the passengers for Sulu. Next day we anchored off the town of Sugh. In the morning I went ashore with Minico. Traversing a long narrow bridge, with a watch-tower on the left hand and a pavilion on the right, we passed through a couple of strong gates into the town-a pretty little place, beautifully kept. Every street was lined with trees, yet scarcely a leaf could be seen on the roadway. At the end of the main road leading from the jetty, we came to a neat square, where twice a week the residents gather to enjoy the music of an excellent band. Sulu ladies, mostly in wide Chinese trousers, bright-colored jacket of silk, with many buttons, and gay sarong thrown over the shoulder, walked about freely. Some wore the sarong over their heads. All were clad in garments of the most brilliant coloring, and many of them were handsome, but they lost their charm on closer acquaintance. In Thanks to Minico, I found a lodging in the house of a native. It would have been almost useless to ask the assistance of a Spaniard. I never met one who could speak the Sulu language or any of the dialects. It is not considered worth while to learn them. consequence, the supposed rulers know next to nothing of the natives, their customs and wishes. Everywhere I found that the people detested the "Castillas," some of whose laws and regulations press most hardly upon them. For instance, if a Tagal from North Luzon, or a Bisaya from the South, cannot produce his receipt for taxes at a moment's notice, he is liable to imprisonment. He is not allowed to go home for it, but must carry it on his person. A Tagal told me that he was within an ace of being sent to the war in Mindanao through leaving his tax-receipt at home. The police, he said, steal about at night and arrest natives indiscriminately in the hope of finding some without that safeguard. This, however, does not apply to the Sulus. So far, the Spaniards have failed to compel them to pay taxes. None of the larger islands are really under the domination of the Spaniards, whose rule extends little farther than the range of their cannon. I heard of Large reinforcements being sent from Spain, but at that time there were very few European soldiers in the Philippines. No others can be relied upon. The native soldiery are mostly Luzon men. Not one in a score knows the names of his officers, or cares to know. Indeed, I once asked a Spanish soldier the name of his captain. "Quien sabe?" was the answer ("Who knows?"). The town of Sugh is protected by a loopholed wall, which encloses three small forts. Outside there are two large ones. The gates, of which there are three on the land side, are opened at 6 A.M. and closed at 6 P. M. All natives entering must give up their arms to the guard at the gate. The seaward gate is closed at 10 P.M., after which hour no native must leave his house. One day I ventured inland for a couple of miles. None of the natives, of whom I met not a few, took the slightest notice of me. Just about a quarter of a mile from the town I passed a watch-tower, where fighting, more or less serious, was always going on. Every night the Sulus crept up, took pot-shots at the sentries, and then bolted into the bush. So at least I was told. Such was Spanish rule in the chief town of the Sulu Islands. The steam-launch arriving from Sandakan, the principal port on the eastern coast of North Borneo, I took a passage, and, sending my collection on board, bade the faithful Minico goodby, and left Sugh in the launch's boat. I do not remember the launch's name, but the Spaniards called her the Gallinero, on account of the large number of fowls which formed the greater part of her cargo. The navigator of the Gallinero was a Chinaman. I asked him how long he had filled his post. He said that was his first trip. The owner, in whose office at Sandakan he had been a clerk, had put him in charge. I am a pretty well-seasoned traveller, but this was too much. My equanimity deserted me, for the launch was a wheezy old tub which might settle down of her own accord at any moment. However, we-that is, the crew, about fifty Sulus, myself, and more than two thousand fowls-reached Sandakan safely the next day. At New Ceylon I caught the steamer for Singapore.- Contemporary Review. PAINTING IN ENAMELS. BY HUBERT HERKOMER. Of all the Fine Arts over which an unnecessary mystery has been cast, painting in enamels stands pre-eminent. In none has the worker upheld a more contemptible secrecy as regards his methods; in none has worse art work been accepted by connoisseurs; and in none has the capacity of the material been so little developed. In this paper I shall treat only of what is termed "Painters' Enamel," in contradistinction to "Miniature Enamel," and omitting those forms called cloisonné, champlevé, and translucid enamel on relief. If, as it has been said, every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every profession has its peculiar temptations, and the temptations to which enamellers succumb are mystery and secrecy. The ignorance of the public in the art of enamelling has largely contributed to this, as the very word "enamel" conveys to the public mind little more than the idea of a "shiny" surface. Hitherto this art has been treated by writers in an historical and archæo logical, rather than artistic, sense. They have sought to find proofs as to whether enamels existed before or after the Christian Era; to find marks to identify the workers; have worried. over the relationship of one worker to another, whether brother, son, or nephew. And between Jules Labarte, Ferdinand de Lasteyrie, F. de Vernaille, Alfred Darcel, and others, there has been much strife. But all this has not helped to revive, or to make the public interested in, this art, which. we may say, died in the seventeenth century, before a tithe of its possibilities had been developed. That no serious Renaissance has yet taken place is somewhat the fault of the artists. Perhaps in this way the excitement of overcoming technical difficulties is not a pleasurable sensation to all natures. The methods of painting in oil or water-colors are practically so direct, that long practice with these mediums leaves the artist little inclined to do work so complex -work that depends for its results on the action of fire. Artists, as a rule, appear to dislike experimenting, a mental phase accounting in some measure for their neglect of this particular art an art which, to my thinking, stands alone for its glory of color, dignity of quality, and certainty of durability. Its practice, fraught with so many complex difficulties, requires cotresponding capabilities in the worker. He must be a good draughtsman, designer, and colorist. He must have an intuitive faculty for inventing ways. and means. He must be patient, methodical, and accurate, and above all, an inborn craftsman. Add to these a finely attuned artistic nature, and a fund of enthusiasm, and you have the mental endowments needful to the painter in enamel. The question will be asked, did the sixteenth century enamellers possess all these virtues? The answer is clearly-No! I am, however, not writing of that which has been done in enamel painting, but what could be done. Nor do I speak of impossibilities, for I could name artists who have these qualities of mind. There are some mediums in which poor work is less disgusting than in others; water-color is one. Perhaps, on account of its special richness of quality, poor work in enamels is less offensive than in oil-colors. But I do not take this as a recommendation. I say, advisedly, that in no medium can the splendor of nature's coloring, in all its subtleties of tone, light, and depth, be so nearly approached as in enamels. The limitations arise from the handling, not the material. Perhaps all such sweeping assertions are a little unjust. But it is better to court antagonism than to quench enthusiasm. And now, what is enamel? The answer is, roughly, glass; say, ordinary window glass, with certain mineral oxides fused into it to give it color. Mr. Starkie Gardiner, in his preface to the "Catalogue of the Enamel Exhibition," held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, last year, says, The term 'an enamel' is now definitely understood to mean a metal object more or 66 less coated with a deposit of glass. . It is applied to the metal surface either as a dry powder or moistened into an adhesive paste, and melted in an oven or kiln. . . An artist will readily understand the application of this material, in flat tones, to interstices that are dug out of a piece of metal, or to spaces separated by little wires. But how the pictorial aspect of nature, with the subtleties of tone, light, and depth (not to mention drawing), is to be approached with any certainty of handling by means of this dry or moistened powder of ground glass, he will doubtless fail to see without a further knowledge of the curious technical device invented in the fourteenth century, which opened out a new world to the enameller. About that time the glass painters made great improvements, not only in their technique, but in their representation of subjects. "Artists had begun to paint superficially upon glass with enamel colors," and had discarded the mosaic grounds of colored glass. Now, as the enamels on copper, so esteemed for several centuries, were losing their value, all the fashion running in the direction of the precious metals of gold and silver, ornamented with translucent enamels, the enamellers of Limoges were compelled to invent some entirely new method by which they could carry out subjects in a more pic torial way, and so, by offering a substantial novelty, aiter the trend of fashion. Probably the glass painters gave the clue to what must always be considered a most ingenious method. Instead of cutting out the parts to receive the colors, separating the spaces by wire, or engraving the subject on metal in relief-all clumsy and almost impossible devices for pictorial effects they first covered the whole copper plate with a dark enamel; upon this they worked up" their design with white (oxide of tin) mixed with a volatile oil, such as lavender-getting every gradation of tone, from the dark foundation ground to the highest lights, by its successive application, and by subjecting the plate several times to the fire to complete the picture, in what they called "grisaille," or black and white. Here is a process that lends itself readily to the artist's hand. As the work is gradually developed, after each firing the drawing can be improved and augmented. There is a fixed outline from the beginning, which can be retained or lost at will. In making this outline, all the skill of the etcher can be indulged in on the glazed, dark enamel surface a coating of the white, much diluted with the oil, is spread as evenly as possible. This is dried, but not fired; that is, subjected to heat only sufficiently to evaporate the oil, leaving the white a light brown color with a mat" surface. On to this the design is transferred, and the outline made with a needle, which removes the dried white, exposing the dark ground below; thus producing a clear line, comparable to the finest etched line. No wonder the old enamellers "cross-hatched" here and there at this stage of the process. It is most tempting to do so, and such lines often give great value to certain tones or shadows, as may be frequently seen in Fred Walker's, or, still more, in Sir John Gilbert's water-color works. 66 So far the artist has no difliculty in producing his black and white picture. Now comes the truly wonderful palette to his hand for the tinting of his monochrome picture. The enameller of the present day has over a hundred shades of color. But the enamels vary in hardness-that is, some fuse more rapidly than others, and thereon hangs the one great difficulty in the manipulation. Some, it should be mentioned, are transparent, and some opaque, but all alike can be thinned down with flux (glass) as water-colors with water. Again, enamels can be mixed, or overlaid, just as other colors. The plate may have to be subjected to the fire ten to fifteen times before it is completed. It will now be understood that to paint successfully in enamels, exact planning beforehand is imperative, and such planning is both difficult and irksome to the artist. But unless every stage of the work is carefully calculated, the result is an almost certain failure-not that the great difficulty lies in the firing, but in planning the application of the different colors, according to their power of fire-endurance. While in the muffle, or kiln, the work can be watched by a frequent opening of the door, and when the glaze appears the firing is sufficient. This is all one has to judge at that time, for enamel colors pass through strange mutations when red hot, and do not recover their original character of color until cold. It would be useless in an article of this kind, especially meant for laymen, to be too technical, or to go into questions of the manufacture of enamels. But I must slightly touch this side of the subject in order to explain a most important difference between the enamels, properly so called, and the vitrified paints used for what was formerly termed "miniature enamel" painting. Leonard Limousin, the most renowned enameller of the sixteenth century, was already in possession of a few of these vitrified paints. He made some important experiments, on a rather large scale, of painting with these colors on a white ground of enamel, resulting only in the appearance of pottery painting. Nobody followed on his experiments until, in 1632, Jean Toutin invented a most extensive palette of these colors, which started miniature enamel painting. Offering no more difficulties in manipulation than water-colors on ivory or parchment, it soon killed the older and more difficult manipulation with enamels. stands it) both the old and the new workers have signally failed. Vitrified paints, with their "china-painting" character, will not give it, and the old masters failed with enamels. But I emphatically declare it can be obtained with transparent or substantial enamels, and that must be the first triumph of the new renaissance in painting in enamel. What painter in oils or water-colors, for instance, would not wish to produce in these mediums a nude figure that was at once high in key and low in tone? This desirable effect can be obtained in enamels, and I go so far as to say only in enamels, but there must be no mixing up of this china-painting. Should a vitrified paint render service for what we painters call "under-painting," well and good (providing it stands the firing), but there its use should end. It must be clearly understood that I only use the word "china-painting" disparagingly when its peculiar quality appears in the art of enamel painting; on the art of painting on earthenware I have nothing to say. But now, to differentiate between the vitrified paint and the enamel so highly praised. A potent charm, in addition to purity and brilliancy of color, in what I have called "substantial" enamel, is the mysterious absence of palpable surface--surface, so often distressing, and always troublesome, in all other color pigments. In these enam I wish to emphasize the difference between the two kinds of enamel, because, even in the limited modern re-els we are aware only of color, and that vival, Leonard's bad habit of stippling up the faces of his portraits with such "paints," applying pure enamel only to the broad tones of background and clothes, has been carried to such a length, with the greater number of vitrified colors at one's disposal, that all chance of further development of the greater and nobler material, the use of which almost ceased in the seventeenth century, is hopelessly at a standstill. The result in quality is only, as it were, a combination of enamel and china painting. For the highest evolution of enamelling, it is the "substantial" enamel that must be experimented with; and primarily, to succeed in the realization of flesh-color, the criterion of all painting. But in true flesh painting (as the artist under because it floats, so to speak, in a body of glass placed on the plate sometimes to the thickness of a twentieth of an inch. This peculiarity is, no doubt, owing to the color, due to the oxide having been fused into the body of glass. Not so the "vitrified paints;" for in these the flux or glass is crushed in water with the oxide, and not fused beforehand. These vitrified paints, if placed upon a piece of metal and subjected to fire, would come out without a glaze; therefore, in order to produce. such a glaze, they require to be placed upon a coating of enamel; and being excessively fine and thin of body-as well as of invariable opacity, requiring but little firing-they always remain on the surface. This excessive fineness and thinness of body no doubt enables the artist to obtain a minute finish. But it has necessarily neither depth nor transparency, and is garish in color. This kind of painting, which ripened into its full capacity almost instantly, and nearly as rapidly declined, is eminently, in the present day, a commercial commodity, as exemplified in any jeweller's shop, where pretty faces of the "plum-box" ideality can be seen on brooches, watches, etc., made by the thousand abroad. The tendency to imitate the old work in enamel painting is another stoppage to development. To begin with, the enamellers of the sixteenth century rarely did their own designs, and made, so far as drawing is concerned, a wretched failure of even the Raphael engravings so freely circulated among them. The artist should look to the possibilities of the undeveloped material; should put his identity into his work, and so lift this glorious medium for artistic expression out of its undeserved oblivion. But to base his style on the limitations of the early workmen in the material-who were workmen, and not artists-is illogical, and, as we see, unnecessary. As for appreciation, the collectors of old work are few in number, and the general public know nothing about enamels-either modern or ancient. Indeed, one friend asked me if it was the same as "Aspinall's enamel !"" Therefore, a new public must be created, and a new public will be, when the right work appears. As for the exhibition of such work, at present there is no gallery in which it can be exhibited in a worthy manner. The subterfuge of the Sculpture room in our Academy, or a gangway in the Paris Salon is not adequate.-Fortnightly Review. E. MEISSONIER-PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS AND ANECDOTES. BY CHARLES YRIARTE. MEISSONIER, the celebrated French artist, is such a well-known figure, his works, reproduced by engravings, are so widespread throughout the whole world, that it seems to me as if his name alone were sufficient to recall his image. A little man, with a thick set and powerful frame, a head of the type of Michael Angelo, a flowing beard like that of a river god, and short thick hair that hides a narrow forehead, one hand supporting a pensive brow, while in the other he holds an immense palette worthy of a giant's thumb, and robed from head to foot in a blood red Arab garment-such is the portrait he has left of himself in three pictures, and thus he is represented by Antoine Mercié, the great sculptor who has carved his image in marble, and thus immortalized his features on the façade of the Gallery of Apollo of the Louvre, in the gardens of the Infanta. As a man he liked to create an impression, loved show and display, and thisted for fame and distinction; nevertheless he strove more to deserve these than merely to seek for them, and honors came to him as to the most worthy. Correct in all things, he had a natural love of retirement, and led a secluded life in the country, at his lovely residence the Abbey of Poissy, and even after he became famous aud wealthy, and had built the handsome mansion, Place Malesherbes-of which the memory alone survives-his house was barred from intruders, his life given up to incessant work, and his doors opened only to true friends, chosen among the greatest and most worthy. Of all the celebrated modern painters of Europe, most of whom I have been personally acquainted with, Meissonier's personality stands out as the most curious and interesting in regard to painting, both on account of his particular method and process of worth, and because of his wonderful power, conscientiousness, and respect for his Art. The man himself was extremely picturesque and living, his physiognomy and character invite study, and his life is full of anecdotes. |