ainters; and when they do admit that the picture is
a copy, they say it is the work of some distinguished student; that
there is no other copy in the country; or they make some other
misstatement about it. These people conceal their processes, but their
tricks are beginning to be well known to the public. Now, sir, I conceal
nothing. The day for that sort of thing is past. I want men of influence
to know the facilities I have for the production of art-work upon a
grand scale. We will first go into the basement. Sir," said he, as I
followed him down-stairs, "you know how the watch-making business has
been revolutionized by the great companies which manufacture watches by
machinery. The slow, uncertain, and expensive work of the poor toilers
who made watches by hand has been superseded by the swift, unerring, and
beautiful operations of machinery and steam. Now, sir, the great purpose
of my life is to introduce machinery into art, and, ultimately, steam.
And yet I will have no shams, no chromos. Everything shall be real--the
work of the brush. Here, sir," he continued, showing me into a long room
filled with workmen, "you see the men engaged in putting together the
frames on which to stretch my canvases. Every stick is cut, planed, and
jointed at a mill in Vermont, and sent on here by the car-load. Beyond
are the workmen cutting up, stretching, and preparing the canvas, bales
upon bales of which are used in a day. At the far end are the mills for
grinding and mixing colors. And now we will go to the upper floors, and
see the true art-work. Here, sir," he said, continuing to talk as we
walked through the rooms on the various floors, "is the landscape and
marine department. That row of men are putting in skies; they do nothing
else. Each has his copy before him, and, day after day, month after
month, paints nothing but that sky; and of course he does it with great
rapidity and fidelity. Above, on those shelves, are sky-pots of every
variety; blue-serene pots, tempest pots, sunset pots in compartments,
morning-gray pots, and many others. Then the work passes to the
middle-ground painters, who have their half-tone pots within easy reach.
After that the foreground men take it up, and the figurists put in the
men and animals. That man there has been painting that foreground cow
ever since the first of August. He can now put her in three and a half
times in fifteen minutes, and will probably rise to sixteen cows an hour
by the end