glow, but does not touch the foreground which remains absolutely dark. This is the best formula of composition for a half-size-figure up to this very day. It has never been excelled.

Metzu, on the other hand, painted full length figures as seen in space of some room-either one of the wealthy bourgeoisie with pavements of marble tiles, Fig. 9, or one of the humbler people with red brick floors-with the light entering the door, bathing everything evenly in soft tones.

The demands of color, harmony, contrast, and surface beauty alone determined the content of the picture. The painter was the poet who lent interest to the most trifling objects. The same problems confront the modern painter or photographer of interiors.

Fig. 2, 3, and 4 are ordinary views and I have chosen them for illustrations merely to show the conventional ways in which an interior can be represented. The great difficulty in photographing interiors is that the operator can not get far enough away from the object. . Few things are more irritating than false perspective. To take a room with the middle wall directly facing you (as in Fig. 3), is apt to destroy all pictorial effect as it divides the picture into equal halves. A more pleasing effect has been obtained in Figs. 9, 10, and II, by leaving out the side walls. In Fig. 14 it has been accomplished by taking the viewpoint a little more to the left, which breaks the symmetry of the side walls. The less there is seen of the latter the better it

is in most cases for the picture. Of course, the side walls help to suggest depth and space; they are not indispensable. Also Figs, 8, 12, and 13 suggest atmosphere which is, after all, one of the most important qualities in an interior.

To take a room facing a corner (Fig. 4), is more certain of a picturesque result, even if the two walls should diminish at exactly the same angle. There is a danger of the lines being too oblique, which makes the floor look as if it were higher in the corner than in the foreground.

The most favorable viewpoint is no doubt represented in Fig. 2, when the two walls meet at a blunt angle. The only drawback is that it shows all objects in decided perspective and often distorts the furniture in the foreground. H. S. Shepherd solved the problem satisfactorily in his painting, "The Bach Player," Fig. 13. Also Figs. 6 and 15 carry out the same idea.

Another way to suggest an interior is merely to show a part of a slanting side wall with a window as Meissonnier has done in his famous "Reader." In this picture, as in Figs. 9 and 10, the interior is more suggested than shown. It is really only a background proposition. It is not the actual representation of a room as Figs. 6 and 15.

To make an empty room interesting is probably the most difficult problem of all interior representation. An interior deals with the pervading air of a The modern room generally lacks the romantic note. Atmosphere

room.

and mystery cling with preference to curious and faded things. An interior like that of the Rothenburg town hall, Fig. 5, is picturesque in itself. Its quaint architecture, old age, and dust have made it so. It would yield satisfactory results from almost every view point and under any atmospheric condition, no matter whether brightly illumined or pervaded by soft twilight. The modern interior is less pliable and sometimes needs the introduction of a distinct sentiment, as we see in Cazin's "Death Chamber of Gambetta." We find ourselves wondering at the vanished presence of the great statesman still reflected in the room and the arrangement of things. Fig. 15 shows too much still life. One thing is here and another there for the sake of an effect, and this effect, whatever else it may give, cannot give it the spiritual and dramatic interest of Cazin's picture, where everything in the room bears witness to a personality that has lived the last chapter of its life in it.

THE READER.

(Fig. 7.)

Meissonnier.

The Danish painter Hammershoi made a bold experiment in his "Old Piano," Fig. 11. Most artists would have felt the introduction of a human

figure to be necessary. Hammershoi depends on the responsiveness of the modern mind, he knows that old things are reminiscent of past associations and by showing the old piano in a soft shimmer of light and by eliminating all detail he has succeeded in carrying these associations into the picture. A rare accomplishment, indeed.

The photographer of interiors must possess this love for the aspects of things, and furthermore must be a skilful manipulator of light. In all the pictures, II, 12, 13, and 14, it is light which produces the harmony of the total effect. There is quite a difference between objects seen out-of-doors and in a partial light indoors. The indoor light falls more beautifully upon objects,