Evening Star Newspaper, July 24, 1932, Page 63

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 24, 1932 Amazin6 Jun6|e Artis TAUGHT One of the pictures painted by the jungle artist who taught himself to pains A sketch representing one of his own jungle tribe. Shan Had Never Seen a Painting Until a Missionary Showwed Him One, and Then IHe Made His Own Paper and Paints and Produced Sketches That Have Won High- est Praise From Critics Everyzwhere. By ETTA MAE WALLACE. HAN, a jungle man of Burma, lived 30 years before he ever saw a picture, yet just three months after he saw his first one he produced a book of paint- ings so fine they have amazed artists and museum officials throughout the world. Until he saw that picture Shan knew only the lore of the jungle—where the mangoes grew the largest, where to gather water potatoes bamboo shoots, jackfruits and the plentiful plantains. He knew how to flee from the tiger and how to trap and train the elephant. There were no artists in his family or among his neighbors. Rather there were head-hunters, brewers of potent rice whisky, and smokers of opium There were no art supplies—paper, pencils, brushes, ink, paints. These he had to make from raw materials which he procured from the jungle. It was in the home of Elva Jenkins (now Mrs. Clarence Hendershot) that Shan saw that first picture. She was attached to the outermost hospital that the Baptists have established in Burma. It is a 15-day journey by elephantback from the nearest semblance of civilization. HAN had nurried from his native hut, when his wife lay ill with malignant malaria, to get the nurse to treat her. tropical storm was raging and Mrs. Hender:ho&sked Shan to come in while she prepared to return with him. Then he saw the picture. It was a cheap print of Maxfield Parrish’s “At Dawn.” His errand was urgent, but it was forgotten. He forgot everything in the intensity of his wonder at this thing which was like a person. but was not a person. He had never imagined such a thing! Shan could scarcely be torn away from the picture. Important questions were being asked him. He countered with the questions which were crowding his simple native intellect. How did one imprison likenesses of human beings, trees, mountains, color of dawn on paper What would he need to make one? Mrs. Hendershot answered the questions of Shan natient'y as one would answer a child. HERE was much that she could not very well explain, for there were no shops, even in the village where the Swaba, the native ruler, lived, where the simplest artists’ mate- rials could be purchased. Naturally, she made no attempt whatever to explain any rudiments of perpective. balance or color harmony. After Shan left her home he did not ever have an opportunity of going back to gaze on the print. His mind as far as pictures were concerned was like a clean photographic plate. The shock of seeing this first one acted like a flashlight exposure and perfectly impressed the marvel and the possibilities of this art. He thought: “I shall put my people and my neighbors on paper.” And that is what he did. There are 18 hill tribes which are governed by the same Swaba Like Noah getting the dnimals ready for the ark, this Shan picked out two of a kind, a mal= and a female, and he pictured them. i These pictures in an uncanny way tell the story of each tribe. Shan had not even paper to begin with. No paper could be bought, but from the priests he could find out how to make it. Sc Shan went to the crude village temple and asked how to make paper. According to instructions, he gathered much rice straw and put it to soak. He then waited for it to reach the consistency of rotten pulp. During the days that he waited he went to the jungle storehouse for paints and brushes. For his black paint Shan peeled from the trees the bright sticky juice which the stic lac spins. With infinite care he pressed berries, he crushed leaves and soaked roots to make them give up their colors for the wonderful lLikeness he was to make of his people. HAT oonfidence in his ability this inex- perienced native must have had to spend his energy so infinitely on these first details! When finally he had gathered his materials and had rolled the rice straw into paper this artist began. The thrill of putting that first line of colog on paper of his own creating! Excitement of the moment burned away the limitations of his jungle life. He stood an artist in his own right, a master with immortals! His friends crowded about to see this new art—magic to them. How he rose in their estimation! Gladly the natives posed for him. With patience they waited for him to put them on paper. As members of each cf the hill tribes came to the Swaba's village they heard of his great under- taking, and in their gay costumes they posed for him. Besides picturing the tribesmen, Shan put in the front of his book a strangely perfect geo- metric picture of three heads, three pairs of legs and arms, with six bodies. E explained that all Shans believe that from some such figure man evolved. That he ceculd have illustrated this mystical idea. which IMSELF 7, How To Paint Shan’s symbolic picture of a group containing three heads, three pairs of arms and legs and six bodies . . . representing his tribe’s idea of the figure from which the race evolved. Q he had only heard about. is almost incredible. The book was his conccption and his creation, from the very paper to the last fine drawing and coloring of the brilliant green beetle which decorates the bodice of a native dancer. There are 25 pictures. When at the end of three months he had finished the folio he brought it as a gift of gratitude to the nurse, Mrs. Hendershot, who md successfully brought his wife through her ness. When the young missionary nurse had to come home in 1928 (she met her husband, a professor of the Judson Memorial University at Rangoon, on the boat), she brought her “memory book™ with her. But it was not until a few months ago, when she went to visit her hustard, who was gaking his Ph. D. degree at the University of Chicago, that she “remembered” to get the book out of packing and show it. She thought the new museum of Oriental studies might be interested. And they were! It was the greatest find on Burma Indian art that had ever come their way. The fame of the book spread. It was sent for by the Cleveland Art Institute, and from there it went to Washington. Mrs. Hendershot has had flattering offers for the book. She says that some day she will let it go to & museum, but as yet she feels that it is invaluable to her in telling the story of these people whom she loves and whom she would like to bring again into the stream of Shan’s picturization of a jungle legend about five Chinese who met & tiger while walking in the jungle. Quickly the Chinese formed themselves into the shape of an elephant, and the tiger, frightened, slunk away. civilization. so that such genius as this book reveals might not be hidden forever. T seems a bit ironical to note that the real name of the artist is not known. “Shan,*” the name given him, is really his tribal name. He signed none of his paintings. He did not know that was customary. The little missionary to whom he gave his treasure is sorry that she did not “get” his name. Various haphazard explanations have been offered as to why this untrained native was able to turn out these pictures. One, frankly spiritu- alistic, is that some great artist worked through him as a medium Another, along the same line, is that he himseclf in “another life” had been an artist. A third is that at some ancient time pictures were known to and made by his ancestors. and his ability to make them so finely is a miracle of racial inheritance. ‘The fourth explanation is that being a jungle man he lived off its bounty and in terror of it the savage mother, ever ready to devour her own. This made it so that his well-being and his very life depended on his powers of obser- vation, his ability to find his food, and to see his enemies first. And in this ability to observe keenly and closely lay the secret of his success in being able to put likenesses on paper. His idea of picturing the tribesmen when Mrs. Hendershot served in the hospital mignt have come from his desire to give her something to remember them by. He suggested as much when he made the gift Mrs. Hendershot went to that field expecting to assist a doctor in charge of the hospital. But the doctor, due to illness, did not arrive and she was in charge for 13 months. She trained a few natives to heip her, but she was rea}ly everything—chief surgeon, pharmacist, chemist, dietician and cooler of fevered brows. Restoring Water Fowl HE Bureau of Biological Survey is laying particular stress these days on the possi- bility of small water areas serving to bring aboul a restored abundance of wild water fowl in the United States. The aid of local bird lovers. hunters and others is being enlisted in a movement to dot the United States with small sanctuaries where the birds can mate and raise their young or can find rest during the periods of migration. Particularly, the possibility is being stressed of effective breed- ing areas through the location of dams on little streams which would permit small water areas running from a few inches to not more than three feet deep to be formed. Such areas, if allowed to become marshes along their edges and kept from grazing by cattle, would make ideal homes for the birds. The estab- lishing of hundreds and thousands of such little ponds in various parts of the country would in a few years result in a considerable increase in the water fowl population, now threatened with decimation because of huge drainage projects and generally unsatisfactory conditions in the natural breeding grounds. Total Agreement Landlady: “I think you had better board elsewhere.” Lodger: “Yes, I often had.” Landlady: “Often had what?* Lodger: “Better board elsewhere.”