Читать книгу The Confessions of a Caricaturist - Furniss Harry - Страница 11

"Thanks. I was not aware that the boy, whose photo I sent you, had far-apart eyes. If you think (and you are quite the best judge of the point) that these eyes are needed in order to give to the face the fun and roguery I want expressed, by all means retain them.

"It had occurred to me to write and beg that, if Arundel did not furnish all requisite models for drawing from life, you would let all portions of pictures which would have to be done without models or wait till you return to town, wait. But as I think you definitely told me that you never do the finished pictures except from life, I presume the petition to be superfluous."

SYLVIE AND BRUNO. MY ORIGINAL DRAWING FOR LEWIS CARROLL.

(Never published.)

When I received this letter at Arundel my second boy was sitting in his bathing costume on a garden-roller on the lawn for a picture of Bruno sitting on a dead mouse. I was chaffing my model about flirting with a young lady he met at a children's garden party, and threatened to inform his sweetheart in London, when he assured me with knowingness, "Fact is, papa, the young lady here is all right for the country, you know—but she would never do in town!"

It was the same idea as Lewis Carroll's about models.

I GO MAD!

As I have brought my family into this, I may mention that there is one picture in "Sylvie and Bruno" (vol. i., p. 134) which brings back to me the only sorrowful hour I had in connection with the otherwise enjoyable work. My wife was very ill—so ill it was a question of life and death. Expert opinion was called in, and the afternoon I had to make that drawing—with my own children as models—the "consultation" was being held in my wife's room. Carroll was on his way from Oxford to see the work, and I was drawing against time. It's the old story of the clown with the sick wife. Caricaturists are after all but clowns of the pencil. They must raise a laugh whatever their state of mind may be. For a long time I never would show Lewis Carroll my work, for the simple reason I did not do it. He thought I was at work, but I was not. That's where my acting eccentricity came in. I knew that I would have to draw the subjects "right off," not one a month or one in six months. Correspondence for three months, as a rule, led to work for one week. Isolated verse I did let him have the illustrations for, but not the body of the book. This was my only chance, and I arrived at this secrecy by the following bold stroke.

Lewis Carroll came from Oxford one evening, early in the history of the work, to dine, and afterwards to see a batch of work. He ate little, drank little, but enjoyed a few glasses of sherry, his favourite wine. "Now," he said, "for the studio!" I rose and led the way. My wife sat in astonishment. She knew I had nothing to show. Through the drawing-room, down the steps of the conservatory to the door of my studio. My hand is on the handle. Through excitement Lewis Carroll stammers worse than ever. Now to see the work for his great book! I pause, turn my back to the closed door, and thus address the astonished Don: "Mr. Dodgson, I am very eccentric—I cannot help it! Let me explain to you clearly, before you enter my studio, that my eccentricity sometimes takes a violent form. If I, in showing my work, discover in your face the slightest sign that you are not absolutely satisfied with any particle of this work in progress, the whole of it goes into the fire! It is a risk: will you accept it, or will you wait till I have the drawings quite finished and send them to Oxford?"

"I—I—I ap—appreciate your feelings—I—I—should feel the same myself. I am off to Oxford!" and he went.

I sent him drawings as they were finished, and each parcel brought back a budget of letter-writing, each page being carefully numbered. This is the top of page 5 in his 49,874th letter. I am not sure if I received all the remaining 49,873 letters in the seven years. To meet him and to work for him was to me a great treat. I put up with his eccentricities—real ones, not sham like mine.—I put up with a great deal of boredom, for he was a bore at times, and I worked over seven years with his illustrations, in which the actual working hours would not have occupied me more than seven weeks, purely out of respect for his genius. I treated him as a problem, and I solved him, and had he lived I would probably have still worked with him. He remunerated me liberally for my work; still, he actually proposed that in addition I should partake of the profits; his gratitude was overwhelming. "I am grateful; and I feel sure that if pictures could sell a book 'Sylvie and Bruno' would sell like wildfire."

Perhaps the most pleasant confession I have to make is my fondness for children. They always interest and amuse me more than "grown-ups." The commonplace talk is to them unknown; it is full of surprises.

Perhaps the nursery's record of my family is not longer or any more interesting than the sayings and doings of the youngsters of any other family; still a few extracts may interest those who, like myself, are interested in first impressions.

My eldest, just entering on his teens, had as companions two brothers and one sister. Hearing there was an addition to this little family group, he, dressed in flannels, ran into my studio, bat in hand, "Papa, is it a boy or a girl?"

"A boy."

"Oh, I am so glad. I do want a wicket-keeper, and Dorothy can't wicket-keep a bit."

"I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!"

A stoutly-made little fellow of eight, to his mother, who happened to be extremely thin:

"Oh, mother, I do believe you must be the very sweetest woman in the world!"

"Thanks very much, Lawrence. But why so affectionate? What do you want?"

"I don't want anything. I only know you must be the very sweetest woman in the world."

"Really, you are too flattering. Why this sudden outburst of affection?"

"Well, you know, I've been thinking over the old, old saying, 'The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat.'"

Children, I think, have the art of "leading up" to jokes better than adults. They hear some strange remark, they naturally analyse it, and it suggests an application. For instance, this brat possibly objected to some portion of meat at table. His mother had reminded of the old saying, "The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." Thin mother—there's the application.

One of my youngsters ran into the drawing-room at five o'clock tea. A lady visitor thus addressed him:

"Come here, my little man. I suppose when you grow up you will be an artist, like your father?"

"My father is not an artist."

"Oh, my dear, he is an artist."

"Oh, no, no, no, my father is not an artist—he's only a black and white man. I am going to be an artist in all colours."

PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9.

My own children have been my models, not only for Lewis Carroll's books, but for all my drawings of children. I have three boys and one girl. Dorothy is now a successful artist, and Lawrence is, at the age of eighteen, a professional draughtsman of mechanical subjects; my youngest is just out of his teens. Their portraits manifolded will be found in the page sketch from "Romps" Du Maurier wrote me a most graceful appreciation of these books, which, considering his delightful pictures of children in Punch, was most gratifying to me.

An artist for whose work I have the greatest admiration was the late Randolph Caldecott, and the only occasion on which I had the pleasure of meeting him was of a semi-theatrical kind. It was at one of the "Artists' Tableaux" which were given in London some years ago. In those produced in Piccadilly I took no part, and the entertainment to which I refer was held at the Mansion House.

REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY "ROMPS."

At the last moment, in order to complete one of the pictures, a portly Dutchman was required, and a telegram was despatched to me to enquire whether I would represent the character. A dress, which was not a very good fit, was provided for me by the costumier of the show, and with the aid of a little padding, a good deal of rouge, a long clay pipe, and a bottle of schnapps, I managed to look something like the inflated Hollander I was representing, in the centre of the group, where I was supposed to be looking on at a game of bowls. Caldecott, who was placed at a window, flirting with the maids of the Queen, was attired in a graceful costume of the most faultless description, surmounted by a magnificent hat with a sweeping brim and splendid feathers, upon which he had expended no little pains and money. My head-gear consisted of a very insignificant stage property hat, but as I was not intended to contribute an element of beauty to the picture, that didn't matter. The tableau was arranged by Mr. E. A. Abbey, and when taking his last look round before the curtain was raised, his artistic eye detected that more black was required in the centre. While we were thus in our allotted positions, and straining every nerve to remain perfectly rigid—an ordeal which, by the way, I never wish to go through again, as I had hard work to restrain myself from breaking out into a Highland fling or an Irish jig, or calling out "Boo!" to the audience to relieve my pent-up feelings—Mr. Abbey suddenly seized the superb hat on Caldecott's head, which the latter had had specially made, and in which he really fancied himself, handed it to me, and to Caldecott's horror, and almost before he was conscious that he had been made ridiculous by the wretched remnant which had been sent from Bow Street for me, the curtain was rung up.

PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER.

I confess I have a certain amount of pity, closely akin to contempt, for the artist who must have the actual character he wants to paint, who cannot use a model merely for reference, but paints in everything like a photograph. Some artists call such feebleness conscientiousness, but to me it seems mere weakness. Must an author paint each character in his book, or an actor take his every impersonation on the stage, minutely from some living model? Surely observation and natural originality is more than the photographic copying of your "conscientious" artist! Worse feebleness still it is when an artist has to paint a well-known character, say King Lear or Mary Queen of Scots, and goes about hunting for a living person as near as possible in appearance to the original, and then costumes and slavishly reproduces him or her, without any show of judgment or insight after the model is once selected. And this lack of insight into character seems deplorably prevalent among our figure painters, for how often we see in the exhibitions the model with a "good head" tamely reproduced over and over again—here as a monk, there as a Polonius, Thomas à Becket, a "blind beggar," "His Excellency," a pensioner, or painted by some artist who wants to make a bid for portraiture as "A portrait of a gentleman"!

A TRANSFORMATION.

Black and white men have to introduce so many characters into their work, they are obliged to invent them; but it is a curious fact that this facility disappears at times. The late Mr. Fred Barnard, clever as he was at inventing character for his black and white work, found, when he was painting in oil, that confidence had left him, and he spent several days wandering about London to find real characters for a picture he was painting representing the jury in "Pilgrim's Progress." One day in Oxford Street he saw a hansom-cab driver with a face besotted with drink and "ripe" for production as a slave to Bacchus. Barnard hailed the hansom, jumped in, and directed the jehu to drive him to his studio on Haverstock Hill. In going up the Hampstead Road a tram-car ran over a child. Barnard was terribly upset by the touching sight, and told the driver to pull up at the nearest tavern. Getting out, he looked at his "subject," intending to invite him to refreshment before taking him on to his studio, where he intended to paint him. To his horror the face of the bibulous cabman had lost all its "colour," and was of a pale greenish hue.

"That was horful, sir, warn't it? It'll upset me for a week."

The disappointed artist dismissed his "subject."

Much could be written of this genuine humourist. His buoyant fun was irrepressible; indoors and out of doors he entertained himself—and sometimes his friends—with his jokes. In his studio he kept as pets some little tortoises. They were allowed to crawl about as they liked, but he had painted on their backs caricatures—a laughing face, a sour-green face, one with a look of horror, another of mischief. A visitor seated unaware of these would suddenly spring off the sofa as the walking mask slowly appeared from underneath it! Barnard's power of mimicry was great, and his jokes were as excellent as his drawings. Even when sitting before the camera for his photograph, he had his little joke.

BARNARD AND THE MODELS.

There are a number of girls who go the round of the studios, but have no right whatever to do so. They generally hunt in pairs, and this habit surely distinguishes them from the real model. They are more easily drawn than described. Two of this class once called on Barnard.

"What do you sit for?" he asked.

"Oh, anything, sir."

"Ah, I am a figure man, you are no use to me, but there is a friend of mine over there who is now painting a landscape—I think you might do very well for a haystack; and your friend might try studio No. 5 and sit for a thunder-cloud, the artist there is starting a stormy piece—oh, good morning." Tableau!

A wretched individual once called upon me and begged me to give him a sitting. I asked him to sit for what I was at work upon: this was a wicket-keeper in a cricket match bending over the wicket. I assured the man he need not apologise, as he had really turned up at an opportune moment; the drawing was "news," and it had to be finished that day. When I had shown my model the position and made him understand exactly what I wanted, I noticed to my surprise that he was trembling all over. I immediately asked him if he were cold.

"I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR."

"No."

"Nervous?"

"No."

"Then why not keep still?"

"Well, that's just what I can't do, sir! I had to give up my occupation because, sir, I am hafflicted with the palsy, and when I bend I do tremble so. I only sit for 'ands, sir—for 'ands to portrait painters. I close 'em for a military gent—I open 'em for a bishop—but when the hartist is hin a 'urry I know as 'ow to 'ide one 'and in my pocket and the hother hunder a cocked 'at."

Hiding hands recalls to me a fact I may mention in justice to our modern English caricaturists. We never make capital out of our subjects' deformities. This I pointed out at a dinner in Birmingham a few years ago, at which I was the guest of the evening, and as I was addressing journalists I mention this fact in justice to myself and my brother caricaturists. As it happened, that afternoon I had heard Mr. Gladstone making his first speech in the opening of Parliament, 1886, after being returned in Opposition. Turning round to his young supporters, he used for the first time the now famous expression "an old Parliamentary hand," holding up at the same time a hand on which there were only three fingers. Now had I drawn that hand as it was, minus the first finger, showing the black patch? It would have been tempting on the part of a foreign caricaturist, because it had a curious application under the circumstances. (But it would be noticed that in my sketch in Punch the first finger, which really did not exist, is prominently shown.) This was the first time the fact was made public that Mr. Gladstone had not the first finger on the left hand; since then, however, all artists, humorous or serious, were careful to show Mr. Gladstone's left hand as pointed out by me.

Now I had noticed this for years in the House, and I hold as an argument that men are not observant the fact that Members who had sat in the House with Mr. Gladstone, on the same benches, for years, assured me that they had never noticed his hand before I made this matter public. So that when I am told that I misrepresent portraits of prominent men I always point to this fact.

Mr. Gladstone was careful to hide the deformity in his photographs, but in his usual energetic manner in the House the black patch in place of the finger was on many occasions in no way concealed.

A PUNCH ENGRAVING, DRAWN ON WOOD.

These are plebeian models, but sometimes artists' friends recommend amateur models—a broken-down gentleman or some other poor relation—and when you are drawing social modern subjects, of course these are really of more use than the badly-dressed professional model.

On "Private View Day" at the Royal Academy a few years ago a knot of artists and their wives were in one of the rooms; it was late, and few of the visitors remained. The attention of the artists was attracted by a stately and beautiful being who entered and went round examining the pictures.

"How charming!" remarked one.

"Delightful!" replied another.

"Oh, if she would but sit to me!" prayed a third.

"Why not ask her?" asked the practical one. "If anyone can, you can; so remember that faint heart never won fair sitter!"

"Well, here goes!" whispered the cavalier, Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., in the tone of one about to lead a forlorn hope, and he charged desperately across the gallery. He approached the fair stranger, and politely taking off his hat said diffidently:

"Madam, I am one of the Academy. Should you wish to know anything about the pictures I shall be glad——"

"Oh, thanks. I know a good deal about them."

"Indeed! Then you will understand how we artists are always on the look-out for beauty to paint—and—ah—hm—well, you see I—that is we" (pointing to the group) "were so struck with your presence that—ah—pardon my abruptness—we thought that if such a thing were possible you might condescend to allow one of us to make a study of your head—ah."

"Oh, with pleasure," said the fair visitor, taking from her hand-bag a neat little note-book, and opening it, she said:

"Well, I have only got Sundays and one Wednesday next month disengaged—I have got sittings on every other day. Will this be of any use to you?"

She was a model!

The first house I occupied after I married faced one occupied by a well-known and worthy fiery-tempered man of letters, and it so happened that one evening my wife and I were dining at the house of another neighbour. We were gratified to learn that our celebrated vis-à-vis, hearing we had come to live in the same square, was anxious to make our acquaintance. On our return home that night we discovered the latch-key had been forgotten, and unfortunately our knocking and ringing failed to arouse the domestics. It was not long, however, before we awoke our neighbours, and a window of the house opposite was violently thrown open, and language all the stronger by being endowed with literary merit came from that man of letters, who in the dark was unable to see the particular neighbours offending him, and he referred to my wife and myself in a way that could not be passed over. A battle of words ensued in which I was proved the victor, and my neighbour beat a hasty retreat. Before retiring I wrote a note to the friend we had just left to say that in the circumstances I refused to know my neighbour, and he had better inform him that I would on the first opportunity punch his head. By the same post I wrote for a particular model—a retired pugilist. As soon as he arrived next morning I placed him at the window of my studio facing the opposite house, now and then sending him down to the front door to stand on the doorstep to await some imaginary person, and to keep his eye on the house opposite. I went on with my work in peace. Presently a note came:

"Dear Furniss—Your neighbour has sent round to ask me what you are like. He has never seen you till this morning, and he is frightened to leave his house. He implores me to apologise for him."

MY FIGHTING DOUBLE.

He departed from the neighbourhood shortly afterwards.

Sad to relate that all Governmental undertakings of an artistic nature, from our most colossal public building or monument to the design of a postage stamp, are fair game for ridicule! The outward manifest record of the Post Office Jubilee—rather the "Post Office Jumble"—was the envelope and post card published by the Government and sold for one shilling. The pitiful character of the design, from an artistic point of view, shocked every person of taste; so I set to work and burlesqued it, strictly following the lines of the genuine article. A glance at my envelope alone, therefore, is sufficient to show the wretched quality of the original. It happened that the postmen's grievances were very prominent at that time. The Postmaster-General and the trade unionists and others were at fever heat, and excitement ran high. This caricature-parody, therefore, was a sketch with a purpose. It was said at one of the meetings that my pencil "may perhaps touch the public sympathy in behalf of the postman more effectually than any language has been able to do." The wretched thing was thought worthy of an article by Mr. M. H. Spielmann. My skit, it is needless to add, was very popular with the postmen. They showed their gratitude by saving many a misdirected letter. A letter addressed "Harry Furniss, London," has frequently found me, without the loss of a post.

SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME.

I signed a certain number, which sold at 10s. 6d. each, and were bought up principally by the members of the Philatelic Society.

CHEQUE FOR 5½D. PASSED THROUGH TWO BANKS AND PAID. I SIGNED IT backwards, AND IT WAS CANCELLED BY CLERK backwards.

Perhaps the publication of this "Post Office Jumble" card was also the cause of the puzzled postmen taking the trouble to decipher and deliver the far more amusing artistic jokes of that irrepressible joker, Mr. Linley Sambourne. By his permission I here publish a page, a selection of the envelopes he has sent me from time to time.

It is bad enough purposely to puzzle the overworked letter-carriers—they are too often tried by unintentional touches of humour emanating from the most innocent and unsuspected members of the public—but I confess that I was once the innocent cause of Mr. Sambourne trying the same thing on with the overworked bank clerk.

I sent my Punch friend a cheque, here reproduced, for the sum of ½d., payable to "Lynnlay Sam Bourne, Esqre," signed SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS. by me backwards, crossed "Don't you wish you may get it and go." Sambourne endorsed it "L. Sam. Bourne," and sent it to his bank. The clerk went one better, and wrote "Cancelled" backwards across my reversed signature. It passed through my bank, and the money was paid. This is probably unique in the history of banking.

SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT.

A propos of writing backwards, in days when artists made their drawings on wood everything of course had to be reversed, and writing backwards became quite easy. To this day I can write backwards nearly as quickly as I write in the ordinary way. One night at supper I was explaining this, and furthermore told my friends that they themselves could write backwards—in fact, they could not avoid doing so. Not of course on the table, as I was doing, but by placing the sheet of paper against the table underneath, and writing with the point upwards. Perhaps my reader will try—and see the effect. For encouragement here are a few of the first attempts on that particular evening.

MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT.

A few years ago a banquet was given at the Mansion House to the representatives of French art; several English painters and others interested in art were invited to meet them. Previous to being presented to the Lord Mayor, every guest was requested to sign an autograph album—an unusual proceeding, I think, at a City dinner. Were I Lord Mayor I would compel my guests to sign their names—not on arrival, but when leaving the Mansion House, and thus possess an autograph album of erratic graphology, and one worth studying. In company with my friend Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we were immediately accosted by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in possession of the autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen at us, and in peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. Whitworth Wallis wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by and admired. "Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let me show you mine."

MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT.

Jeames, in taking the pen from me, looked condescendingly over the page, and with the air of a justice delivering judgment said to me:

"Beaten 'im by hinches, sir. Beaten 'im by hinches!"

Months after that I gave an entertainment one evening at Woolwich. My audience was principally composed of Arsenal hands. On leaving the platform I was taken into the Athletic Club rooms, and asked to sign their autograph book and say a "few words" to the members. The few words consisted of the "record" I had made in the signing match I had with Mr. Wallis at the Mansion House—an incident which was brought to my mind suddenly when I took the pen in my hand. It so happened that Whitworth Wallis, who is a well-known lecturer on art matters, was on that same night lecturing in the North of England, and as he left the platform at the same hour as I at Woolwich, he was, like me, asked to sign an autograph book, and told the very same story to his friends in the North as I was telling under exactly similar circumstances, the same evening, at the same hour, in the South. Neither of us knew that the other was lecturing that night. It is not by any means a usual thing to be asked to sign a club album, and Wallis and I had not met or corresponded since the evening at the Mansion House.

After working many years for the Illustrated London News, I became a contributor to the Graphic, and for that journal wrote and illustrated a series of supplements upon "Life in Parliament"; but from this time forward it would be difficult to name any illustrated paper with which I have not at some time or other been connected. For instance, the Yorkshire Post a few years ago started a halfpenny evening paper, and sent their manager down to me to ask my honorarium to illustrate the first few numbers with character sketches of the members of the British Association, who were holding their meetings that week in Leeds. This was a happy thought, as the "British Asses," as they are too familiarly called, sent these first numbers of the paper all over the country; the new ship had something to start upon, and is now a prosperous concern. There are various stories about the sum I received for this work. It was a large sum for England, where enterprise of this kind is very rare. I was "billed" all over the town as if I were a Patti or Paderewski, and telegrams were sent to the London papers by the special reporters announcing the terms upon which I was at work; altogether it was a bit of Yankee booming that would have made a Harmsworth or a Newnes green with envy.

[1] "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll," by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (Fisher Unwin).