"It seems to me that a picture that is nothing but a record, as you said a few minutes ago, can't be much of a picture," said Roger. "I should want something more in a picture, something that would stir me up. Why, even Miss Farren's there isn't exactly a record, because you have something more than just eyes and nose and hair. She looks as if she would be fun to talk to, and as for the 'Horse Fair,' which was the other picture that we decided was a record, why that has in it more than just a lot of horses."
"If Rosa Bonheur had wanted merely to draw some horses, she might have strung them along in a row so that we could get an idea of their size and color and could make a guess at their weight, but here we see them in action and we know that they are in good spirits and we feel some sympathy with the men who have a hard time to hold them."
"Yes, that picture stirs me a little, too."
"That is because both 'Miss Farren' and the 'Horse Fair' are real pictures. Any picture that tries to be more than merely a photographic reproduction must stir your emotions in one way or another," said Miss Daisy. "Now as we look at this picture, do you think the artist put into it everything that she saw on the road that morning when she passed this group of men and horses?"
"I dare say not," said Della, "because there would be likely to be dogs and boys with the men, and perhaps some ugly houses in the background."
"Why do you suppose she didn't put everything in?"
"Why, a picture ought to try to be beautiful, oughtn't it, and some of those things might be ugly, or there might be so many of them that it would be confusing."
"Those are both good reasons," said Miss Daisy. "They both show that the artist has to _select_ the things that he thinks will be of the greatest interest to the people who look at his pictures."
"Now when he has picked them out, what should you say the next step was?"
They were all rather blank at this question but after a while Roger said slowly, "Evidently she picked out just so many as being the best looking ones to put in the picture; and she didn't like them all facing the audience, ready to bob their heads at you as you look at them; she made them trot along the road in a natural way."