The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 23, 1896, Page 24

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 1896. Nearly balf a century ago a few voung painters, most of whom were under 20, | feeling dissatisfied with the condition of | contemporary art, resolved to alter itslr technique and reform its ideals! This| might well have seemed a large undertak- ing. We can easily imagine the smiles that greeted those fine ideas, the scorn | tnat met them from older teachers, the contemptuous indifference of brother artists. But, in spite of all this, their ideas began to prevail. The rumor of their work gol abroad. A great man be- | came their advocate, and in a short time the whole land was ringing with their | names. Itisamazing to remember the | success achieved by these few enthusiastic young art students who banded them- selves into the pre-Raphaelite brother- hood. There were only seven of them in the beginning: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossettl, Holman Hunt, Frederick George Stephens, | James Collinson, | Thomas Wolner and John Everett Millais, The last named became president of the i Royal Academy and oreof the greatest | painters of the century. He was bornin | 1829 at Southampton. Part of hischildhood was passed in France. When only 9 years old, scarcely beyond kindergarten age ac- cording to modern ideas, he was sent to Carey’s Academy, one of the finest art schools in London. Four years afterward he entered the Royal Academy Art School as the youngest pupil ever admitted. Be- fore long he took a silver medal and later agoldone. Miliais’ was one of those rare natures born with a wonderful facility in Lis art, a facility so great that there was | temptation in it to do thoughtless or in- sincere work. Rossettr’s influence was a large part of his inspiration in those early years, for Rossetti was the leading spirit of that little band and his fervor, his en- thusiasm dominated them all. In order to understand the influence of the pre-Raphaelite movement one must re- member the reaction that was beginning in all branches of art against conventions which had outerown their significance. For example, Raphael, in his beauty of conception and technique, had reached the supreme point of the Renaissance movement, as Pater says, “in the midst of a frozen world the burial fire of arcient | art rose up from under the soil.” The generations of painters who came | aiter Raphael followed closely in his foot- steps. They copied his arrangements and made set rules that all art students must follow in the composition of their pic- tures. Thus what had been to Raphael the natural expression of what to him was | | themselves flat against it. followers mere conventionality in which all sincere and spontaneous expression was lost. The young painters I have named felt this so strongly that they set As Ruskin, who was their ardent sympathizer and ad- vocate, said, “These boys likelife and they intend to copy that,”’ so, in homely phrase, was their purpose summed up. And that, in brief, was the secret of the romantic revival—not in painting alone, but in all Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti. Keats had begun it in poetry. old forms, dignified by age into classic, imagination. The young painters were ardent admirers of these poets, especially true and beautiful in art became in his 1 that any youth, still under twenty vears | Charles Dickens stood for the originals. | who knows how much of the pathos and | tenderness in the girl’s face may be due to branches of art. Coleridge, Shelley and | 80 Well the anguish of the French girl It seemedf to them better, instead of clinging to the | to go direct to nature and life and find | Picture where the Puritan lady is secretly there the stuff to stir the heart and the | conveying food to her royalist lover. Mrs. of Keats, and almost their first work as a | Christ.” brotherhood was done in illustration of his “‘Pot of Basil.” Millais’ subject was the scene of the supper table—Lorenzo sitting with Isabella and her lover. Wil- liam Rossetti was the model for Lorenzo. One of the pre-Raphaelite tenets was that all figures shall be painted from life, which hitherto had not been the custom. Mrs. Hodgkinson, the wife of the paint- er's half-brother, posed for lsabella. It was of this picture that Holman Hunt, the generous and enthusiastic brother artist, said, ‘““The most wonderful painting of age, ever did in the world.” A list of those who served as models for the pre-Raphaelites would be interesting. Some of the greatest men and women of the time sank their 1dentity in the pre- Raphael pictures. In Ford Maddox Brown’s great picture, “Work,” Fred- erick Maurice and Thomas Carlyle posed as the principal characters. Fancy the sympathy for these young enthusiasts necessary to induce that cantankerous, nerve-wearied Scotch brain-worker to give his precious time to such a service! We do not so much wonder at Maurice’s kind- ness in this respect, for he was one of the founders of the wonderful workingman's college in London, the inspiration for all the college settlement work which has since so largely prevailed in the old world and the new. Few of those familiar with Millais’ touch- ing picture of the ‘‘Hupuenot Lovers” know that Charles Collins, a brother of the famous story-teller, and a daughter of Those two were engaged at the time, and the fact that the model could understand whose lover was going away to his death. Arthur Hughes, a brother painter, was the model for the *‘Proscribed Ruyalist”—the ‘William Morris posed for Rossetti’s “Day Dreams’’ and Burne Jones for a “Head of ‘We are not surprised to learn that a lady, whose portrait Millais painted in those early years, became his wife. Mil- lais had a wholesomely attractive person- ality. He was sturdy and big and fair, with broad shoulders and blueeyes, a typi- cal Saxon, like William Morris. He was, moreover, the only one of the brotherhood blessed at that time with a full pocket. The failure of the “Germ’ threw the rest into sad pecuniary straits. Its death, after a brief life of two numbers, left them alegacy of £30 debt to the publisher, and no prospect of solvency. However, young bearts and high aspirations are not easily damped, and perhaps, in their superb self- belief, they dimly foresaw the time when the little journal, forever immortal ar the herald of the “Blessed Damosel” and Woolner's “My Beautiful Lady,” would be literally worth its weight in gold. Mil- lais had no part in this venture. His genius never led him aside from painting. In 1852, when he was 23 years old, Millais painted the two pictures which | most critics concede to be his greatest—ihe “*Huguenot Lovers,” already referred to, familiar to all through various prints and engravings, and ““Ophelia.””. Esther Wood, an admirable critic, describes the latter in the following words: “Ophelia, floating down stream to her death, with her slack- ening hands full of flowers, the very em- bodiment of the pathetic helplessness of weak and isolated womanhood against the tide of the world’s strife—weak indeed through the isolation of ages, having never known in life or ancestry the brac- ing diseipline of a free and responsible ex- istence. No one of the pre-Raphaelites has equaled Millais at his bgst in the landscape setting of the struggle between the human soul and the circumstance that hems it in; and the scenery of ‘Ophelia’ is among the most exquisite of his work. The beauty of the river and its richly wooded banks, its overhanging branches and its current-driven weeds gives the greater pathos to the dying girl’s face, on which the wraith only of its past and lost beauty lingers to mock the sadness of her end.” “Autumn Leaves” was painted in 1856, William Holman Hunt. and Ruskin called it ‘“‘one of the world’s masterpieces.” Itisa picture of four lit- tle girls piling autumn leaves on a bonfire in the twillght, The contrast between the thoughtless pleasure of the children and the fading evening light and dead leaves conveys a poignant impression of the in- evitableness of death and decay. The fecling of *death imminent,” “love pow- erless,” pervades many of his pictures. Millais himself spoke of it as the ‘‘unfin- ished dream.” We find it in the “Hugzue- nots,” in the “Tapella,” in the *“Ophelia,” in the “Blind Girl’’ and in the “Vale of Rest.’” The latter is singularly im- pressive, with its two nuns, one digging a grave, the other sitting on a fallen head- stone, gazing with a calmness almost deathly at the glory of the sunset. There is something about the somber figures of the women against all that splendor 9f light which suggests for them no ecstatic thrill of life, or power, or possible achieve- ment, but merely marks the end of an-| other day out of those that pass in solemn procession toward the grave, which is in- describably awesome. Millais gradually dropped away from his allegiance to the brotherhood, after his election to the Royal Academy —the youngest member but one ever admitted. His manner changed entirely. This de- parture of his is seen in different lights, according to the point of view. The academy regarded it with complacency, but his earlier friends felt that he had fallen from his high ideals, Neither party could gainsay the unimpaired skill of his brush. His charming pictures of children date after this change, and certainly no painter has given us such chubby and lovable English youngsters as his. The *Little Miss Muffitt’’ is irresistible. One longs to brush away the wicked spider which has drawn that dear little dimpled face into such an expression of dismay. Anarew Lang says of Millais: “If he had never touched historical nor sacred art; if he were not supreme 1n portraiture, all admirable 1n landscape; if nineteen- twentieths of his work were swept away by accident, his studies of the beauty and sweetness of childhood would still win for him a place beside the painter of ‘Pene- lope Boothby.””’ Sir Joshua Reynolds’ ' Penelope Boothby had been held to be the supreme achievement of child portraiture. Every ‘one knows ‘'Cinderella” and “‘Cherry Ripe.” Less familiar are “My First Sermon,’” where the little maiden is sitting very straight and awe-stricken at the sound of the preacher’s voice, and “My Second Sermon,’”’ where familiarity hay lessened awe to the extent of induc- ing sleep. The ‘‘Northwest Passage,” in the Henry Yate collection, portrays an old sea cap- tain poring over a chart while. his daughter sits at his knee reading from an open book. The subject is better under- stood by the sub-title, *‘It Might Be Done, and England Ought to Do It.” Tradition says Millais got 10 shillings for an early portrait, while in after years he got £2000. Perhaps of all the brotherncod Holman Hunt received the largest sums of money for his pictures. His *‘S8hadow of Death’ was bought by the corporation of the city of Manchester for £10,500—the greatest sum ever paid up to that time for the work of a living artist. The picture hengs to-day in the Corporation Gallery, an ob- jective point of interest for all sight- seers. 1t is a picture of Christ the la- horer—the human Christ rather than the conventionally divine. Thus Millais, in that wonderful early picture of his, “*Christ in the Home of His Parents,” shows a boy laborer, his hand torn by a nail, in a wooden shed strewn with shav- ings. Yet, in spite of commonnplace sur- roundings, the figure is deeply suggestive of the problem of human suffering and the sublime conception of the Christian igeal. Millais was knighted in 1885, and on Thursday, August 13, 1896, died in the full vigor of a splendid maturity. GRACE 8. MUSSER. ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD JThis Gity Has a Kindergarten for the Young Heathen GChinee The schools classed as kindergarten are common in all civilized countries, but a Chinese kindergarten, or a school for the instruction of Chinese children exclu- sively, is indeed a novelty. ted in China, butin San Francisco, Cal. The almond-eyed, yellow-skinned pupils are taught by a white woman in the em- ploy of the Baptist Home Missionary So- ciety, and tbe school is supposed to be the only one of its sort in the United States, if not in the world. Outside of the Chinese and missionary circles the existence of this kindergarten—so unique a feature in the cosmopolitan life of California—is neither known nor suspected. The Chinese Primary School at 916 Clay street is incorporated in our public school system of education, and between it and the kindergarten there are essential dis- tinetions. In the one maintained by the City the instruction is entirely secular, while in the kindergarten conducted by vhe Missionary Society in the second story of the old Baptist church, at the northwest corner of Sacramento street and Waverly place, the doctrines of Christianity are mingled with the secular training of the heathen children. When the little kinder- gartners begin to read andare sufficiently advanced in years they are permitted to choose between the public school and the mission school. In its own sphere the Chinese kinder- garten established last September is with- out a rival. The experiment of the phil- anthropic Baptists has been most success- ful, and the school has an enrollment of thirty-five children of both sexes—the lit- tle sons and daughters of Chinese mer- chants, mechanics and laborers. The chil- dren, 2, 3, 4 and 5 years of age, meet daily, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays ex- cepted, and from 1 to 2:30 ». ., under the guidance of the sympathetic teacher, amuse themselves with their kindergarten gifts, songs and games. A glimpse at the babies, as the teacher calls them, in their classroom suggests many ideas. Itisan animated living picture of childish merri- ment and enthusiasm as comical as senti- mental. A Caun man visited the school afew days ago and saw the little tots in the midst of their occupations. The girls general.y were neatly dressed and looked very cute in their loose blouses, wooden shoes, queer hats and long, high-colored, braided queues hanging down their backs. A few of the boys were dressed in the American fashion. Coming away from bome in a hurry, so as not to be late at echooi, one of them had forgotten to put on hin jacket and was sitting serenely with his companions in his shirtsieeves and suspenders. His face and easy ap- pearance were in striking contrast to that of the dandified little chap beside him, who was dressed with scrupulous neatness in a drab jacket with a white lace collar and a bluenecktie. Of glaring, fantastic colers, to which the Chinese are #0 partial, there was no lack. Seated upon four-legged stools around 8] It is not loca- | long, low, table in the center of the room were the pupils. They were seriously | of beads of many varied colors, and were chattering excitedly over their task. It was the aim of each child to make the prettiest combination it could and to get through its string without any loss of time, 50 as to be prepared for a change of occupation. The teacher, to prevent their interest from flagging, walked around the table, giving the children complimentary words and friendly pats upon the back. English issupposed to be the language in use at the school, but the teacher has also a fluent command of Chinese, into which she unconsciously lapses at times when the children become too noisy and unruly. The course of instruction in the Chinese school is virtualiy the same as that in the white kindergartens, though not carried to such a high stage of devel- opment. 1t givesarudimentary knowledge of Bnglish to the children, who soon learn to count, to distinguish the primary and secondary colors, zet an idea of form and size, of motion, melody, etc. They like dearly to play with the worsted balls, cubes and cylinders, to do paper-folding and stick-laying and to sing their ill strative motion songs. Into all of their tasks and games they enter with a childish seriousness which, amusing as it is to spectators, holds the attention of the participants, keeps them out of mischief and prepares them for the sterner duties of Iater life. *I like my children,” said the tescher, “for they are regular in their attendance and as attentive to their duties as can reagsonably be expected considering their tender years anda undeveloped minds. Qc- casionally I am compelled to cafl at ihe home of a tardy pupil, but generally my babies contrive to find their way to and from school without an escort.” ‘When the beads were all strung the boys and girls in obedience to the word of their teacher arose, moved the table back against the wall, stacked their little stools in a corner of the classroom, and forming themselves in a row sang with evident delight the following: TUp, up in the sky the lttle birds fiy; Down, down In their nests the little birds rest, Wich a wing on the left and a wing on the right, We'll let the dear birdles rest all the long night, When the round su floats e D comes up and the dew ““Good morning, bright sunshine,” the little birds say: How brlghll are the flowers, how green s the Our Heavenly Father, how kind and how good | In singing, the flying of the birds, their ete., were imitated with typical gestu: The attitudes assumed bypoomf of :;: children were inexpressibly funny, but at the mention of “Father” in the conclud- ing line all clasped their bands and up- lifted their eyes with an air of the utmost reverence. A song, written expressly for babies, was next given, Itruns thus; | occupied in stringing together long rows | restin their nests, the rising of the sun, |- l Here's a ball for baby, Big and soft and round! Here is baby’s hammer, Ob, how he can pound ! Here 1s baby's music Clapping, clapping so, Here are baby’s soldiers, Standing in a row. Here's a blg umbrella— Keep the baby dry! Here'’s the baby’s cradle— Rock-a-baby by! The pounding, the clapping and the' tooting in this song were so spiritedly re- produced, especially by the boys, that several of them tired ont before the song was over, put their hands into their pockets, sat down on their stools, crossed their legs and rested in speechless silence. ““What the child imitates," says Froebel, *‘he begins to understand. Let him repre- sent the flying of birds and he enters partly into the lite of birds. Let him imi- tate the rapid motion of fishes in the water and his sympathy with fishes is quickened. Let him reproduce the activi- ties of farmer, miller and baker and his eyes open to the meaning of their work. In one word, let him reflect in his play the varied aspects of life, and his thought will begin to grapple with their signifi- cance.” The principles thus tersely and strongly stated by the master are put into practical application at the CRinese kindergarten. Then the little heathen children pass a part of their time in singing hymns, and are thus taught to be good as well as to be smart. Frep H. HAcKETT. ) dntlie ) Skl lehe dear birdies ealalthe lonq night™~ n > kulmumfi!‘ G TR of s R v=—=@ N~ R T T T BB 0 oig v AT WM"‘I"J cee o v oL seoe " *\\@\\w‘\“‘ * 3/,/// 3 m, "y, % llm{mmm In Guar\ajuéto You Fi “The most marvelous country for opals that I ever saw or heard of,’ said ex- Assemblyman P. H. Mack of Inyo County last night at the Russ House, as he held a handful of beautiful opals up to view, *‘is Mexico. “I have just returned from there and I declare the opals you see everywhere astonish you. “I am mining for gold in an old river- bed at Guanajuato, a town of 50,000 peo- ple, in the State of Guanajuato. The opals are pretty thick there ana in the town everybody has them; but 1t is in the little States of Queretaro and Puebla, just south of me, that the opals are the most plentiful. “Youn get them there of almost all pos- sible sizes, colors and shapes. I brought with me some of the rock containing the opals. The gems are scattered through the rock like garnets in granite, which many people have seen in different parts of the Rocky Mountsins. clay or between layers of clay and stone of different kinds, and the rock which bears the opals not infrequently changes to one great piece of opal. “The opal-bearing rock is often found lnfl WONDERFUL MEXICAN OPALS nd Them in All Golors, Shapes and Sizes with favor on the movement here of free silver. Since the Mexican Government has established free silver coinage the penple have been buying just as little as they could help of the things we have. The reason is they have to pay double rates, and the result is that manufactories of different kinds are springing up in Mexico to supply home demands. There is one company that has come in there and is putting in a plant costing $1,000,- 000. The people there believe if the people in the United States have free silver it will tend to stop manufacturing there. As it is, they want to develop their own re- sources, keeping their money at home. “But as to these opals. They are so plen- tiful that in many parts they are looked upon as of little value. They wouldn’t be of much value if they were unable to sell them. As it is, the tourists and travelers of various kinds are their best customers. Scarcely a man goes to Mexico now that does not bring back a lot of these pretty gems with them.” : Mr. Mack, who has large mining inter- ests at Guanajuato, is here on a business trip in reference to his mines. He con- ! these curious mining regions do not look Ex-Assemblyman Mack of Inyo County, the Owner of the Wonderful Opals. “Nearly every Mexican you see has opals for sale. He will go down in his pockets and fish out a lot of them. He keeps them usually in little squares of dark or bluish paper, known as jeweler’s paper, the same as jewelers use for dif- ferent kinds of gems. The reason is that this paper makes the gems show up better on account of its dark background. “The opals are so cheap in some places that sometimes you can buy a very good one for as low as 50 cents, It depends, of course, upon the place and the plentiful- ness of the opals. “But if it is near the railroad you must look out, for the natives have got to coun- terfeiting the opals. They make them out of glass that is artistically colored, and un- less you notice closely you are liable to get one of these glass opals under the im- pression that you have got a genuine jewel. Along the railroad, too, they sell more infertor opals than in the interior. “Though nearly every Mexican you meet has opals you will never see the natives wear any. They are superstitious about them, as they are in other countries. The superstition is general, extending so far, as I understand, from one side of the country to the other. “A native thatis so poor as to think $5 a small fortune will oftentimes have enough opals in his possession to net $25 to $50 if he had them in this country. Be- sides this he always knows where he can Ro and get a lot more at what to us wouid be a mere bagatelle. “The opals'I bave I brought up to give away to friends and to children that 1 know. Some in the collection are quite valuable. There are a number of water opals among them, and these are espe- cially beautiful when fixed in a neat gold setting. Many of the others are quite val- uable too, for some of the opals have a ,Sltinging <olored cubes; great deal of fire in them. “I want to say that the Mexicans in “\Wumnmmnnm% ~ siders Mexico a country of fabulous wealth and says it offers magnificentinducements for gold and silver mining. Retribution Followed Him That retribution does occasionally come to a man in his old age for the misdeeds of his youth is proven by the case of Henry R. Warren, who was at one time a promi- nent citizen of this part of the country. Now he is a common yvagrant begsing for his food from any who will give, but get- ting very little sympathy from those he meets, even though they are ignorant of his past record. He can be seen any day on Montgomery street, ragged, dirty and hungry, and with a look in his face that haunts one after he has gone. Henry Warren came to California on the tidal wave of 1849, and at once started to make money. In afew years he was rich and gradually growing richer, but with all of his weaith he never aided a friend nor gave an opportunity to a poor person. ‘Warren was iu the real estate business and was as hard a landlord as ever evicted a tenant. He also loaned money on good security and increased his wealth by any: possible means. He refused to educate his son, saying that he should work in- stead of being a loafer. The boy went to Arizona and died there because his father refused to send him money when he took sick. Warren also had a daughter whom he allowed to die in the poorhouse be- cause she married a penniless man in- stead of a wealthy saloon- keeper he wished her to. Warren's wife died in misery on account of her husband’s crn- elty to her children and also because he refused to provide her with the proper medical treatment. None of these things disturbed Warren very much and he went along increasing his wealth and making people suffer on all sides of him, But histurn came in due time and in spite of his best efforts he found his wealth getting away from him, Bad luck he called it then, but he now says it was just- ice. His health has never failed him, but his money kept getting less and less, until he had to apply for a job to keep himself supplied with the necessaries of life. But he was too well known, and even those he used to call his friends wanted nothing to do with him. He left town, but ever his reputation followed him. He was scorned by all who ever knew him, and other peo- - ple didn’t take to him. Andso he went from place to place, considered a nuisance by all he met. “I know I deserve it all,” Warren said when speaking of himself. ‘I didn’:care for anybody when I was young and had money and now nobody cares for me. i Why should they? I never did s good deed in my life and now I am paying for it. I wander about like a homeless dag and no living person in the world cares whether I live or die. I wish I could die, butIam a natural coward and cannot commit suicide. I know there is no hope for me for years to come, as I am 1n good health and cannot even get into the poore house, but must walk these streefs for days and nights at a time with the curses of my neglected wife and children follow- ing me.” : —_————— The Arabs and Asiatics have prepared 4 yineger from dates for ages Dast