Some young ladies have a bad habit of biting their fingers, especially if they rejoice in handsome hands; and the same ladies, by way of variety, are prone to bite the corners of books, and the edges of closed fans. So it is dangerous to trust these articles in their vicinity. We have seen the corners of an elegant Annual nearly bitten off at a centre-table in the course of one evening. And we have seen ice-cream eaten and wine drank over an open port-folio of beautiful engravings.
By-the-bye, in taking up a print to look at it, always extend it carefully with both hands, that the paper may be in no danger of cracking or rumpling, which it cannot escape if held but in one hand, particularly if there is a breeze blowing near it. To show a large engraving without risk of injury, spread it out smoothly on a table; keeping it flat by means of books or other weights, laid carefully down on the corners, and, if the plate is very large, at the sides also. And let no one lean their elbows upon it.
It is an irksome task to show any sort of picture to people who have neither taste, knowledge, nor enjoyment of the art. There are persons (ungenteel ones, it is true) who seem to have no other pleasure, when looking at a fine print or picture, than in trying to discover in the figures or faces, fancied resemblances to those of some individuals of their own circle: loudly declaring for instance, that, "Queen Victoria is the very image of Sarah Smith;" "Prince Albert an exact likeness of Dick Brown;" "the Duke of Wellington the very ditto of old Captain Jones," &c. &c. To those "who have no painting in their souls," there is little use in showing or explaining any fine specimen of that noblest of the fine arts. We have heard a gentleman doubting whether a capital portrait of Franklin was not General Washington in his everyday dress. We could fill pages with the absurd remarks we have heard on pictures, even from persons who have had a costly education put at them. There are ladies who can with difficulty be made to understand the difference between a painting and an engraving—others who think that "the same man always makes both." Some call a coloured print a painting—others talk[16] of themselves painting pictures in albums—not understanding that, properly speaking, they are water-colour drawings when done on paper and with transparent tintings—while pictures are painted with oil or opaque colours on canvas or board. Frescoes are painted on new walls before the plastering is quite dry, so that the colours incorporate at once with the plaster, and dry along with it; acquiring in that manner a surprising permanency.
There is another very common error, that of calling a diorama a panorama. A panorama, correctly speaking, is a large circular representation of one place only, (such as Rome, Athens, Thebes, Paris,) comprising as much as the eye can take in at a view. The spectators, looking from an elevated platform in the centre, see the painting all around them in every direction, and appearing the size of reality, but always stationary. The panoramas exhibited successively in London by Barker, Burford, Catherwood and others, are admirable and truthful views of the places they represent; and after viewing them a few minutes, you can scarcely believe that you are not actually there, and looking at real objects. A few of these triumphs of perspective and colouring, have been brought to America. It were much to be wished that an arrangement could be made for conveying every one of these fine panoramas successively across the Atlantic, and exhibiting them in all our principal cities. It would be a good speculation.
It is difficult to imagine whence originated the mistake of calling a diorama a panorama, which it is not. A diorama is one of those numerous flat-surface paintings of which we have had so many, (and some few of them very good,) and which, moving on unseen rollers, glide or slide along, displaying every few minutes a new portion of the scenery.
The error has grown so common that persons fall habitually into it, though knowing all the time that it is an error. To correct it, let the exhibiters of dioramas cease to call them panoramas, and give them their proper name, both in their advertisements and in their verbal descriptions. Sebron's magnificent representation of the departure of the Israelites, that looked so amazingly real, was not a diorama, for it did not move, and not a panorama, for it was not circular. But it was a colossal picture, so excellent that at the first glance it seemed to be no picture at all, but the real scene, with the real people.