Being Himself in Style and Subjects, the Secret of an Artist’s
Wonderful Popularity.
NOTHING in the studio of Charles Dana Gibson suggests that it is a
studio, excepting the alien circumstance that it is artistic. Such
proof tends to puzzle the casual-minded, whose mind is trained to look
upon any sky-lighted room furnished like a pound party, and occupied by
artists, or brokers, or bachelor wholesale dealers,—as a studio.
Mr. Gibson’s studio is a real room, devoted to stern facts, and is,
therefore, beautiful. It has no furniture that is not essential. Even
the large rugs, woven of moss and mist and fire, hang on the walls like
coverings, and not by way of decoration. The wood is heavy and dark.
There are no pictures.
Mr. Gibson talks while he works. His easel stands squarely beneath
the skylight, and, as he sat before it the other day, a picture grew
under his hand while he talked about the making of an illustrator.
Everything he said was emphasized by the slow growth of the glorious
creature, who was there to show, from her pretty tilted pompadour to
the hem of the undoubted creation she was wearing, that what the famous
illustrator insisted may be done by skill and hard work can assuredly
be accomplished.
“When anyone asks me,” said Mr. Gibson, “what to do to become a
successful illustrator, I always assure him that he has thought about
the matter and doubtless knows far more about it than I do, for I know
of no rule to follow to become what one was born to be, and I certainly
know of none to prevent one from failing at something for which he has
no talent.
“If a man knows how to draw, he will draw; and all the discouragements
and all the bad teachers in the world cannot turn him aside. If he has
no ability, he will drift naturally into school-teaching and buying
stocks, without anybody’s rules to direct him either way.
“The main thing is to have been born an artist.”
Mr. Gibson said this quite simply, as if he were advising a course in
something, or five grains of medicine.
“If you were that,” he went on, “you yourself know it far better than
anyone can tell you, and you know also, in your heart, that neither
wrong teaching nor anything but idleness can prevent your success. If
you are not a born artist, you may not know it. I think I can soon say
something about the way to find your limitations, but no one can say
much to help a born genius. His genius is largely, indeed, that he
knows how to help himself.”
Lightly leaving the student of illustrating adequately provided with
having been born a genius, Mr. Gibson went on to tell what should be
his education before he begins to study art, and upon this he put on
record an opinion which is a departure from current belief.