A STORY OF AN ARTIST

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 13.

A STORY OF AN ARTIST.

THE American Magazine tells the following interesting story of how James Beard, the celebrated portrait and animal painter, learned to paint chairs:—

One day, while wandering about the town, he became interested in a sign which read, "Peter Skinner, chair-maker." "Why can't I make a chair?" he asked himself. He straightway entered the establishment, resolved to ask for a job. In order to get to the office, he had to pass through the paint room, and the sight of several busy workers prompted him to inwardly exclaim, "Anyway, I can paint chairs." The firm wanted a journeyman. Mr. Skinner said the young man could come to work the next morning, and that his duties would be in the paint shop—in which Beard tarried on his way out. He spoke to the men who were at work, told them interesting stories of his travels, until they were all interested in him. Meanwhile, he watched every detail of the manner in which a chair, from beginning to end, was painted.

That evening, when he reached the room which his friend was sharing with him, he got a brush broom and an old chair, and was practicing the modus operandi of painting it when his fellow-lodger entered. The latter thought Beard had lost his reason, until laconically informed that the young man was "learning his trade." The next morning Beard was on hand at the chair factory, bright and early; and there he continued to be employed for two months, at nine dollars a week. No one ever discovered that he was not an experienced chair painter.

During his leisure time, he used to make pencil drawings at the house where he boarded of different things, and drop them carelessly on the floor so that they would attract attention. The landlord possessed a strong, characteristic face, and Beard drew him in uniform, he being a colonel in the militia. The young artist also dropped this drawing on the floor of his chamber. His chief ambition was to get to painting portraits again. He thought this drawing would please the colonel, and it did. In short, it led to Beard's receiving a commission to paint the portraits of the colonel and his entire family, consisting of five members, at five dollars apiece. With this work to occupy him Beard left the chair factory and resumed his portrait painting. He found considerable to do, but he was often reduced to the condition not inaptly known as being "hard up." He began to get some reputation, and made many warm friends.

QUAINT old Matthew Henry points out that Abraham's slaves which he had gotten in Haran are called "souls." In these times servants are called "hands." A world of difference. Hands—four fingers and a thumb to get as much out of as one can, and to put as little into, from the master's standpoint. And from the servants'—to pick up as much as they can and to give as little back again. When master and man can find in each other's relationship a soul—a living, earnest, brotherly soul—then only are the work and wages alike right.—Mark Guy Pearse.