Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

THE ART AND “MYSTERY” OF SCENE-PAINTING. 303 Photo ; Cassell & Co., Ltd. SHIFTING- THE SCENES. patience, but its importance is manifest, and no scene-painter begrudges the time he has to spend upon his model, even when he knows that he will have to toil early Photo: Cassell & Co., Ltd. A SCENE-PAINTER (MR. RYAN) AT WORK ON A EOREST SCENE WHICH IS LOWERED OR RAISED THROUGH THE FLOOR AS OCCASION DEMANDS. and late to get the work finished by the stipulated time. The model, when at last it is completed, is submitted to the manager’s considera- tion. It may be that he or the author desires some alteration, generally an in- considerable one. When the modification has been made, the model is handed over to the master carpenter, who constructs the framework which is to receive the canvas. Having been affixed to the frame, the canvas is prepared by the painter’s labourers, whose business also it is to mix the colours. These are ground in water, by means of such a machine as is figured in one of our illustrations. Now the artist draws the design in chalk or char- coal, and then the colours are filled in, always, as I have said, with clue regard to the artificial conditions under which the picture has to be viewed, certain colours, therefore, which appear very differently in artificial light as compared with natural light, being avoided al- together, or modified, as the case may be. That scene-painting, like most other modes of earning one’s daily bread, is not