. It would, perhaps, be well to substitute this
for the usual method of evolving them from old stage material or
newspaper clippings.

There is in the Metropolitan Museum a noble modern group, the Mares of
Diomedes, by the aforementioned Gutzon Borglum. It is full of material
for the meditations of a man who wants to make a film of a stampede. The
idea is that Hercules, riding his steed bareback, guides it in a circle.
He is fascinating the horses he has been told to capture. They are held
by the mesmerism of the circular path and follow him round and round till
they finally fall from exhaustion. Thus the Indians of the West capture
wild ponies, and Borglum, a far western man, imputes the method to
Hercules. The bronze group shows a segment of this circle. The whirlwind
is at its height. The mares are wild to taste the flesh of Hercules.
Whoever is to photograph horses, let him study the play of light and
color and muscle-texture in this bronze. And let no group of horses ever
run faster than these of Borglum.

An occasional hint of a Michelangelo figure or gesture appears for a
flash in the films. Young artist in the audience, does it pass you by?
Open your history of sculpture again and look at the usual list of
Michelangelo groups. Suppose the seated majesty of Moses should rise,
what would be the quality of the action? Suppose the sleeping figures of
the Medician tombs should wake, or those famous slaves should break their
bands, or David again hurl the stone. Would not their action be as heroic
as their quietness? Is it not possible to have a Michelangelo of
photoplay sculpture? Should we not look for him in the fulness of time?
His figures might come to us in the skins of the desert island solitary,
or as cave men and women, or as mermaids and mermen, and yet have a force
and grandeur akin to that of the old Italian.

Rodin's famous group of the citizens of Calais is an example of the
expression of one particular idea by a special technical treatment. The
producer who tells a kindred story to that of the siege of Calais, and
the final going of these humble men to their doom, will have a hero-tale
indeed. It will be not only sculpture-in-action, but a great Crowd
Picture. It begins to be seen that the possibilities of monumental
achievement in the films transcend the narrow boundaries of the Action
Photoplay. Why not conceptions as heroic as Rodin's Hand of God, where
the first pair are clasped in the gigantic fi