The Mark Hopkins Institute of Art [pp. 539-548]

BOYS' LIFE CLASS Photo by Isabel Porter
is a glorious effulgence in the the composition class. Once a week the life class
pupils are required to bring in compositions,
which are original pictorial conceptions of
a stated subject. These are numbered in
order of their merit, and criticised in regard
to arrangement of light and shade, grouping
of figures, general color scheme, and the
student's interpretation of the subject.
Another branch of direct benefit to the
life class is the anatomy class. This is
under the supervision of Doctor Hays, who
lectures once a week on plastic anatomy,
illustrating his lectures by means of a
model, the human skeleton, and charts.
The text-book used in the school is Duval's
"Artistic Anatomy." Probably the students
in the modeling classes are most thoroughly appreciative of the value of these
lectures.
Douglas Tilden holds undisputed sway in
the modeling department, in which there
are three classes, the girls' and boys' life
classes, and the preparatory cast class.
Modeling from cast may be a dreary monotony, but modeling from life has wide extremes of joy and wo. The beginner, sigh 544
ing before a cast in the vain endeavor to
entice the fleeing phantom with a pile of
clay and a modeling tool, will sigh like a
furnace when in the curtained apartment of
the life class. Here all the mechanical
skill in his make-up must be brought into
play and wo to him if he have it not.
Frames must be manufactured, on which to
build up the figure. Wires must be twisted
and snarled, and after his fingers are bleeding and torn, when he has dropped a hatchet
on his toe two or three times, when he has
exhausted his unsanctified vocabulary and
made enemies of every one within speaking distance,- by that time he may have a
frame that represents the beginning of a
life figure. Then his mode of procedure
changes. A dredging machine is a poor
comparison. Bucket after bucket of clay
is dragged out of the bin and piled upon
the skeleton. The clay will probably fall
down two or three times. There are inward
groans, but with patience and perseverance
the clay at last begins to assume some form.
"Pride goeth before a fall." The end is
not yet. Wires begin to protrude at all
angles. The one which should run up the