"He prayeth best who loveth bestAll things both great and small."
"He prayeth best who loveth bestAll things both great and small."
Captain Macheath. By NEWTON. A.D. 1826. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.Captain Macheath.ByNEWTON.A.D1826.In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with sympathy, as if he believed that "the dumb, driven cattle" possess souls. His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they were able to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and was born in London. He received art lessons from his father, and, when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses, and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only fourteen when he exhibited the heads ofA Pointer Bitch and Puppy. When between sixteen and seventeen he producedDogs fighting, which was engraved by the painter's father. Still more popular wasThe Dogs of St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveller, which appeared when its author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had occasional counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached the age of twenty-four he was elected an A.R.A., and exhibited at the AcademyThe Hunting of Chevy Chase. This was in 1826, and in 1831 he became a full member of theAcademy. Landseer had visited Scotland in 1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style, which thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free and bold. The introduction of deer into his pictures, as inThe Children of the Mist,Seeking Sanctuary, andThe Stag at Bay, marked the influence of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in 1850, and at the French Exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large gold medal given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the guest of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852 by an illness which compelled him to retire from society. From this he recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the death of Sir Charles Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy, but this honour he declined. In the National Gallery areSpaniels of King Charles's Breed,Low Life and High Life,Highland Music(a highland piper disturbing a group of five hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes),The Hunted Stag,Peace(of which we give a representation),War(dying and dead horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a cottage),Dignity and Impudence,Alexander and Diogenes,The Defeat of Comus, a sketch painted for a fresco in the Queen's summer house, Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer's works are in the Sheepshanks Collection, including the touchingOld Shepherd's Chief Mourner, of which Mr. Ruskin said that "it stamps its author not as the neat imitator of the texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of mind."
Peace. By LANDSEER. A.D. 1846. In the National Gallery.Peace.ByLANDSEER.A.D1846.In the National Gallery.
WILLIAMBOXALL(1800—1879), after study in the Royal Academy Schools and in Italy, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829 his first picture—Milton's Reconciliation with his Wife—and continued to contribute to its exhibitions till 1866. Though his first works were historic and allegoric, he finally became famous as a portrait painter, and reckoned among hissitters some of the most eminent men of the time—poets, painters, writers on art, and others,e.g. Copley Fielding, David Cox, Coleridge, Wordsworth. In 1852 Boxall became an associate, and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy; he was Director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874; and received the honour of knighthood in 1871, in recognition of the valuable services which he rendered to art.
PAULFALCONERPOOLE(1810—1879), a painter of high class ofgenrepictures as well as of history, exhibited his first picture at the Academy in 1830,The Well, a Scene at Naples. In 1838 he producedThe Emigrant's Departure. Other pictures areMay Queen preparing for the Dance,The Escape of Glaucus and Ione,The Seventh Day of the Decameron. Among the historic works of this artist areThe Vision of Ezekiel(National Gallery) and others. Poole became a full member of the Academy in 1860.
GEORGEHEMMINGMASON(1818—1872), a native of Witley, Staffordshire, found art to be surrounded by difficulties. His father insisted on his following the profession of medicine, and placed him with Dr. Watts, of Birmingham. A portrait painter having visited the doctor's house, young Mason borrowed his colour-box, and, unaided, produced a picture of such promise that the artist advised him to follow art. Mason left the doctor's house, made his way to Italy, and, without any teacher, developed an original style which is marked by simplicity of design, refinement of colour, delicacy of chiaroscuro, and pathos of expression. He was elected A.R.A. in 1868, but died of heart-disease before becoming a full member. Mason's best-known works areCampagna di Roma,The Gander,The Return from Ploughing,The Cast Shoe,The Evening Hymn, andThe Harvest Moon, unfinished.
ROBERTBRAITHWAITEMARTINEAU(1826—1869), son of one of the Masters in Chancery, nephew of Miss Martineau, commenced life as an articled clerk to a solicitor. After four years' study of the law he forsook it for the brighter sphere of art,and entered the Academy Schools. In 1852 Martineau exhibited at the AcademyKit's Writing Lesson, from "The Old Curiosity Shop," which indicated the class of subjects which he delighted in. HisLast Day in the Old House, andThe Last Chapter, by their originality of conception, and exquisite painting, won the artist a renown which he did not long live to enjoy. He died of heart-disease.
JOHNFREDERICKLEWIS(1805—1876), the son of an eminent London engraver, began his career in art by painting studies of animals, and in 1828 was elected a Member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He afterwards travelled in Spain and Italy, painting many subjects, such as aSpanish Bullfight,Monks preaching at Seville, &c., and thence went to the East, where he stayed some years. He returned to England in 1851, and four years afterwards was made President of the Water-colour Society. In 1856 he exhibitedA Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, which Mr. Ruskin called "the climax of water-colour drawing." In the same year he began to paint in oil colours, and frequently exhibited pictures of Eastern life, such asThe Meeting in the Desert,A Turkish School,A Café in Cairo, &c. In 1859 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1866 a full member. In the South Kensington Museum there are two of Lewis's water-colour drawings,The Halt in the DesertandPeasants of the Black Forest, and a few of his studies from nature.
The Arab Scribe. By JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS. A.D. 1852.The Arab Scribe.ByJOHN FREDERICK LEWIS.A.D1852.
EDWARDMATTHEWWARD(1816—1879) became a student at the Academy by the advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O. Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839 he returned to England, and exhibitedCimabue and Giotto. Joining in the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he producedBoadicea, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium.Dr. Johnsonreading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield", first brought him to notice. It was followed byDr. Johnson in Lord Chesterfield's Ante-Room, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This work as well asThe Disgrace of Lord Clarendon,The South-Sea Bubble, andJames II. receiving the news of the landing of William of Orange, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to need description; most popular among them areCharlotte Corday led to Execution,The Execution of Montrose,The Last Sleep of Argyll,Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin,The Last Moments of Charles II.,The Night of Rizzio's Murder,The Earl of Leicester and Amy Robsart,Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter.
FREDERICKWALKER(1840—1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works areThe Lost Path,The Bathers,The Vagrants,The Old Gate,The Plough,The Harbour of Refuge, andThe Right of Way. Mr. Redgrave said, "His genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the antique."
Our Village. By FREDERICK WALKER. Exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition. A.D. 1873.Our Village.ByFREDERICK WALKER.Exhibited at the Water-colour Society's Exhibition.A.D. 1873.
GABRIELCHARLESDANTEROSSETTI(1828—1882), poet, and painter of sacred subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first picture,The Girlhood of the Virgin, in 1849, and became the founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures areDante's Dream(now at Liverpool),The Damosel of the Sancte Graal,The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere,The Beloved(an illustration of the Song of Solomon), andProserpina. He seldom exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics, one of whom wrote (in 1873)—"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly everything Mr. Rossetti produces."
He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of Italian poetry.
It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of British Art.
THE history of art in America is in reality the record only of the dying away of the last echoes of movements which had their origin in Europe. Although the western continent has given birth to new political ideas and new forms of government, not one of its States, not even the greatest of them all, the United States of North America, to which this chapter will be confined, has thus far brought forth a national art, or has exercised any perceptible influence, except in a single instance, on the shaping of the art of the world. Nor is this to be wondered at. The newness of the country, the mixture of races from the beginning, and the ever-continuing influx of foreigners, together with the lack of educational facilities, and the consequent necessity of seeking instruction in Europe, are causes sufficient to explain the apparent anomaly. Even those of the native painters of the United States who kept away from the Old World altogether, or visited it too late in life to be powerfully influenced, show but few traces of decided originality in either conception or execution. Theyalso were under the spell, despite the fact that it could not work upon them directly. The attempt has been made to explain this state of things by assuming an incapacity for art on the part of the people of the country, and an atmosphere hostile to its growth, resulting from surrounding circumstances. These conclusions, however, are false. So far as technical skill goes, Americans—native as well as adopted—have always shown a remarkable facility of acquisition, and the rapidity with which carpenters, coach-painters, and sign-painters, especially in the earlier period of the country's history, developed into respectable portrait-painters, almost without instruction, will always remain cause for astonishment. Of those who went abroad at that time, England readopted four men who became famous (West, Copley, Newton, Leslie), and she still points to them with satisfaction as among the more conspicuous on her roll of artists. Nor has this quality been lost with the advance of time. It has, on the contrary, been aided by diligent application; and the successes which have been achieved by American students are recorded in the annals of the French Salon. There is one curious trait, however, which will become more and more apparent as we trace the history of art in America, and that is the absence of a national element in the subjects treated. If we except a short flickering of patriotic spirit in the art of what may be called the Revolutionary Period, and the decided preference given to American scenes by the landscape painters of about the middle of the present century, it may be said that the artists of the country, as a rule, have imported with the technical processes also the subjects of the Old World; that they have preferred the mountains of Italy and the quiet hamlets of France to the hills of New England and the Rocky Mountains of the West, the Arab to the Indian, and the history of the Old World to the records of their own ancestors. Even the struggle for the destruction of the last vestiges of slavery which was the great work entrusted to this generation, has called forth so fewmanifestations in art (and these few falling without the limits of the present chapter), that it would not be very far from wrong to speak of it as having left behind it no trace whatever. All this, however, is not the fault of the artists, except in so far as they are themselves part of the nation. The blame attaches to the people as a whole, whose innermost thoughts and highest aspirations the artists will always be called upon to embody in visible form. There is no doubt, from the evidence already given by the painters of America, that they will be equal to the task, should they ever be called upon to exert their skill in the execution of works of monumental art.
The history of painting in America may be divided into four periods:—1.The Colonial Period, up to the time of the Revolution; 2.The Revolutionary Period, comprising the painters who were eye-witnesses of and participators in the War of Independence; 3.The Period of Inner Development, from about the beginning of the century to the civil war; 4.The Period of the Present. It will be seen that the designations of these divisions are taken from the political rather than the artistic history of the country. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find other distinguishing marks which would allow of a concise nomenclature. As to the influences at work in the several periods, it may be said that the Colonial and Revolutionary were entirely under the domination of England. In the earlier part of the third period the influence of England continued, but was supplemented by that of Italy. Later on a number of American artists studied in Paris, without, however, coming under the influence of the Romantic school, and towards the middle of the century many of them were attracted by Düsseldorf. A slight influence was exercised also by the English pre-Raphaelites, but it found expression in a literary way rather than in actual artistic performance. In the fourth or present period, finally, the leadership has passed to the Colouristic schools of Paris andMunich, to which nearly all the younger artists have sworn allegiance.
The paintings which have come down to the present day from the Colonial Period, so far as they relate to America, are almost without exception portraits. Many of these were, as a matter of course, brought over from England and Holland; but that there were resident painters in the Colonies as early as 1667, is shown by a passage in Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," cited by Tuckerman. It is very natural that these "limners," to use a favourite designation then applied to artists, were not of the best. The masters of repute did not feel a call to dwell in the wilderness, and hence the works belonging to the beginning of this period are for the most part rude and stiff. Several of these early portraits may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, at Cambridge, Mass.
The first painters whose names have been preserved to us were not born to the soil. The honour of standing at the head of the roll belongs to JOHNWATSON(1685—1768), a Scotchman, who established himself at Perth Amboy, N.J., in 1715. Of his portraits none are at present known, but at the Chronological Exhibition of American Art, held in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1872, there was shown an India ink drawing by him,Venus and Cupid, executed on vellum. A better fate was vouchsafed to the works ofJohn Smybert, another Scotchman, who came to Rhode Island in 1728 with Dean, afterwards Bishop, Berkeley, in whose proposed college he was to be an instructor—probably the first movement towards art education made in the Colonies. Smybert settled and married in Boston, where he died in 1751 or 1752. He was not an artist of note, although his most important work,The Family of Bishop Berkeley, a large group, in which he has introduced his own likeness, now in the possession of Yale College, at New Haven, Conn., shows him to have been courageousand not without talent. Not all the pictures, however, which are attributed to him, come up to this standard. A very bad example to which his name is attached may be seen in the portrait ofJohn Lovell, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. The influence exercised by Smybert on the development of art in America is due to an accident rather than to actual teaching. He brought with him a copy of the head of Cardinal Bentivoglio, by Van Dyck, which he had made in Italy, and which is still preserved in the Hall just named. It was this copy which first inspired Trumbull and Allston with a love of art, and gave them an idea of colour. Of the other foreigners who visited the Colonies during this period, the more prominent are BLACKBURN, an Englishman, who was Smybert's contemporary or immediate successor, and is by some held to have been Copley's teacher; WILLIAMS, another Englishman, who painted about the same time in Philadelphia, and from whose intercourse young West is said to have derived considerable benefit; and COSMOALEXANDER, a Scotchman, who came to America in 1770, and was Stuart's first instructor.
The earliest native painter who has left any lasting record isRobert Feke, whose life is enveloped by the mystery of romance. Sprung from Quaker stock, and separated from his people by difference of religious opinion, he left home, and was in some way taken a prisoner to Spain, where he is said to have executed rude paintings, with the proceeds of which he managed to return home. Feke painted in Philadelphia and elsewhere about the middle of the last century, and his portraits, according to Tuckerman, are considered the best colonial family portraits next to West's. Specimens of his work may be seen in the collections of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.; the Redwood Athenæum, Newport, R.I.; and the R. I. Historical Society, Providence, R.I.
Nearest to Feke in date—although his later contemporaries, West and Copley, were earlier known as artists, andthe first named even became his teacher in England—is MATTHEWPRATT(1734—1805), who started in life as a sign-painter in Philadelphia. Pratt's work is often spoken of slightingly, and does not generally receive the commendation it deserves. His full-length portrait ofLieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden, painted for the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772, and still to be seen at its rooms, shows him to have been quite a respectable artist, with a feeling for colour in advance of that exhibited by Copley in his earlier work. Still another native artist of this period,Henry Bembridge, is chiefly of interest from the fact that he is said to have studied with Mengs and Battoni, which would make him one of the first American painters who visited Italy. He seems to have painted chiefly in Charleston, S.C., and his portraits are described as of singularly formal aspect.
The most celebrated painters of this period, however, and the only ones whose fame is more than local, are John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West. But as both of them left their country at an early age, never to return, they belong to England rather than to America.
COPLEY(1737—1815) was a native of Boston, and did not go to Europe until 1774, when his reputation was already established. In 1760 he gave his income in Boston at three hundred guineas. He first went to Italy and thence to London, where he settled. Some speculation has been indulged in as to Copley's possible teachers. He must have received some aid from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a schoolmaster and very inferior mezzotint engraver; and it has also been supposed that he may have had the benefit of Blackburn's instruction. This does not seem likely, however, judging either from the facts or from tradition. Copley was undoubtedly essentially self-taught, and the models upon which he probably formed his style are still to be seen. Several of them are included in the collection in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. One of theseportraits, that ofThomas Hollis, a benefactor of the university, who died when Copley was only six years of age, is so like the latter's work, not only in conception but even in the paleness of the flesh tints and the cold grey of the shadows, as to be readily taken for one of his earlier productions. In England Copley became the painter of the aristocracy, and executed a considerable number of large historic pictures, mostly of modern incidents. He is elegant rather than powerful, and quite successful in the rendering of stuffs. His colour, at first cold and rather inharmonious, improved with experience, although he has been pronounced deficient in this respect even in later years. Copley's most celebrated picture isThe Death of the Earl of Chatham. Many specimens of his skill as a portrait-painter can be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, the latter collection including the fine portrait ofMrs. Thomas Boylston. The Public Library of Boston owns one of his large historic paintings,Charles I. demanding the Five Members from Parliament.
BENJAMINWEST(1738—1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield, Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there. Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (King Lear, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston;Death on the Pale HorseandChrist Rejected, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in hisDeath of Wolfein classic costume, accordingto usage. By clothing them in their actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his guidance.
Death on the Pale Horse. By WEST. A.D. 1817. In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Death on the Pale Horse.ByWEST.A.D1817.In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations, were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to, have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes with which they were connected.
General Knox. By GILBERT STUART Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.General Knox.ByGILBERT STUART[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
GILBERTSTUARTwas born in Narragansett, R.I., in 1755, and died in Boston in 1828. He was of Scotch descent, and it has already been mentioned that Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, was his first teacher. After several visits to Europe, during the second of which he studied under West, Stuart finally returned in 1793, and began the painting of the series of national portraits which will for ever endear him to the patriotic American. Among these his several renderings of Washington, of which there are many copies by his own hand, are the most celebrated. The greatest popularity is perhaps enjoyed by the so-calledAthenæum head, which, with its pendant, the portrait ofMrs. Washington, is the property of the Athenæum of Boston, and by that institution has been deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts of the same city. The claim to superiority is, however, contested by theGibbs Washington, at present also to be seen in the museum alluded to. It was painted before the other, and gives the impression of more realistic truthfulness, while the Athenæum head seems to be somewhat idealized. Stuart's work is quite unequal, as he was not a strict economist, and often painted for money only. But in his best productions there is a truly admirable purity and wealth of colour, added to a power of characterization, which lifts portraiture into the highest sphere of art. It must be said, however, that he concentrated his attention almost entirely upon the head, often slighting the arms and hands, especially of his female sitters, to an unpleasant degree. Many excellent specimens of his work, besides the Washington portraits, are to be found in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston and in the collection of the New York Historical Society, the latter including the fine portrait ofEgbert Benson, painted in 1807. Hischef-d'œuvreis the portrait ofJudge Stephen Jones, owned by Mr. F. G. Richards, of Boston, a remarkably vigorous head of an old man, warm and glowing in colour, which, it is said, the artist painted for his own satisfaction. Stuart's most celebrated work in England isMr. Grant skating. When this portrait was exhibited as a work by Gainsborough, at the "Old Masters," in 1878, its pedigree having been forgotten, it was in turn attributed to all the great English portrait-painters, until it was finally restored to its true author.
Death of Montgomery in the Attack of Quebec. By J. Trumbull. At Yale College. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Death of Montgomery in the Attack of Quebec.ByJ. Trumbull.At Yale College.Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
Still more national importance attaches to JOHNTRUMBULL(1756—1843), since he was an historic as well as a portrait-painter, took part in person as an officer in the American army in many of the events of the Revolution, and was intimately acquainted with most of the heroes of his battle scenes. Americaenjoys in this respect an advantage of which no other country can boast—that of having possessed an artist contemporaneous with the most important epoch in its history, and capable and willing to depict the scenes enacted around him. Colonel Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Colonial Governor of Connecticut, studied at Harvard, and gave early evidences of a taste for art. At the age of nineteen he joined the American army, but in 1780, aggrieved at a fancied slight, he threw up his commission and went to France, and thence to London, where he studied under West. Trumbull must not be judged as an artist by his large paintings in the Capitol at Washington, the commission for which he did not receive until 1817. To know him one must study him in his smaller works and sketches, now gathered in the gallery of Yale College, where may be seen hisDeath of Montgomery,Battle of Bunker Hill,Declaration of Independence, and other revolutionary scenes, together with a series of admirable miniature portraits in oil, painted from life, as materials for his historic works, and a number of larger portraits, including a full-length ofWashington. As a portrait-painter, Trumbull is also represented at his best by the full-length ofAlexander Hamilton, at the rooms of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The most successful of his large historic pieces,The Sortie from Gibraltar, painted in London, is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Goethe, who saw the small painting ofThe Battle of Bunker Hillwhile it was in the hands of Müller, the engraver, commended it, but criticized its colour and the smallness of the heads. It is true that Trumbull's drawing is somewhat conventional, and that he had a liking for long figures. But his colour, as seen to-day in his good earlier pictures, is quite brilliant and harmonious, although thoroughly realistic. In his later work, however, as shown by the Scripture pieces likewise preserved in the Yale Gallery, there is a marked decadence in vigour of drawing as well as of colour. Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, Trumbullhas not received the full appreciation which is his due, even from his own countrymen. Thackeray readily recognised his merit, and cautioned the Americans never to despise or neglect Trumbull—a piece of advice which is only now beginning to attract the attention it deserves.
Among the portrait-painters of this period, CHARLESWILSONPEALE(1741—1827) takes the lead by reason of quantity rather than quality. Peale was typical of a certain phase of American character, representing the restlessness and superficiality which prevail upon men to turn lightly from one occupation to another. He was a dentist, a worker in materials of all sorts, an ornithologist and taxidermist, rose to the rank of colonel in the American army, and started a museum of natural history and art in Philadelphia. But his strongest love seems, after all, to have been for the fine arts. Among the fourteen portraits ofWashingtonwhich Peale painted, according to Tuckerman, is the onlyfull-lengthever done of the father of his country: it shows him before the Revolution, attired as an officer in the colonial force of Great Britain. A large number of Peale's portraits may be seen in the Pennsylvania Academy and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The New York Historical Society owns, among other works by his hand, a Washington portrait and a group of the Peale family comprising ten figures. Much of Peale's work is crude, but all of his heads have the appearance of being good likenesses.
Among a number of other painters of this period we can select only a few, whose names receive an additional lustre from their connection with Washington.
JOSEPHWRIGHT(1756—1793) was the son of Patience Wright, who modelled heads in wax at Bordentown, N.J., before the Revolution. While in England he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales. In the year 1783 Washington sat to him, after having submitted to the preliminary ordeal of a plaster mask. Tuckerman speaks of this portrait as inelegant and unflattering,and characterizes the artist as unideal, but conscientious. Wright's portrait ofJohn Jay, at the rooms of the New York Historical Society, authorizes a more favourable judgment. It is, indeed, somewhat austere, but lifelike, well posed, and cool in colour.
E. Savage(1761—1817) seems to have been nearly as versatile as Peale, emulating him also in the establishment of a museum, at first in New York, then in Boston. His portrait ofGeneral Washington, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, is carefully painted and bright in colour, but rather lifeless. HisWashington Family, in the Boston Museum (a place of amusement not to be confounded with the Museum of Fine Arts), which he engraved himself, has similar qualities. A little picture by him, also in the Boston Museum, representingThe Signers of the Declaration of Independence in Carpenters' Hall, is interesting on account of its subject, but does not possess much artistic merit. The portrait ofDr. Handy, on the contrary, which is assigned to him, at the New York Historical Society, is a very creditable work, good in colour, luminous in the flesh, and simple in the modelling.
WILLIAMDUNLAP(1766—1839), finally, may also be mentioned here on account of his portrait ofWashington—painted when the artist was only seventeen years old—although he belongs more properly to the next period, and is of more importance as a writer than a painter. He published, in 1834, a "History of the Arts of Design in the United States," a book now quite scarce and much sought after. A group of himself and his parents, painted in 1788, is in the collection of the New York Historical Society.
The example of Trumbull found no followers. The only other American painter who made a specialty of his country's historyseems to have been JOHNBLAKEWHITE(1782—1859), a native of Charleston, S.C., who painted such subjects asMrs. Motte presenting the Arrows,Marion inviting the British Officer to Dinner, and the Battles ofNew OrleansandEutaw, placed in the State House of South Carolina. White's fame is quite local, however, and it is impossible, therefore, to judge of his qualities accurately. Had there been more painters of similar subjects, a national school might have resulted; but neither the people nor the Government took any interest in Colonel Trumbull's plans. It was necessary to employ all sorts of manœuvring to induce Congress to give a commission to the artist, and the result was disappointment to all concerned; and when, later, the further decoration of the Capitol at Washington, the seat of government, was resolved upon, the artist selected for the work was CARLOBRUMIDI(1811—1880), an Italian artist of the old school. The healthy impetus towards realistic historic painting given by Trumbull thus died out, and what there is of historic and figure painting in the period now under consideration is mainly dominated by a false idealism, of which Washington Allston is the leading representative. To rival the old masters, to do what had been done before, to flee from the actual and the near to the unreal and the distant, to look upon monks and knights and robbers and Venetian senators as the embodiment of the poetic, in spite of the poet's warning to the contrary, was now the order of the day; and hence it was but natural that quite a number of the artists who then went to Europe turned to Italy. It was in this period, also, that the first attempts were made to establish Academies of Art in Philadelphia and New York—attempts which, while they were laudable enough in themselves, inasmuch as these institutions were intended to provide instruction at home for the rising generation, still pointed in the same direction of simple imitation of the expiring phases of European Art.
Jeremiah and the Scribe. By WASHINGTON ALLSTON. At Yale College. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Jeremiah and the Scribe.ByWASHINGTON ALLSTON.At Yale College.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
WASHINGTONALLSTON(1779—1843) was a native of SouthCarolina, but was sent to New England at an early age, and graduated from Harvard College in 1800. The year following he went to England, to study under West, and thence to Italy, where he stayed four years, until his return to Boston in 1809. After a second absence in Europe of seven years' duration, he finally settled in Cambridge, near Boston. Allston's art covered a wide range, including Scripture history, portraiture, ideal heads,genre, landscape, and marine. It is difficult to understand to-day the enthusiasm which his works aroused, if not among the great public, at least within a limited circle of admiring friends. He was lauded for his poetic imagination, and called "the American Titian," on account of his colour; and this reputation has lasted down to our own time. The Allston Exhibition, however, which was held two years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has somewhat modified the opinions of calm observers. Allston was neither deep nor very original in his conceptions, nor was he a great colourist. One of his most pleasing pictures,The Two Sisters, is full of reminiscences of Titian, and it is well known that he painted it while engaged in the study of that master. In the case of an artist upon whose merits opinions are so widely divided, it may be well to cite the words of an acknowledged admirer, in speaking of what has been claimed to be his greatest work, theJeremiah and the Scribe, in the Gallery of Yale College. Mrs. E. D. Cheney, in describing the impression made upon her by this picture after a lapse of forty years, says:—"I was forced to confess that either I had lost my sensibility to its expression, or I had overrated its value.... The figure of the Prophet is large and imposing, but I cannot find in it the spiritual grandeur and commanding nobility of Michel Angelo. He is conscious of his own presence, rather than lost in the revelation which is given through him. But the Scribe is a very beautiful figure, simple in action and expression, and entirely absorbed in his humble but important work. It reminds me of the youngbrother in Domenichino'sMartyrdom of St. Jerome." The same lack of psychological power, here hinted at, is still more apparent in the artist's attempts to express the more violent manifestations of the soul. InThe Dead Man revived by touching Elisha's Bones—for which he received a premium of 200 guineas from the British Institution, and which is now in the Pennsylvania Academy—the faces of the terrified spectators are so distorted as to have become caricatures. This is true, in a still higher degree, of the heads of the priests in the great unfinishedBelshazzar's Feast, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The unnatural expression of these heads is generally explained by the condition in which the picture was left; but the black-and-white sketches, which may be examined in the same museum, show precisely the same character. The unhealthy direction of the artist's mind is apparent, furthermore, in his love of the terrible—shown in his early pictures of banditti, and in such later works asSaul and the Witch of EndorandSpalatro's Vision of the Bloody Hand; while, on the contrary, it will be found, upon closer analysis, that the ideality and spirituality claimed for his female heads, such asRosalieandAmy Robsart, resolve themselves into something very near akin to sweetness and lack of strength. In accordance with this absence of intellectual robustness, Allston's execution is hesitating and wanting in decision.
A somewhat similar spirit manifested itself in the works of John Vanderlyn (1776—1852), Rembrandt Peale (1787—1860), Samuel F. B. Morse (1791—1872), and Cornelius Ver Bryck (1813—1844).
JOHNVANDERLYNis best known by hisMarius on the Ruins of Carthage, for which he received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1808, and hisAriadne, which forms part of the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy. Vanderlyn, as the choice of his subjects, coupled with his success in France, shows, was a very good classic painter, trained in the routine of the Academy. TheAriadneis a careful study of the nude, although somewhat red in the flesh, placed in a conventional landscape of high order. A large historic composition by him,The Landing of Columbus, finished in 1846, fills one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. As a portrait painter Vanderlyn was most unequal.
REMBRANDTPEALE—the son of Charles Wilson Peale, best known through his portraits—deserves mention here on account of hisCourt of Death, in the Crowe Art Museum of St. Louis, andThe Roman Daughter, in the Boston Museum. Technically he stands considerably below his leading contemporaries.
S. F. B. Morse, whose fame as an artist has been eclipsed by his connection with the electric telegraph, was a painter of undoubted talent, but given somewhat to ostentation both in drawing and colour. Good specimens of his style are found in hisDying Hercules, Yale College, New Haven, and the rather theatrical portrait of Lafayette in the Governor's Room of the City Hall of New York. Morse essayed to paint national subjects, and selected for a theme the interior of the House of Representatives, with portraits of the members; but the public took no interest in the picture, although it is said to have been very clever, and the artist did not even cover his expenses by exhibiting it.
CORNELIUSVERBRYCKpainted Bacchantes and Cavaliers, and a few historic pictures, with a decided feeling for colour, as evidenced by hisVenetian Senator, owned by the New York Historical Society. He stands upon the borderland between an older and a newer generation, both of which, however, belong to the same period. Thus far the influence of Italy had been paramount; in the years immediately following Düsseldorf claims a share in shaping the historical art of the United States. The only names that can be mentioned here in accordance with the plan of this book, which excludes living artists, are Emmanuel Leutze(1816—1868), Edwin White (1817—1877), Henry Peters Gray (1819—1877), W. H. Powell (died 1879), Thomas Buchanan Read (1822—1872), and J. B. Irving (1826—1877).
LEUTZEwas a German by birth, and his natural sympathies, although he had been brought to America as an infant, carried him to Düsseldorf. The eminence to which he rose in this school may be inferred from the fact that he was chosen Director of the Academy after he had returned to America, and almost at the moment of his death. Although of foreign parentage, he showed more love for American subjects than most of the native artists, but the trammels of the school in which he was taught made it impossible for him to become a thoroughly national painter. His most important works areWashington crossing the Delaware,Washington at the Battle of Monmouth, andWashington at Valley Forge; the two last named are at present in the possession of Mrs. Mark Hopkins of California. In the Capitol at Washington may be seen hisWestward the Star of Empire takes its Way;The Landing of the Norsemenis in the Pennsylvania Academy;The Storming of a Teocalle, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
EDWINWHITE, an extraordinarily prolific artist, who studied both at Paris and Düsseldorf, also painted a number of American historic pictures, among themWashington resigning his Commission, for the State of Maryland. The bulk of his work, however, weakly sentimental, deals with the past of Europe.
H. P. Gray'sallegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken from antiquity. In his best works, such asThe Wages of War, he appears in the light of an academic painter of respectable attainments; but there is so little of a national flavour in his productions, that the label "American School" on the frame of the picture just named is apt to provoke a smile. Gray'sJudgment of Parisis in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
W. H. Powellis best known by hisDe Soto discovering theMississippi, in the Rotunda at Washington, a work which is on a level with the average of official monumental painting done in Europe, in which truth is invariably sacrificed to so-called artistic considerations. As a portrait-painter he does not stand very high. T. B. READ, the "painter-poet," enjoyed one of those fictitious reputations which are unfortunately none too rare in America. Without any real feeling for colour, and with a style of drawing which made up in so-called grace for what it lacked in decision, he attained a certain popularity by a class of subjects such asThe Lost Pleiad,The Spirit of the Waterfall, &c., which captivate the unthinking by their very superficiality. Several of his productions, among them hisSheridan's Ride, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy.J. B. Irving, a student at Düsseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of subjects which might be classed as historicgenre, including some scenes from the past history of the United States.
Among the foreign artists who came to America during this period must be named CHRISTIANSCHÜSSELE(1824—1879), a native of Alsace, who has exercised some influence through his position as Director of the Schools of the Pennsylvania Academy, in Philadelphia. HisEsther denouncing Haman, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to have been an adherent of the modern French classic school, in which elegance is the first consideration.
A place all by himself must finally be assigned to WILLIAMRIMMER(1816—1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the vicinity of Boston. Dr. Rimmer, as he is commonly called, since he began life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a painter. He, nevertheless, must be mentioned here on account of the many drawings he executed. To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a somewhat weird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes remind one of Blake. His most important work is a set of drawingsfor an anatomical atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatomy of expression. His oil-paintings, such asCupid and Venus, &c., are marred by violent contrasts of light and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour, which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective. But Rimmer will always remain interesting as a brilliant phenomenon, strangely out of place in space as well as in time.
The same absence, in general, of a national spirit is to be noticed in the works of thegenrepainters. Among the earliest of these are to be named CHARLESROBERTLESLIE(1794—1859), many of whose works may be seen in the Lenox Gallery, New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia; and GILBERTSTUARTNEWTON(1794—1835), a nephew of Stuart, the portrait-painter, who is represented at the New York Historical Society and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. These two artists are, however, so closely identified with the English school, and draw their inspiration so exclusively from European sources, that they can hardly claim a place in a history of painting in America.
The one Americangenrepainterpar excellenceisWilliam Sydney Mount(1807—1868), the son of a farmer on Long Island, and originally a sign-painter. No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of the life of the American farmer and his negro field hands, always looked at from the humorous side. As a colourist, Mount is quite artless, but in the rendition of character and expression, and the unbiassed reproduction of reality, he stands very high. HisFortune Teller,Bargaining for a Horse, andThe Truant Gamblers, the last named one of his best works also as regards colour, are in the collection of the New York Historical Society;The Painter's Triumphis in the gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, hasThe Long Story. Several inferior artists have shown, by their representations of scenes taken from the political and social life of the United States, how richa harvest this field would offer the brush of a modern Teniers. But in spite of the popularity which the reproductions of their works and those of some of Mount's pictures enjoyed, the field remained comparatively untilled.
A Surprise. By MOUNT. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.A Surprise.ByMOUNT.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
Of other painters of the past, HENRYINMAN(1801—1846), better known as a most excellent portrait-painter, executed a fewgenrepictures based on American subjects, such asMumble the Pegin the Pennsylvania Academy; and RICHARDCATONWOODVILLE(about 1825—1855), who studied at Düsseldorf, became favourably known, during his short career, by hisMexican News,Sailor's Wedding,Bar-Room Politicians, &c.; while among the mass of work byF. W. Edmonds(1806—1863) there are also several of specifically American character; but the majority of artists preferred to repeat the well-worn themes of their European predecessors, as shown byW. E. West's(died 1857)The Confessional, at the New York Historical Society's Rooms, or the paintings ofJames W. Glass(died 1855), whoseRoyal Standard,Free Companion, andPuritan and Cavalier, are drawn from the annals of England.
The Indian tribes found delineators in GEORGECATLIN(1796—1872) andC. F. Wimar(1829—1863), whileWilliam H. Ranney(died 1857) essayed the life of the trappers and frontiersmen. None of these artists, however, approached their subjects from the genuinely artistic side. As an ornithological painter, scientifically considered, JOHNJAMESAUDUBON(1780—1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank. The animal world of the prairies and the great West in general was the chosen field ofWilliam J. Hays(1830—1875). A large picture by him of an American bison, in the American Museum of Natural History at New York, shows at once his careful workmanship, his ambition, and the limitation of his powers, which was too great to allow him to occupy a prominent place among the animal painters of the world.
The skill in realistic portraiture, eminently shown by theAmerican painters of the preceding century, was fully upheld by their successors of the third period. Most of the historic painters named above were well known also as portraitists, and their claims to reputation are shared with more or less success byJ. W. Jarvis(1780—1851), THOMASSULLY(1783—1872), SAMUELWALDO(1783—1861), CHESTERHARDING(1792—1866), WILLIAMJEWETT(born 1795), EZRAAMES(flourished about 1812—1830),Charles C. Ingham(1796—1863),J. Neagle(1799—1865),Charles L. Elliott(1812—1868), JOSEPHAMES(1816—1872),T. P. Rossiter(1818—1871),G. A. Baker(1821—1880), andW. H. Furness(1827—1867). Specimens of the work of most of these artists, several of whom were of foreign parentage, will be found in the collections of the New York Historical Society, the Governor's Room in the City Hall of New York, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston. The most prominent among the later names is Charles Loring Elliott, who was born and educated in America, but whose work, when he is at his best, nevertheless shows the hand of a master.E. G. Malbone(1777—1807), whose only ideal work,The Hours, is in the Athenæum, at Providence, R.I., is justly celebrated for his delicate miniatures, a department in whichR. M. Staigg(1817—1881) likewise excelled. As a crayon artist, famous more especially for his female heads,Seth W. Cheney(1810—1856) must be named.
The most interesting, however, because the most original, manifestation of the art instinct in this period is found in landscape. In this department also it seemed for a time as if the influence of the old Italian masters would gain the upper hand. But the influence of Düsseldorf, aided by that of England, although not through its best representatives, such as Constable, gave a different turn to the course of affairs, and in a measure freed the artists from the thraldom of an antiquated school. Although, naturally and justly enough, the landscapepainters of America did not disdain to depict the scenery of foreign lands, they nevertheless showed a decided preference for the beauties of their own country, and diligently plied their brushes in the delineation of the favourite haunts of the Catskills, the Hudson, the White Mountains, Lake George, &c., and, at a later period, of the wonders of the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Yosemite. It has become the fashion in certain circles to speak rather derisively of these painters as "the Hudson River School," a nickname supposed to imply the charge that they preferred the subject to artistic rendering and technical skill. There is no denying that there is some truth in this charge, but later experience has taught, also, that a more insinuating style is apt to lead the artists to ignore subject altogether. It is precisely the comparative unattractiveness of the methods employed which enabled these painters to create what may be called an American school, while, had they been as much absorbed in technical processes, or in the solving of problems of colour, as some of their successors, they would probably have rivalled them also in the neglect of the national element. It is worthy of note that the rise of this school of painters of nature is nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of William Cullen Bryant, whose "Thanatopsis" was first published in 1817, and who is eminently entitled to be called the poet of nature.
The first specialist in landscape of whom any record is to be found is JOSHUASHAW(1776—1860), an Englishman, who came to America about 1817. The specimens of his work preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy show him to have been a painter of some refinement, who preferred delicate silvery tones to strength. In the same institution may also be found numerous examples by THOMASDOUGHTY(1793—1856), of Philadelphia, who abandoned mercantile pursuits for art in 1820, and who may claim to be the first native landscape-painter. His early work is hard and dry and monotonous in colour, but neverthelesswith a feeling for light. As he advanced, his colour improved somewhat. ALVANFISHER(1792—1863), of Boston, also ranks among the pioneers in this department, but he was more active as a portrait-painter.
Desolation. From the "Course of Empire." By Thomas Cole. In the possession of the New York Historical Society. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Desolation. From the "Course of Empire."ByThomas Cole.In the possession of the New York Historical Society.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
The greatest name, however, in the early history of landscape art in the United States is that of THOMASCOLE(1801—1848), who came over from England with his parents in 1819, but received his first training, such as it was, in America. Cole spent several years in Italy, and remained for the rest of his life under the spell of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He aspired to be a painter of large historic, or rather allegoric landscapes, and some of his productions in this line, as, for instance,The Course of Empire(New York Historical Society), a series of five canvases, showing the career of a nation from savage life through the splendours of power to the desolation of decay, will always secure for him a respectable place among the followers of the old school. He therefore shared, with most of his American colleagues, the fatal defect that his work contained no germ of advancement, but was content to be measured by standards which were beginning to be false, because men had outlived the time in which they were set up. Cole did not, however, confine himself to such allegoric landscapes. He was a great lover of the Catskills, and often chose his subjects there, or in the White Mountains. But in the specimens of this kind to be seen at the New York Historical Society's rooms, he shows himself curiously defective in colour, and mars the tone by undue contrasts between light and dark. He is at his best in the representation of storm effects, such asThe Tornado, in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.
Among the ablest representatives of the "Hudson River School" wereJ. F. Kensett(1818—1873), andSanford R. Gifford(1823—1880). For Kensett, it may indeed be claimed that he was the best technician of his time, bolder intreatment than most of his colleagues, and with a true feeling for the poetry of colour. Gifford, who divided his allegiance about equally between America, Italy, and the Orient, loved to paint phenomenal effects of light, which often suggest the studio rather than nature. One of the principal works of this very successful and greatly esteemed artist,The Ruins of the Parthenon, is the property of the Corcoran Gallery, which also owns several pictures by Kensett.
Noon by the Sea-shore: Beverly Beach. By J. F. Kensett. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Noon by the Sea-shore: Beverly Beach.ByJ. F. Kensett.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
As one of the leading lights of the little cluster of American pre-Raphaelites, we may noteJohn W. Hill(died 1879), who painted landscapes chiefly in water-colour.
The United States being a maritime power, it would be quite natural to look for a development of marine painting among herartists. Until lately, however, very little has been done in this branch of art, and that little mostly by foreigners. THOMASBIRCH, an Englishman (died 1851), painted the battles between English and American vessels in an old-fashioned way in Philadelphia, while Boston possessed an early marine painter of slender merit in Salmon.A. Van Beest, a Dutch marine painter, who died in New York in 1860, is chiefly of interest as the first teacher of several well-known American painters of to-day.John E. C. Petersen(1839—1874), a Dane, who came to America in 1865, enjoyed an excellent reputation in Boston. The leading name, however, among the artists of the past in this department is that of JAMESHAMILTON(1819—1878), who was brought to Philadelphia from Ireland in infancy, and went to England for purposes of study in 1854. In many of his phantastic productions, in which blood-red skies are contrasted with dark, bluish-gray clouds and masses of shadow, as inSolitude, and an Oriental landscape in the Pennsylvania Academy, the study of Turner is quite apparent. But he loved also to paint the storm-tossed sea, under a leaden sky, when it seems to be almost monochrome. One of his finest efforts,The Ship of the Ancient Mariner, is in private possession in Philadelphia. HisDestruction of Pompeiiis in the Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, in the same city. Hamilton, whose somewhat unsteady mode of living is reflected in the widely varying quality of his work, very properly closes our review of this epoch, as he might not inappropriately be classed with the artists of the period next to be considered.
It has been remarked already that the American students who went to England up to the middle of the present century were not influenced by those painters who, like Constable, are credited with having given the first impulse towards the development of modern art. This is true also of those who went to France.
They fell in with the old-established Classic school, and were not affected by the rising Romantic and Colouristic school until long after its triumphant establishment. Within the last ten or fifteen years, however, the tendency in this direction has been very marked, and the main points of attraction for the young American artist in Europe have been Paris and Munich. One of the results of this movement, consequent upon the preponderating attention given to colour and technique, has been an almost entire neglect of subject. What the art of America has gained, therefore, in outward attractiveness and in increase of skill, it has had to purchase at the expense of a still greater de-Americanisation than before. The movement is, however, only in its inception, and its final results cannot be predicated. Nor will it be possible to mention here more than a very few of itsadherents, as, self-evidently, the greater part of them belong to the living generation.
Sunset on the Hudson. By S. R. Gifford. Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.Sunset on the Hudson.ByS. R. Gifford.[Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers.]
One of the first to preach the new gospel of individualism and colour in America was WILLIAMMORRISHUNT(1824—1879), who, after his return from Europe, made his home in Boston. In 1846 he went to Düsseldorf, which he soon exchanged for Paris, where he studied with Couture, and later with Millet. Hunt was in a certain sense a martyr to his artistic convictions, and his road was not smoothed by his eccentricities. Had he found a readier response on the part of the public, he might have accomplished great things. As it was, those to whom he was compelled to appeal could not understand the importance of the purely pictorial qualities which he valued above all else, and instead of sympathy he found antagonism. As a fact indicating the difficulties which stood in his way, it is interesting to know that the first idea for the mural paintings,The Flight of NightandThe Discoverer, which he executed in the new Capitol at Albany, shortly before his death, was conceived over thirty years ago. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his mind was embittered, and his work even more unequal than that of so many of his older colleagues. But even so he has left a number of works, as for instance the original sketch for theFlight of Night, several portraits, and aView of Gloucester Harbour, which will always be counted among the triumphs of American art.
Prominent among the American students in the French school wasRobert Wylie, a native of the Isle of Man, who was brought to the United States when a child, and died in Brittany at the age of about forty years in 1877. HisDeath of a Breton Chieftain, in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, andBreton Story-Teller, in the Pennsylvania Academy, two very fine pictures, although somewhat heavy in colour, show him to have been a careful observer, with a power of characterisation hardly approached by any other American painter.
Lambs on the Mountain-side. By WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.Lambs on the Mountain-side.ByWILLIAM MORRIS HUNT.
As a remarkable artist, belonging also to the French-Americanschool, although he never left his native land, we must mentionR. H. Fuller, of Boston, who died comparatively young in 1871. Fuller had a most extraordinary career and displayed extraordinary talent. Originally a cigar-maker, and later a night watchman, he was almost entirely self-taught, his study consisting in carefully looking at the French landscapes on exhibition at the stores, and then attempting to reproduce them at home. The knowledge thus gained he applied to the rendering of American landscapes, and he had so assimilated the methods of his French exemplars, that his creations, while they often clearly betrayed by what master they had been inspired, were yet thoroughly American.
This sketch of the history of painting in America is necessarily very fragmentary, by reason of its shortness, as well as by the limitation imposed by the plan of this book, which excludes all living artists. Many prominent representatives of the various tendencies to which the reader's attention has been called, have, therefore, had to be omitted. It is believed, nevertheless, that, while the mention of additional names would have made the record fuller, the general proportions of the outline would not have been materially changed thereby. Nor is the apparently critical tone, the repeated dwelling on the lack of originality in subject as well as method, to be taken as an expression of disparagement. A fact has simply been stated which admits of a ready explanation, hinted at in the introductory remarks, but which must be kept steadily in view if American Art is ever to assume a more distinctive character. The painters of America, considering the circumstances by which they have been surrounded, have no reason to be ashamed oftheir past record. They have shown considerable aptitude in the acquisition of technical attainments, and the diligence and enthusiasm in the pursuit of their studies on the part of the younger artists, promise well for the future. It rests altogether with the nation itself whether this promise shall be fulfilled.