Moreover, in those ages, all artistic representation was highly conventional. What would the Oriental artist who designed the first willow-pattern plate give us by way of a picture of a torpedo-boat destroyer? How far an ingrained instinct for the conventional treatment of things may lead the artist astray, was well shown in some of the Japanese and Chinese illustrations of events in the war between China and Japan in 1894-95. Many of the most curious of these were executed by eye-witnesses of the operations commemorated, and were obviously intended to be honest records, so far as the conventionalities permitted. Where absolute ignorance of the real nature of the object represented has co-operated with conventionalism as abject as any that ever limited a Chinaman, no result that can be very edifying to the modern eye is to be expected.
.jpg)
MISLEADING EFFIGY OF A SHIP, AS SHOWN ON GAS-STANDARDS CAST IN 1837 FOR THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE MINISTRY OF MARINE, PARIS.
(From Jal's 'Archéologie Navale,' 1840.)
account of the vicinity of that Ministry, and in order to commemorate the transport to France, by the French navy, of the obelisk of Luxor. Here is one proof. The 'Almanack Royal et National' of the same date informs us that in the Louvre there was a Naval Museum, that at the head of the Ministry of Marine there was a vice-admiral, that to assist this vice-admiral there was a Conseil de l'Amirauté, and, finally, that there were two painters attached to the Ministry. Here is another proof. It is impossible to suppose that, under the very noses of such authorities, artists could have made imaginary representations of ships, and the Government could have adopted such representations in prefrence to more accurate ones." As may be seen, the artist of 1837 played fast and loose as well with the wind as with the ship. His wind blows in two directions simultaneously; and the ship apparently progresses stern foremost. 'Archéologie Navale' i. 36-38.
