LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2244, 11 June 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

AN ARTIST’S MODEL. THE ORIGINAL OP GRACEFUL FIGURES IN MANY PAINTINGS AND ENGRAVINGS. (From the “Now Tcrk Sun.) A pretty y.mng woman half reclined in a graceful attitude in an easy chair in an artist’s studio in this city a few days ago, looking over an art journal. She was tastefully and richly dressed, from the tint of the plumage of the bird’s breast in her hat to the neat little buttoned boot with which she patted the border of an Oriental rug. An artist was busy in an inner room arranging his work for a sitting of the model. He was dragging his easel into position and fixing a background for the model’s ohair, and as he moved swiftly about the room he whistled the song of the Odalisques from 1 Fatinitza.’ In the meantime an introduction gave the visitor license to talk with the artist's model, hho dropped her magazine to utter a fiigid ‘Good morning, sir,’and when the remark was ventured that hers was a curious occupation, she said, in a moat discouraging tone, ‘ Is it, really ?’ ‘ 1 have hoard that the models were gracious.’ • They might be if left alone,’ she said with spiritj; ‘ bat I have a grievance. I wish even now that I could transform myself into an evil genius to haunt an art orltio into despair. For four years I have been a model for a circle of artists. I kept my business a secret from my family, told such clever little stories about what I was doing and how I was earning my money that no one over suspected me. I made my engagements like the member of any other profession, and I kept them promptly. Painters, sculptors, and pencil artists all solicited my services, and I was enjoying prosperity. I obeyed all the rules of the profession, lived the life of an ascetic, and devoted my leisure to the application of such gleanings of artistic methods as I picked up in the studios. I learned to draw and then Mr —— gave mo some water colors. I bought some brushes, and I turned out several wateroolor sketches and one little painting. I showed them to one of my patrons, and he asked leave to put them on his wall for a week or two. Well, an art critic must come along and begin his ‘By Joves’ over my pictures. In a bit of enthusiasm the first artist says, ‘ Tea, they are rather pretty. Miss , our model, painted them.’ A few days later a hateful and jealous young cousin of mine from Brooklyn went dashing into my mamma’s room, and says, ‘Aunty, dear, have you seen this about Blmky ?’ Then she puts out a marked paper, folded with this on top—“Mias ——, the well-known model. Is developing a true artistic talent, and gives E remise of a bright future. She has recently nishod some charming bits of water color that almost betray incipient genius.” ‘ When I walked home that afternoon I thought, as I passed down the sunny avenue, that it was clouding up, although there was not a cloud to be seen I was right, for the storm burst as soon as I got homo, and as papa cams homo from business, and the boys from the bank, and my sister from school, it increased In fury and raged far Into the night., Oh, such a time 1 Dear mo. they all filed by, and pronounced such anathemas upon me, and pictured a sea of disgrace, with huge black waves, engulphing our home, while I appeared in one corner of their imagination as the evil spirit turning all the water on I I began to think what a splendid comic picture it would all make—better than ‘ Apple Jack’s Defying the Lightning.’ It was high tragedy for three hours, and, would you believe it ? I didn’t shed a tear. Why ? Because I had done nothing wrong. My papa lost his money in Wall street, and he needed some help to support his family, and I determined to do my share. I found It far more profitab'e to he a model for gentlemanly artists to draw from than to stand as model In a dry goods store upon which women might try garments. Then I enjoyed keeping it all a secret, because, not knowing anything about the business, my parents would have objected. I kept still all that evening at home, and went to my room early. I knew papa always remained in the library after the others were in bed, to look over papers, so 1 listened nntil all was quiet, and then I put on my wrapper, tumbled down my hair, fixed a ribbon or two in it—for, you know, papas liko their daughters to look pretty, ovon in neglige dress—and I stole softly down. Ha was still angry, and was startled .to see me, hut I kissed him, pushed back his hair, and then, seating myself upon a hassock at his knee, I'leaded my head upon his lap and said, * Papa, I want to have a confidential talk with you. Now question me.’ Well, he did question me about everything, I never saw such a man to crossexamine, but I told him everything. I told him that I lived In an atmosphere of art, and that in four years I never had the first approach to on insult; that the artists who employed mo were, as far »s I was concerned, most chivalrous, and that I believed they would punish any one of their profession who did not treat me or any other ladylike model with respect. Then I showed papa pictures from * Harper’s ’ and ‘ Fronk Leslie’s ’ where I had been the model for the female figures. He had seen them all before, but ho hadn’t dreamed that bis daughter had posed for thorn. I noticed he wanted to keep them himself when he learned all about it. Then he said that I would not find a husband easily if it was known that I was an artist’s model. I said that I wouldn’t have a man who didn’t believe mo incapable of wrong, and I added, moreover, that I didn’t want to marry, as marriage killed the business. Papa’s eyes looked like saucers, ‘Yes,’ I said, 1 monks, nuns, and models—female models—mustn’t marry.’ He never heard of that before, and 1 told him how French models were trained, and how to preserve the perfect artistic outline. A model couldn’t eat certain kinds of food—potatoes in abundance or many sweets that produce fat—how she must avoid late hours, poor ventilation, tight lacing, cosmetics, beer or malt liquors of any kind, and how she had got to be true and beautiful to meet all the exactions of the artists. Those who want first-class models mast pay a high price, and to get the money they must be first-class artists. Do you suppose a girl could keep their patronage a month if she didn’t obey their rules ? It is a life of self denial, but the discipline gives the mind and heart a tone that is above the grovelling earth. The best models are model womenln every respect. I know nothing of amateurs or the sub-stratum of the bnsineaa.”

‘ There fs a caste among models. ’ said the artist. ‘Mias here was asked a few days ago If she sat for a picture of Carmen in a certain artist’s studio. She tossed her head as she gazed at tho picture and said : ‘No, some amateur must have posed for that ’ ’

‘ I left yen posing on a hassock before your papa—won’t you finish ?’ said the visitor, ‘Oh, I won papa over. Actually, when I told him all about our profession he got up and threw back his shoulders and asked how he would do for a model. Didn't I flatter him by telling him that ho waa ouch a fine specimen of manly hranty that he could make his living at my business ? Why, bless him, he seemed even anxious to go into the business himself. He forgave mo for myjtilence, told me that I waa doing better, financially, than either of tho boys, and he pleaded my cause so well with mumma and the rest that they were oven proud of me next day. But I have now and thon to beat down their objections.’ ‘ Do artists ever paint your face as well as your figure ? ’ ‘Oh, no; it would be a breach of good faith to betray me to the public that way. They idealise tho face, and I guess they brush into tho features something of the look of their first or perhaps their latest love. What am I to do to-day, Mr Painter ? ’

‘I have a Spanish costume for you to wear for a little sketch. You’ll be only a clotheshorse to day. ‘You need not laugh, sir,’ said the proud young model to the visitor. ‘ There is genius even in being a clothes horse. One can express humility, poverty, and despair in drapery, or can manage a shirt to look saucy, coquettish, and full of chic. Good day, sir’ The pretty face disappeared behind a curtain, oa inner door was closed, and the visitor wan bowed out. His talk had coat the artist at the rate of nearly 2dol an hour. On the stairway he mot a stalwart Pole, resembling the pictures of the great Emperor Nicholas of Russia. Vanity had marked him for her own, and when ho was asked if

ho was also an artiat’a model he said, pounding his broad chest, ‘Zat eea my beesness.’ He strode into another studio to display his splendid fig ve. THE WOLF’S DEN. Part First, They called us the wolves, we wore three brothers, wa and our old father, Baron Wolfgang von Wolf. They said that we looked like the animal which desolates the fold of the shepherd, and carries a terror to the heart of the wandering boy and girl. Certainly wo all had rather sharp teeth, except my brother and Ludwig, who had inherited the beauty of my mother, and her melancholy blue eyes, fine, high sculptured nose, and small, even white toeth, not at all like a wolf’s.

We lived in a groat castle, near, to Szegazard, on the river Sarvia, routh of P£atb, and not far from the Danube, with a view from our windows which had not its equal lu the world for picturesque beauty. Ho, there are no such hills, such skies as those. My mother was a Roumanian, and differed from my father in religion. She had died when I was born, I have nothing of her but her picture, a tress of her long, golden hair, and her book of prayers. Some great tragedy had happened, some terrible misfortune te my father, we never knew what. Gloom and severity were his two {inseparable companions, Ha used the whip freely upon us, as boys, and upon his servants and laborers. He was feared and hated as few men have been, and women ran when they saw him, for they said that he had killed his own wife, and would blight their children. He hod, however, an old monk to teach us to read and to write, a moat excellent man, called Frere Franz, who taught us Greek and Latin and mathematics, and how to paint and to draw, for ho could illuminate his Breviary, liko Fra Angfiico. Frere Franz took ns to church and taught us to pray before the image of the Blessed Virgin. We owe to this man everything, and particularly, that he used In summer to take us to bis convent, which was near that lovely neighborhood where the spurs of the mountain chain, descending from Transylvania, unite with the great Alfold plain. There with the holy monks we staid In comfort, being allowed to ride at will over a vast green basin of prairie, once an inland sea, where there were no roads, having for the time the inestimable boon of liberty, and the privilege of getting lost, so dear to boyhood, yet always bringing up at night at some village or market town, sometimes going even on to Erdioszegh (where Ernst found his romance), and where we all had some wild adventures. Yet wo always found ourselves, and got back to the holy calm of the convent, and the serene companionship of those monks who had been noblemen and soldiers in their day, and seemed to love ns well. Frere F-ianz was the great blessing of onr lives, mitigating the troubles and the peculiarity of a destiny which we could not understand ; for we were noble but poor, onr only wealth the uncertain yield of vineyards, which gave usually a ronghish red, spirituous frnity.tastsd wine. There was a better hillside vineyard (seldom satisfactory) which wa had heard belonged to Lngwig. This yielded a white wine, with a fresh, 000 l taste, and pleasant faint bouquet, hut we made very little of that, except in good years. One old woman, called Felehaza, who had a black moustache and severe features, was our cook and nurse, the only woman whom we ever saw in onr house.

Our table was served with heavy soups, big joints, and fish from the Ssrvis, and vegetables in great bowls. My father ate like a wolf ; we were not far behind him, and we all drank of the heady red wine—my brother Ernst, too much, so that he was first silly, then quarrelsome, and thon sleepy —every day at dinner. Ludwig was not so easily excited, but when he was made angry he and Ernst fought horribly, and my father would get the whip to separate them, like two angry dogs. I was not bo strong as my brothers, nor could I eat and drink as they did. Some tenderness always seemed to follow me, as a child whose mother had died, and old Felebaza had ever a bit of kid boiled for me, or Frere Franz gave me some of his lentil soup on fast days, or my father told Ludwig to pour water In my wine, when I could not attaok the heavy dinners, which the other wolves ate. I liked to study and read, and particularly to paint with Ludwig, who had a great room in the north turret of the castle, where ho had a roll of canvas, some oil paints, and who had covered the walls with fresco.

Often I wondered whers ha got his saintly women’s faoes, and his beautiful fancies. The peasant girls whom we flirted with at the village fairs, the high-born ladies whom we sometimes saw at churoh, none of them looked like the women In Ludwig’s pictures, and he, great handsome fellow that he was, never seemed to care for women, either. Ernest and I were the Lotharios of the family, but Lndwig was sombre and gloomy, and seemed to have something in his character like my father, with whom he had a strange relationship. They rarely spoke together, and yet we heard at times long, serious, and angry discussions between them, when they would shut themselves up in a room and look the door. Ludwig was the only creature on the face of the earth my father feared. 1 began to notice all these things, as I grew to be sixteen, and so on, all these years wo lived, as wild a sot of barbarians as could be found in the neighborhood of the Danube. We were all peerless expert horsemen, oonld shoot and fish, and, in the season of the vintage, help to gather the grape, first with the pretty girls who came to work in the fields, followed np the somewhat pastoral business of shearing and killing the sheep, and not entirely neglecting Frere Franz and his books and paints. That wo had any fnture never seemed to ooonr to us; although the boys with whom we had played went off to be soldiers. We had once heard Ludwig ask my father to let him go to Vienna and become a soldier also. My father had answered angrily, and told us wa were not to leavo Szegazard unless we wished to be insulted, to get into an Austrian fortress, perhaps. Then we began to suspect that he had been guilty of some political offence j that we wore ostracised, and bore a tainted name, a dreadful thing for boys to suspect. I was 13, Ernst was 20, and Ludwig was 22, when the groat event of our life happened. A little carriage drawn by three fleet Hungarian horses, hung with bells, came trotting into Szegazard one fine morning, and it was the President of the Komitat, and by his aide a young lady, I was on a shaggy pony, stopping for a moment at our wine merchant’s to gather our wine account to carry to my father, when I heard the President speak out in a grand, pompous voice, and say : * Can yon tell me where lives the Baron Wolfgang von Wolf ?’ I took off my cap and bowed to the lady and himself, and answered : (To he continued )