Lorinda Bryant - The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures

Dear Children:

The stories I am telling about the pictures and their painters in this book are gathered from many countries. Some of them belong to very early times when history was told to grown up people by story-tellers at banquets and in the homes, on the street corners and public halls. Some of the stories are legends and traditions that grew up with the beginnings of the Christian era. All of them are taken from authentic sources and many of them illustrate some natural law.

The artists who painted these pictures knew history and the early myths, the fairy-tales, the legends and the traditions, the Bible and the Apocrypha. We love these pictures because they are beautiful and true, but really to understand them we must know what the artists had in mind when they painted them.

If you learn to know these pictures and love them, I will make you another book soon about statues and their stories.

In looking at pictures of the old masters you will often see one called the "Holy Family." I want you to know who belonged to the Holy Family. The grown people are Joseph and Mary, the father and mother of Jesus; they had no last names at that time. The children are Jesus and his cousin, John the Baptist, six months older than Jesus. Sometimes the little John's mother, Elizabeth, is in the picture and sometimes his father, Zacharias, is there also.

In this picture painted by Pintoricchio, Jesus is about four years old and John four and a half. The Bible story gives very little about the growing up of these children. Of Jesus it says, "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." And of John it says, "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and he was in the deserts till the day of showing unto Israel."

One story from a very old book, "The Infancy," tells about Jesus playing with the other boys. It says:

"And when Jesus was seven years of age, he was on a certain day with other boys, his companions about the same age. Who when they were at play, made clay into several shapes, namely, asses, oxen, birds, and other figures, each boasting of his work, endeavoring to exceed the rest.

"Then the Lord Jesus said to the boys, I will command these figures which I have made to walk. And immediately they moved, and when he commanded them to return they returned. He also made figures of birds and sparrows, which, when he commanded to fly, did fly, and when he commanded to stand still, did stand still; and if he gave them meat and drink, they did eat and drink."

An old man, eighty-four years of age, lived in this house on "The Valley Farm," in England. He was born here and he used to say that he had never been away from this house but four days in all his life. He asked Constable to come and paint a picture of his home. And what a beautiful picture it is! The old house, snuggled down so close to the little stream, could paddle its feet – if it had any – in the cool water. And see how tenderly the tall trees keep guard over it. How we wish that we could be there too! If only we could be in the punt – I am sure it is a punt-boat even if one end of it is pointed – and be rowed up and down in the delightful shade. Those two in the boat have no doubt been for the cows and are driving them home to be milked.

John Constable liked to choose his subjects for his pictures from the familiar scenes near his home. He used to say to his friends:

"I have always succeeded best with my native scenes. They have always charmed me, and I hope they always will."

Correggio loved to paint darling babies, lovely angels, beautiful women and splendid men. In this picture of "the Madonna and St. Jerome," I want you specially to see St. Jerome and his lion. St. Jerome, a very noted man who lived four centuries after Christ, was the first person to translate the New Testament into Latin. It was called "The Vulgate," because of its common use in the Latin Church.

When St. Jerome was thirty years old he went away from the city of Rome and became a hermit and lived in desert places in the East. One day, so the story goes, as he sat at the gate of the monastery a lion came up limping as though he had been hurt. The other hermits ran away but St. Jerome went to meet the lion. The lion lifted up his paw and St. Jerome found a thorn in his foot. He took out the thorn and bound up the poor paw, so the lion stayed with St. Jerome and kept guard over an ass that brought the wood from the forest.

One day when the lion was asleep a caravan of merchants came along and stole the ass. The poor ashamed lion hung his head before the saint, and Jerome thought he had killed and eaten the ass. To punish him St. Jerome had him do the work of the ass and bring the wood from the forest. One day some time afterward the lion saw the ass coming down the road leading a caravan of camels. The Arabs often have an ass lead the camels. The lion knew that it was the stolen ass, so he led the caravan into the convent grounds. The merchant found that he was caught. St. Jerome was very glad to find that his lion was honest and true. Whenever you see a picture of a saint with a lion you must remember that it is St. Jerome, the great Latin scholar.

The picture of "The Wood Gatherers" is very precious to us. It is the last picture Corot signed after he was confined to the bed, a few days before he died.

A curious story is told of Corot's painting this picture. He had an old study of another artist's of a landscape with St. Jerome at prayer: you remember I told you the story of St. Jerome and his lion. Corot took the study and made a number of sketches of it. Somehow his landscape would not fit St. Jerome, so he painted a man on horseback and a dog going off into the woods. Then in the place of St. Jerome praying he put a woman gathering bits of wood and another woman with a bundle of fagots under her arm. Now the picture must have another name and he called it "The Wood Gatherers." When you go to Washington, you must not fail to see this picture in the Corcoran Art Gallery.

Hyperion had three wonderful children, Apollo, the god of the sun, Selene, the goddess of the moon, and Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. When Aurora appears her sister, Selene (the moon), fades and night rolls back like a curtain. Now let us look at this masterpiece by Guido Reni carefully that we may know how wonderful is the coming of day.

Aurora, in a filmy white robe, is dropping flowers in the path of Apollo (the sun) as he drives his dun-colored horses above the sleeping Earth. The Horæ (the hours), a gliding, dancing group of lovely beings, accompany the brilliant god. Each hour is clothed in garments of a special tint of the great light of day, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and violet. The golden-hued Apollo sits supreme in his chariot of the sun.

The fresco – fresco means painted on fresh plaster – is on the ceiling of the Rospigliosi Palace, Rome. The painting is as brilliant in color to-day as it was when painted three hundred and fifty years ago.

Aurora, like most of the gods and goddesses, fell in love with a mortal. She asked Zeus to make her husband immortal but she forgot to ask that he should never grow old. And, fickle woman that she was! when he became gray and infirm, she deserted him and, to put a stop to his groans, she turned him into a grasshopper.