Monogram Pictures

“ Neither the painters, nor the engravers, nor the metal-founders, nor the medalists of those ages, availed themselves of this device, nor do we find it at all general among such artists, till the very close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. But, once introduced, it became universal. Every artist of the [pg 265] sixteenth, and of the greater part of the seventeenth century, has his monogram, more or less simple according to the taste or caprice of the designer ”

“ The designing and painting of monograms constitutes an art mastered, save in exceptional instances, only after long continued study and practice. Some of our best monogram makers do not ascribe their success to talent, but, rather, to hard work and practice. ”

“ Gorgeous monograms are not desirable. If used at all—and very few even of our proud and aristocratic families do use them—they should be decorative without being elaborate. A good stationer should be consulted before one determines upon a monogram. ”

“ The dishonesty of the modern picture-market, however, has made it now little more than a curious study. As a practical guide in determining the genuineness of a work, the monogram, from the skill and precision with which fraudulent dealers have learned to counterfeit it in almost all its varieties, has long been far worse than equivocal, and the authorship of a picture must, now-a-days, often be decided on entirely independent grounds. ”

“ It was a large, decidedly masculine handkerchief, and as my eyes encountered it, by some unfortunate chance I noticed a monogram embroidered in one corner--an extremely neat, precise monogram, with the letters "F.S." I recognised it at once as the property of Mr. Selwyn.
Ordinarily I should have thought nothing of it, but to-day it was different; for there are times in one's life when the most foolish things become pregnant of infinite possibilities; when the veriest trifles assume overwhelming proportions, filling and blotting out the universe. ”

“ We ought to sit where we see the objects in the picture at the same angle at which the camera photographed the originals. If we are too near or too far or too much to one side, we perceive the plastic scene from a viewpoint which would demand an entirely different perspective than that which the camera fixated. In motionless pictures this is less disturbing; in moving pictures every new movement to or from the background must remind us of the apparent distortion. Moreover, the size and the frame and the whole setting strongly remind us of the unreality of the perceived space. ”

“ Even with ordinary photographs we are accustomed to discriminate between those in which every detail is very sharp and others, often much more artistic, in which everything looks somewhat misty and blurring and in which sharp outlines are avoided. We have this formal aspect, of course, still more prominently if we see the same landscape or the same person painted by a dozen different artists. Each one has his own style. Or, to point to another elementary factor, the same series of moving pictures may be given to us with a very slow or with a rapid turning of the crank. ”

“ Success has crowned every effort to improve the photostage; the better the plays are the more the audience approves them. The most ambitious companies are the most flourishing ones. There must be inner values which make the photoplay so extremely attractive and even fascinating.
To a certain degree the mere technical cleverness of the pictures even today holds the interest spellbound as in those early days when nothing but this technical skill could claim the attention. We are still startled by every original effect, even if the mere showing of movement has today lost its impressiveness. ”

“ But the richest source of the unique satisfaction in the photoplay is probably that esthetic feeling which is significant for the new art and which we have understood from its psychological conditions. The massive outer world has lost its weight, it has been freed from space, time, and causality, and it has been clothed in the forms of our own consciousness. The mind has triumphed over matter and the pictures roll on with the ease of musical tones. It is a superb enjoyment which no other art can furnish us. ”

“ The American field was conquered by the Lumière camera. The Eden Musée was the first place where this French kinematograph was installed. The enjoyment which today one hundred and twenty-five thousand moving picture theaters all over the globe bring to thirty million people daily is dependent upon Lumière's and Paul's invention. The improvements in the technique of taking the pictures and of projecting them on the screen are legion, but the fundamental features have not been changed. Yes; on the whole the development of the last two decades has been a conservative one. ”

“ The letters for the Monograms are taken at random from a list of authors. The last plate, CXXXV, is a suggestion for the decorative treatment of Sacred Inscriptions in Monogram and Cipher, following the style of the Italian Renaissance.
One plate has been added to the work, engraved by Mr. Thomas Moring, which shows some few ways in which these designs [Pg xxi] can be intelligently interpreted for a particular craft. It also shows how the character of a design may be preserved while a change is made in the letters or in their position. ”

“ It will probably take longer to rid the photoplay of these appeals to the imagination than the explanations of the leaders, but ultimately they will have to disappear too. They have no right to existence in a work of art which is composed of pictures. In so far as they are simply heightening the emotional tension, they may enter into the music itself, but in so far as they tell a part of the story, they ought to be ruled out as intrusions from another sphere. ”

“ The middle ages were, indeed, extremely prolific in the invention of ciphers alike for ecclesiastical, artistic and commercial use. Every great personage, every possessor of fine taste, every artist, had his monogram. The mason’s mark also was, in effect, a cipher. As the merchant had as a rule neither right nor authority to employ heraldic emblems, he therefore fell back upon plain simple letters arranged very much in monogram form. These “merchants’ marks” generally took the form of a monogram of the owner’s initials together with a private device. ”

“ Yet, as this conflict of will is expressed in the one case by living speaking men, in the other by moving pictures, the difference in the artistic conception must surely be as great as the similarity. Hence one of the supreme demands must be for an original literature of real power and significance, in which every thought is generated by the idea of the screen. As long as the photoplays are fed by the literature of the stage, the new art can never come to its own and can never reach its real goal. ”

“ Every art grows slowly to the point where the artist relies on its characteristic and genuine forms of expression. Elements which do not belong to it are at first mingled in it and must be slowly eliminated. The photoplay of the day after tomorrow will surely be freed from all elements which are not really pictures. The beginning of the photoplay as a mere imitation of the theater is nowhere so evident as in this inorganic combination with bits of dialogue or explanatory phrases. The art of words and the art of pictures are there forcibly yoked together. ”

“ We have heard this message, or if it was not expressed in clear words it surely lingered for a long while in the minds of all those who had a serious relation to art. It probably still prevails today among many, even if they appreciate the more ambitious efforts of the photoplaywrights in the most recent years. The philanthropic pleasure in the furnishing of cheap entertainment and the recognition that a certain advance has recently been made seem to alleviate the esthetic situation, but the core of public opinion remains the same; the moving pictures are no real art. ”

“ To be sure, the events in the photoplay happen in the real space with its depth. But the spectator feels that they are not presented in the three dimensions of the outer world, that they are flat pictures which only the mind molds into plastic things. Again the events are seen in continuous movement; and yet the pictures break up the movement into a rapid succession of instantaneous impressions. We do not see the objective reality, but a product of our own mind which binds the pictures together. ”

“ When it is required of a design that it will read from all points of view, Roman letters will usually be found to give the most satisfactory result.
Intermixture of styles should always be avoided. If the Roman and Gothic are found too severe to suit a given subject, the Cursive and Rustic letters with their easy flowing lines can be made to fill almost any space one will be called upon to fill with either Monogram or Cipher.
A device besides being of one style of letter should also be pure as a whole; plan either a Monogram or a Cipher, but don't combine the two. ”

“ The process which leads from the living men to the screen is more complex than a mere reflection in a mirror, but in spite of the complexity in the transmission we do, after all, see the real actor in the picture. The photograph is absolutely different from those pictures which a clever draughtsman has sketched. In the photoplay we see the actors themselves and the decisive factor which makes the impression different from seeing real men is not that we see the living persons through the medium of photographic reproduction but that this reproduction shows them in a flat form. ”

“ It is to be observed, however, that some artists were by no means uniform in the style of monogram which they employed. The device of the same artist often varies, not only in the size and figure of the letters which form it, but sometimes even in the letters themselves. Many artists have employed two, three, four, and even a greater number of devices; and of the celebrated engraver just named, Albert Dürer, we ourselves have seen not less than thirty different modifications of the letters A D, the initials of his name. ”

“ In this as in other branches of ornamental painting the harmony by analogy and the harmony by contrast are recognized and adhered to. The monogram painted in relief is an illustration of harmony by analogy. Such a monogram represents the employment of a single color and its blended tints and shades. Harmony by contrast consists of painting each letter of the monogram a different, but complementary, color. ”

“ He had begun by imitation, he had gone on by rivalry, he had achieved a style of his own by which he had upset all preconceived notions of landscape painting, and had triumphed in establishing the superiority of pictures painted in a light key, but he was not content. His progress had always been towards light even from the earliest days, when he worked in monochrome. Sunlight was his discovery, he had found its presence in shadow, he had studied its complicated reflections, before he commenced to work in colour. ”

“ In this design, one of the prettiest and most delightful little ladies in the whole Monvel gallery of pretty little ladies insists on the merit of the tooth-paste which, if it be half as good as she is charming, must be excellent indeed. Every artist knows his own business best, but one can only hope that, in what leisure he can snatch from his work in paint and illustration, Boutet de Monvel will place the collector of posters under new obligations to him. ”

“ The camera is the apex of an angle which encloses a breadth of only a few feet in the nearest photographic distance, while it may include a width of miles in the far distant landscape. Whatever comes to the foreground therefore gains strongly in relative importance over its surroundings. Moving away from the camera means a reduction much greater than a mere stepping to the background on the theater stage. Furthermore lifeless things have much more chance for movements in the moving pictures than on the stage and their motions, too, can contribute toward the right setting of the attention. ”

“ The fact that millions are daily under the spell of the performances on the screen is established. The high degree of their suggestibility during those hours in the dark house may be taken for granted. Hence any wholesome influence emanating from the photoplay must have an incomparable power for the remolding and upbuilding of the national soul. From this point of view the boundary lines between the photoplay and the merely instructive moving pictures with the news of the day or the magazine articles on the screen become effaced. ”

“ Molyneux scientifically described a good model featuring a metal lantern and adjustable lenses. He explained that the pictures to be shown were painted with transparent colors on pieces of thin glass which were inverted and placed in the projector. His comment on the type of picture is entertaining: “This is usually some Ludicrous or frightful Representation, the more to divert the Spectators.” “Horror” pictures—and comedies—were born centuries before Hollywood. ”

“ It brings our mind into a peculiar complex state; and we shall see that this plays a not unimportant part in the mental make-up of the whole photoplay.
While the problem of depth in the film picture is easily ignored, the problem of movement forces itself on every spectator. It seems as if here the really essential trait of the film performance is to be found, and that the explanation of the motion in the pictures is the chief task which the psychologist must meet. We know that any single picture which the film of the photographer has fixed is immovable. ”