The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. | Page 5

of Chinese manufacture; very little of that elegant
article having been, as yet, imported from France.
A wreath was selected from the portfolio that contained the engravings
and drawings of flowers. It was decided that Marianne should first
execute it the full size of the model (which was as large as nature), that
she might immediately have a piece to frame; and that she was
afterwards to make a smaller copy of it, as a border for all the articles
of the china set; the middle to be ornamented with the letter A, in gold,
surrounded by the rays of a golden star. Sprigs and tendrils of the
flowers were to branch down from the border, so as nearly to reach the
gilding in the middle. The large wreath that was intended to frame was
to bear in its center the initials of Marianne Atmore, being the letters
M.A. painted in shell gold.
"And so," said Mr. Gummage, "having a piece to frame, and a pattern
for your china, you'll kill two birds with one stone."
On the following Monday, the young lady came to take her first lesson,

followed by a mulatto boy, carrying a little black morocco trunk, that
contained a four-row box of Reeves's colors, with an assortment of
camel's-hair pencils, half a dozen white saucers, a water cup, a
lead-pencil and a piece of India rubber. Mr. Gummage immediately
supplied her with two bristle brushes, and sundry little shallow earthen
cups, each containing a modicum of some sort of body color, massicot,
flake-white, etc., prepared by himself and charged at a quarter of a
dollar apiece, and which he told her she would want when she came to
do landscapes and figures.
Mr. Gummage's style was to put in the sky, water and distances with
opaque paints, and the most prominent objects with transparent colors.
This was probably the reason that his foregrounds seemed always to be
sunk in his backgrounds. The model was scarcely considered as a guide,
for he continually told his pupils that they must try to excel it; and he
helped them to do so by making all his skies deep red fire at the bottom,
and dark blue smoke at the top; and exactly reversing the colors on the
water, by putting red at the top and the blue at the bottom. The distant
mountains were lilac and white, and the near rocks buff color, shaded
with purple. The castles and abbeys were usually gamboge. The trees
were dabbed and dotted in with a large bristle brush, so that the foliage
looked like a green frog. The foam of the cascades resembled a
concourse of wigs, scuffling together and knocking the powder out of
each other, the spray being always fizzed on with one of the aforesaid
bristle brushes. All the dark shadows in every part of the picture were
done with a mixture of Persian blue and bistre, and of these two colors
there was consequently a vast consumption in Mr. Gummage's school.
At the period of our story, many of the best houses in Philadelphia were
decorated with these landscapes. But for the honor of my townspeople I
must say that the taste for such productions is now entirely obsolete.
We may look forward to the time, which we trust is not far distant,
when the elements of drawing will be taught in every school, and
considered as indispensable to education as a knowledge of writing. It
has long been our belief that _any_ child may, with proper instruction,
be made to draw, as easily as any child may be made to write. We are
rejoiced to find that so distinguished an artist as Rembrandt Peale has
avowed the same opinion, in giving to the world his invaluable little

work on Graphics: in which he has clearly demonstrated the affinity
between drawing and writing, and admirably exemplified the leading
principles of both.
Marianne's first attempt at the great wreath was awkward enough. After
she had spent five or six afternoons at the outline, and made it
triangular rather than circular, and found it impossible to get in the
sweet-pea, and the convolvulus, and lost and bewildered herself among
the multitude of leaves that formed the cup of the rose, Mr. Gummage
snatched the pencil from her hand, rubbed out the whole, and then drew
it himself. It must be confessed that his forte lay in flowers, and he was
extremely clever at them, "but," as he expressed it, "his scholars chiefly
ran upon landscapes."
After he had sketched the wreath, he directed Marianne to rub the
colors for her flowers, while he put in Miss Smithson's rocks.
When Marianne had covered all her saucers with colors, and wasted ten
times as much as was necessary, she was eager to commence painting,