File:A child's guide to pictures (1908) (14749607021).jpg

Identifier: childsguidetopic00caff (find matches)
Title: A child's guide to pictures
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Caffin, Charles Henry, 1854-1918
Subjects: Painting -- Study and teaching
Publisher: New York, Baker & Taylor
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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the use of archi-tecture to support the figures. In time, however,artists found a new use for it. They employed itto support the landscape; which brings us to a talkabout* what is called the Classic Landscape. Nowadays, when so many artists paint nothingelse but landscape pictures, it may seem strange thatthe Italians of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cen-turies used landscape only as a support for the fig-ures. It was not because they were blind to the beau-tiful scenery of their own country, for, when theydid introduce it into their pictures, they representedit in a very lovely way. But always as a back-ground to the figures, which you are made to feelare the principal features of the picture. Thereason is that the public for whom they painted de-manded figure subjects. The Church required pic-tures that would bring home to the hearts of thepeople who could not read the beauty of the Bible »Mural—(Latin murus, a wall), having to do with a wall; inthis case a decoration on a wall. 86
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it: »<; o U - ^ii T^« V. it*- The Classic Landscape Story; rich men and women wished to decorate theirpalaces with scenes from the old Greek legends;while cities adorned their public buildings withallegorical subjects in which the pride they took intheir own municipal life was set forth in figures,personifying the character of its greatness. More-over, those were stirring times in which the rivalrybetween the cities and between the noble families ledto constant wars and plottings. Men, beginning asnobodies, rose rapidly to power. Xot, as they doto-day in our country, by using their brains andenergy in the peaceful pursuits of industry and tradeand learning; but through brute force, guided bybrains that schemed to win by fraud and violence.So it was man that, as we say, cut the chief figurein these times; mans power and womans beauty.Mankind was so interested in itself that it sparedlittle thought for the beauty of nature. It is truethat architects built noble houses on sites comm

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