying his paints and instruments, and it is from his children, Joseph Gillie we have this much knowledge of Claude Lorraine. He then gave himself to study and his accuracy in costume, action and aspect is remarkable. Claude made a Liber Verites to contain a list of his paintings. He considered Queen Esther supplicating Ahasuerues in behalf of the Hebrew people his best work. Claude Lorraine gave the background of his paintings a light gray which lent itself to a misty or sunny appearance.
In every case where he followed Nicholas Poussin in giving the background a dark red they soon became dim with time. Ruskin said he set the sun in heaven, the first to attempt actual sunshine in misty air. Claude's only pupil was a poor crippled boy, Giovanno Domenico. He was taught the arts of designing, painting and music, he was skilled and favorably known in the city. When forty years old he claimed to have painted many of the pictures that had Claude's name attached. He demanded that a salary should be paid him for all the years which he had spent with Claude.
He was taken by Claude to a bank, Sato Spirito, where all his funds were deposited and the entire given him. He died soon afterward.
Claude's best works were done after this incident.
The daughter of Gustavus Adolphus resigned her throne in Sweden and came to Rome, where she held a court for artists and literati.
In his last years Claude had gout so he could not ramble about as formerly. Many would copy designs from Liber Veri- tes and have them on sale, so that Claude closed his home to visitors. Claude is mentioned by the French academy, founded by Louis XIV. Cardinal Ginlio became Pope Clement IX and
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this is called the Golden Age. In 1676 Innocent XI was elected Pope. He received orders for painting scripture scenes. He took months to execute a picture. When he died, in 1682, his estate was valued at $10,000. A monument is erected in his memory by John and Joseph Gillie.
The French in 1840 placed a monument to Claude Lorraine in the French National Church, near the Roman Parthenon. (Taken from M. H. Swetzer artist biographies. Osgood & Co. 1877.)
GREECE AND CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF OTHER NATIONS PREVIOUS TO 1000 BEFORE CHRIST OR THE DAYS OF HOMER
Read before Art and History Class
We find powerful tribes in Greece when Incas, a Phonician, settled in Argos in 1856 B. C. These tribes are supposed to be descendants of Javan, the son of Japhet, whose four sons were given the isles of the sea. Gen. 10:45.
The flood of Noah occurred in year 2349 B. C. Accord- ing to Chinese historians, Yoki of Noah, supposed to be the Noah of the Bible, founded their empire in . 2240 B. C., giving him nine years to have journeyed eastward. His great age cor- responds to that of their earliest kings.
Noah or Yoki invented dress making, music and writing by symbols. Memory might have aided him in these, or rather his sons were probably the true immigrants.
The gods, Jupiter and Juno, Neptune and Venus have dates in Greece for their arrival. The latter 2842 B. C., after the establishment of Babylon by Nimrod, 2245, who changed the patriarchal form of government to the regal and might have
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offended some rival, who rather than submit, preferred exile and who would bring with him sufficient intelligence to have been accounted a god. Much as the natives of America consid- ered the Spaniards who came to their shores as gods from heaven.
Asshur founded Assyria and Nineveh and Nimis, grandson of Nimrod, unites the two. His wife, Semiramis, enlarged her kingdom by invading Libya, Ethiopia and India. It was prob- able that some of her retinue might have remained in these countries and so peopled them.
Abraham is called out of Urr and goes into Canaan during her reign. The Phonicians trace themselves no further back than to this land of Canaan.
Nina, son of Semiramis, is not able to hold his great king- dom against the Arabs and it is divided into four kingdoms; all except Persia were united in the kingdom of Assyria.
Assyria was the most heathen province of Mesopotamia, bounded on the east by Media and on the south by Babylon, 280 miles in length and 150 miles in width. It lay between the two Zab rivers and along the Tigris, was easily irrigated by canals or ditches and aqueducts and was capable of sustaining a vast population. Its glory had passed away before history was writ- ten, although it had an alphabet and understood notation. (In- deed the Persians imitated the Assyrians, but were not invent- ors like these first people.)
We hear of them first 2218 B. C., when Asshur from Baby- lon founded Nineveh. Genesis 10:11, Babylon being thus the older city and recent discoveries go to prove this fact. The alabaster slabs taken from the palace of Nimrod, having carv- ings on the under side, which have been chipped away to make them fit together nicely, and these are similar to the carvings on the ruins of Babylon.
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They were, no doubt, rival cities and each in turn was con- queror, though at last, after centuries, Nineveh was completely destroyed.
The next record of Nineveh was in 770 B. C. Over a thou- sand years have passed since it was founded. Then its King Pul invaded Syria and was bought off by the Israelites.
His successor, Tiglethpulizer, captured many Jews and con- quered Syria. Salamunazer eight years later was equally suc- cessful in placing many Jews as captives in the various cities. He was instigated by the Egyptians, but his son attacked Egypt himself.
He was first bought off by a gift of $12,000,000, and to raise it, the gold from the pillars and doors of Solomon's Temples were cut off. The fame of that temple had spread to every na- tion and Babylon sent emissaries to ascertain the source of their wisdom and wealth. Hezekiah admitted them to the temple, not one-tenth as large as Nimrod, but unique and beautiful. The whole interiors were overlaid with gold. Isaiah advised him to the contrary and prophesied that they would, in consequence, become their subjects. A prophecy very soon fulfilled.
Samcacherib returned again with an army of 185,000 men, sent insulting messages and told him his God would never pre- serve him. Again he advised with the prophet Isaiah and that night his army slept the sleep of death. This is also given in profane history. Hastening back to Nineveh, he bowed before his God and his two sons struck him dead, then fled the country. His third son reigned in his stead. This was 621 B. C.
The ruins give evidence of excessive heat. The rooms are long and narrow, except one, and this is supposed to have been open at the top. The sides have alabaster slabs twelve feet high, the only stone abundant in that region. Above that is a
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wall painted crimson and made of sun-burnt brick. Winged bulls are at the entrances and lions lay at the doorways. Winged bulls with human heads seem to have embodied the at- tributes of the Deity, the head for intelligence, the wings for omnipresence and the bull for power.
Scroll work with the mystic tree and the winged bulls, alter- nating, was a constant ornament; afterward rosettes took the place of the bull or goat, evidencing a change in their religion, as these are symbols of their belief.
The alabaster tombs, if dark gray are black with time. A humped-back camel or an elephant known only in India are in the British Museum. On the obelisk are recorded the deeds of Shalamanzer. Pul records the fact that he receives tribute from Damascus, Tyre and Sidon.
The earliest art was the best. Centuries elapsed between the building up of its various parts. If we take the four great mounds as the corners of a square, we will find it corresponds with that idea.
Assyria was the border of Semitic races. Various tribes driven by hunger or volcanic eruptions from the north, poured periodically upon Western Asia and laid waste every- thing in their way.
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