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Result of Queer Undertawng
Strangely Interesting and
Rctures o? Submarine Scenes
Pa.nf.ng Pictures of Strange Deep Sea
Crealures.
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IN a special salon at Chicago there
was recently placed on exhibition a
collection of what are undoubtedly
the most unique paintings in the world.
They are unparalleled in art in that
they were painted literally at the bot
tom of the ocean.
The founder of the new school of
submarine palntlnft is a young Cali
fornian, Zarh Howilson Prttchard, who
lives at Pasadena. L,lke many a pos
sessor of grenlus, he endured the bitter
ness of penury and the sneers of
those who scoff at anything which
Is an Innovation. London refused to
buy his works or to perceive that he
had opened a novel and wonderful field
In art. It was Sarah Bernhardt who
first recognized his talent. Among his
patrons today are Mrs. Russell Sage
and Miss Helen Gould.
The fishes of Tahiti, In the South Sea
Islands, were startled one day two Win
ters ago by an Intruder who descended
through their waters, carrying a stone
to make him sink, and alighted on a
pink coral pillar. The man produced a
lab of plate glass, a pouch full of
erayons, a sheet of drawing paper, and
sketched swiftly. The diver's, helmet
which ha wore emitted a stream of
bubbles, while the sunlit mazes ahead
were outlined In color on the paper.
After working for 15 or 20 minutes
the man paddled himself to the sur
face of the water.
Mr. Prltchard works In a way easy
to understand. . He has devised an ex
traordinary set of apparatus In order
to paint pictures under the water. He
goes down In a diving suit furnished
with pearl diver's glasses. He uses an
easel and palette made of glass In or
der that they may remain at the bot
tom. French waterproof crayons and
pieces of cardboard rubbed with dll
complete his outfit. Nothing more Is
needed except the courage to descend,
the ability to select what to sketch and
to sketch It quickly. Nature and prac
tice have given these to Mr. Prltchard,
who, however, was years In thinking
out ways and means.
.' But in the end he made a reality of
what was called an absurd dream and
devised his own tools for the task
tools whose use he knows so well that
lie has long years the start of any fol
lower. Of course. Mr. Prltchard does not fin
ish his paintings beneath the water.
He makes sketches In crayon for then)
there, transcribing form, noting color,
diagraming fish, smudging In distances
delicately, feeling for the precise color
harmony that can never be wholly
brought from the depths, then ascends
to fix the scene endurlngly. This ha
does on leather. On leather alone, says
the artist, can he reproduce anything
like the tone of the sea world.
Reprodarlas; Delicate Tlata.
lie has tried canvas, but there he
loses the delicate blur, whicl In the
sea takes the place of atmosphere. In
stead of painting with oil, he uses pow
dered color chalks mixed with spirits
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and resin in proportions found by long
experiment. That mixture, besides be
ing durable, gives the veil-like aspect
that lies over everything submarine.
Thus the picture Is a thing apart:
painted with new- colors on a novel
material, of a huge, dim nearby world,
where man Is a stranger.
Mr. Pritchard is an Irishman, with
the "Celtic madness" (more common,
only, in that race than elsewhere)
which gives as much fire as is needed
to do great things.- He was born In
India, and when he was 10 was sent to
school in Scotland. He spent his Sum
mers with an aunt. In Lossiemouth, on
the northeast Scottish coast. The rough
sports he shared with his fellows led
him Into water. They play a game there
i a game that demands stout lungs,
deep diving, grit; in reality. It la our
own boys' gam of tag adapted, as a
race of Vikings might adapt It, to use
In and under water.
Playing this game from day to day,
there soon came the power to remain
under water for many seconds and the
ability to observe quickly and with pre
cision. It was the wonderful tones in.
blue and green the bodies of his swim
ming playmates took on that first drew
the boy's attention to the beauties of
the submerged world. A little later the
object that fascinated htm was a group
of Or trees - washed down from the
mountains In the great Springtime
freshets. These trees lay In deep water
and had become the center of a mass
of new vegetation, and here, again, the
dominant attraction that fascinated
him was color. The greens of the lira
were so modified and blended with the
diffused sunlight, and the sunlight so
broken by the waving masses of grow
ing weeds that a thousand and ene col
ors and new harmonies of tint were re
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THE SUNDAY OREGONIAX. PORTLAND, JANUARY 12, 1913.
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vealed to the sensitive eye of the un
trained boy.
Day after day he made bis descents
to study his firs, and day after day In
sun and cloud, in storm or calm, he
caught his Impressions, and the mar
velous thing was that never were two
alike. It was this mutable beauty that
was so fascinating, and through the en
suing years It urged him, wherever he
was, by lake or sea, to take oppor
tunity to view the depths for his own
pleasure and without any idea of paint
ing them. '
Bernhardt Gives Him a Start.
In the meantime, as an art student
he had drifted to landscape work, and
as a matter of interest had begun seek
ing a means for coloring leather. Then
he began to Indicate on' this medium
what he remembered of the things he
had seen under water. First results
were so grotesque that people laughed
at htm. When he took a number of his
paintings to London, the critics pro
nounced them monstrous, and adviaed
the young artist to go home and paint
something that people liked to see.
"Ton paint for London as if you
thought It was Inhabited by ' fishes,"
cried Ellen Terry, as she looked
through the water at the bases of the
basalt pillars of the Giant's Causeway,
which rise from the ocean at the en
trance to the Irish Sea. In his disap
pointment young Pritchard actually
thought of suicide.
To take his thoughts oft morbidity
the artist spent almost bis last shilling
to see Bernhardt, who was then playing
In London In "Salome." Her acting was
perfect, he thought, but one of her
gowns, a robe designed for a sea sor
ceress, lacked something. The young
man, poor except In Ideas, who knew
the strange colors of the sea, as perhaps
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no one else did, instantly resolved to
tell her. what it needed. He tried to
speak to her as she left the theater that
night, but her escort repulsed him. He
waited for five hours in her hotel. She
finally sent him word to go to the the
ater that evening.
Bernhardt, all but enclosed In three
great pier" glasses, swept her eyes up
and down the artist's reflection as he
entered her dressing-room. Before he
had spoken 20 words her enthusiasm
equaled his, and In five minutes she
had ordered Salome's Jewels from -the
designs he made on visiting cards. The
great woman saw that be knew the
sea, and she probably divined that he
was penniless. She gave him 20 aa an
advance on the jewels which were to
look like the sea. "
Bernhardt also lent him her ear when
he told her how be bad made pictures
of the world beneath the .water. Her
imagination was kindled and when she
saw the paintings she Immediately
bought two of them.
- But the man could sot live always
en Bernhardt' money. From the pres
tige her order gave him he gradually
drifted Into general decorative work.
He painted on leather always, and
started the wave of leather painting
which broke In America Into such abom
inations of art. For years he kept
working away from the sea. In alien
lines. Then his health gave eut and
he was banished from England.
About this time he learned from, n
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of Darwin's books that the most mar
velous coral formations were to be
found in the waters of the South Sea
Islands, and this led him to go to Ta
hiti. Arriving there, he set about to
devise some means by which he could
go beneath the water and actually draw
and color the wonders of the submarine
world.
The first problem was to provide a
suitable drawing board. He first tried
an ordinary drawing board weighted
down with coral, but found It Imprac
ticable. A sheet of zinc also proved to
be useless. It then occurred to him to
try glass. This suggestion came as a
result of his use of a contrivance em
ployed by the pearl divers of the South
Seas, a small glass-bottomed box with
a place cut eut at the top so that It can
be gripped by the teeth, thereby per
mitting the swimmer free use of his
arms. By means of this device there
Is always a calm space under the glass
and It Is possible for the user to view
in that way the depths of the water In
which he Is swimming.
At Work TJsder TVeter.
Glass preved to be the Ideal drawing
board, as it would neither float nor
warp, nor was It troubled by any at
mospheric changes while out of the
water. The paper used was what is
known as double elephant drawing pa
per, soaked In coooanut oil to make It
wataxpnoef, and, Xaatened to the glass
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by means of surgeon's waterproof tape.
Equipped with this board and Raphaeli
compressed oil tubes the young artist
was ready to make his descent into the
ocean.
Many times he went down using only
the goggles of the pearl divers, which
are bits of cow horn cut and shaped to
fit the eyes. The goggles permit a
small space of air between the water
and the eyes, thereby enabling one to
see perfectly under water.
For sinking, himself and his ap
paratus. Mr. Prltchard used a large
piece of coral, attached to bis belt by
means of a hook. Having found, by
means of the glass-bottomed box, the
place he desired to sketch, he would
put on his diving glasses, fasten him
self to the lump of coral, and, after
taking a good breath, lower himself
over the side of his canoe. Reaching
the bottom, he would settle himself
upon the lump of coral, which he used
as a seat, and then hastily sketch the
scene be had chosen, being able to re
main under the water from 30 to 46
seconds, according to the depth and
pressure of the water. When ready to
ascend, be would unfasten ' the lump
of coral and float to the surface. The
coral was then drawn up by means of
a rope for another descent. After hav-
lng made several descents In this
manner, be would complets the sketch
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and take sufficient color notes to en
able him to flr.ish his picture in his
studio at his leisure. The use of a div
ing suit In later years enabled him to
complete his sketches in one descent.
He usually descends into the ocean at
lows tide, as there seems to be less dis
turbance In the sea at that time. .
While some of Mr. Pritchard's best
work was done at Tahiti, he has found
excellent subjects off Santa Barbara.
Miss Helen Gould visited his studio In
Pasadena last Summer and purchased
three pictures. 'One of the paintings
showed a school of fish. .the large fins
of which cause them to resemble but
terflies on the wing. This painting
was made in a submarine "grove" on
the south coast of Er.sland. The other
works display a beautiful forest of
polyps, amid which swim several of
the chatadon. a fish that makes Its
home among polyps and corals. . This
was painted under the waters near Ta
hiti. "
According to Mr. Pritchard, those who
have been fascinated by views of the
ocean's bed gained by rowing about In
a glaas-bottomed boat at Catallna have
only a remote idea of the beauty and
grandeur of the under water world.
Beneath the water is a world com
Dletely different from that of the air.
It Is a territory of quivering light and
shade, of a profusion of strange col
ors, of plant forms of extreme deli
cacy and beauty, of sea creatures gor
geous and mysterious to the eyes.
"The coloring beneath the ocean Is
all In , the lowest keys," says Mr.
Pritchard. "merging from deep indigo
and purple into the lighter delicate
tints of pale greens, grays and yellows.
Rocks and cliffs in the dim light as
sume an appearance of inconceivable
size. Tou peer over the edge of a
submarine abyss, and from the purple
depths dart strange monsters who
grow brighter as they near the upper
water.
Strange Scenes Under Ocean.
"Many times I have been surprised
by what seemed to be rivers flowing
between the coral buttes, and would
listen for the sound of waters which I
felt sure would be heard. But as I ap
proached these rivers I found that they
were only clean sand washed down by
the action of the tides. In some In
stances, wtiere the sand has been
washed near the top of a pinnacle, with
the diffused sunlight upon it, the ef
fect Is that of a wonderful waterfall.
"When below, one is amazed to find
that the surface of the water has be
come a mirror reflecting everything
below it and shutting out the whole
upper world. The absolute silence Is
thrilling. On land we see the founda
tions of every object, no matter how
large or small Its bulk, but when one
looks Into the depths of the huge coral
formations under water, they seem to
be resting upon deep blue air. I have
mingled familiarly with the denizens
of the deep. Lobsters, sharks and
tunas have browsed at my feet and
chased one another about my diver's
helmet. These creatures are abso
lutely without fear of man, even In a
diving dress, because they have never
gowa la their, world."
til "