"Easel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lightning, hovering over splitting trees on the verges of awful precipices; hurricanes, shipwrecks, waves, and whirlpools follow each other on his canvas, without an intervening glimpse of quiet everyday nature to relieve the succession of pictorial horrors. When I see him at his easel, so neat and quiet, so unpretending and modest in himself, with such a composed expression on his attentive face, with such a weak white hand to guide such bold, big brushes, and when I look at ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... studio came from a window in the roof, and was concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save for three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter's corselet, that hung upon ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... him set forth, long before milk-carts had begun to rattle along the streets, and on one such expedition, as he stepped briskly through a poor district south of the river, he was surprised to see an artist at work, painting seriously, his easel in the dry gutter. He slackened his pace to have a glimpse of the canvas, and the painter, a young, pleasant-looking fellow, turned round and asked if he had a match. Able to supply this demand, Warburton talked whilst the other ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the spinning wheel and knitting needle occupied in the past? No, no! Machinery has taken the labors of woman as well as man on its tireless shoulders; the loom and the spinning wheel are but dreams of the past; the pen, the brush, the easel, the chisel, have taken their places, while the hopes and ambitions of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... a thousand proofs that the old masters and all good painters from Raphael onwards executed their frescoes from cartoons and their little easel pictures from more or less finished drawings.... Your model gives you exactly what you want to paint neither in character of drawing nor in colour, but at the same time you cannot do ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of to many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... abruptly in a window looking over Paris. There is a stove, a table, two chairs, and a bed. Nothing more. Two people are on. One stands at the window, looking, with a light air of challenge, at Paris. Down stage, almost on the footlights, is an easel, at which an artist sits. The artist is Scotti, the baritone, as Marcello. The orchestra shudders with a few chords. The man at the window turns. He is a dumpy little man in black wearing a golden wig. What a figure it is! What a make-up! What a tousled-haired, down-at-heel, out-at-elbows ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... of their beauty. Under this strong impression, I packed up my traps and came back to London with the studies for my picture. I placed them on an easel in my studio and began my search for the child. At first I sought this child among my cultivated friends; married artists, musicians, highly-strung people, whose lives were passed in an atmosphere vibrating with quick impressions. But I went unrewarded. The children ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... be Faust, of course!" I said, gayly. "Why, we might mount the opera with a few supernumeraries and astonish Naples by our performance! What say you? But let us come to business. I like the picture you have on the easel there—may I see ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... of equal merit. Nay, more. The Stanze, the Transfiguration, the panels, and the three easel pictures in the Vatican are in the highest degree perfect and sublime. But they demand a stress of attention, even from the most accomplished beholder, and serious study, to be fully understood; while the Violin-player, the Marriage of the Virgin, and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... said Pitman; and then he sighed, fetched some hot water from the kitchen, and setting a glass upon his easel, first clipped his beard with scissors and then shaved his chin. He could not conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his last claims to manhood had been sacrificed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... look out upon a brave company. And sometimes people would pause to gaze at her and then shake their heads. And once a girl said, "How sad she looks! I wonder why." And once a little old lady with industrious hands set up an easel before her and squeezed little twists of colour upon a palette, then thought a long time and pursed her lips, and puzzled her brow and finally murmured, "I could never copy it. It's so—so changing." And ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... painters perhaps more than elsewhere; we never see a man sketching, or even carrying a paint- box, without rushing to the conclusion that he can paint very well. There is no cheaper way of getting a reputation than that of going about with easel, paint-box, etc., provided one can ensure one's work not being seen. And the more traps one carries the ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... portrait of Andrea del Sarto, and once his eyes rested on another copy next to his, better and truer than his, and once he stopped to pick up a girl's prune-coloured tie, which had fallen from the neighbouring easel. After this he seemed to become unconscious of his surroundings, as unconscious, indeed, as any one of the pictures near him. Any one might have been justified in mistaking him for the portrait of a man, but that his lips moved; ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... pocket, she continued in a calm tone: "But you surely will allow me to set the grand piano across one corner of the room. I care more for that than for the open fireplace that Geert has promised me. And then I am going to put your portrait on an easel. I can't be entirely without you. Oh, how I shall be homesick to see you, perhaps even on the wedding tour, and most certainly in Kessin. Why, they say the place has no garrison, not even a staff surgeon, and how fortunate it is that it is at least a watering place. Cousin von Briest, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the city he loved, called "View of Toledo." If you have, you know what Toledo looks like today, for it has changed very little since El Greco painted it. You could take your crayons or paints to the same spot across the River Tagus where he stood with his canvas and easel, and you would see the same rapids in the river, the same arched gateways in the city walls, the same cathedral spire rising from ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... somewhat suspiciously; it was not until my brother had said that he was a friend of the painter that we were permitted to pass the threshold. At length we were shown into the studio, where we found the painter, with an easel and brush, standing before a huge piece of canvas, on which he had lately commenced painting a heroic picture. The painter might be about thirty-five years old; he had a clever, intelligent countenance, with a sharp grey eye; his hair ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... row against the wall. Anne had to turn round in her chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the man fallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there was a small landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Denis leaned over her. From behind the easel at the other side of the room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a long time they looked at the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne looked at the pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... esplanade behind it, pointed out beautiful views over the valley; finally, showing Caper his studio, which, as it was a large room, and his padrona could impose on his good nature, was fairly glittering with copper pans, hung on the walls when not in use in the kitchen. On an easel was a painting, to be called The King of the Campagna; all that was apparent was the head and horns of the king. Wardor had thus actually spent three mouths painting on a space not so large as your fist, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had two companions. Master Freddy had joined the party, and he disputed with me the privilege of carrying the "traps," with the result that a compromise was effected, by which he carried the camp-stool, leaving me in possession of the easel, the bag, and a large ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... path he showed, Sweet pictures on his easel glowed Of simple faith, and loves of home, And virtue's golden days ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... writer, "who partakes, forgets the presence of the folding bed and gas stove; of the curtained china cupboard in friendly proximity to the writing desk or easel. There is no paint on the artist's fingers, and the newspaper woman wears as pretty a gown as any ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... that Pope, who had considerable intellectual relationship with Ibsen, also nourished in childhood the ambition to be a painter, and drudged away at his easel for weeks and months. As he to the insipid Jervases and Knellers whom he copied, so Ibsen to the conscientious romantic artists of Norway's prime. In neither case do we wish that an Ibsen or a Pope should be secured for the National Gallery, but it is highly significant that ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella. Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your brush case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your thumbnail are but ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... easel again and painted rapidly for a few minutes. Then he felt a light touch on his arm. She had left her seat noiselessly and stood beside him. She gave him a passionate, protesting look. A fire ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... least, emptie of Companie, but full of every Thing else; for there were Books, and Globes, and stringed and wind Instruments, and stuffed Birds and Beasts, and Things I know not soe much as the Names of, besides an Easel with a Painting by Mrs. Mildred on it, which she meant to be seene, or she woulde have put it away. Subject, "Brutus's Judgment:" which I thought a strange, unfeeling one for a Woman; and did not ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... group of herring weirs, which with their coronals of tufted saplings form the very most picturesque aspect of any fishing industry. You may, now and then find an artist at this point, who, crouched over his easel, or hers, seems to agree with you about the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... our colleges are full of students who are going, to far outstrip their professors, that every life-school has a dozen lads who have just begun to handle brush and easel, and are going to put Raffaelle in the shade. I suppose that every lawyer's office has a budding Lord Chancellor or two in it. And I suppose that that sharp criticism of us fumblers in the field, and half-expressed thought, 'How much better I could do it!' belong to youth by virtue of its youth. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his palette and brushes and began to roll a cigarette, while he walked backwards away from his easel, staring alternately at his ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... pursue it as I will; I recover but the setting and the fact of his brief presence in it, with nothing that was said or done beyond my being left with my father to watch our distinguished friend's secretary, who was also a young artist, establish his easel and proceed to paint. The setting, as I recall it, was an odd, oblong, blank "private parlour" at the Clarendon Hotel, then the latest thing in hotels, but whose ancient corner of Fourth Avenue and—was it Eighteenth Street?—long ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... splendid staircase, past the long picture gallery where masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens frowned and leered down upon him; descended the final stretch of broad oak stairs, crossed the hail, and entered his master's rooms. Mr. Fentolin was sitting before the open window, an easel in front of him, a palette in his left hand, painting with ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to India and—the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime, Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal easel, and the scenes of the Lusiad were in progress, "barrels were first ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever. Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch, stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... The head he cut out himself from pieces of cork, glued and bound together; it was placed over the street-door. At this time, young Benjamin West was living in chambers, in Bedford-street, Covent Garden, and had there set up his easel; he was married in 1765, at St. Martin's Church. Roubiliac was often to be found at Slaughter's in early life; probably before he gained the patronage of Sir Edward Walpole, through finding and returning to the baronet the pocket-book ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... from his easel by the window. His gray eyes kindled into a kindly smile, its welcoming effect offset by an admonitory headshake. "Not now, Son," he ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... has its limitations. The introduction of an oil vehicle for the pigment material, in the fifteenth century, made possible a much greater range in gradated color, and reinforcing the increased knowledge of light and shade, aided in the evolution of decoration into the "easel picture," complete in itself. Released from its subjection to architecture, increasing its technical resources, and widening its interests in the matter of subject so as to include all life, painting becomes an independent and ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... large room, running the entire depth of the house, and the effect of apparent disorder in the arrangement of its appointments seemed to breathe a sense of charm. There were great cozy, deep, leather-covered lounging chairs, a huge, leather-covered davenport, and an easel or two with half-finished sketches upon them; the walls were panelled, the panels of exquisite grain and matching; in the centre of the room stood a flat-topped rosewood desk; upon the floor was a dark, heavy velvet rug; and, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... anything too difficult at first," said Mrs. Otter. "Put your easel here. You'll find ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Canvas, easel, brushes, and paints were all purchased according to a list which Garstin supplied him with. He wanted, he said, everything of the best. A pupil is a pupil, especially when he pays in advance, and when pictures are not as saleable as they should be, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... said, my choice of profession decided by an enlarged crayon portrait of Mary Gillespie's deceased brother on an easel before me. He had ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scruples vanished when I got him before my easel. He was immense, and he was unexplored. From my point of view he'd never been done before—I was his Cortez. As he talked the wonder grew. His daughter came with him, and I began to think she was right in saying that he kept his best for her. It wasn't that she drew him out, or guided ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... to Shelbyville by the fame of that place at a seat of culture and knowledge, which even in that early day had spread afar. The colonel—not having won his title then—came across the river with his easel under one arm and his pride under the other. He had kept both of them ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the corner where Satan had disappeared and pointed to a table with a sketching board at one end, several canvases leaning face against the house, and an easel covered with a clean strip of linen. "My workshop. A trifle untidy, but then I am an untidy person. I'm expecting an order so I'm just whiling away my time working on an idea of my ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with her eyes fixed on the ground. A flowering laurel, however, stood between, and, taking shelter behind this, young Jolyon prepared his easel. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is very fully represented, and it might perhaps be well to turn to those pages (227-230) and read here, on our first sight of his genius, what is said. Two Angelicos are in this room—the great triptych, opposite the chief Lorenzo, and the "Crowning of the Virgin," on an easel. The triptych is as much copied as any picture in the gallery, not, however, for its principal figures, but for the border of twelve angels round the centre panel. Angelico's benignancy and sweetness are here, but it is not the equal of the "Coronation," which is ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... rolls of paper, palettes of ink, copper plates and all the materiel of etching were lying in considerable confusion about the room, and Mac himself, draped in a blue cotton overall, stood in negligent attitude against an easel, drinking a cup of tea. I had caught the phrase, "They're a funny lot," and I divined that Bill's hasty offer of cookies was a mere ruse to put me off the track of a ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... worse than any she was likely to perpetrate. Mr. Hoskin assured her that there were many in the gallery who could not do as well as she. And she experienced a little thrill when he led her to the easel. A beautiful white canvas stood on it ready for her to begin, and on a chair by the side of the easel was her paint-box and brushes. He told her where she would find him, in the Turner room, and that she must not hesitate to come and fetch him ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... occasion from obscure young men of less than modest fortune. He was intent, he was earnest, he was even a bit peremptory; but she felt perfectly certain that he was not treating her as a subject and a subject merely. His black eyes looked at her with a sort of sharp severity across the leg of the easel, and his rasping crayon promptly scratched down his impressions upon the promising blank of his canvas. Preciosa was slightly puzzled, but on the whole pleased. She knew she was worth looking at, and felt herself fit to stand the keenest scrutiny. She leaned back easily in her chair. Let time attend ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... didn't know anythin' a-tall about Mrs. Macy's troubles. We had our own, Heaven help us, an' they was enough, for the very first thing of all Mr. Dill caught his pocket on the corner of Mrs. Dill an' come within a ace of pullin' her off her easel. That would have been a pretty beginnin' to Lucy's weddin' day if her father had smashed her mother to bits, I guess, but it couldn't have made Lucy any worse; for I will say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I never see no one in all my born life act foolisher than Lucy Dill this day. First she'd laugh an' then ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... was not so difficult. We passed around the world—Greece, India, Japan. She came and sat by my side when I took my easel; every stroke of my brush seemed like a miracle. A hundred times she would cry out her delight. Naturally that amused me. From time to time I would suspend the sittings and reward my patient ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... lady very well, reclining in her father's great chair. Her hall was roomy enough; it had its space for Sam Winnington's easel as well as Clary's harpsichord, and, what was more useful, her spinning-wheel, besides closets and cupboards without number. Sam Winnington entertained Clarissa; he was famous in years to come for keeping his sisters in good humour. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the studio, near the open windows, Beryl had placed the plateau basket of orchids on the table; and she stood before an easel, transferring to the surface of a concave brass plaque, the fluted outlines of the scarlet and orange ribbons, the vivid green, purple and golden-brown lips, the rose velvet cups, the tender canary-hued calyxes of the glistening floral mass, whose aroma seemed a panting breath from equatorial ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and canvas. They generally painted upon panels or tables, and very rarely upon walls; and an easel, similar to what is now used, was common among the ancients. These panels, when finished, were fixed into frames of various descriptions and materials, and encased in walls. The ancients used also a palette very similar ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... approaching the horizon, its slanting rays found a young artist still bending over his easel. That his shoulders are broad is apparent at a glance; that upon them is placed a shapely head, well thatched with crisp black hair, is also seen at once; that the head is not an empty one is proved by the picture on ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... is, they were painted directly upon the plaster walls of churches and sometimes of palaces. A few pictures, chiefly altar pieces, were executed on wooden panels, but it was not until the sixteenth century that easel paintings, that is, detached pictures on canvas, wood, or ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... and laughing. This was as it should be. Fun, youth, gaiety. She went to her easel in the north room, humming Joan's old ballad, and never did better work in her life than she ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... one day," said an old painter as he watched a little fellow named Michael Angelo making drawings of pot and brushes, easel and stool, and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy did persevere until he had overcome every difficulty and become the greatest master of art the world has known. Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in three different occupations,—and his fame might well rest upon ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... amusement, in which it was once his boast their retirement was so rich, now interested him. In vain Lady Armine sought his society in her walks, or consulted him about her flowers. His frigid and monosyllabic replies discouraged all her efforts. No longer did he lean over her easel, or call for a repetition of his favourite song. At times these dark fits passed away, and if not cheerful, he was at least serene. But on the whole he was an altered man; and his wife could no longer resist the miserable conviction that ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... foliage luminous under those long shafts of sunshine which grow thinner but ruddier toward sunset. A path closely bordered by underbrush wound its way to the glade, crossed it, then wandered away into shady dingles again; and with my easel pitched in the mouth of this path, I sat at work, one late afternoon, wonderful for its ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... too, left the breakfast table, and wandering into the garden saw Kenneth busy at his easel in a shady corner. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... room. The Hopper had never visited a studio before, and satisfied now that he was the sole occupant of the house, he passed passed about shooting his light upon unfinished canvases, pausing finally before an easel supporting a portrait of Shaver—newly finished, he discovered, by poking his finger into the wet paint. Something fell to the floor and he picked up a large sheet of drawing paper on which this ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... think," said I, "that the artist even of that picture laid aside his brush heavily, when he sighed to himself that he must call it finished. I believe that in all the days that it lay upon his easel he went to it many times with weariness, because there was monotony in the work,—because the work that he had laid out for himself in his fancy was far above what he could execute with his fingers. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... withdrawn from the world, and great deeds would be done by her husband. "I could almost paint myself here," she said to him, "it all looks so quaint and lovely." Jack liked the place, and quickly set up his easel under the trees down by the stone pier where the fishing-boats landed and where there was always a noisy, lively scene. Milly idled near by in the sand with the baby. But the work did not go fast. She thought that Jack must be fagged after the long winter indoors, and urged ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... went to bed, she found that Uncle Alec had not forgotten her; for on the table stood a delicate little easel, holding two miniatures set in velvet. She knew them both, and stood looking at them till her eyes brimmed over with tears that were both sweet and sad; for they were the faces of her father and mother, beautifully copied ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... hotel, Therese received the distinguished guests who visited there, with the stately courtesy befitting a high-born countess; but in her little pavilion she was the simple and enthusiastic child of art. Her boudoir contained little besides a harp, a harpsichord, and an easel which stood by the arched window opening into a flower-garden. Near the easel was a small marble table covered with palettes, brushes, and crayons. When Therese retired to this boudoir, her maid was accustomed to keep watch lest ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... careless scrutiny of the hostess he falls dramatically into an attitude of awed entrancement. Reverently he gazes upon the priceless bibelots within: the mother-of-pearl fan, half open; the tiny cup and saucer of Sevres on their brass easel; the miniature Cupid and Psyche in marble; the Japanese wrestlers carved in ivory; the ballet-dancer in bisque; the coral necklace; the souvenir spoon from the Paris Exposition; the jade bracelet; and the silver snuff-box ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... at his easel, painting portraits to earn money for his wife's use and comfort, and encouraging her to write, for he had faith in work. He himself would never intermit his work for a single day. He would have gladly kept her ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... had risen at dawn and come up to the grove in the early morning. She tethered her pony to graze by the roadside, and with her drawing board on a slender easel she stood on the driveway across the lakelet, busy for awhile with her paints and pencil. Then the sweetness of the morning air, the gurgling waters at the lake's outlet, once the little draw choked with wild plum bushes, and the trills ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and down the city street In and out the "Easel," That's the way the money goes, Pop goes ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... his native city, and he was professionally consulted by the authorities about the laying out of the streets of the New Town. The subject occupied much of his time and thought, especially when resting from the mental fatigue arising from a long sitting at the easel. It was his regular practice to stroll about where the building work was in progress, or where new roads were being laid out, and carefully watch the proceedings. This was probably due to the taste which he had inherited from his forebears—more especially ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture with its back turned towards the spectator. Reversing the position, there appeared the portrait of a beautiful woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even so many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fields of which I was writing the other day, I found an artist at work at his easel; and a pleasant nook be had chosen. His brush did its work with a steady and sure stroke that indicated command of his materials. He could delineate whatever he selected with technical skill at all events. He had pitched his easel where two hedges formed an angle, and one of them was full ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... glorious poem, "Love a Landscape-painter." The poet sits upon a peak and gazes before him into the mist, which, like canvas spread upon the easel, conceals all heights and expanses; then comes the God of Love and teaches him how to paint a picture on the mist. The little one now sketches with his rosy fingers a picture such as only Nature and Goethe give us. Were the poet ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... artist came to paint my portrait amid such rustic surroundings, the bird only eyed her a little suspiciously at first, and then went forward with her own affairs. One night the wind blew the easel with its canvas over against the haymow where the nest was placed, but the bird was there on her eggs in the morning. Her wild instincts did not desert her in one respect, at least: when I would flush her from the nest she would drop down to the floor and with spread ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... a small sunny clearing they beheld a tent, with the litter of a camp equipage scattered on the turf about it; and between the tent and the river, where shone the flank of a bass-wood canoe moored between the alders, an artist had set up his easel. He was a young man, tall and gaunt, and stood back a little way from his canvas with paint-brush held at a slope, while across it he studied the subject of his picture—a grey bridge and the butt-end of a grey building, with a ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Buonfigli,—that delightful decorator of the Perugian Palazzo Pubblico,—Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and even Niccolo da Foligno himself have been assigned by various critics as his teacher. Personally, I incline to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, whose easel paintings in the Gallery of Perugia seem to foreshadow the typical Perugino background; but it is yet more probable that either as a master or (as suggested by Crowe and Cavalcaselle) as a journeyman associate he may have come under the influence of Piero della Francesca, ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... the litter of sketches and pictures, casts and easels, the familiar lay-figure grotesquely attitudinising in a corner, above all the atmosphere carried him straight to Paris. It was the room of an artist, and a French artist. His eyes leaped to her. She was standing before a big easel looking wonderingly over her shoulder at the opening door, the brush she was using poised in her hand, her eyes wide with astonishment, a faint ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... then down a lane, and along the river, and through the pines, and finally to the River Swamp woods. Peter came fleet-footed to Neptune's old cabin, raced round it, and then stopped, in utter confusion and astonishment. On the back steps, with an umbrella beside her, and an easel in front of her, sat a young woman so busy getting a bit of the swamp upon her canvas that she didn't hear or see Peter until he was upon her. Then she looked up, with her ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian glass, Dresden and Sevres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been selected on account of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... 18411 was searching for a studio in which to set up my easel. My 'house-hunting' ended at the New York University, where I found what I wanted in one of the turrets of that stately edifice. When I had fixed my choice, the janitor, who accompanied me in my examination of the rooms, threw open a door on the opposite side of the hall and invited me to enter. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... town and have a thoroughly good time. As the idea struck him he looked round the studio. The corners were dismal and shadowy. Everything not in the immediate circle of the fire looked grey and cheerless. His easel, with a bit of drapery thrown across it, was like a spectre with outstretched arms. It suggested despair. He could think of no one whom he wanted to see. There wasn't a soul he knew whom he would not in this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... hair, a long fair beard, but eyes of dark brown, the effect of which contrast reminded Paynter vaguely, he hardly knew why, of a Russian. The stranger carried his knapsack into many picturesque corners; he obtained permission to set up his easel in that high garden where the late Squire had held his al fresco banquets. But Paynter had never had an opportunity of judging of the artist's work, nor did he find it easy to get the artist even to talk of his art. Cyprian himself was always ready to talk of any art, and he talked of it excellently, ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back, like a painter from his easel, and survey her ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... praise her at the expense of Boucher's "conventionality"; but she never painted a portrait that surpassed the Wallace "Pompadour" or the "Infant Orleans," to say nothing of other rare portraits from Boucher's easel. To set her up in rivalry against one of the greatest decorative artists of the years is but to give her an ugly fall. The astounding part is not that she painted better than she did, but that she achieved ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... noble mansion belonging to a merchant prince, to see his great picture of Columbus before the Council explaining his theory. This is a first-class execution. The coloring is very fine, and the drawing good; and we all felt pride in seeing such a picture from the easel of our countryman. I wish we had some good painting of his in America. His portraits are excellent, and one of his wife has earned him his high reputation in Holland. Through the kindness of this gentleman we ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... stool, before his easel, looking vacantly at the unfinished picture, as one stunned and breathless. For the purport of this message was not to be mistaken. Nor did his conscience leave him in doubt as to his duty, O God! was this, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... and a large family of children to cope with, so it was small wonder that cobwebs hung in the passages and the dust lay thick and untouched. It is sometimes wiser not to see behind the scenes in country rooms. Miss Barton had set up her easel in the great hall, and absolutely revelled in painting the grey oak and plaster-work, nevertheless she had a tale ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Lewis, of Philadelphia, furnishes me seven numbers of his Indian Portfolio. Few artists have had his means of observation of the aboriginal man, in the great panorama of the west, where he has carried his easel. The results are given, in this work, with biographical notices of the common events in the lives of the chiefs. Altogether, it is to be regarded as a valuable contribution to this species of knowledge. He ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... opened January 18, 1881, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the chair. The first session was devoted to a memorial service for Lucretia Mott. The stage was decorated with draperies and flowers and a large portrait of Mrs. Mott stood on an easel. An exquisite floral harp was presented by the colored citizens of the District. In the audience were many distinguished people, including Mrs. Hayes and her guests from the White House, members of the Supreme ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby kicking about among the dry pine-needles on a ledge above the Au Sable, in the valley below, while its young mother sat near, with an easel before her, touching in the color of a reluctant landscape, giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of the Twin Mountains, and bestowing every third glance upon the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... went into the studio. The model had gone, and the artist stood before his easel surveying ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... way to a private sitting-room which he had secured for himself in the hotel at almost fabulous terms. It was a small apartment, but it had the advantage of a long French window which opened out into the garden. Here, on an easel, was a canvas with its back turned ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... very pleased to see his wife so enthusiastic. He politely carried her camp-stool and easel for her, and never lost patience when he remained for hours and hours near her whilst she worked. He lay in the scanty shadow of a palm-tree, and used to follow the movements of her brush over the top of his book. How fortunate that her art gave ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... not a breath of air. Perhaps it was that—a touch of the sun. So I stopped painting and went and sat on the trunk of a blown-up tree close by, when suddenly I was thrown on the back of my head on the ground. My heavy easel was upset, and one of the skulls went through the canvas. I got up and thought a lot, but came to the conclusion I had better just go on working, which I did, and nothing further strange happened. That night I happened to meet Joffroy, and told him about these skulls, and how peculiar one ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... modelling, or drawing large cartoons in charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... assure me that I was in the favoured abode of beauty. A table littered with a variety of those flimsy trifles which ladies are wont to dignify with the name of "work" occupied the centre of the room, a harp stood in one corner and a guitar in another, an easel supporting an unfinished sketch in water-colours stood by one of the two windows which lighted the room, and a small bookcase filled with elegantly-bound books occupied a niche in one of the walls. A tiny riding-gauntlet of embroidered leather trimmed with lace, and a gold-mounted ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... been sitting to him for three consecutive hours. Truth to tell, she is tired to death of it—tired of the room, the palette, the easel, the queen, the rhymer, the little dusky imp in the corner, whose wings are changing into scales and a tail, almost tired of dear Simon Perkins himself; who is working contentedly on (how can he?) as if life contained nothing more ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... not answer, but remained motionless, he pushed her behind the screen. 'Good heavens! what a lot of fuss,' he thought. And after spreading his own sheets on the couch, and hanging his clothes on an easel, he quickly went to bed himself. When he was on the point of blowing out the candle, however, he reflected that if he did so she would have to undress in the dark, and so he waited. At first he had not heard her stir; she had no doubt remained ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... they plight their troth and break the piece of gold, it is we—not Edgar—who quickly exchange our half for the half she was about to hang about her neck, solely because the latter has for an instant touched the bosom we so dearly love. Again, in the Lady of Lyons: the picture on the easel in the poor cottage studio is not the unfinished portrait of a vain and arrogant girl, but becomes the sketch of a Soul's high ambition and aspiration here ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... He gave an invocatory sweep with his brush, and the spirit of complete modernity descended and perched upon the top of his easel. "Just wait; it will be so naive; it will seem so improvised, so spontaneous—a regular ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... were arranged on the bench, like ornaments on a drawing-room mantelpiece. On the opposite side of the room was a large, massively-constructed copying camera, the front of which, carrying the lens, was fixed, and an easel or copyholder travelled on parallel guides towards, or away, from it, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... lunch, Paul found his way to the address given him by the artist. The room was dark and scantily furnished. Mr. Henderson sat before an easel, trying to work. He got up hastily ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... hours," said the Red Emperor testily, "and so has the easel, also the paints and palette; and the canvas is stretched and the sketch made. You have nothing to do but to mount up to your seat, and fill in with colours. Shade away, beginning at the left corner, and ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... de places, and make de rest of de places live. See, I make dat window be put in—you find no better light in New York. Den you see, here we have de alcove, where Madame Campbell shall sit and make her sewing, while de husband do his work on de easel. How you like dat portiere? I design him myself—oh, yes, I do all here; you keep them if you like; I go to Germany, perhaps not come back after some years, so I leave dem, not so? Now I show you my little chamber of the piano. See, I make ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... On the easel, stood a nearly finished painting,—a sunny corner of the old manor kitchen, with Betsy Todd in lilac print gown, peeling apples by the open window, through which one caught a glimpse of the tall hollyhocks in ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... silence she sat down on an old-fashioned sofa covered with dull green and red silk. Just behind it on an easel stood a half-finished portrait of the Cora woman, staring with hungry eyes ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... window, and the feet sank with a delicate pleasure into a thick velvety carpet. In the centre a small inlaid table of cedar wood held a silver tea-service. The candlesticks were of silver also, and cast in a light and fantastic fashion. The solitary discord was a black easel ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... style of painting so effective in many of his easel paintings, which show all the fine qualities of a modern impressionistic school, is not of great help in pictures intended to be viewed from a great distance. His decorations present very little opportunity for the ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... for new fields, found his way into the Ozark country. One day, as he painted in the hills, a flock of sheep came over the ridge through a low gap, and worked slowly along the mountain side. A few moments later, the worker at the easel lifted his eyes from the canvas to find himself regarded by an old man in the ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... importance without giving one word or sign of affection to that child, and that I was most earnestly anxious to know the reason, if any, for so marked an omission; but, whilst I was hesitating how to frame my remark in such a manner as to avoid the giving of offence, my father rose from before his easel, and, unlocking a cabinet which stood in ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... third day about ten children stood around asking for sous. I was foolish enough to give them some, and the following day there were twenty or thirty boys, some of them from sixteen to eighteen years old. Seeing near my easel something not particularly agreeable, I begged one of them to take it away and throw it into the sea, and for that I gave, I think, fifty centimes. When I came back the following day to finish my painting the whole population of the neighbouring ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... two rooms. One was used as a bedchamber, the other as a sitting room. On the walls were a few pictures, and on a small bookcase against one side of the room were some twenty-five books. There was an easel and an unfinished picture in one corner, and a small collection ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... composure. The room was small and barely furnished; a couch, two deep arm-chairs, and a small table filled its limited area. The walls and roof were painted a pale green, and a carpet of the same delicate hue covered the floor. Of course, there were the usual painting materials, brushes and easel and palettes and tubes of color, together with a slightly raised platform near the one window where the model could sit or stand. The window itself had no curtains and was filled with plain ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... the incredible exertions of all the performers." Shortly after his arrival in England, about 1770, De Loutherbourg became a contributor to the exhibition of the Royal Academy. In 1780 he was elected an Associate; in the following year he obtained the full honours of academicianship. His easel-pictures were for the most part landscapes, effective and forcible after an unconventional fashion, and wholly at variance with the "classically-composed" landscapes then in vogue. Turner, when, in 1808, he was appointed ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the sweet image of the Virgin before which he himself would kneel in adoration. Legend pictures him devoutly prostrate in prayer before commencing work, that his soul might be purified, and fitted to understand and render the divine subject; and again in oration after leaving his easel, to thank heaven for having given him power to make his holy visions ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... once into a room on the ground floor. The fire was blazing in the grate; an arm-chair, with a reading easel attached, was placed by it; the lamp was ready lit; the tea-things were placed on the table; the dark, thick curtains were drawn close over the window; and, as if to complete the picture of comfort before me, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... both for those who paint and for those who hang pictures, that this subject should be taken into consideration. For it must be seen by this illustration that a bigger style is adopted by the artists who paint for high places in palaces or churches than by those who produce smaller easel-pictures intended to be seen close. Unfortunately, at our picture exhibitions, we see too often that nearly all the works, whether on large or small canvases, are painted for the line, and that those which ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... returned from the back room, he brought with him an unframed canvas which he put on an easel near his clay figure. We drew close about it, for the darkness was rapidly coming on. Despite the dullness of the light, we instantly recognized the boy of Hartwell's "Color Sergeant." It was the portrait of a very handsome lad in uniform, standing ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... a moment and then released it. His eyes wandered to the picture which stood on the easel in its accustomed place. He moved towards it and stood looking down at it ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... studio, and part a good many other things. A large picture—the canvas measured six feet—was being worked upon on this second morning after the young dog's arrival; and, as was perversely ruled, it was just here that an accident occurred that might well have been judged impossible. The easel, in fact, with its huge canvas, was overset, carrying many things into limbo as they fell; and with the fate that too often pursues the unfortunate, Murphy therefore found himself suddenly buried beneath a ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... picture, and represented the interior of an artist's atelier. In the foreground a dissipated-looking young man tilted his chair backward as he held his gloves in one hand, and with the other stroked his mustache, while he contemplated a picture standing on an easel before him. The face was hard, worn, blase; the features, originally good, and even beautiful, had had all the latent loveliness worn out of them by a wrong, unbeautiful life. He wore a tall hat, very much to one side, as if to accent the fact that the rest of the company, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... Erskine suddenly, catching sight of a photograph in a rich gold and coral frame on a miniature easel draped with ruby velvet. Trefusis turned quickly, so evidently gratified that Sir Charles hastened to say, "Charming!" Then, looking at the portrait, he added, as if a little startled, "It certainly is an extraordinarily ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the cablegram. Then, with a half-bewildered, half-disgusted glance around at his studio, his belongings, the unfinished work on his easel, he went ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... constancy is the cause of many a failure, making the millionaire of to-day a beggar to-morrow. Show me a really great triumph that is not the reward of persistence. One of the paintings which made Titian famous was on his easel eight years; another, seven. How came popular writers famous? By writing for years without any pay at all; by writing hundreds of pages as mere practise-work; by working like galley-slaves at literature for half a lifetime with no ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... declaration of independence did not prohibit a general tidying in other respects. The north window shade was rolled up and the sash raised; the easel drawn out into place before the low stool; and the jacket and pipe arranged conveniently at hand for the master ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... which former occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily profile; local celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a romantic landscape splashed in oil. Meanwhile artist after artist drops into the salle-a-manger for coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, and paint-box, bound into a fagot, and sets of for what he calls his 'motive.' And artist after artist, as he goes out of the village, carries with him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who belong only nominally to any special master, hang about the ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson |
