The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 27, 1896, Page 17

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUND The Greatest of the Modern Dutch Painters THE HAGUE, HoLLAND, Bept. L—In passing through the great galleries of Hol- land one is struck not only by their wealth but by the great number of men who have contributed to it and by the shortness of the period in which they | lived and labored. The great names— | Rubens, Rembrandt, Franz Hals—are stars of the first magnitude; but even Without them, what country could mar- shal a more dignified array? They seem to Lave been born all over | Holland, toward the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury. Aiter that glorious period there is 2 gradual diminution of force and at last complete extinction and darkness. The classic period in France brings to life a pale, imitative classic period in Holland. Itis onlr in the present century and in the latter half of it that there has been & kind of Dutch Renaissance, that has brought forth any number of strong and virile masters of the brush. The origin of this latter-day activity is not difficult to find in the wonderiul group of French painters who settled at Barbizon, in the forest of Fontaineblean, and started a modern revolution in art. I speak, of course, of those men known as *‘the school of 1830,” Jean-Francois Millet, Daubigny, Corot, Rousseau and Diaz. The pioneer in Holland, the Dutch Millet, is Josef lsraels, and, unlike Millet, he has sur- vived a terrible period of humiliation and defeat, and has reaped a long harvest of prosperity and success. He has a studio in The Hague, that most picturesque, baughty and aristocratic lit- tle town, and another in Scheveningen, by the sea, where he may make studies of the hardy fisherwomen, renowned for their rough beauty and their size and strength, from his own windows. On the edge of the canal called the Koniginne- gracht is the town studio. A small street, with irregular red roofs against the light | and cloudy sky, leads to it and empha- | sizes the dignity and reserve of this row | of tall residences, the polished windows | of which reflect the great trees that line the canal, and the water thatis polished, too, like the windows, and is as clean and | unsullied. Israels does not surround himself with an impregnable wall of mystery and im- | portance; he lives quietly in his big house, | full of pictures, hung with rich tapestry, but is ever ready to receive with cordiality the art-students or art-lovers who break in upon his hardly earned peace. The first thought, it must be confessea, upon meeting Mr. Israels is one of aston- ished inquiry: “How can such a little man paint such big pictures!” To sit in Mr. Israels’ impressive draw ing-room, with masterpieces of old and modern Dutch art staring down from the walls in the unbroken quietof a well- regulated Dutch household, is have a new sensation of respect and admiration. To have a very little old man, in very shabby clothes, with a very tall and battered silk hat, come running into the room, shake you by the hand, point you to a chair, throw himself into a corner of the lounge, double up his small person like a jack- knife and peer at you from behind enor- mous spectacles with a pair of very bright, keen eyes—that is also a part of the expe- rience when the well-regulated Dutch household happens to be that belonging to Mr. Israels. Mr. Israeis has a very high voice, his gestures are quick and expres- sive. Ifitis your object to ask questions, your intentions are apt to be frnstrated by the very superior rapidity by which, to be very colloquial, Mr. Israels ‘‘gets there first.” His questions in regard to California, which he naively places south of Ken- tucky, might be appropriate to a district in the very heart of *‘Darkest Africa.” He is cordiality and amiability itself, however, to the wandering aborigines of that distant land, and runs ahead of them to show his studio, with an ammation that is almost like that of a pleased school- boy. Between the house and the studio is a long, an almost interminable gallery, like that which divides the Uffizi from the Pitti Palace in Florence. The walls are lined with sketches, glimpses of which tease us as we hurry along after our active host, who finally scampers up a flighs of steps and stands in his own lofty studio, which remains, in spite of its magnifi- cence, a workshop, aud full of suggestive signs of untiring and faithful labor. Josef Israels wes born in January, 1827, in Groningen, in North Holland. His parents were orthodox Jews, the father bad a small business, but encouraged the son in a youthful ambition to become a rabbi. So his schooltime was spent in the study of Hebrew; ana his greatest enjoy- ment was to pore over the Talmud. The poverty of his father was too great, how- ever, and Josef was taken into business, and relates how, even then, he used to stop at the great banking-house of Mesdag & Sons to talk to young Mesdag who was studying art. This friendship has lasted to the present day, and the two great artists are never more pleased than when discussing the merits of the other; the best Israels in Holland is in the private collection of his brother artist, H. W. Mesdag. At last Israels rebelled against his life and surroundings and with the consent of his parents went to Amsterdam where he lived in that picturesque place known as “The Ghetto,” where you can shake hands across the street from opvosite wind ows. He went every day to the studio of the fashionable painter of that time, Jen Kruseman, and painted, in duty bound, the pale classic pictures it was necessary, according to his mas- ter, to exhibit. Allthe while his color-loving eyes wandered Lo the crowded streets of the Ghet- to, swarming with life; the ori- ental beauty of the women, the coarse type of the Jewish fish- wives, the stores tull of bric-a- | brac, the markets full of oranges | and apples and the contrasts of | vivid lights and aark shadows. | He exbhibited his classic shades and mei with encourage- | ment. Then camea trip to Paris. Here he still did more classic art in the Atelier Picot and later in the Beaux-Arts under the great master Paul Dela- | roche. Millet had just left the | studio, an accident that cost Israels a delay of yearsin find- ing his own kingdom in which he was to rule. In this period he painted Biblical subjects | and historical scenes, as he had been taught by Ary Schaf- !‘I‘f‘ I fer. “William the Silent and Margaret of Parma,” *‘Homlet and His Mother,” | and ‘‘Aaron Finding the Bodies of His Two Sons,"” etc. His first success, after many years of toil, was a victure of a weather-beaten sailor who, with a child in his arms and another at his side, is going to visit the S\ M Will the Next Human Race Have Fingers? “Really,” Hypatia said, when Ipro- pounded the query, ‘Will the coming man have fingers? ‘“your questions are growing positively fantastic. You will be asking next if the coming man will have a head !” It seemed to me, in view of certain trends of the age, that Hy- grave of his wife. This picture now hangs in the national gailery at Amsterdam. Slowly prosperity began to show itself to the artist, who, undaunted by an avalanche of adverse criticism, went on painting the idyls and tragedies of the sea and shore. Tne “Shipwreck’ created an enthu- sm for his work in London. It wasex- hibited there in 1862. It w. somewhat theatrical arrange- ment, painted wito a hitherto undreamed-of frankness and power. The storm is over, the clouds are being blown in tat- ters and shreds of mist from a calin sky, the sea is almost quiet, but the wreck shows the spot of the late catastrophe. On the shore the horror- stricken people have gathered, men and women and children, not daring to look at the body that has been washed ashore for fear of finding a brother, a father or a husbana. Enghsh art-lovers fought for the picture and crossed the Channel to see the artist and to order more. In the magnifi- cent collection of Mr. Forbes of Garden Corner, Chelses, there are at least forty Israels. From this time Israels has never swerved from his own ideal. VAN Dyck Brows. Baird’s Life of L. E. Myers, the Great Runner The year 1882 did not see Myers do any- thing of consequence until May 20, when he varied his programme by entering a hurdle race of one sixth of a mile, that be- ing the size'of the Staten Isiand Athietic Club’s old track, or just the circumference of the Oiympic track. There were ten hurdles, each 2 feet 6 inches high, and the course was 29335 yards. To my knowl- edge it was the only time that Myers ever ran a hurdle race in open competition. 8. A. Safford, one of my clubmates and subsequently champion hurdler, was the only real competitor with the champion runner. At the revort of the pistol they left the mark with dispatch, rounded the first curve and cleared a hurdle without much momentum being obtained. On reaching the long backstretch, however, the terrific speed of the sprinter began to manifest itself, and he flew over the gates with tre- mendous bounds that caused the spec- tators to gaze in wonder. Had the hurdles been higher Satford might have had some chance against his world-renowned an- tagonist, but though 'he was one of the best men in the country at that time he fell hopelessly in the rear. The position in which I stood enabled me to get a fine view of the champion’s magnificent leaps as he came down the homestretch like a bird on the wing; and it was found after- ward by measurement that his strides over those two-foot six-inch hurdles measured seventeen feet—a respectable running broad jump. The time was 37% seconds, and stands on the record books to-day unbeaten. On Decoration day, 1882, Myers ran in the 120-yard handicap given by the Scot- tish-American Athletic Club, New York, in 12 seconds. This, and the time made by Henderson on September 9, 1891, con- stitute jointly the best amateur records in America. On June 3 Myers ran 100 yards in 1015, and an hour or so afterward stepped out on the track for an exhibition 400-vard run. Just why this distance was chosen I do not know, except that one curve was thus omitted, for be it remembered that the course was only 220 yards in circuit, or eight laps to the mile. The straights were each fifty yards long and the curves sixty yards to the semicircle. The record breaker stood at the head of the back- stretch, with Waldron five yards ahead of him: and let me remind the reader that the latter could run 100 yards in 10} sec- onds. At the report of the pistol Myers left his mark and began traveling after Waldron with long strides like a deer. He swung around the first curve like some stone attached to a string and swung aroand a powerful man’s head. This brought him into the first homestretch, and to my as- tonishment he ducked his head and ran down Waldron, passing a timer stationed at 130 yards in 1314 seconds. Let the reader who understands the significance of time reflect uvon that. Another curve and thirty yards more and Myers had reached { 250 yards in 26 seconds, with his clubmate | falling to the rear at every stride. | 120 yards had been covered in 1214 seconds | to this point, as one can figure for himself. | From that mark the runner was entirely { alone and pushed himself alonz by sheer | will power, as I can testify, for I stood on | the homestretch and observed even the expression on his face as he made for the tape. Although very tired he was by no | means an exhausted man. The time was 435¢ seconds, and still re- mains the best ever accomplished on a circular track, it having been beaten by {Downs in a trial on a straightaway, but | only five-eighths of a second, eight years after. The time for 250 yards remained, the best on record for six years, and then Sherrill beat it only one-fifth of a second. | Let it be noted that the last 150 | yards, alone and around a curve, was run in 175 seconds. It would take a pretty fair runner to do that in one burst of speed under such circumstances, Iconsider the whole performance as the most meritorious for anything around a quarter of a mile ever accomplished by | the ehampion. On July 1 of that year (1882) Myers ran in the 600-yard scratch race at the Ameri- can Athletic Club games on tae Polo grounds. At 440 yards, the champion | being far in the lead, he was joined by Harry Fredericks, the mile cham- { pion, who coached him to the fin- ish. The result astonished even his friends, for he had covered the full dis~ tance in 1:11 2-5. This time has never been surpassed by the emateurs or professionals of the world, though two have equaled it, exactly, strange tosay, in England and America. Four days after, on the Fourth of July Myers ran 1n a half-mile handicap. It be- gantorain before the race, but asit was a soft, gentle shower, and the atmosphere was invigorating, he decided to start. The track was eight laps to the mile, the same as the Manhattan track, but in fine condi- tion. At660 vards Myers took the lead, but on account of the rain eased up and made no attempt at time, and when in- formed that he had runin 1:56 he wasa most astonished man. I never saw a man run in such magnificent form. GEORGE D. BAIED. There is a town in California in which it is possible to set slocks with accuracy simply by observing the movements of certain persons. There is no element of joke in this asser- tion, for it is abso- lutely true. It is worthy of notice be- cause men and wo- men go wandering A Town Full of Human Glocks That Travel patia’s suggested question might not lack a certain element of pertinence, but I said nothing, and she con- tinued, “The human hand is developing. “Compare it with the paw cf the cat, deft and capable as that is, or with the hand of the most ad- vanced anthropoid type, and see what a marvelous thing it is.” Hypatia paused, triumphant. I realize the justice of all she said, and vet compared with the human hand of even a hundred years ago the human hand of to-day shows a marked inferiority in digital capability. Some time ago I asked a carpenter for the loan of a knife. He paused ia his work long enough to tell me that he had no knife with him. An older craftsman produced one, remarking, as he dia so, “Twenty years ago a carpenter without a knife would have been almost as useful as a hammer without a handle.” “How can he do without one now?'’ I asked. *“Why,” was the reply, ‘“the little finishings and cut- tings that we used to do with the knife are done at the mill nowadays, and brought to the building all ready for use. Houses are not built now as they were when I was young. We use fewer tools of every sort, and the men I work with now don’t know how to use the knife as I was taught in my apprentice days.” ‘What is true of carpentering is true of nearly every branch of iabor. The delicate handicraft by which a cunning workman attained his best achievements is falling into disuse. Machinery does, with accuracy. finish end precision and with wonderful rapidity the work over w! ich the old-school toiler bent, hour aiter hour, with skillful, sensitive fingers, fashioning, slowly, the article now turned out, complete, machine made, in & moment. I noticed & group of coolies on a local train the other day. They were talking, eagerly, in high-pitched monosyllabies, gesticulating all the while with deft, slender, long-fingered hands, stained with the marks of toi!, but manifestly sensitive and capable. Oppcsite me sat an equal number of mechanics—Americans, I think, white men at all events; young, respectable, hardworking, with square hands ending in suff, blant fingers, broad at the ends, strong and quite inflexible. One couid fancy them directing the labor of great machines, liiting great weights or striking mighty blows, but never engaged in anything requiring delicacy of manipulation. Useful hands but not efficient hands—a distinction with a very subtle difference. It is not a fantastic question, this one regarding the future of human fingers. The human hand is unique in nature. The degree of adaptation of which it is capable, the marvelous mechanism which makes possible so simple yet wonderful a movement as the turning of the wrist, the interaction of thumb and fingers, the wonderful nerve supply to the finger-tips, all go to make up a mechanical aggregate of almost endless possibilities. Among so-calied civilized peoples, however, the use of machinery and the gradual crowding out of handicraft is producing a marked degeneration in manual efficiency. The difference noted above between the hand of the Chinese laborer and that of the American workingman lies in just this fact. Two generations using labor-saving machinery have produced a new type of laborer’s hand. Formerly the balance was maintained by the Irequent demand for the service of -the fingers in manipulation, as well as in grasping the handles of tools. Now this is the chief duty they perform, and as many of the more delicate tools are already superseded by still more delicate machines, most, even of handwork, bring the fingers very slightly into service. It is likely that the immediate descendants of the deft-figered Orientals in this country wil! have less skillful fingers than the present generation possess, whatever their hands may gain of strength and resistance, Give the average workingman some compressible, pliable material to mold and coax into shape—say to make a ball from—and he will proceed to knead it in his palms, scorning the assistance of his fingers, 1 watched a man putting in a pane of glass recently, and was amazed to see him, before rubbing down the putty with his knife, smooth and press it against giass and sash with the thick of his thumb. One wonders what such a workman 1ancies his fingers to be for; but I have noticed this tendency to use the thick of the thumb rather than the tips of thumb or fingers as a marked characteristic in a very large class of workers. Indeed, even among workers of a high we once possessed. crafts amorng us. bandmade books, for instance. sorts is more than a fad. schools. may at last come to possess only such rudimentary remains of a finger as will be suffi- cient to press an electric button to turn on the current that does our living for us. There is, however, another possibility in the foreground, that, as a people, we have lost something—probably a good deal—of the manual skill It is also unquestionably true, however, that we may recover our Joss. There are indications already of a general movement toward a revival of handi- There is something more than passing importance in the revival of The revolt azainst machine-made fabrics of various Consciously or unconsciously on the part of its leaders, it is a movement along the line of self-preservation, the right of rebellion of a constructive creature against the curtailment of his activities. the popularity of the mistakenly so-called ‘‘fad” for manusl training in our public It has a moral and ethical as well as physical and industrial significance and through it we may yet hope for the reclamation and reinstatement of the human hand. 1t is unquestionably true One of its healthiest indications is PENELOPE POWELSON. up and down the earth in search of peoples whose habits and manners may amuse them, while right at home is something odder than shall be found even in Borneo. But this is notall. Ln thatsame town it is daily known to scores of persons who have not, on that day, oron many preceding days, seen the subjects of their discussion, not only what town many persons must be in at any given minute, but also whether they are sitting near each other or are far apart, and precisely their location to a foot, and this without the exercise of clairvoyance, mind-reading, hypnotism, psychology or occultinfluence. The fact is so well established that large sums of money could be safely wagered that way. Nay, further, when absent citizens are journeying on the water, this wonderful stay-at-home people can intuitively and with accuracy tell whether their friends are on the after or forward deck; whether they are sitting or standing; and the ken of their projected vision enables them to take in other persons, from other communities, whom they have never seen, and not only locate them with sufficient accuracy to make an un- impeachable diagram, but to puzzle detective ability by accurately relating the subsctances of conversations then in progress, which they have no means of hearing. A chain of circumstantial evidence has forged itself day by day until it has acquired such acceptation as a creed receives, and while it would not be accepted in court it is more reliable, for a fond mother living in this town can truly soothe her baby with: “Hush-a-by! Papa’s only seven minutes and forty-five seconds from the station, and he is coming home in the seat with —; and — and — are sitting behind him and — is in front of him, and they are all showing how much they do not know about the silver question; and (with a long breath) he will come in at the front gate, and papa will be here soon.’” Or, more wonderful than this forecasting of events, which are always exactly on time, is the habit of setting clocks by merely looking out of the window when a locomotive bell rings and observing the number of persons on the street. For in this strange town the exits and the entrances and the density of population at certain places at certain tirces command pendulums and bid spring clocks and watches to change their gaits, and to observe mechanicaily the outward human phenomena by which they really are regulated. Should a certain citizen speed along a well-traveled thoroughfare clocks are put one minute or one minute and thirty seconds ahead, accoriing to the effort which he is visibly making; and if he saunters, the housewife, looking at the clock, says, “‘I'll have to set that clock back.” All day long the ladies look from their houses and can tell the time to a nicety without ever seeing a clock or watch, for back and forth surge crowds of individuals whose identity and business are so well known that their passing is horological. They are better than the clepsydia, the sand glass, the sun dial and the Watérbury watch, all combined, and they probably know 1t, for, while the watch breaks down, they go on forever. This is something that the careful and observing tourist would not observe, except after long residence, some study and an aptness for fitting together of cause and effect. But the drowsy babes of this singular community know by the intensity of ‘‘the blab of the pave,”” as Whitman call it, whether the time for slumber, for lunch, for being played with and being called *‘cootch-cootchy” is arriving or departing. The number of feet walking by the house is a sure indicator and story-teller for them. Babes fall into the ways of this town, which might be safely styled the real “Land of Steady Habits,” for it jogs along with the de« lightfal and automatic certainty of a perfect machine. 3 At 8:20 A. M. daily a hundred young men and women walk orderly along a certain street, pass through a gateway which is margined by trees and other vegetation, and disappear. At9:50 fifty more young men and women, and always the same ones, travel the same road nud_ are lost to sight in the same green vista. At 4:57 150 young men and women march orderly in the reverse direction, and any clock that has got out of order since morning, or is suspected of running either tvo fast or c_ooAalow, can be set or regulated, as the need may be. Why these young men and young women pass at certain inter~ degree of intelligence we frequently see the fleshy part of the thumb or even the thick outer edge of the hand used in cer- tain smoothing manipulations that could e far better performed by the tips of zhel fingers. The possession of the thumb and fingers is what gives man pbysical superi- ority over the brute creation, and ir is tihe power to use the fingers skillfully and in- telligently that distinguishes the crafts- mean from the laborer. ‘With the general use of machinery and tne decline of handicraft is disappearing more rapidly than we could wish that fine type of American workingman that was so frequently met in the earlier years of this sentury—keen, thoughtful, upright, squar- gz his opinions as be squared his joists in woodworking, making them fit the truth; working into his life and character something of the harmony and shapeliness, the adjustment of part to part, of form to use, that his skillful fingers wrougnt in the materials with which he worked_, match- jng his beliefs as he matched his ed es truing them by eye and square and skill- ful touch, brain and hand working together to produce accurate and delicate re- 'ull;;'.nd by, when labor-saving machin- all have more nearly superseded the ;l;xy:::n worker; when our meals shall be cooked, our machines operated, our books written, our pictnres painted -nd' our pianos played by machinery—a condition of things not 8o impossible or 5o far off as one might suppose—our needless fingers may disappear as complele]y asour toes are disappearing. If, as physiologists tell us, members and organs of the body degener- ate and disappear by reason of disuse, we and by far the richest of the old missions. 1) divided into what were called Spanish and Indian grants. These have gradually given vnymwfil:: 'iwpzr( ’cx;'ifi..u'an'.mm but & few remain intact. One of the richest and most picturesque of these old renchos is San Marino, situate within two and & hall miles of Pasadena. Tiis place became the property of being introduced to Mr, Shorb's lovely dsughter, Ramons, SOME ROMANTIC NOOKS ON THE SAN MARINO RANCH IN - ‘alifornia in 1841, hg became one of the most active men a thical history much of California is enchanted ground. The Spaniards, those im- Benjamin Davis Wilson about half a century ago. Coming to C » by .‘l::ilvl:m:!e l:"::::lyn:lntellmlile fl.inpl:utr{lle without embellishing it with love and romance, have left lhel: of that early period, greatly advancing lh‘e lnurleu; oflgosulhe‘l:; S;:::::.h;x:;(dh;;:;a:‘::‘- tg:&:lfl;‘l::hs::‘:!.or;! g: (ke i rich 1n historic interest. Here was located one of the oldest married Dona Ramona Yorba, dsughter of one of the old Span! 3 €T, o T ekl o G R T AR R i * e LGN i L ot AL She AT OwRer : HanMactsio ta ptim poked 6F Terts sEl toHATH RN kA aniEh: grants and contsins 500 acres. Already rich in historic interest it has been made doubly so as the scene of much of Helen Hunt Jackson’s fuspiration for her book “Ramonsa.” Here she heard for the first time the name of her heroine, on all students. But why certain men and certain women always select the same car to ride in on their way to and from San Francisco; why, going fure ther in this matter of habit, they always occupy the same seats, might be an interesting question. Still further than this, they are always found in their respective places on the ferry-boats, at certain hours, and in certain groups or small communities, and where they will be is fixed with the certainty that attenas the placing of the pieces on a chessboard at the beginning of a game. It is respect- fully suggested that, in the elements of certainty of the movements, associations, etc., of its people, there is no other com= munity on earth like this. If any one has failed to locate the town one word wilt place it, and ‘that one word is Berkee le; vals can easily be explained, for they are SAN GABRIEL VALLEY {)nly during the period of the A. R. U. strike have the humau clocks of Berkeley been known to run down. Then the domestic economy of all Berkeley was dis- arranged. The crowds which, pendulum like, swing back and forth at regular ine tervals ceased to viorate. The phenom- enal variations in the old-lime clepsydia, the irregularities of the sandglass or the inaccuracy of the sun dial never caused so much trouble as the suspension of Berke- ley’s human time-markers. But, so wone derful is the force of habit, that, when the local trains resumed their running, after the strike, every man and woman who had been madiy chasing after electric cars and charging in a crowd on the creek- route ferries at once dropped back into their fixed places in trains and boats and were again themselves.