The Mountain Home of Roswell Shurtleff Author(s): Mrs.

Oliver Bell Bunce Source: The Decorator and Furnisher, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Jul., 1896), pp. 104-105 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25584997 . Accessed: 14/09/2013 22:45
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o4 THE DECORATOR
THE nOUNTAIN HOME OF ROSWELL Bell Bunce. SHURTLEFF.

AND

FURNISHER

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By Mrs. Oliver

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seur *n art once sa^> when looking at these landscapes, if I "Well, am not ^lzzy* * should say those see are moving. branches Why, leaves." the rustle of the autumn And in the the heart of the in so, great Adirondacks, summer time, lives Roswell the artist. Shurtleff, Some years ago this clever man made a visit to this picturesque region for the sole purpose of illustrating a book, and so charmed was he by its natural advantages that he resolved to purchase a tract of land and build thereon a summer home." forest was to Having heard that a piece of primeval be burnt down, to save it, he selected this site, on which now stands his present studio home. so this cottage is named?is Shirecliffe?for purely an The first story is built original design of its master. of split logs, on which,is the bark in all its grey mark ings. From the lower part the house is shingled up into the very gables. These colors, so well graduated, and shade from red into brown, while the woodwork . doors are of dark green, so that it partakes of the tints of the woods. " that the trees surround Some artist friend declared ing the place turned in the autumn to match the Shurt leff home."

painter of thewoods. A connois

are in every ex tures. They and it in many homes, hibition, *s ^e al?ne who stands as the great

The upper part of the walls are covered with a rich burlap in Indian red, while the dado is made of the grey is bark of the trees. But, after all, the chimney-piece in reality the focus of the room, an artistic medley of well-chosen In the centre is a vampire bat objects. from Ceylon, three feet from tip to tip. This animal is a the wind reaches it, suspended by wire, so when it swoops around in an uncanny way. It is set off by the and palms, deer-heads swords, guns, snow-shoes, whole Of decorative. but immensely bewildering, course in this room are all the usual appointments of a in process lending studio, the pictures well-fitted-up

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The Studio.

From the Artist's

Own Sketch.

Mr, Shurtlefk's

Mountain Home.

This little nest lies in Keene Valley, twenty miles in a notch of the great m ountain. from Lake Champlain, is directly in front of the "The Giant of the Valley" so full of tones house, with scenery so wild, so beautiful, and tints that many of the subjects of the artist's finest pictures are within a hundred or two hundred yards of his own front door. of the place. The studio is the large apartment It is In the centre is a huge um about twenty feet square. brella which goes up into the pitch of the room?it feet?whose handle hangs down, spreads out sixteen is a lantern that serves as a light for the and on which table below.

their glorious tones, and filling the eye with the lights and shadows of the woods. a half dozen pictures Mr. Shurtleff has generally artist, his time going at once, and, being a painstaking divided in his work. is naturally And, to use the art own ist's words:?** In painting a bit of the forest I do not always paint literally all that I see, but my one on to aim is the canvas the soul of the place great put at a time when the-inspiration seizes me, and, beyond the life in the woods?what all, to give to my * subjects the artists call values '?which is generally known as an I do not know how other men paint, but atmosphere. I paint as the scene affects me. At what hours do I I see an effect early in the morning, paint ? Sometimes .and so paint at that time I have gone out before sun rise to the top of a little mountain, and laid in a sketch there." To paint anything well, this true artist asserts, one must be more or less in it,all the time. And so it iswith good cattle .paint ' ers who are really in their successful art ? they spend much with time their cattle. Mr. Shurtleff af firms "that when a picture is paint it ' ed at noonday should be brought so the in-doors, effect of a house light can be pro duced. Nature is so confusing A Corner of'the Piazza. that

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July, 1896

THE DECORATOR

AND

FURNISHER
DEVELOPMENT 4A

105
OF THE MODERN C. Weaver. LAMP.

to see what is really needed on a canvas a house-light is absolutely as one can work necessary, only from one to two hours on any picture, and do it well." is This painter of the woods maintains that autumn the best time for work. If cold, one can put up a tent, heat stones and pile them about, putting the feet on the largest, and so keeping up a good circulation. Mr. Shurt On rainy days, when in the Adirondacks, leff carries a small sheet, which he doubles over a big dis and then paints for hours without umbrella, comfort. one house. The wide piazza is of the features of the and furnished with rugs, chairs, hammocks It is well small tables. The yellow cushions which show from of the the front are, in a way, one of the landmarks It is the tea place, in the afternoons, Shurtleff home. for all guests and all friends. has now for some years been the show Shirecliffe and as many as fifty people are place in Keene Valley, there a day by the pretty wife entertained charmingly of the artist, who go away delighted to have had the of these artistic wood gems. opportunity seeing Mr. Shurtleff has lately sold one of his great pictures, "The Silent Woods," to the Metropolitan Museum, while has found its another, "The Autumn Woods," way to the Springfield Art Museum. When in the city, their, studio, in Twenty-second of is opened to the public on the afternoons Street, and Saturda)', where the artist's charming wife Tuesday to all. It is an artistic suite of bids always a welcome centre one being rooms?the the workshop of this the of woods. painter

By Edward

The Studio Mantelpiece.

UR modern lamp has had two eras of JhL in which it was *ts existence?that ./f*Sw3r^ fed with a fixed or animal oil or~fat, y^^^Sl^JK^ era ?* mineral oil an(* ^e Present W*^K53?)^ or kerosene. And I am now re- . ^^^IIm^rP^ minded that it is food for thought that Mm w^. it was as- late as 1853 that a Dr. ' ^^jEi^^ f of Pennsylvania, first sugBrewer, yf the use of rock-oil for illumi gested The oil of that time being nating. A year or two more found in certain natural springs. and boring for oil was tried, and now petroleum prac r tically lights the world. of the older era of mod To go back to the beginning ern lamps. in fact, where the old Roman To begin, little more than oil chambers type left off, and were wick was inserted. with orifices in which an absorbent used until very late years in the High The "cruise" is one of these lamps, a pioneer of lands of Scotland a cord of As the wick was merely the class. it burned in an incomplete material, loosely-plaited admission of air was not sufficient manner. The burn the gases generated to completely from the oil, carbon this causing both a smoking of the unconsumed and the emanation of certain acrid gases produced by of fatty substances. This feature was the distillation the first one to impress itself upon the mind of the in ventor, and in 1783 M. Leger, of Paris, brought into use the flat wick, which, from its form, gave an increased a more perfect com access of air, and, consequently, It was found, however, after a short use of bustion. in the this form of wick, that there was a great defect a flat form of flame in that it gives very meagre light a remedied at its ends. crescent this Leger by giving Ami Argand, a physician and form to the ribbon wick. chemist of Geneva, ingeniously brought the edges of the ~ thus forming the tubular wick ribbon wick together, which bears his name to this day. This was done in 1784. Argand devoted much of his life to the improve the first tubular wick was quite ment of lamps. While a success as far as it went, his younger brother, entirely by accident, hit upon the use of a tubular glass chim A ney to increase the natural draft of the flame-cone. of the body of this chimney in close prox narrowing this inventions, imity to the flame completed Argand's contraction operating to throw the air of the outer draft soon became into the flame. involved Poor Argand with his lamp with one Lange, of Paris, and, to avoid lawsuits and ruin, joined in with him and secured French Letters Patent for a term of fifteen years. But came on and carried the at this time "the revolution vortex down into the of general promising monopoly It may be said that Argand died of a broken ruin. . heart, for his end was a sad one. was ushered The into the argand lamp, however, new century with little improvement, if we except the came no which one from knows button, Liverpool where, but was probably first used in that city, as its is its name. This button is the flat but only heritage ton placed at the top of the inner argand tube, and has for its purpose the deflecting of the air current directly. into the flame. It is to be remembered that lamps of this period burned a heavy animal oil, which was thinned _ ~" near heat the the of somewhat by For burning flame. it will be seen the flame must needs this reason, be close to the surface of the oil, otherwise it would not rise freely in the wick by the capillary attraction. The was next step of invention prompted by this fact. .

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