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Show FAME WON BY ACCIDENT. feastien Lepage's First Successful Pictnr Was an Advertisement, The great French painter, Bastien Lepage, was pursued by unmerciful disaster dis-aster through his youth in his efforts to study art His mother worked in the fields to keep that sickly hoy at school. At 10 us went to .trans aione, starvea for seven years, painted without success, but still painted. He had just finished a picture to send to the salon when Paris cTmra7reiTo"the"TfencSeTolw --" On the first day a shell fell into his Btndio and destroyed his picture, and another shell fell at his feet, wounding him. He was carried home and lay ill and idle for two years. Then he returned re-turned to Paris, and, reduced to absolute abso-lute want, painted cheap fans for a living. liv-ing. One day a manufacturer of Borne patent medicine ordered a picture from him to illnstrate its virtues. Lepage, who was sincere, gave his best work to the advertisement He painted a landscape land-scape in the April sunlight The leaves of tender green quivered in the breeze; i a group of beautiful girls gathered around a fountain from which the elixir of youth sprang in a bubbling stream. Lepage believed there was real merit in it "Let me offer it at the salon, " he asked his patron. The manufacturer was delighted. "But first paint a rainbow arching over the fountain, " he said, "with the name of my medicine upon it " Lepage refused. re-fused. "Then I will not pay you a sou for the picture 1" The price of this picture pic-ture meant bread for months, and the painter had long needed bread. The chance of admission to the salon was Bmall. He hesitated. Then he silenced his hunger and carried the canvas to the salon. It was admitted. Its great success insured Lepage a plaoe in public recognition and his later work a plao among the greatest of living artists. Tlurrent Literatura |
