Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 172.jpg

MEN I HAVE PAINTED "Pennell's drawings are true, and give the right proportions of the cuttings; the photographs are false."

In the same manner his drawings of the streets of New York have given the scale to all other painters and draughtsmen who have attempted, in most cases vainly, to represent the monstrous modern city. He has also presented the abnormal vastness of the Canyon of the Colorado River, and suggested in a simple and masterly fashion the temples and terraces of imaginary barbarous Babylons, that seem to grow out of the hazy, opalescent mists of that great crack in the earth's surface. I also remember a lithograph of the mound of earth at the entrance to the Fairmount Park, the site of the old city reservoir, which always reminded me of the Acropolis of Athens.

Lithography soon began to absorb the attention and tireless energy of the artist. Under the stimulus of Whistler, whose experiments on stone and paper had given to lithography a delicacy, a subtlety, and a refinement of execution before unknown, Pennell himself began to study the process of drawing on paper without previous preparation, and the methods of transference to the stone which obtained the best results. In a very short time he had not only discovered the tricks of the trade, but uncovered them, condemning many as useless, and adding others of his own invention which he found to be simple and helpful. A study of the origin and progress of the art led to the publication of Lithography and Lithographers, by Joseph Pennell and E. Robins Pennell, the first volume of a graphic art series. It was published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1915. In this valuable work the history of the art of lithography is traced from its inventor, or "finder," as the German has it, Alois Senefelder, to the present time. It is a