ANERICAN PIC rURE^ AND ORINDA MUNSON BRYANT Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/americanpicturespaiOObrya AMERICAN PICTURES AND THEIR PAINTERS BY THE SAME AUTHOR WHAT PICTURES TO SEE IN AMERICA $3.00 net PICTURES AND THEIR PAINT- ERS $3.00 net WHAT PICTURES TO SEE IN EUROPE IN ONE SUMMER $1.35 net WHAT SCULPTURE TO SEE IN EUROPE $1.35 net FAMOUS PICTURES OF REAL BOYS AND GIRLS $1.25 net In Preparation FAMOUS PICTURES OF REAL ANIMALS John Lane Company, Publishers, New York Ernesta. Beaux. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Frontispiece. (See page 204) AMERICAN PICTURES AND THEIR PAINTERS BY LORINDA MUNSON BRYANT AUTHOR OF "What Pictures to See in America," "What Pictures to See in Europe in One Summer," etc. ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY : I MCMXVII Copyright, 191 7, by JOHN LANE COMPANY Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York, U. S. A. TO MY LIFE-LONG FRIEND AMELIA TIGHT RALSTON WHOSE COMPREHENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF ART IS MY CONSTANT INSPIRATION INTRODUCTION 'T^HE welcome accorded What Pictures ^ To S^t IN America and the desire to know more of our own artists that the book has aroused are the real incentives for bring- ing out American Pictures and Their Painters. Our people never were more keenly alive to the value of our native art; all over the country public galleries, dealers and private owners are giving more and more prominence to their American paintings and on all sides there is an awakened interest in American art. To be ignorant of our leading artists is not to be fully abreast of the times. Then, too, no correct valuation of our native work can be gained without reckoning with the general public, for the public is the final court of appeal. American Pictures and Their Painters is designed to provide a working basis for the appreciation of American art. To accomplish this I have attempted especially to trace the careers of the leaders in their respective INTRODUCTION eras — artists who even now are modern old masters. It is high time that we as a nation should realize that many of our American painters are not only standing shoulder to shoulder with the geniuses of Europe and Asia, but are to-day the world's leaders in art. Nat- urally it is too early as yet to judge the younger artists correctly, consequently only a limited number are here represented; those are in- cluded who indicate the trend of thought in art to-day. If only our people will take an intelli- gent interest in the work of our modern Ameri- can artists, we shall have fewer sins of omis- sion in recognizing real worth and shall gain much credit in discovering and encouraging latent talent. I take this occasion to extend my thanks to the museums, galleries and dealers and to sev- eral of the artists themselves who have assisted me with data, pictures and advice, and es- pecially do I acknowledge the kind courtesy of the Detroit Publishing Company, who have made it possible for me to use the photographs of many paintings of which they own the copy- right. LORINDA MUNSON BrYANT. New York City. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. West, Copley, Peal, Trumbull . . 21 II. Stuart, Sully 30 III. Cole, Church, Doughty, Leutze, Hunt, Bierstadt, Hill, Moran . 33 IV. Inness 48 V. Keith, Martin, Wyant, Bunce . . 56 VI. Homer 64 VII. Fuller, Johnson, Vedder, Coleman 71 VIII. La Faroe, Ryder 79 IX. Whistler 88 X. Hovenden, Mosler, Millet, Duve- NECK, Thayer gg XI. Robinson, Harrison, Brush, Mel- chers, Marr, Tanner . . ' . . 105 XII. Beckwith, Chase, Cox .... 113 XIII. Blakelock, Tryon, Murphy, Wig- gins, Dewey 121 XIV. Inness, Jr., Walker, Foster, Carl- sen, Van Lear, Lathrop, Dain- GERFIELD, CrANE I32 XV. Davis, Ranger 139 XVI. Abbey, Blashfield, Volk . . . 150 XVII. Sargent 157 XVIII. Alexander, Blum 164 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. Hassam, Weir, Dewing, DeCamp . 171 XX. TWACHTMAN, BeNSON, TaRBELL, ReID, Metcalf, Simmons 181 XXI. Symons, Redfield, Ochtman, Scho- FiELD, Harrison, Rosen, Carlson, Ryder 188 XXII. Beaux, Hawthorne, Cassatt . . 203 XXIII. Groll, Williams, Genth, Lie, Kroll 213 XXIV. Davies, Bohm, Frieseke, Miller, MacCameron, Mora .... 220 XXV. Bellows, Luks, Nourse, Beal, Mc- Lean 228 XXVI. Spencer, Hopkins, Dessar, Garber, Speicher, Brown 234 XXVII. Snell, Lever, Yates, Waugh, Dougherty, Koopman .... 242 XXVIII. Leigh, Couse, Burroughs, Parrish 250 XXIX. Wiles, Dearth, Turner, Henri, Walter, Seyffert, Norton . . 260 XXX. Pearson, Tack, Bittinger, Boronda, Peterson, Bernstein .... 270 XXXI. Sloan, Congdon, Fry, Eyre, Rou- land, Davey 280 XXXII. Marin, Benton, Zorach, Ray, Wright, Russell 292 ILLUSTRATIONS Ernesta. Beaux. Metropolitan Museum of Art .... (Frontispiece) FIG. FACING PAGE 1. — Death on the White Horse. West. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia 22 2. — Saint Peter Denying Christ. West. Hampton Court, England . 23 3. — Portrait of John Bourse. Copley. Worcester Art Museum . . 23 4. — Portrait of Washington. Peale. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 28 5- — Portrait of Alexander Hamilton. Trumbull. Metropolitan Museum of Art 28 6. — Portrait of Washington. Stuart. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . 30 7. — Portrait of General Dearborn. Stuart. The Art Institute, Chicago 30 8. — Portrait of Miss Beach. Stuart. Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas 32 9. — Portrait of Mrs. Morton. Stuart. Worcester Art Museum . . 33 10. — Portrait of Henry Nichols. Stuart. Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 36 11. — Portrait of Fanny Kemble. Sully. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 36 12. — In the Catskills. Cole. Metropolitan Museum of Art ... 39 13. — Niagara Falls. Church. Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C. 42 14. — On the Hudson. Doughty. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 42 15. — Washington Crossing the Delaware. Leutze. Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art 42 16. — The Bathers. Hvmt. Worcester Art Museum 43 17. — The Yosemite Valley. Hill. Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento . 46 18. — Sunset in the Woods. Inness. Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C 48 19. — The Coming Storm. Inness. Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas ■ 48 20. — The Approaching Storm. Inness. The City Art Museum, St. Louis 50 21. — Peace and Plenty. Inness. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . 50 22. — The Delaware Valley. Inness. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 50 23. — Early Morning. Inness. The Art Institute, Chicago .... Si 24. — Home of the Heron. Inness. The Art Institute, Chicago ... 54 25. — Sunset in Georgia. Inness. Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee . . 54 26. — The Coming Storm. Keith. The Art Institute, Chicago ... 58 27. — Summit of the Sierras. Keith. The Institute of Art, San Francisco 58 28. — The Mountain Top. Keith. The Institute of Art, San Francisco . 59 29. — The Harp of the Winds. Martin. MetropoHtan Museum of Art . 59 30. — Forenoon in the Adirondacks. Wyant. Metropolitan Museum of Art 62 31. — Morning in Venice. Bunce. The Macbeth Gallery. New York City 62 ILI.USTRATIONS FIG. FACING PAGE 32. — Fog Warning. Homer. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston .... 64 33- — Hark, the Lark! Homer. Lay ton Art Gallery, Milwaukee ... 64 34- — The Unruly Calf. Homer. Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn 65 35- — Northeaster, Homer. Metropolitan Museum of Art .... 66 36. — The Gale. Homer. Worcester Art Museum 67 37. — The Wreck. Homer. The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh ... 68 38. — Sunlight on the Beach. Homer. The Museum of Art, Toledo . . 68 39. — The Coming Storm. Homer. Lotos Club, New York City . . 69 40. — The Fuller Boy. Fuller. The City Art Museum, St. Louis . . 76 41. — The Old Kentucky Home. Johnson. The Public Library, New York City 77 42. — The Sphinx. Vedder. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston .... 77 43. — The Oil Wells. Coleman 78 44. — Adoration, La Farge. The Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn 80 45. — The Wolf Charmer, La Farge. The City Art Museum, St. Louis 81 46. — The Halt of the Wise Men. La Farge. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 84 47. — The Waste of Waters. Ryder. The Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn 84 48. — In the Stable. Ryder. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . . 8s 49. — Portrait of Whistler. Boldini. The Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn 90 50. — My Mother. Whistler. The Luxembourg, Paris 91 51. — ^At the Piano. Whistler T'. . . . 92 52. — The Blacksmith. Whistler. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . 93 53. — Study in Rose and Brown. Whistler, The Gallery of Fine Arts, Muskegon 94 54. — Portrait of Sarasate. Whistler, The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 95 55. — In the Studio. Whistler. The Art Institute, Chicago .... 96 56. — Lady with the Yellow Buskin. Whistler. Wilstach Gallery, Phila- delphia 96 57. — Connie Gilchrist. Whistler. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 97 58. — Portrait of Whistler. Way 98 59. — Breaking Home Ties. Hovenden. The Macmillan Company, New York City 100 60. — The Prodigal's Return. Mosler. Luxembourg, Paris .... loi 61. — The Cosy Corner. Millet. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . loi 62. — The Whistling Boy. Duveneck. Cincinnati Museum .... 102 63. — The Flower Girl, Duveneck. Cincinnati Museum 102 64. — Portrait of a Young Woman. Thayer. Metropolitan Museum of Art 103 65. — In the Sun. Robinson 106 66. — Castles in Spain. Harrison. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 107 67. — Mrs, Brush Reading to Her Children, Brush 108 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. FACING PAGE 68. — The Communion. Melchers 109 69. — The Fencing Master. Melchers. The Museum of Art, Detroit. 110 70. — Marriage. Melchers. The Institute of Arts, Minneapolis. . . 110 71. — Silent Devotion. Marr. Lay ton Art Gallery, Milwaukee . . . 11 1 72. — The Wandering Jew. Marr, Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 112 73. — The Two Disciples at the Tomb. Tanner. The Art Institute, Chicago 112 74. — Portrait of William M. Chase. Beckwith. John Herron Institute, Indianapolis 114 75. — Alice. Chase. The Art Institute, Chicago 114 76. — Dorothy. Chase. John Herron Institute, Indianapolis . . . 114 77. — Dorothy and Her Sister. Chase. Luxembourg, Paris . . . . 115 78. — Lady with White Shawl. Chase. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts IIS 79. — In the Studio. Chase. Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn 116 80. — Fish. Chase. Metropolitan Museum of Art 117 81. — Portrait of Chase. Chase. The Detroit Museum of Art . . . 118 82. — Portrait of St. Gaudens and Chase. Cox. Metropolitan Museum of Art 119 83. — The Brook by Moonlight. Blakelock. The Museum of Art, Toledo 122 84. — Ecstasy. Blakelock. Gallery of Fine Arts, Muskegon . . . 123 85. — Before Sunrise in June. Tryon. The Museum of Art, Detroit . 124 86. — November. Tryon. John Herron Art Institute, Indianapohs . 125 87. — ^Autumn Sunset. Tryon. The Worcester Art Museum . . . 126 88. — Spring Morning. Tryon. The Museum of Art, Toledo . . . 127 ' 89. — At Sunset. Murphy. The City Art Museum, St. Louis . . . 127 90. — Woodland Boundary. Murphy. The Museum of Fine Arts, Syra- cuse 128 91. — Summer. Wiggins. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . . 128 92. — October Evening. Dewey. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 129 93. — Bringing Home the Cows. Inness, Jr. The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester 132 94. — Wood Sawyers. Walker. The City Art Museum, St. Louis . . 132 95. — Summer Day. Foster. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . 133 96. — Woods Interior. Carlsen. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 134 97. — Autumn. Van Lear. Macbeth Gallery, New York City ... 135 98. — The Meadows. Lathrop. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . 135 99. — Slumbering Fog. Daingerfield. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 138 100. — Autumn Uplands. Crane. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 139 101. — Clouds. Davis. The Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse . . • 140 102. — Evening. Davis. Metropolitan Museum of Art 141 103. — Time of the Red-Winged Blackbird. Davis. Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse 142 104. — On the West Winds. Davis. Macbeth Gallery, New Yorl? City 142 IIvLUSTRATlONS FIG. FACING PAGE 105. — North West Wind. Davis. The Art Institute, Chicago ... 143 106. — Early Summer. Davis. The Institute of Arts, Minneapolis . . 144 107. — Long Pond. Ranger. Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse . . . 145 108. — Group of Sturdy Oaks. Ranger. The Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo 145 109. — Landscape. Ranger. The Museum of Art, Toledo .... 148 no. — Uses of Wealth. Blashfield. Banking House, Cleveland . . . 152 111. — The Penance of Eleanor. Abbey. The Carnegie Institute, Pitts- burgh 152 112. — Scene from King Lear. Abbey. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 153 113. — Portrait of Felix Adler. Volk. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 156 114. — The Misses Boit. Sargent. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . 158 lis. — Carmencita. Sargent. Luxembourg, Paris 158 116. — Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley. Sargent. John Herron Insti- tute, Indianapolis 159 117. — Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. Sargent. Tate Gallery, London 160 118. — Carnation Lily, Lily Rose. Sargent. Albert Memorial Museum, London 161 1 19. — Tyrolese Interior. Sargent. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 162 120. — Isabella and the Pot of Basil. Alexander. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 164 121. — The Ring. Alexander. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . 165 122. — Portrait of Walt Whitman. Alexander. Metropolitan Museum of Art 16S 123. — Portrait of Auguste Rodin. Alexander. The Cincinnati Museum 168 124. — Portrait of Robert Blum. Alexander. The Cincinnati Museum . 168 125. — Venetian Lace Makers. Blum. The Cincinnati Museum . . 169 126. — The New York Window. Hassam. The Corcoran Gallery of Art 172 127. — Spring Morning. Hassam. The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 173 128. — The Church of Old Lyme. Hassam. The Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo 173 129. — The Caulker. Hassam. The Cincinnati Museum 174 130. — The Portrait. Weir. The Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse . . 174 131. — The Red Bridge. Weir. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . 175 132. — ^Writing a Letter. Dewing. The Museum of Art, Toledo. . .176 133. — The Lady with a Macaw. Dewing. The Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo 177 134. — The Silver Waist. De Camp 177 135. — Niagara in Winter. Twachtman. Macbeth Gallery, New York City 182 136. — 'The Waterfall. Twachtman. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 183 137. — Sunshine and Shadow. Benson. Macbeth Gallery, New York City 184 138. — Portrait of a Boy. Benson. The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh 185 139. — Woman in Pink and Green. Tarbell. The Cincinnati Museum . 185 140. — The Miniature. Reid. The Museum of Art, Detroit .... 186 II.I.USTRATIONS FIG. FACING PAGE 141. — Midsummer. Metcalf. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . 187 142. — Sunlight in the Woods. Symons. Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas 188 143. — River in Winter. Symons. The Institute of Art, Minneapolis . 189 144. — The Crest. Redfield. John Herron Institute, Indianapolis . . 192 14s. — Laurel Brook. Redfield. Albright Art Gallery, BufTalo . . . 193 146. — The Delaware River. Redfield. Corcoran Gallery of Art . . 193 147. — Sycamore Hill. Redfield. The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh . 194 148. — December. Ochtman. Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas 194 149. — A January Day. Schofield. The Cincinnati Museum . . . 195 150. — Old Mills of the Somme. Schofield. John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis 196 151. — ^Woodstock Meadows. Harrison. The Museum of Art, Toledo . 197 152. — Frozen River. Rosen. Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans . 197 153- — The Brook in Autumn. Rosen 198 154. — Woodland Brook. Carlson. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 199 155. — Pack Monadnock. Ryder 200 156. — The Dancing Lesson. Beaux. Private Collection 204 157. — A New England Woman. Beaux. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 205 158. — Mother and Child. Hawthorne. Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse 205 159. — The Trousseau. Hawthorne. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . 206 160. — Mother and Child. Cassatt 207 161. — Morning Bath. Cassatt. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . 208 162. — Silver Clouds. GroU. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . 214 163. — Summer. Williams. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . . . 214 164. — Woodland Pool. Genth. The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester . 215 165. — Morning on the River. Lie. The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester 216 166. — The Conquerors. Lie. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . . 217 167. — Building New York. KroU 218 168. — The River Front. KroU 219 169. — A Dream. Davies. Metropolitan Museum of Art .... 220 170. — Mother and Child. Bohm. Macbeth Gallery, New York City , 221 171. — Summer. Frieseke 222 172. — The Hammock. Frieseke 223 173. — Morning Sunlight. Miller. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 224 174. — Gold Fish. Miller 225 175. — New Orleans Negro. MacCameron. The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester 225 176. — Flowers of the Fields. Mora. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 226 I77-— Anne. Bellows. The Carnegie Institute, Chicago 228 178. — Evening. Luks 229 179. — Anne and Dora. Luks 230 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. FACING PAGE 180. — Consolation. Nourse 7 230 181. — Picnic. Beal 231 182. — Autumn in the City. Beal 232 183. — Girl in Green. McLean. The Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse . 233 184. — On the Canal, New Hope. Spencer. The Detroit Museum of Art 236 185. — Repairing the Bridge. Spencer. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 236 186. — Mountain Lovers. Hopkins 237 187. — The Wood Cart. Dessar. Metropolitan Museum of Art . . , 238 188. — ^Flowers in Jersey. Garber. Macbeth Gallery, New York City . 238 189. — Morning Light in Spring. Speicher. Metropolitan Museum of Art 239 190. — Poplars. Roy Brown 239 191. — Backwater, Snell 242 192. — Boats at Gloucester. Lever 243 193. — Rock Bound Coast. Yates 244 194. — Sea and Rocks. Waugh 245 195. — The Clan of the Munes. Waugh. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York City 246 196. — Manana Point. Dougherty. Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas 247 197. — On the Rocks after a Storm. Koopman. Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans 247 198. — The Land of His Fathers. Leigh. Snedecor Gallery, New York City 250 199. — A Vision of the Past. Couse 251 200. — The Young Men and Horses. Burroughs 256 201. — The Funeral of Adonis. Burroughs 256 202. — Three Panels. Parrish. Curtis Publishing Company, Philadel- phia 257 203. — Portrait of His Father. Wiles. Metropolitan Museum of Art . 260 204. — Cordelia. Dearth. Metropolitan Museum of Art 261 205. — A Lady with a Parasol. Turner 264 206. — Spanish Gipsy Girl. Henri. Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans 265 207. — Catherine. Henri 266 208. — English Nurse. Walter . .' 267 209. — Dutch Woman. Seyflfert 268 210. — Study in Black and Gold (Lorinda Munson Bryant). Norton . 269 211. — By the River. Pearson 272 212. — A Sea of Hills. Tack 273 213. — Madame du Barry. Bittinger 274 214. — The Fandango. Boronda 275 215. — A Busy Street. Peterson 278 216. — The Opera Lobby. Bernstein 279 217. — Portrait Drawing of Paul deKock. Sloan. Metropolitan Museum of Art 282 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. FACING PAGE 2i8. — Factories on the Thames. Congdon 282 219- — Dryad. Fry 283 220. — The Eternal Drift. Fry 284 221. — The Upper Box. Eyre 28s 222. — Guided by the Stars. Rouland 28s 223. — An Old Sea Captain. Davey. Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C 290 224. — Marin's Island (Maine). Marin 294 225. — Figure Organization. Benton 295 226. — Spring. Zorach 298 227. — Dance Interpretation. Ray 299 228. — Adolescence. Macdonald-Wright 302 229. — Cosmic Synchromy. Russell 303 AMERICAN PICTURES AND THEIR PAINTERS AMERICAN PICTURES AND THEIR PAINTERS CHAPTER I WEST— COPLEY— PEALE— TRUMBULL AMERICA, the inheritor of the ages! That certainly sounds promising, but, we may ask, has the inheritance proved wholly a blessing? The cry has been going up for a hundred years and more that in our art we are only imitators of the past. This cry has not been without some truth ; but why, we ask, expect from American painters in so short a time what it has taken older countries cen- turies to accomplish? The wonderful scenery of the new country and the picturesque Indian no doubt impressed the artists among the Pilgrim Fathers, if there were any, but both the scenery and the In- dian must have lost much of their picture- making quality in the struggle for existence of those early days. Then, too, had the trained 21 22 AMERICAN PICTURES artist painted genre pictures of the Indian in his unique costume and unusual surroundings and sent them back to the old home, I suspect the European art world would have tapped its forehead with much the same significance that the inn keeper did at the tales of the returned hunter who first discovered Yellowstone Park. Again, is it not possible that our art inherit- ance was one of the real obstacles to be over- come before our native American artist could respond to the wonderful surroundings of nat- ural scenery and native inhabitants ? The very bigness of the country and the unusualness of all that pertained to life ill fitted the traditions of the eighteenth century art work of Europe. Not until 1738, when Benjamin West opened his eyes in the new world, did American paint- ing have its birth. Immediately there comes to mind a mental picture of the little Benjamin sitting by the cradle painting a picture of his baby sister with a brush made from pussy's tail. The stories of the early achievements of the boy are as much, a part of his identity as that he was born in America, so it matters little whether he was an infant prodigy or not. Even if he were not a great artist, we are rather proud of the business ability that made him a necessary adviser to King George III, and resulted in his being the real instigator in Fig. 3 — Portrait of John Bourse. Copley. Courtesy of the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. ANO THEIR PAINTERS 23 founding the Royal Academy, London, Eng- land m 1767. The usual jealousies were undermining the art societies of London when the king took matters in his own hands — under the direction of West, however — and secretly planned his own art academy. He added the last straw to the expiring societies by answering person- ally the request of the president that West's "Regulus" be sent to one of the exhibitions. ^'No/' said the king, "'it must go to my exhibi- tion — the Royal Academy." The king invited West to be the first president but West felt that the honour belonged to an Englishman, and persuaded Reynolds, who had nothing to do with the preliminaries, to accept the honour. West at the death of Sir Joshua in 1792 be- came the second president. The king at this time wished to confer the honour of knight- hood upon him, a precedent established with Reynolds, but West, possibly hoping for a ^^baronetcy and a pension,'' gracefully refused and with a note of pride, said, '1 think I have earned greater eminence with my pencil than knighthood could confer on me." Although he retained the royal favour of King George III, he never again was given the opportunity of refusing knighthood nor was he offered a high- er honour. West is the only president of the 24 AMERICAN PICTURES Royal Academy, in its life of one hundred and fifty years, who did not become a "sir" upon accepting the presidency. Throughout the reign of King George III West continued in favour with the court, but upon the acces- sion of King George IV the court patronage ceased. West spent his boyhood days in Philadel- phia, where the Indian in his untrammelled life appealed to his artistic nature, and gave him just the material for picture-making, which material he used when he painted ''The Death of General Wolfe.'' His audacity in stepping out of the beaten path of art tenets and cloth- ing his characters in the costumes of the peo- ple, the country, and the time brought him enthusiastic applause from the people in spite of the disapproval at first of so eminent an art- ist as Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua, after careful examination, said, 'West has con- quered; he has treated his subject as it ought to be treated; I retract my objections. I fore- see that this picture will not only become one of the most popular but will occasion a revo- lution in art." West went to Italy when quite young; after a short sojourn in that country he started for home, stopping in England for a business call. The call extended over the rest of his life, and gave him a final resting place AND THEIR PAINTERS 25 in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, London (1820). Besides a series of large canvases on Eng- lish history made by request of the king, West began a series of religious pictures. One of the most noted of these is ''Death on the Pale Plorse" (Fig. i), in the Pennsylvania Acad- emy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. It is painted in the grand style he assumed in his large com- positions, possibly thinking to follow in the footsteps of Michael Angelo. He has taken his theme from Rev. 6:8, "And I looked, and behold a pale horse : and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." In looking at the paint- ing we find that West has literally followed the words of St. John. While the few simple words of the evangelist leave a clear picture of horror in our minds, this painted picture of West's is so full of confusing details that the significance of the scene is lost in the chaos of figures. What a masterpiece this would have been if Michael Angelo had conceived it ! In some of his smaller canvases, however. West has given a touch of reality akin to his own personal charm and Quaker directness. 26 AMERICAN PICTURES This is specially true of ''St. Peter Denying Christ" (Fig. 2), Hampton Court, England. The apostle's earnest, deprecating manner, combining both devotion and cowardUness, has a human element that speaks to the heart. West's artistic ambition was greater than his skill with brush and paint. The reddish-brown colour comes from painting on red grained canvas — a legacy from the Italian Eclectics, and unfortunately emphasises the impetuous efforts of one ill at ease with his tools. While Benjamin West was practically an English painter, except by accident of birth, his friend and contemporary, John Singleton Cop- ley (173 7- 1 815), was a true American. Cop- ley probably had his early training from his stepfather, though his son, Lord Lindhurst, states that his father, Copley, "was entirely self-taught and never saw a decent picture, with the exception of his own until he was nearly thirty.'* Among the pictures Copley painted, probably before he left America, was the ''Portrait of John Bours" (Eig. 3), now in the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. This young clergyman of Newport (1737-1815) and Copley were nearly the same age and, from the intimate character of the picture, there can be little doubt that a warm friendship bound them together. Seldom did Copley give so AND THEIR PAINTERS 27 sympathetic an understanding of the personal element as in the likeness of this gentleman. That it is a likeness, who can doubt? The splendid physique and air of good fellowship mark the man as a strong, helpful friend. While Copley was still living in Boston — probably in 1766 — ^he sent a painting, ''Boy with a Flying Squirrel," to his countryman, West, in London, England. The painting ar- rived unsigned and without the accompanying letter, but West, recognising the American habitat of both the pine wood of the stretcher and the flying squirrel, suspected it was from his friend Copley. He enthusiastically pro- nounced the colouring to be worthy of Titian. Through West's influence the picture was hung in the exhibition of the Society of Incorpor- ated artists — though anonymous works were usually prohibited — and at once Copley's repu- tation was established in England. It was nearly ten years later before Copley visited the great galleries of Europe and finally settled in London. Here, under the influence of Reynolds and Gainsborough, he gained tech- nical skill in his art, but his portraits of the royal family and English nobility have not brought him the lasting fame of the pictures he painted before leaving America. ''The long series of portraits of our colonial digni- 28 AMERICAN PICTURES taries, divines, judges and merchants" and tKe strong, self-reliant women of that day mark him as a veritable "American Van Dyck/' Those portraits give us a better understanding of the type of manhood and womanhood that laid the foundation of our Republic than any historians have given us in words. It is to Charles Wilson Peak's (1741-1827) credit that after studying under West four years in London, he came home to practise his art. He had the good fortune to have Washington sit for him fourteen times. His portraits were the first ever painted of our first president, and what a pity that they lack that element of sympathetic good-fellowship that an artist with a delicate understanding reveals of his sitters. His "Portrait of Washington" (Fig. 4), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, is no doubt a good likeness, but with no soul. It seems strange that Peale could not have given a warm, personal picture of Washington. It is said that he made a minia- ture of General Washington while in camp "in a room so small and poorly lighted that Peale, who stood by the window, was forced to ask the distinguished model to sit on the bed." When John Trumbull (1756-1843) was paid $32,000 for four pictures of American histori- cal events, to fill compartments in the Rotunda AND THEIR PAINTERS of the Capitol at Washington, he probably re- ceived more than they would bring to-day, if their value depended upon their artistic merit. As a recorder of American history Trumbull deserves some consideration, but as an artist little can be said in his favour. His active serv- ice in the Revolutionary War brought him in contact with the leading men of the times, so that he never lacked for sitters of renown. To have the honour of making a 'Tortrait of Alexander Hamilton" (Fig. 5), Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, was sufficient of itself to claim recognition for the artist. Hamilton's distinguished bearing was just the quality that appealed to Trumbull, who believed in the dig- nity of art; then Hamilton's habitually cheer- ful, bright face overcame, in a measure, the hard, formal brush of the artist, and his deli- cate skin and rosy cheeks compelled Trumbull to use agreeable colours. CHAPTER II STUART— SULLY "^"O truly American household has been ^ complete for more than a hundred years without a copy of Gilbert Stuart's ( 1755-1828) "Athenaeum Portrait of Washington" (Fig. 6), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Though other cities claim Stuart originals of Washington, the artist himself says, in a note at the foot of a letter from the President, preserved by his daughter : "In looking over my papers to find one that had a signature of George Wash- ington, I found this, asking me when he would sit for his portrait, which is now owned by Samuel Williams (the Marquis of Lansdowne) of London. I have thought it proper that it should be his, especially as he owns the only original painting I ever made of Washington, except one I own myself. I painted a third, but rubbed it out. Signed, Gt. Stuart.'' Of course Stuart made many replicas of the Athenaeum head, but Washington sat only three times to the great artist. The portrait 30 Fig. 7 — Portrait of General Dearborn. Stuart. Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago. AMERICAN PICTURES 31 Stuart owned was sold by the artist's widow to the Washington Association and, in 1831, was presented to the Boston Athenaeum, hence the name; it is simply loaned to the Museum. The Washington portrait for Samuel Wil- liams, referred to in Stuart's letter, was sent to England and is known as the Lansdowne Washington. It is a full-length figure, though Washington sat for the head only. The peculiar expression around Washing- ton's mouth is probably due to his false teeth, or rather bars. In a letter to his dentist of October 12, 1798, he writes: '1 find that it is the bar alone, both above and below, that gives the lips the pouting and swelling appearance — of consequence, if this can be remedied all will be well. . . . George Washington." This : letter was written a year before the president's death and after Stuart painted his portraits. Stuart himself said, in reference to the Athen- aeum head : ''When I painted him, he had just had a set of false teeth inserted, which accounts for the constrained expression so noticeable about the mouth and lower part of the face." He probably meant the bars. In writing of Gilbert Stuart we are dealing with a man who was as strong in artistic origi- nality as the great painters of Europe. As a portrait painter he had no superior. His 32 AMERICAN PICTURES philosophic mind and keen insight into the mo- tives of men revealed to him traits of char- acter in his sitter that enabled him to paint not only a man's reputation but his real self. No portrait is a finer example of Stuart's best work than that of "General Dearborn" (Fig. 7) in the Art Institute, Chicago. George C. Mason, describing the painting of General Dearborn, in his biography of Gilbert Stuart, says: ''The mouth, painted as only an artist of the highest order could paint it, v^ith a faint smile lurking around the corners, gives the idea that the figure is about to speak in reply to some remark that has been made." Stuart painted on mahogany panels prepared under his special direction. The surface of the panel was made to look like canvas by passing the plane over the whole face, then across the surface at right angles. The ar- rangement of his palette was simplicity itself, yet his wonderful skill in laying in colours has left his pictures nearly as fresh to-day as a century ago. Benjamin West would say to his pupils : "It is no use to steal Stuart's colours ; if you want to paint as he does, you must steal his eyes." The "Portrait of Miss Clementina Beach" (Fig. 8), Fort Worth, Texas, is unique in be- ing that of a lady who was a pupil of Stuart. Fig. 8— Portrait of Miss Beach. Stuart. r\)iirt('sy of the Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas. Fig. 9— Portrait of Mrs. Perez Morton. Stuart. Courtesy of the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. AND THEIR PAINTERS 33 Miss Beach was one of those splendid women who helped mould the young women of our Republic. She was born in Bristol, Eng- land, and came to America about 1800, when scarcely twenty-five years old. In conjunction with Mrs. Saunders, she opened a school for young women in Dorchester, Mass. She was also ambitious to know something of portrait painting, so between the years 1810 and 181 5 she sat to Gilbert Stuart for this portrait, and afterwards copied the picture, making it a standard for her own work. That Stuart understood the mental attitude of one seeking high ideals is readily seen in the clear eyes looking at us so searchingly. He has made us feel that here is a woman with a real message, and that she has the magnetism that holds listeners, and the honest purpose that wins allegiance to the truth. That this 'Tortrait of Mrs. Perez Morton" (Fig. 9), Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum, and the Athenaeum Washington were never finished is not surprising, for one of the criti- cisms often made of Stuart was his careless painting of accessories, to which the artist would reply, '*I copy the works of God, and leave the clothes to the tailor and mantua- makers." Stuart painted two portraits, possibly three, 34 AMERICAN PICTURES of Mrs. Morton, but she sat for only the first one. The finished portrait possibly is still in possession of the Clinch family, East Boston — Mrs. Clinch was a granddaughter of Mrs. Morton. The latter in appreciation wrote the following lines to the artist : "Stuart, thy portrait speaks with skill divine : Go on — and may reward thy cares attend, The friend of genius must remain thy friend; Genius is Sorrow's child, to Want allied, Consol'd by Glory and sustained by Pride; Unknown — unfelt — unshelter'd — uncaress'd — In walks of life where worldly passions rest." Stuart was quick to respond : "Who would not glory in the wreath of praise. Which M — n offers in her polished lays? I feel their cheering influence at my heart, And more complacent I review my art; Yet, ah, with Poesy, that gift divine, Compar'd, how poor, how impotent is mine ! No more my adverse fortune I lament: Enough for me that she extends the meed, Whose approbation is applause indeed." Mrs. Morton was called the American Sappho. AND THEIR PAINTERS 35 When Stuart painted the "Portrait of Henry Nichols" (Fig. 10), Carnegie Institute, Pitts- burgh, he put on record the Hkeness of one of the pioneers of the eastern shores of Mary- land — the Nichols family came to America at the time of Lord Baltimore. Henry Nichols was a man of refinement, and hospitality was a marked feature of his Maryland mansion. Ma- son writes of this portrait: ''It is related of him (Nichols) that he determined to have his portrait painted by Stuart, and to this end, at- tended by his bodyguard, he drove from Balti- more to Boston in his own carriage, giving three weeks to the journey. Stuart rewarded his enthusiasm by painting a remarkably fine head of him." Gilbert Stuart's talent for painting began to show itself early in his teens. Like most chil- dren with a special talent, he was capable but v^ayward in school, self-willed, high-spirited, at the head and front of all mischief, and a general favourite with his companions. He worked his way to success through many vicis- situdes of fortune — lack of money and personal inconsistencies bringing the usual drawbacks. The words of his obituary by his friend Wash- ington Allston (the artist) are as true of Stuart to-day as when written in 1828. ''In the world of art Mr. Stuart has left a void that 36 AMERICAN PICTURES will not soon be filled. And well may his coun- try say : 'A great man has passed from among us/ But Gilbert Stuart has bequeathed her what is paramount to power — since no power can command it — the rich inheritance of his fame." Thomas Sully (1783-1872) was born in England, but as most of his time was spent in America, he is classed among our artists. Not always were his portraits, especially of women, satisfactory, but occasionally there were gen- uine sparks of inspiration in his brush, when he would produce a masterpiece of portraiture. One of his really good portraits is of ''Frances Anne Kemble" (Fig. 11), better known as Fanny Kemble, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. A -beautiful and a brilliant woman was Fanny Kemble, with a heart warm and tender for the misfortunes of others. When twenty years old (1829) she began her public career at Covent Garden, London, in "Romeo and Juliet," under her father's management, to re- claim the fortune of her family. She took the part of Juliet; her father was Romeo and her mother the nurse. From the first she was a complete success and in three years reclaimed the family exchequer. She came to America with her father in 1832 and was enthusiastic- AND THEIR PAINTERS 37 ally received ; from then until her death, in 1893, she spent much time in this country. Her marriage to a Georgia planter, Pierce Butler, in 1834, was not a success and after fifteen years she was divorced and resumed her maiden name. Her writings are well known, and her grandson, Owen Wister, is one of our distinguished authors to-day. Sully has certainly pictured the woman of genius in the glorious eyes, wide-set and shin- ing with love and sympathy. How modern in composition it is; everything is subordinated to the head, yet the contour of neck and shoul- ders and the firm hand and arm gives strength to the well-poised head. Sully was practically self-taught. From his ninth year, when his parents came from England, until grown to manhood he lived in South Carolina, away from art centres. The influence of his talents was soon felt, however, when his likenesses of southern beauties and men of affairs became known. CHAPTER III HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL COLE — CHURCH — DOUGHTY — LEUTZE — HUNT — BIERSTADT — HILL — MORAN T^HOMAS COLE (1801-1848) was prac- tically the beginning of the Hudson River School. His early career as an artist was typical of the struggles and handicaps that so often beset art students with more talent than money. One of eight children in a small house in Philadelphia, where refinement and a love for music were dominant traits, he worked on his wood-engraving within sound of his sisters' sweet voices. A young law stu- dent, who had his home in the Cole family, writes of Thomas: ''He has his little work- bench put up in our room, under the window sill, — we sat with our backs to each other; at intervals he whistled and sang, then laid aside the tool — took up his flute, which was his con- stant companion, and played some air.'' A longing for the country was stirring in the 38 AMERICAN PICTURES 39 heart of the young artist until, fired by tales of a travelling artist, he slung his green bag over his shoulder one October day and was off for the land of nowhere. Indian summer was at hand. And as he trudged up the Hud- son River valley the gaily decked maples and brilliant-hued sumachs, gladdening the deep green still lingering in the grass and under- growth, beckoned him on. When he reached the village of Catskill, bordering the foothills of the mountains, his real joy began. His own brush tells the story of what he saw "In the Catskills" (Fig. 12), Metropolitan Museum of Art. He opened the way and many other young artists followed in his footsteps. It was the sale of his early pictures of the Catskills and the good will of Trumbull and other artists that made possible a trip to Eng- land and access to the studios of Lawrence and Turner. The latter said of him: ''There is a young man from America, named Cole, who ought to do fine things. He is as much of a poet as a painter." Thomas Cole's most famous work, at least his best-known work, is "The Voyage of Life," in four scenes. Steel engravings, made of the series early in the last century, that have found their way into many homes throughout America, are growing more valuable each year. 40 AMERICAN PICTURES Frederick E. Church (1826-1900) became a student of Thomas Cole in his studio in the upper woods above the river. It was from this spot that Church explored the fastnesses of the mountains of the Catskill and the hidden coves and the ever-varying shores of the Hud- son. Here he caught that spirit, lurking in nature unmolested, which drew him irresist- ibly to her more astounding feats, first in South America and Jamaica and then to Labrador to complete his famous "Icebergs." Probably his ''Niagara Falls" (Fig. 13), Corcoran Art Gal- lery, Washington, brought him the most per- manent fame. He painted this picture before he had been to the old world and most perti- nent was the statement made at its appearance that, "Indeed this work formed an era in the history of native landscape art, from the rev- elation it proved to Europeans." He certainly bewilders the mind with that stupendous vol- ume of water pouring into the abyss below. It is not surprising that the picture attracted favourable attention in Paris at the Interna- tional Exhibition in 1867, where it received a medal of the second class. At that time com- paratively few people in Europe had any defi- nite idea of our country or knew anything about its natural wonders. To state that such a vast quantity of water was pouring itself AND THEIR PAINTERS 41 year after year over a fall of one hundred and sixty-four feet was almost unthinkable by the old world travellers, familiar with the falls of Switzerland. What did it mean — that wide stretch of water reaching to the very horizon? Where were the mountains to stay its course? And where did the depths below lead to that were swallowing up the mighty waters ? How calmly Church has marshalled his forces, until at the inevitable moment the great phenome- non is consummated! Thomas Doughty (1793-1856) was another leader in American landscape painting. A na- tive of Philadelphia, he was early apprenticed to a leather manufacturer and even became a manufacturer himself. But when twenty-eight years old he decided to become a painter. His picture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of a view "On the Hudson" (Fig. 14) is a fine example of the '^silvery tone" he gave to his canvases to convince the American public of the beauty of our landscape. Doughty worked in London and in Paris but he remained true to his native inheritance and painted his pic- tures of home scenes with so much sincerity and truth that they brought him great popu- larity and are still highly prized. When Emanuel Leutze (181 6- 1868), who holds a unique place in American art, painted 42 AMERICAN PICTURES "Washington Crossing the Delaware" (Pig. 15), Metropolitan Museum of Art, he made a picture that every school child associates with that important crisis in our early history. Of course the boat is too frail to cope with the tremendous rush of the ice and snow in the Delaware River under the spring thaw, but we must remember that Leutze made his studies of the breaking up of river-ice in his garden overlooking the Rhine at Diisseldorf. The flag, too, is an anachronism as it was not adopted until six months later, June 14, 1777. Nevertheless, the spirit of patriotic enthusi- asm overbalances all defects in the picture as a work of art. Though a native German, Leutze was reared in America and this early training gave him an understanding of our national struggles that resulted in his preserv- ing to us on canvas the most noted events in the American Revolution. Quite early in his art career Leutze recrossed the Atlantic to study in the Diisseldorf Acad- emy. Later he returned to America full of the enthusiasm of the new movement — the overcoming of the artificial in producing some- thing of the life of the present. Leutze was certainly a man of colossal mind with ideals of grand proportions, though his art was rather crude in colour and technique. ■Niagara Falls. Church. Courtesy of the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington. Fig. 15 — Washington ( 'lossing the Delaware, Leutze. Courtesy of the Metiopolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 16— The Bathers. Hunt. Courtesy of the W orcester (Mass.) Art Museum. AND THEIR PAINTERS 43 No early American artist studied art under more favourable circumstances (too favour- able) than William Morris Hunt (1824-1879). Unfortunately inherited political, social, finan- cial, and intellectual gifts did not make him a master painter, though they did give him high ideals, and those ideals were his salvation. At sixteen Hunt v^as sent to Harvard, but it was the college life, not the studies, that at- tracted him. This soon brought disgrace, in suspension and ill health from over-indulgence, until consumption was imminent. His alarmed mother hurried with him to Europe and finally the family settled in Rome, where he soon be- gan to improve in health and his artistic nature to expand. His first thought was to be a sculp- tor, and to this end he entered a sculptor's stu- dio in Rome and later spent a short time under Barye in Paris. The idea of returning to Har- vard was abandoned in favour of an art career — a ^career subject to many changes as time went on. At twenty young William decided that his talent was painting and went to Diisseldorf, where he and Leutze were fellow students. Soon Hunt rebelled under the restraint of the mechanical methods that were used alike in training artists, mechanics and scientists. Then, too, the hard work savoured too much of 44 AMERICAN PICTURES college, so he returned to Paris and again de- cided to take up his chisel, this time with Pra- dier, the sculptor. Before carrying out this plan he made a hurried trip to America and while at home saw a painting by Couture (French) which so influenced him that he lost no time in returning to Paris to study with the French painter. Couture was an eclectic, in a measure, at least he had broken away from the hard, cold, cut-and-dried rules of the class- icists, particularly in his warmth of colour. He also showed considerable feeling for na- ture. For five years Hunt studied with Cou- ture, as his favourite pupil. The progress he made under the influence of praise satisfied him for a time, but at last his eyes were opened through the study of the old masters. Couture ceased to be all in all and, fortunately, Millet now came into the life of the young American. Hunt saw at once the bigness of the "Ra- phael of Pigs.'' He went to Barbizon, regard- less of the ridicule of his Paris associates, and sat at the feet of Millet. Hunt wrote of the French master: ''1 found him working in a cellar, three feet underground, his pictures be- coming mildewed, as there was no floor. He was desperately poor, but painting tremendous things.'' Hunt's association with Millet was that of master and pupil, though Millet never AND THEIR PAINTERS 45 had pupils in the strict sense of the word. They walked together, these two, Hunt absorb- ing from the master as he talked by the way. What an inspiration to be with a man whose soul was aHve to the great heart of humanity ! He would say: ''See those things that are moving down there in a shadow. They are creeping or walking, but they exist; they are the genii of the plain. They are nothing but poor folk, however. It is a woman all bent, without doubt, who is bringing back her load of grass; it is another, who is dragging herself along, exhausted, under a bundle of fagots. From a distance they are superb. They square their shoulders under the burden ; the twilight devours their forms ; it is beautiful, it is grand as a mystery." Hunt bought Millet's pictures as far as he could, but, what is of greater value, he came home to America and taught his pupils the wonderful lessons learned from the Barbizon master. In his ''Bathers" (Fig. 16), Worces- ter (Mass.) Art Museum, we feel the honest simplicity of one who loved nature and who longed to represent her in very truth. The wholesome glow on the warm pink flesh, com- ing from within the healthy bodies, and the alert tension of the elastic muscles mark his sympathetic understanding of boy-life. Hunt's 46 AMERICAN PICTURES sensitive artistic nature was easily played upon by Millet's simple scenes, and at times he al- most comes up to the master's standards in his own work — as in the '^Bathers" — and always in his teaching. He seemed to realise, how- ever, his own limitations, even in his many years of successful teaching in Boston, for he would say, sadly: "In another country I might have been a painter." There were three artists who discovered our western mountains about the same time and each, in his own way, thought to make a great national art by stretching large canvases and painting expansive scenes; but the very big- ness of the western out-of-doors was their un- doing. Albert Bierstadt (1830), German by birth, made the Rocky Mountains his studio and there strove to interpret the height and depth of that stupendous upheaval of past ages. His ambition exceeded his talent and Diissel- dorf training, and what was a marvel in nature became tame and lifeless under his brush. Thomas Hill (1829), English by birth, suc- ceeded a little better in representing the won- ders of California. His "Yosemite Valley*' (Fig. 17), Crocker Gallery, Sacramento, car- ries us in imagination through the deep de- AND THEIR PAINTERS 47 pression into the mystery of the mountains beyond. The picture is a marvel in perspective; in the near distance is El Capitan towering a sheer four thousand feet above the Merced River, the tiny stream that has come rolling and tumbling through the narrow valley from the falls at the other end of the valley, seven miles away. The surrounding rocks are a strange rampart of sentinels, irregular in size and shape, but forming nearly a complete wall enclosing the deep narrow depression. The Yosemite Valley, or Grizzly Bear as the In- dians named it, is one of those freaks of mother earth where suddenly, eons ago, she lowered a small part of herself down into the depths below and then became stationary, forming a wee snug valley about seven miles long and a half to two miles wide, protected by a sheer wall. The falls that have been pour- ing over nooks and angles of the rocks for ages have made no appreciable impression in wearing away the hard foundation — at least not since the valley was discovered in 185 1. Thomas Moran (1837), English by birth, also painted the Yosemite Valley, but probably he is best known by his Yellowstone Park pic- tures. CHAPTER IV INNESS /^EORGE INNESS (1825-1894), born in Newburgh, N. Y., was America's first great exponent of landscapes. A forerunner, an innovator and a modern, he stands as a revealer. The Corcoran Art Gallery, Wash- ington, D. C, is exceedingly fortunate in owning his "Sunset in the Woods'' (Fig. 18) because of the artist's own words in regard to it. On July 23, 1891, Mr. Inness wrote of the "Sunset in the Woods": "The material of my picture was taken from a sketch made near Hastings, Westchester County, New York, twenty years ago. This picture was commenced seven years ago, but until last win- ter I had not obtained any idea commensurate with the impression received on the spot. The idea is to represent an effect of light in the woods toward sundown, but to allow the imag- ination to predominate." We feel in this bit of personal revelation that we have drawn near to the original power of this artist's 48 Fig. 18 — Simst't in the Woods. Inness. Courtesy of the Corcoran Art GiiUery, Washington. YiG. 19 — Coming Storm. Inness. Courtesy of the Carnegie Publie Library, Fort Worth, Texas. AMERICAN PICTURES 49 genius. If, in the hurry to sell to-day, there could be a little more of the Inness spirit of waiting until genius really burns, we might have fewer failures on the market. Why the public buys as it does is an unexplained mys- tery. However, if those with opportunities would live up to their responsibilities, the public would learn to buy good art, for only good art would be offered them. Was it not worth the waiting to get that glow on the venerable old tree trunk and in the opening beyond the big boulder? How we can feel the gloom creeping in and the dark- ness shutting down ! A stillness is in the air ; the hushed twitter of the birds and the nodding flowers warn us that night is near. The cry of the owl and the night insects grows bolder. Come! we must hurry, for that brilliant glow — like the hectic flush — goes suddenly "and leaves the world to darkness." The ''Coming Storm" (Fig. 19), Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas, is one of several storm pictures that Inness painted. He was especially felicitous in representing the states of the weather, if such a prosaic term may be used for his poetic portrayal of na- ture's moods. He makes us feel the summer's 50 AMERICAN PICTURES heat — hot, drowsy, quiet, shimmery under the noonday sun, also the coming storm when the air is heavy with gathering moisture. The clouds heap themselves together in wild masses, literally driving out the sunshine as they hurl their thunderbolts across the valley. A glorious sight, that moving mass now shrouding the hilltop ! A hush is in the valley ; not even the treetops feel the fury of the coming storm. The sunlight twinkles and glows on the gath- ering clouds, as though defying the onrush. A thrill of pleasure is ours in a scene like this, for often we have watched just such a storm gather. Inness never fails to bring to us a sense of nearness — as something that warms our heart and makes us happier. Usually it is summer that appeals to him, the time when the earth rejoices and nature is giving her fullest bounty. Now we turn to the "Approaching Storm" (Fig. 20), City Art Museum, St. Louis, and find that Inness never was any more monoto- nous in painting a storm than a storm itself is monotonous. He was quick to catch a unique demonstration of the elements and its effect on surrounding nature. The storm in its onrush has roused to an unusual pitch the young cow in the foreground, as she hurries to shelter. The rapidly moving clouds seem to change po- -Approaching Storm. Inness. Courtesy of the City Art Museum, St. Louis. Fig. 22 — Delaware Galley. Inness. Courtesy of the MetropoHtan Museum of Art. Fig. 23 — Early Morning. Inness. Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago. AND THEIR PAINTERS 51 sition before our very eyes, so vividly does our imagination picture the storm bursting upon the land. Somehow George Inness gets into our blood whether he is portraying the mi- nutest details, as in his earlier works, 'Teace and Plenty" (Fig. 21) and the "Delaware Valley" (Fig. 22), Metropolitan Museum of Art, or whether he is getting the effect through simpler methods. In "Peace and Plenty," his unconventional composition, with its broad ex- panse of fields and winding stream leading to the mountains in the distance and his pleasing colour full of sunshine, fill us with the joy of the country; and in the "Approaching Storm" the rumble and crack of the thunder and lightning make our blood tingle just as they used to when we were children. It is an interesting bit of history that Inness painted "Peace and Plenty" just as peace was declared from the Civil War and the country had had an unprecedent year of plenty. When Mr. Snedecor, the founder of the gallery, saw it he offered to frame and exhibit it for half the sale proceeds — but no buyer was found for the picture. And only after several changes in dealers and a number of years had passed was this picture, now occupying an honoured place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sold and at an inverse ratio price to 52 AMERICAN PICTURES the number of years since it came from Mr. Inness' brush. One of the finest, if not the finest, collec- tion of paintings by George Inness is in the Art Institute of Chicago. Only when we can see a number of Inness' landscapes consecu- tively do we fully appreciate his words about the purpose of his pictures. *'Some persons suppose that a landscape has no power of con- veying human sentiment. The civilised land- scape peculiarly can; and therefore I love it more and think it more worthy of reproduction than that which is savage and untamed. It is more significant.'' As we linger before his "Early Morning" (Fig. 23) a feeling of reverence steals over us, for surely it is a morning prayer of thanks- giving. Tenderly and lovingly the rising mist kisses the green things as it passes, and the trees and the grass sparkle with joy at the caress. It is not a sentimental scene, this early morning, but a familiar one that finds an echo in our hearts. The power of touching the mystery of familiar things was one of Inness' strong points. There lingers in and around his landscapes that human warmth which makes the world akin. He was always a student, but he never had pupils. He used to say when asked how many pupils he had, "1 have had AND THEIR PAINTERS 53 one for a very long time, and he is more than enough for me. The more I teach him the less he knows and the older he grows the farther he is from what he ought to be.'' In- ness worked standing, very rapidly at first, then more and more slowly as he neared the completion of his picture, to secure the best results. It was his custom to stand at his easel from twelve to fifteen hours. When George Inness began to make him- self felt in America he caused almost as much controversy among artists as Turner did in England and Puvis de Chavannes in France. Like all innovators, he was looked upon with suspicion until he proved himself in the right. That Inness did prove himself in the right is seen in landscape painting to-day. He threw off the yoke of representing merely externalities, and, with his poetic instinct, gave subtle meaning to his interpretations of na- ture that proved him a genius. He was many times unequal in his painting, but never prosaic or commonplace, and the poetry of his scenes is always fascinating. Inness' own words index his art : ^'I would not give a fig for art ideas except as they rep- resent what I perceive behind them. . . . Riv- ers, streams, the rippling brook, the hillside, the sky, clouds — all things we see — will con- 54 AMERICAN PICTURES vey the sentiment of the highest art if we are in the love of God and the desire of truth.'' When he selected the ''Home of the Heron" (Fig. 24), The Art Institute, Chicago, as a bit of nature to be interpreted, he told plainer than words could tell his love for the out-of- the-way places where the mists and vapours hang low and the ever-varying atmosphere, illuminating and enveloping the whole, is like a veil revealing and concealing the charms of a beautiful woman. So intimate and familiar is he with this particular spot that even the heron, timid as she is, does not fly far from her home. Inness was sixty-five and at the zenith of his art career when he painted ''Sunset in Georgia" (Fig. 25), Layton Art Gallery, Mil- waukee, Wis. With him began the war be- tween the old and the new in American land- scape painting, and in him the modern Ameri- can landscapists found their strongest advo- cate. He saw in the Barbizon artists, as against the Hudson River school, a freedom from the restraint of painting petty details that touched his American sense of the big- ness of the great out-of-doors, and he came home to find the subjects for his own paint- ings at his very door. These two traits, ex- panse of vision and intimate scenes, are the -Home of the Horon. Iniicss. Coiirtes^ of the Art Institute, Chicago. > 'iV Sunset in Gcorjria. Iiiiicss. Courtesy of the La\ t — The Mountain Top. Keith. Courtesy of the Institute of Art, San Francisco. Fig. 29— Harp of the Winds. Martin. Courtesy of the MetropoUtan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 59 trees ever green and a sky whose glories are unthinkable to the uninitiated, it is not sur- prising that he could say, "'I feel some emo- tion," and immediately paint a picture to ex- press it Many times the mountains called him, some- times in a mood of exultation and again of quiet and meditation. Of the former mood the "Mountain Top" (Fig. 28), Institute of Art, San Francisco, symbolises a spiritual ex- altation that no words could convey. Surely the artist has caught a glimpse of the Great White Throne. Homer D. Martin (1836-1897) and Alex- ander H. Wyant (1836-1892) stand with George Inness in the triangle that represents American landscape painting in the nineteenth century. Inness, ten years the elder, did sound the first note, but in so doing he struck a chord in the artistic natures of the other two that responded and gave out notes as clear and original as his own. Homer Martin truly sings to us on the harp in the ''Harp of the Winds" (Fig. 29), Met- ropolitan Museum of Art. The breeze steal- ing through the slender poplars must be whis- pering a sweet melody to the bowing trunks and waving branches, and they in turn are repeating the strain to the placid water where 6o AMERICAN PICTURES they are mirrored. This picture is a symphony, a poem and a colour harmony. Martin, excepting a few weeks of instruc- tion, was a self-taught artist. He spent sev- eral years in Europe, where he was associated with Whistler, but not even that powerful, magnetic man could change the inner spring of Martin's artistic nature. There was something inside the man that compelled him to sift out essentials. Almost austere, yet never unkind, in his searching for the elementary, he places before us the very framework of nature. Look again at the "Harp of the Winds.'' Sky, rocks, trees and water — bare facts. Was there ever sweeter music with fewer details? The sug- gested hamlet, the clinging bushes, the float- ing clouds and the all but leafless trees are warm from the hands of the Creator. They draw us close to the beginning "and God saw that it was good." When this picture was sent to Germany a few years ago to repre- sent America it was a wise choice. It is true that not always are our artists big enough to hold to the essentials; simplicity, like a gold thread, is the fundamental that is raising up masters in our midst. Although Alexander Wyant was born in a little Ohio village away from art centres, curiously enough he heard of Inness and when AND THEIR PAINTERS 6i probably only twenty saw an original paint- ing by Inness in Cincinnati. This so fired young Wyant's ambition that he made a trip over the mountains to Perth Amboy to see the master and ask his advice. How Inness, who was ever responding to the enthusiasm of young artists, must have warmed the heart of the Ohio boy and sent him home with an in- tensified desire to paint scenes around his home ! The first picture Wyant ever exhibited in the National Academy, in 1865, was "A View of the Ohio River." Wyant went to Germany in 1864, but, dislik- ing the methods of the Diisseldorf school, turned to the Barbizon masters and Constable and Turner in England. His stay in Europe was short. On returning to America he set- tled in New York City. When he was at the height of young manhood he met with a dis- aster that would have ended the art career of a lesser man. Not being well, he joined a gov- ernment exploring expedition to Arizona and Mexico, hoping to gain strength. But the hardships, exaggerated by the cruelty of the leader, so undermined his health that he was stricken with pai alysis and never regained the use of his right hand. But Wyant had some- thing worth while to give the world and no handicap could deter him. The cunning of the 62 AMERICAN PICTURES right hand was transferred to the left and his art ripened and matured under the inward strength of the seer. ^ Let us stand before his "Forenoon in the Adirondacks" (Fig. 30), Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art, and watch the light on the distant hills. Listen: we almost hear the whisper of the leaves under the caress of the sun. And the little winding stream, how it babbles as it passes, and how solemnly the tall grey birch tree guards its laughing waters ! No one knew better than Wyant how to harmonise them. Sometimes he gathers the sun's rays in Oc- tober into one great mass of golden light and floods a low-lying marsh until the feathery grasses and dignified cat-tails glimmer and glisten like burnished gold ; and again the sub- dued light stealing from a shaded nook is his and only the hilltop feels the sun. His shades are never gloom and his sunshine is ever a benediction. It is not surprising that every year his pictures increase in value, for they are the works of one inspired of God. William Gedney Bunce (1840-1916), spe- cially known for his Venetian scenes, comes a little closer to modern methods, without break- ing with traditions of the past. He has the pa- tience that waits until a scene has literally be- come a part of himself. This often results in Fig. 31 . — Morning in Venice. Bunce. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gal- lery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 63 his painting nature as he sees her and not as she is. There is no question but that a "Morn- ing in Venice" (Fig. 31) is a scene of the artistes vision. It gives the spirit of Venice — and a spirit that is insistent in its appeal — but it is Mr. Bunce who has conjured up the spirit. His pictures have a true decorative value founded as they are on the mysterious spell of the Venetian colour of sky and water and sail-boats. It matters little what objects are represented with so bewitching a colour ele- ment. CHAPTER VI HOMER TI/^INSLOW HOMER (1836-1910), though trained entirely in American schools, was big enough in spirit to grasp the great essentials of true art and give to the world an art that appeals to humanity. Old ocean was never lashed to canvas in his moods of fury until Homer boimd him. At first he used the angry or sullen waves as simple settings for scenes somewhat anecdotal in character but always human in interest. In the ''Fog Warn- ing" (Fig. 32), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the boatman is one of that company of ^'shipmen who had knowledge of the sea." The man shows no hurrying born of fear in the long sweep of the steady arms, nor yet does he ignore the danger of fog and storm — his courage, born of experience, is cautious, steady and enduring. We are becoming so accustomed to thinking iOf Winslow Homer as the painter of the ocean that we feel a little surprised when we see his 64 Fig. 33 — Hark, the Lark! Homer. Courtesy of the Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee. AMERICAN PICTURES 65 other pictures. The surprise, however, is an exceedingly pleasant one in the Layton Gal- lery, Milwaukee, Wis., where the picture is ^^Hark, the Lark!" (Fig. 33). The charm of the ocean is in it — the salt air, the stiff breeze, the sand dunes, but above all the free life of the fisher folk. Yes, I know there is the sad story of those who follow the sea, but people who stop at the song of the lark are not all sadness. What eager comely faces these young women have, and how far removed from the peasant folk of the old world ! Native- born American women are these toilers, with aspirations that lift their souls to the heights and make of drudgery something more than simply existing. Surely Wordsworth's words would find a response in the hearts of these three. "Up with me ! up with me into the clouds ! For thy song, Lark, is strong; Up with me, up with me into the clouds ! Singing, singing, With clouds and sky above thee ringing, Lift me, guide me till I find That spot which seems so to thy mind !" It was not unusual for Homer to see pictures in the homely scenes of the farm, particularly when it was a simple, usual occurrence in the 66 AMERICAN PICTURES life of a half-grown boy. In the "Unruly Calf" (Fig. 34), Institute of Arts and Sci- ences, Brooklyn, how well Homer under- stood that no animal is more likely to take a sudden stand for no earthly reason than a half -grown calf — particularly a pet one — and that no brute, for its size, can be more firmly rooted to the ground. Its four legs are so many posts set to brace each other. Why the animal stops no one can tell. It is sheer stupidity, I suspect. The boy may pull and twist at the rope with all his strength ; but what cares that big-eyed quadruped for a rope around his neck? The scene is delicious in its entire truth to nature. The atmosphere of the country is perfect; the disgust of the boy and the contrariness of the calf are simply bits of real life that make us forget everything but the outcome of the struggle between the two. Homer knew that especial episode well ; perhaps he knew the very negro boy who was sent to bring the calf home. The whiff of the country that such a picture brings is a veritable tonic to tired bodies and fagged brains. We realise, however, that Homer knew the ocean as few people knew it. His home for years was Scarboro, Me., out on a spit of land where the sight and sound of the ocean were ever present. Here he made those stu- AND THEIR PAINTERS 67 pendous masterpieces of old ocean — veritable portraits of the mighty deep ''where the floods lift up their waves/' We unconsciously draw our cloaks closer as we look at the ''North- easter" (Fig. 35), Metropolitan Museum of Art. The spray dashing against the brown- black rocks fairly strikes our faces and the great breaking wave is bound to overwhelm us. What a restless, resistless force is moving those mighty waters! The swish of the spray and the roar of the breakers fill our ears as we drink in the grandeur of the scene. The ocean became more and more the real theme of Homer's paintings, yet he never lost sight of its relationship to man. The artist's heart was big with human sympathy, and not even constant communion with the roar of waters in his home on the Maine coast could make him forget the fisher folk who dwell by the sea. And how marvellous his insight into the heart qualities that made possible such a scene as "The Gale" (Fig. 36), Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. That strong, fearless woman, like a young lioness in its native forest, moves along the rock-bound coast confident in her power yet watchful of the ever-changing and merciless monsters pitted against each other. The awful noise of the bellowing wind and roaring water would terrorise a landsman, 68 . AMERICAN PICTURES but not so this child of the sea. Her ears are accustomed to the angry growl of the elements. She is concerned only in the safety of her lit- tle one. Her mother-instinct responds to the exhilaration of conquering opposing forces. The wide-eyed child knows no fear. It is not surprising that "The Gale" won a gold medal at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and yet the artist's modest price of fif- teen hundred dollars was reduced to the pitiful sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars before it found a purchaser. And now, less than a quarter of a century later, the Worcester Art Museum paid to Snedecor and Company, New York City, approximately thirty thousand dol- lars — the highest price ever paid for an Ameri- can picture by an American artist — for this masterpiece that belongs to the ages. The pity of it is that, as from time immemorial, master- artists still have little financial benefit from their works. Who is to blame? ''The Wreck" (Fig. 37), Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa., American in setting, has the spirit of the follow-the-sea-folk that Homer put into his earlier works. The merciless power of the ocean is the underlying theme, yet the unflinching courage of the life-saving crew is the human element that holds us. Again we feel that Homer's profound rev- Copyright, Carnegie Institute. Fig. 37 — The Wreck. Homer. Courtesy of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. From a Thistle Print. CopyrigJii, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 38 — SunUght on the Beach. Homer. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Toledo. AND THEIR PAINTERS 69 erence for the mighty waters that cover the deep was sweetened by his great sympathy with humanity. A man of strong imagination, tempered by a self-control that gripped him, he centred his art on a broad and wholesome understanding of man's strength and nature's powers. We might almost call the ''Sunlight on the Beach'' (Fig. 38) the "Home-coming." The steamer steadily nearing the port speaks vol- umes; the joy of the home-coming is in the glad sunlight that sparkles on the dark green waters around it and dissipates the mist of the land storm sweeping out to sea. How the petty and mean sink out of sight in this glorious pic- ture! Homer's interpretation of the mighty deep is a revelation. We feel that its majesty and power reflect the One ''who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand." And the "Coming Storm" (Fig. 39), Lotos Club, New York City, is another phase of the troubled waters as distinctive as a real storm always is. How these fisher-folk must feel every turn of the wind, every piling of the clouds, every tumbling of the waves, knowing that their loved ones are at the mercy of these untamed monsters! Into their hearts must come "Peace, be still," of far off Galilee, with a new meaning. 70 AMERICAN PICTURES There is no question about Winslow Homer standing for American art. It was his picture in Paris in 1900 that compelled foreigners to note the fact that he was more than an Ameri- can painter. It was then that just a faint sug- gestion entered the minds of Europeans that America might have an art of its own in time. Were it not for the stupidity of it, the idea — for it is now only an idea — that we have no art would be amusing. Yet it still clings to the minds of some of our own people, as well as to those of our contemporaries across the water. Our artists are something like the chil- dren who, in their parents' eyes, never grow up. But why even mention a circumstance so far in the past and especially when discuss- ing paintings by Winslow Homer ? CHAPTER VII FULLER— JOHNSON— VEDDER— COLEMAN S soon as an individual or a people has reached the stage of development that calls for a recognition from the world, it gives an impetus to the whole being that raises each part to a much higher standard. When the United States celebrated its hundredth anni- versary at Philadelphia, in 1876, and the na- tions of the earth came to congratulate, the whole body politic assumed a new dignity, and each part became conscious of its own impor- tance. This was particularly true of the fine arts. Our position as an agricultural people, as a manufacturing people, as an inventive people, and as a generally progressive people had been recognised and commented upon, but, except in individual cases, our standing in the art world as a nation had attracted no special attention. From this time in our history we are to be reckoned with from the artistic stand- point as well, although it has taken another 72 AMERICAN PICTURES twenty-five years before the artistic training could be gained in our art centres. They were not all young artists who came under the spell of the new activity by the cele- bration of the nation's birthday, but artists who for a quarter of a century had been keep- ing abreast of the times and were keen for any movement where the trend was toward prog- ress. Not all of the men, however, were work- ing before the eyes of the public. Take a man like George Fuller (1822-1884), an artist whose pictures are being justly recognised. He was born in Deer field, Mass., and the little training he ever had was gained in Albany and Boston. When his "Quadroon,'' Metro- politan Museum of Art, was exhibited in the early sixties, or possibly in the fifties, the criticism was so adverse, it is said, that for eighteen years the artist sent nothing more to the exhibition. Fuller was seeing beauty in the hazy atmos- phere and mist-covered fields. To him the luminous morning veil and the dull shadows of evening were softening influences of nature. We feel in the "Quadroon" that the girl's dull soul is hidden under a transient veil rather than that the artist has taken this means to soften the tragedy of a clouded mind. During the formative years of work Fuller AND THEIR PAINTERS 73 was struggling to support his family on a mort- gaged farm, but making of himself a sane, well-balanced man. Though his efforts to wrest a living from the land failed, in 1876, his pictures, the by-products of farming, saved the day. The point of view after a score of years had changed, and the public now bought with enthusiasm. For the remaining eight years of his life he had purchasers for every- thing he did. Fuller was unique in his work ; without the fundamental of all art, drawing, he produced with colour and atmosphere a sentiment in his pictures that contains the very essence of poetry. ^^The Fuller Boy" (Fig. 40), City Art Mu- seum, St. Louis, has a charm that nothing can mar. He is a real child, with the quaint earnestness of one used to hearing and in- stinctively understanding the family problems. This boy could have felt intuitively the father's hurt over a rejected picture, but could only express his sympathy in a dumb, childlike de- votion. Eastman Johnson (1824- 1906) was big enough to study at Diisseldorf without losing his personality. Association with Leutze — a man of generous impulses — strengthened rath- er than weakened his artistic independence. After studying the old masters in Italy and 74 AMERICAN PICTURES Paris and spending four years at The Hague, he settled in New York and painted American subjects in his own American manner. Johnson's genre pictures of the Southern negro before the war are real bits of history. They are original and unusual in their por- trayal of the negro's natural traits of character and give us a better understanding of them and their future development. One of his strong- est paintings is ''The Old Kentucky Home" (Fig. 41), New York City Public Library, which was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1867 and again at the Centennial of 1876. Johnson knew just how to picture the shiftless sur- roundings of the slave, and yet retain that picturesque quality that was the charm of the slave quarters. Time may come and time may go, but the glamour of Uncle Remus and Bre'r Rabbit, the strumming of the banjo and the dancing of the cake-walk, the cheer of the wide fireplace and the odour of the hoe-cake will still hang over those ramshackle cabins. As a portrait painter, Mr. Johnson was a man of no mean merit. His good taste and fine judgment made a place for him among the young men of genius, and his knowledge of modern methods kept him in touch with their plan of work in any particular line. The most striking thing about Elihu Vedder AND THEIR PAINTERS 75 (1836-) IS that he is a man of ideas. He is perfectly independent in his choice of sub- jects, rather whimsical at times, but truthful in his mode of presentation and ideal in mo- tive. The material which he gathered from the old Italian masters has served him merely as suggestions in working out his composi-' tions, with no hint of the counterfeit in the manner of work. In ''The Sphinx" (Fig. 42), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a subject used by several older artists, he is unique in his idea of infinity in the vastness of the outlying desert and of unsatisfied questionings in the silent, mysterious watcher that so long defied the inquisitive excavator. The riddle of the Sphinx is one of the myths of Ancient Greece. The Sphinx, a monster with a lion's body and the upper part a woman, crouched on top of a rock on a highroad of Thebes and stopped every traveller to solve her riddle and if the answer was not correct she killed the victim. The king and queen of Thebes, Laius and Jo- casta, had one son, but an oracle prophesying that he was dangerous to the throne, Laius left him on Mount Cithseron with feet pierced and tied together. A herdsman of Corinth found the child and took him to king Polybus, who adopted him and, because of his swollen feet, called him CEdipus. 76 AMERICAN PICTURES When QEdipus was grown he met Laius in a narrow road on his way to Delphi. Neither would give place to the other and QJdipus killed Laius, not knowing that he was his father. The Sphinx was afflicting the country at the time with her riddle. CEdipus, nothing daunted, went to hear the riddle. She said: "What is that which in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening on three?'' CEdipus answered, ''man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in man- hood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff.'' The Sphinx was so angry at his wisdom that she threw herself from the rock and died. The people of Thebes were so grate- ful that they made CEdipus their king and he married Jocasta, not knowing that she was his own mother. A terrible pestilence and fam- ine soon overtook Thebes and when CEdipus learned from the oracle what he had done, he put out his own eyes and wandered forth at- tended by no one but his daughter Antigone. Another example of Mr. Vedder's peculiarly original work is *Xazarus," in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is a weird, strange pic- ture full of miraculous spirit. Mr. Vedder al- ways gives the impression of invisible powers stirring in the garments and of mysterious happenings among surrounding objects. A Fig. 40— The Fuller Boy. Fuller. Courtesy of the City Art Museum, St. Louis. Fici. 41 — The Old Kentucky Home. Johnson. The Pubhc Library, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 77 swish of wings is heard in the swirHng drap- ery. The friendship of Elihu Vedder and Charles Caryl Coleman (1840) is that where two ''Great souls by instinct to each other turn, Demand alliance, and in friendship burn." One of Mr. Coleman's earliest paintings is that of Mr. Vedder in his (Coleman's) studio in New York City. To-day these two artists are living within a stone's throw of each other at Capri, Italy. Wonderful old villas these two men have chosen as their homes — snuggling against the steep hills, smothered with vines heavy with luscious fruit, with wide windows for peep-holes sweeping the Bay where to ^^see Naples and die" means to live in God's Para- dise. Mr. Coleman is so intimate with old Vesu- vius that its travails of pain are choicest mo- ments of inspiration to him. Just let the old giant begin to belch forth and Mr. Coleman is ready with canvas and brush to record her con- vulsions. His series of paintings of the last great eruption when the vomitings continued for days is a historic record of untold value. In fact, not since the younger Pliny's time has there been so vivid a picture given of Vesuvius in action. 78 AMERICAN PICTURES But Mr. Coleman records things near his studio door with equal skill. ''The Oil Mill" (Fig. 43) has stood its ground against the powers of Old Vesuvius since the year One (A.D.) and is still pouring out pure, unadul- terated olive oil — a rebuke to volcanic spite. The charm of Mr. Coleman's pictures is the warm, personal note that like a gold thread binds them to us. Rich in colour, the old walls and stone jars and brick-paved floors glow under his brush. Again and again he lets us look into some workshop and beyond to the sunlit court giving glimpses of private affairs as intimate as the Little Masters of Holland. Fig. 43 — The Oil Wells. Coleman. Courtesy of the Artist. CHAPTER VIII LA FARGE— RYDER JOHN LA FARGE (1835-1910) stands alone in the modern art world — a painter, a mural decorator, a discoverer of the adapt- ability of opaline glass, and a writer. Yet he entered his career under protest, for, as he said, ''No one has struggled more against his destiny than I ; nor did I for many years acquiesce in being a painter, though I learned the methods and studied the problems of my art. I had hoped to find some other mode of life, some other way of satisfying the desire for a con- templation of truth, unbiased, free, and de- tached." La Farge was a dreamer and a student, and these opposite qualities gave him the double power of one "who not only sees the world as a pageant of coloured light, but has found means to express his visions." One character- istic of his art was the pose or gesture of his figures. Although he had made a special study of anatomy, he never allowed his scientific 79 8o AMERICAN PICTURES knowledge to interfere with the significance of the emotion he wished to express. This thought is admirably brought out in "Adora- tion'' (Fig. 44), Institute of Arts and Sci- ences, Brooklyn. The pose of the figure to the minutest details is suggestive of the most exalted worship of a Higher Being. The elongated body is in perfect harmony with the uplift of the soul, as expressed in the shining face. Our eyes follow easily and naturally the long folds of the white robe from the ex- tended foot to the raised hatids — the hands alone express adoration — and the lifted head. The stained glass window from this painting is in the Church of the Paulist Fathers, Colum- bus Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, New York City. It has been my good fortune while gathering personal incidents about Mr. La Farge and his ''Adoration'' to find that Mrs. J. Hunger- ford Milbank, founder of the International Order of Military Women (to develop mental and physical poise — the fundamentals toward world peace), New York City, when a girl posed to the artist for his "Adoration" and "St. John," in the Cathedral. One day, in a reminiscent mood, Mrs. Milbank said, "Men- tally I see again the studio in Tenth Street, and the thin, rather bent genius, which was Fig. 44 — Adoration. La Farge. Courtesy of the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn. Fig. 45 — The Wolf Charmer. La Fargo. Courtesy of the City Art Museum, St. Louis, AND THEIR PAINTERS 8i John La Farge. La Farge liked to take down my hair and arrange it himself. He made a delightful play of it, first carefully re- moving my sailor hat, then drawing out the pins one by one, and watching the light in each part of the sunny mass as it fell over my shoul- ders. How well I remember sitting upon a low stool while he bent above me, his thin face seeming to fill out and grow radiant with the joy of the task. As my sittings werje not paid afifairs, the conversation often took a friendly turn. I tried to justify my neglect of my art (he had chided her with fatherly se- verity for not pursuing it), saying that I was growing within to greater things by my studies in Greek philosophy.'' Much discussion fol- lowed. Then Mrs. Milbank again gave a word picture, as she said, ''Like a beacon light which has not dimmed through the years is the inci- dent of his quietly leaving his easel and, palette on thumb, coming to stand beside me. For a moment he rested his hand upon my head, look- ing down into my face, and there was silence — then came his strongly prophetic words: — 'Yours is more than art. You shall make good citizens.' " What a tribute to the reclaiming power of women — a power that begins at the cradle but never ends. In an interview some years ago Mr. La 82 AMERICAN PICTURES Farge gave ''The Wolf Charmer" (Fig. 45), City Art Museum, St. Louis, as his repre- sentative picture. He said: ''The picture I have chosen for you interests me, perhaps, as much from associations of travel and read- ing as for special artistic success — I made it to be one of a series of some hundred subjects more or less fantastic and imaginary. This one, of course, was based on the superstition, a European belief, which I came across in Brittany, where I spent some time in my early youth." Mr. La Farge never carried out his plan of making these books for young people. The were-wolf, supposed to be a man, was usually like a wolf, but sometimes like a white dog or black goat, and again it was an invisi- ble being roaming about devouring infants. The term bug- wolf instead of bug-bear is used in France, and scarcely a century ago even the men with bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies were thought to be conjurers. La Farge takes Goethe's "Gipsy Song" to explain his Wolf- Charmer. He says: "The gipsy has killed, you know, the black cat of the village witch, and outside in the night, with the call of the owl, he is attacked by wolves. But he knows them; they are the women of the village and he calls them and insults them by name — 'Kate,' 'Anna' and 'Bee' The poem and its AND THEIR PAINTERS 83 meaning of the tamer of the real wolf and the man-wolf gave me my subject/' Looking at the picture, we see that down through the forest defile glides the wolf- charmer. He gnaws at his bag-pipe, sending out weird, persuasive calls, until the real wolves steal out and follow him. His bent body and bowed head, his cautious step and gripping hands are in perfect harmony with his evil- looking companions. The strange note of sym- pathy in the wild music and the charmer's wolf- like face have subdued the ravenous beasts until unafraid they swing along the narrow defile as docile as dogs following their mas- ter. As a church mural painter John La Farge was an epoch maker in American art. None knew better than he the religious value of colour. His glorious altarpiece in the Church of the Ascension, New York City, is a har- mony of colour that plays upon our heart strings like strains from the immortal Bach on the great organ. And in the decoration of public buildings his keen insight and sympa- thetic understanding led him beyond the ap- pearance of things to the underlying essentials. We feel the bigness of his visions even in the minutest details, for he never sacrificed art principles to gain an appearance. Composi- 84 AMERICAN PICTURES tion, drawing, handling and even colour were his means to an end — and that end was to un- derstand the spiritual significance of life. The opalescent tone of the painting of "The Halt of the Wise Men" (Fig. 46), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has the same jewel-like quality of La Farge's stained glass windows. Prismatic colours were to him the strings from which he drew the most exquisite harmony. He interpreted nature through his colour sense, and whether he wrote with pen or with brush the same vision of delicate shimmering colour rises before us. Look at the blending tints hovering over the level plain beyond the Wise Men and their attendants and note the subdued glory gathered into the equipment of the little company in the foreground. Now listen to his colour scheme in his ''Letters from Japan" : ''Our rooms open on the water — that same blue water spangled with sunshine and fading into sky . . . The still heat of the sun burned across our way, spotted by the flight of many yellow butterflies. . . . The heated hills on each side wore a thin interlacing of violet in the green of their pines ... A vivid green against the background of violet mountains . . . except where the sun struck in the emerald hollow above the fall. ... A rosy bloom, pink as the clouds themselves. Fig. 46 — The Halt of the Wise Men. La Farge. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. FitJ. 47— The Waste of Waters, l^ydcr. Courtesy of the Institute of Arts and Scieuccs, Brooklyn. AND THEIR PAINTERS 85 filled the entire air . . . the spray, the waves, the boat, the bodies of the men glistening and sufifused with pink." John La Farge is rightly called the Nestor of our painters. His chief characteristic was "to do" modified by "to know." He had a "nervous activity, unappeased by any effort, unsatisfied by any experience, and seeking and seeking again." His insatiable desire to know led to his marvellous discoveries in stained glass — he was the inventor of modern stained glass windows and, by a process entirely orig- inal, he made that material as subservient to his needs as were the pigments on his palette. It is not surprising that the opalescent qual- ity of his glass is reminiscent of Japan; of its marvellous works of art and most of all of its colour harmony in nature. We feel this to be specially true when Mr. La Farge wrote, as he so often did, of drifting out into the hazy moonlight into a far ofiF ocean with no shore nor sky; and when he said, "We were the centre of a globe of pearl; no edges nor outlines of anything visible, except a faint circular light above from which the pearly colour flowed tremulously, and a few wrinkles of silver and dark below." The trembling, iri- descent tones hovering over that fairy land took possession of the artist's soul and, later, 86 AMERICAN PICTURES when conquering the material means of opera- tion, a glorious colour harmony was working itself out in the laboratory of his brain. Our first impression on seeing a collection of Albert P. Ryder's (1847) pictures is that an exquisite colour scheme has been carried to the nth. power of perfection. It seems as though all nature had been put under bond to contribute to her wealth. The very small- ness of the pictures enhances their gem-like qualities. That tiny canvas picturing a wo- man in red walking down an avenue of yellow autumn-coloured trees is a veritable carbuncle set in Etruscan gold. Each dainty creation is a revelation in the jewel-like quality of pig- ments and of the artist's deep sense of the value of colour in interpreting his theme. It is im- possible to give an adequate idea of the beauty of Mr. Ryder's pictures in a black and white reproduction, for so much of their real sig- nificance lies in the harmony of the colour tone ; yet the underlying thought is still there, even in a half-tone. No one can mistake the meaning of ''The Waste of Water Is Their Field" (Fig. 47), Institute of Arts and Sci- ences, Brooklyn. That vigorous scene tells the life-story of those toilers of the sea in a simple straightforward manner. To those men the scudding clouds and rolling waters AND THEIR PAINTERS 87 present as many moods to be reckoned with as the changing temper of a mob swayed by the impulse of the moment. Strong and alert, they humour and coax the elements, but never lose control in holding in leash the power that might bring destruction. Then turn to the quiet, restful scene "In the Stable" (Fig. 48), where the colourful shad- ows are ''like a vibrant music string." Po- etic? Yes, with much of emotional imagin- ings, yet it stirs old memories of feeding time, of the favourite white horse so gentle and trustworthy, of the biddy that came with her chicks to the feast. Just such scenes shape themselves in the blazing logs at the rest time of the tired business man- — scenes from the dim and shadowy past when life was all in the fu- ture. Mr. Ryder touches nature so tenderly and reverently that the rough places smooth out and life ceases to be all grind. CHAPTER IX WHISTLER "^J"© greater genius has arisen in the art world since Rembrandt than James Ab- bott McNeill Whistler (1834- 1903), but to separate the artist from the man, bristling with eccentricities and constantly at variance with the painter and the philistine alike, is not an easy task to-day. The time will come when Whistler, the great master, will fulfil his own words in the world's estimate of his works of art. "A work of art,'' said he, "should appear to the painter like a flower — perfect in its bud- ding as in its flowering, with no reason to ex- plain its presence and without need of beauti- fying it — a joy for the artist, an illusion for the philanthrope, an enigma for the botanist, an accident of sentiment and of alliteration for the man of letters." Whistler was born in Lowell, Mass., and died in Chelsea, England, and was buried in Chiswick graveyard beside his mother; but who can say to what country belongs his art? 88 AMERICAN PICTURES 89 Except for a short time in Gleyre's studio, he learned from all painters, especially from the Japanese artist, Hokusai (died the middle of the nineteenth century), who impressed him as a man of god-like qualities. One time Whistler said, with that superior air so char- acteristic of him, "Yes, there is Velasquez, Hokusai, and — myself/' No two artists in- fluenced him more than these two, but even the bias from them was purely Whistler when it appeared on Whistler's canvases. The one thing that he excelled in above all others in his painting was the ''maximum effect with the minimum of effort," but that effort was "the result of the studies of a lifetime," as he himself said. As we stop before Giovanni Boldini's "Por- trait of Whistler" (Fig. 49), Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn, I hear you exclaim, "So that is Whistler!" Yes, "the Whistler whom the world knew and feared." We find as we compare it with the portrait of his mother, the same flat cheeks and hollow temples; the frontal bone has the same curve over the eyes; the wrinkle that begins at the base of the nose and drops to the chin is there ; the mouth is the same, only the son smiles half contemptuously, half kindly, but the mother's mouth expresses no transient emotion, only the 90 AMERICAN PICTURES habitual control of years. We feel like asking, 'Was this the true Whistler?" Probably not the one his mother knew, but the one Boldini knew. Whistler himself said of it, ''They say it looks like me, but I hope I don't look Hke thatr Mr. and Mrs. Pennell, in mentioning this portrait in their biography of the artist, say that "it is, however, a wonderful presentment of him in his very worst mood, and Mr. Ken- nedy (who went with Whistler to Boldini's studio) remembers that he was in his worst mood all the while he posed. It is the Whistler whom the world knew and feared." Whistler hated posing and took little naps in between. But Boldini caught him in his waking moment with photographic exactness, so like him that Mrs. Pennell says: "You might be looking at Mr. Whistler's reflection in the glass as he sits there, his right elbow on the back of his chair, his head resting on the extended fingers of the hand, the other hand holding his hat on his knee ... in this sort of achievement no one can be compared to M. Boldini." If Whistler had painted but the one picture, "My Mother" (Fig. 50), in the Luxembourg, Paris, his fame would have gone down to pos- terity as surely as that of the author of the "Elegy." He says: "Take the picture of From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Dcirou I'ubiishiny Co. Fig. 49 — Portrait of Whistler. Boldini. Courtesy of the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn. Fig. 50 — My Mother. Whistler. Luxembourg, Paris. AND THEIR PAINTERS 91 my mother, exhibited at the Royal Academy as an 'Arrangement in Grey and Black/ Now that is what it is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but can or ought the public care about the identity of the portrait?" We feel like protesting and saying, "What does the public care about the picture as an 'Ar- rangement in Grey and Black' compared to its interest in the picture as a portrait of a mother — the type of true motherhood?" The mother element is strong in that calm, force- ful old lady quietly meditating as she sits with folded hands. Her peace has come through mental and spiritual discipline, for to her life means eternity. It was my good fortune several years ago to hear Mr. John White Alexander say in sub- stance, holding a letter from Whistler in his hand, ''Whistler told his mother upon leaving America that he would come home to her when he had made a success, but," Mr. Alexander added, "success financially did not come and that kept him from returning to America." Fortunately, his mother went to him, which softens a little the pathos of unappreciated genius. It was twenty years after Whistler painted his mother's picture before he found a pur- chaser, and then the French nation bought it, 92 AMERICAN PICTURES though it was offered to America for twelve hundred dollars. It seems incredulous that we should have been so purblind to the value of a great masterpiece. In ''At the Piano'' (Fig. 51), owned by Ed- mund Davis, Whistler has given a touch of home life that speaks volumes. That idea was probably the farthest from his mind — as "an arrangement" in a particular colour was para- mount with him — but could anything speak more eloquently for sympathy between mother and daughter than this, — the child held spell- bound not alone by the music but by the mother as well? And it is a lovely picture. Every line in the composition, every colour element, every gradation of tone are perfect. The music itself could not soothe us with a more harmonious melody than does this picture. As we look at the mother and child we feel the spirit of Whistler in them and rightly so, for the mother is Mrs. Seymour Haden, Whistler's sister. As Whistler often used this little niece in his pictures there must have been a bond of sympathy between the uncle and niece. Look at ;the folded arms of the ''Black- smith of Lyme Regis" (Fig. 52), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Was ever a smithy more sure of his strength? We could say of this man, Fig. 52 — The Blacksmith of Lyme Regis. Whistler. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. AND THEIR PAINTERS 93 *'He earns whatever he can ; And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man." It is possible, however, as we study care- fully the sideways glance of the master smith's eyes that Whistler is also peering out of those pupils and with that baffling hint of mysterious understanding that held his creditors at bay. The closer we observe the works of the master painter the more convinced we are that in each work he has left a vital, living part of himself. In his "Study in Rose and Brown" (Fig. 53), Gallery of Fine Arts, Muskegon, Mich., we feel that little Rose's calm rebellion — will deny no one that she has pitted herself against the whole world — has a suggestion of a child understanding far beyond her years. Back of those eyes of the blacksmith's daughter is an uncanny spirit of mocking self-assurance that only love and faith could conquer. She is as individual a personality, with her searching eyes of almost uncanny intelligence, as the artist himself. Now look at her hands and see if we can rid ourselves of her influence as a living power. Such a child lives as does Maggie Tolliver and Little Nell. Whistler, in his "Gentle Art of Making Enemies," said, "As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and 94 AMERICAN PICTURES the subject matter has nothing to do with har- mony of sound or colour." He no doubt gave here the keynote to his religion in art. But when we come to consider the portraits of his ^^Mother," "Carlyle," "Little Rose of Lyme Regis," and "The Master Smith of Lyme Regis," we are not sure that he told the whole truth of his religion. Truly the character of his sitters as the "subject matter" is just as important in these pictures as is his "harmony of colour." We admit that not often was Whistler interested in people per se, but when he was who could or did show greater insight into their character? The "Portrait of Sarasate" (Fig. 54), Car- negie Institute, Pittsburgh, compels our at- tention, and no wonder, for it is one of Whis- tler's character sketches. Possibly the eminent Spanish violinist may be remembered quite as well through this representation of him as by his own wonderful career. I well remember the impression the portrait made when it was first exhibited in New York City about the year Whistler died, 1903. The picture was hung in the corner of a long room opposite an entrance door. I hesitated at the doorway because the presence of the master violinist was so intimate and warm and his eloquent eyes and melancholy face were so instinct with From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 53 — Study in Rose and Brown. Whistler. Courtesy of the Gal- lery of Fine Arts, Muskegon, Michigan. Copyright, Carnegie Institute. Tig, 54— Portrait of Sarasate. Whistler. Courtesy of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. AND THEIR PAINTERS 95 life that I waited, hoping to hear again his in- terpretation of the mighty Beethoven. From Sarasate's physique and carriage, as Whistler portrays him, one might almost think it a por- trait of the master painter himself in the guise of a master violinist. Sarasate and Joachim were dividing honours when the twentieth cen- tury opened — Sarasate died in 1908 — and musical critics agree that "they will hold their places in the annals of violin playing as the representatives of certain elemental excellen- cies in art/' Of Whistler's portrait rules ''an arrange- ment'' came first, then later the individual's personality. 'In the Studio" (Fig. 55), Art Institute, Chicago, is merely "an arrangement" pure and simple, only that the Whistler per- sonality in his own figure is so compelling that, after all, it is a portrait too. Though basically American, was ever an artist more cosmo- politan than Whistler? Unique to the point of being eccentric as an individual, he never dropped to the vulgar to express his desire for something new in his art. Egotistic he was in the extreme, but always holding to a definite idea of wholesome beauty. We may not agree personally with his ideas of what is beautiful and attractive, but we always feel the sweet purity of his artistic conceptions. That many 96 AMERICAN PICTURES of his themes were mere personal expressions of some abstract ideas floating in his fertile brain is undoubtedly true, and when extreme Whistlerians are ecstatically enthusiastic over his symphonies we feel like tapping our fore- heads with a sly grin. There really is not much that we can say of "In His Studio," and he himself challenging us in a rather contemp- tuous manner — but is it contemptuous or only a challenge by one who is sure of himself? A most illusive portrait by Whistler is the "Lady with the Yellow Buskin" (Fig. 56), Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia. She turns as she passes, seemingly to glance at us, but where she is going or where she came from are en- tirely beyond our knowledge. Her person- ality is tantalising. She uses no art to draw us, yet we would follow, if only to solve her identity. Certainly Whistler has here brought together simplicity and skill in the most per- fect manner. Yes, Mr. John C. Van Dyke is right, "It is the maximum of effect with the minimum of effort" that places Whistler among the great portrait painters of the world. The myste- rious essence we call personal charm that hov- ers around his people is of the spirit, for it is rarely that he represents beautiful women or handsome men. In fact, the reverse is so Fig. 57 — Connie Gilchrist. Whistler. Courtesy of the Met- ropolitan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 97 prominent that we almost feel an impatience at his perverseness, then we smile for we know that he has made us admire his people in spite of ourselves. The portrait of "Connie Gilchrist'' (Fig. 57), Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of Whistler's rare examples of a figure in motion. Connie Gilchrist was a popular dancer at the Gaiety in London in 1876. She is represented as on the stage with a skipping rope. Whistler has caught her just as she flutters light as a feather over the gleaming footlights. Her mellow brownish-yellow costume shimmers and twinkles like a butterfly in the sun. A colour poem the painting certainly is! It re- minds us of the Jersey meadows in the fall when the grasses and sedges are flaunting their feathery tops, catching every golden ray until they vie with the topaz in gradation of colour. Whistler, the etcher, is as distinctive a term as Whistler, the painter. 'With the etching needle in hand he draws as only Rembrandt had drawn before him. . . ." writes Mr. Cor- tissoz. Whistler wrote on a proof of one of Rembrandt's portraits, "Without flaw. Beau- tiful as a Greek marble or a canvas by Tin- toret. A masterpiece in all its elements, be- yond which there is nothing." And to it af- fixes his familiar butterfly monogram. "The 98 AMERICAN PICTURES Portrait of Whistler" (Fig. 58), by Thomas A. Way, from whom Whistler learned the process of lithography, shows the artist in his workshop examining his plates. One who knew Whistler well in his home life says that there, with his beloved Trixie (his wife), he found a sanctuary of peace. Unfortunately, his ''Gentle Art of Making Enemies" was so strong in him that much of the time enjoyed he had little peace in the world. But even his most acrimonious attacks on the public do not acquit that public of its cruel neglect of one who will be remembered long after many of the public favourites are forgotten. CHAPTER X HOVENDEN—MOSLER— MILLET— DUVENECK— THAYER pOSSIBLY no picture has ever come closer to the hearthstone of our native Ameri- can home than "Breaking Home Ties" (Fig. 59), by Thomas Hovenden (1840- 1895) and owned by Mr. Charles C. Harrison, of Phila- delphia. The spirit of the true pioneer is in it. The home is that of the typical farmer where the family is a unit. Each member, from the eldest to youngest, has been part and parcel in establishing the community centre — the home — and now has come the parting of the ways. The same spirit that prompted the par- ents to migrate is stirring in the boy. His vis- ions are of a world beyond the farm, and the courage of youth urges him into the unknown. A wise mother is the little woman bidding her boy ''God Speed." He does not understand now the great heart-love that keeps back the tears, but all through the years he will feel the touch of those gentle, hard-worked hands and hear 99 loo AMERICAN PICTURES the tender words of parting. No obtrusive sentimentality mars the quiet reserve of the home-people, yet the spirit of sympathetic help- fulness is there. Hovenden, with a true artist's instinct, has told artistically a story that speaks to humanity. Thomas Hovenden's death was a tragedy. Seeing a child in front of a moving train, he jumped and saved its life but he was killed instantly. The artist's little son saw the acci- dent and, not knowing his father was there, ran for a doctor, to find on his return that it was his own father. At one time the picture was on exhibition in Philadelphia, the pro- ceeds being for the benefit of self-supporting students of the University of Pennsylvania. As a story-teller in art, with pathos the dom- inant note, Henry Hosier (1841) took the pub- lic heart by storm in his ^'Prodigal's Return" (Fig. 60), Luxembourg, Paris. It is the old familiar story of the erring one's repentance coming too late to give joy to the waiting par- ent. The artist has put into the kneeling figure grief, remorse, despair — forgiveness is beyond his reach. Were it not for the beautiful, sym- pathetic face of the priest, who stands waiting for the first paroxysm to pass, the scene would be one of utter despair. But in that face we read the comfort that will heal the broken AND THEIR PAINTERS loi heart of the penitent. Little wonder that we Hnger before this picture in the Luxembourg Palace, for in it the artist has proved his artis- tic ability as well as his sincerity in dealing with a genre subject. Another of Hosier's most charming genre pictures is "A Wedding Feast in Brittany/' Metropolitan Museum of Art. The scene is an incident of real life in old France to-day and also verifies a bit of history in the white sheet hanging in the background. From time immemorial in Brittany the bride spins and weaves a sheet which is used on all special occasions, whether of joy or sorrow. Henry Mosler was born in New York City, but spent his childhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he had his first lessons in art. He went to Europe and studied in Diisseldorf, Munich, and Paris. That his work has been greatly appreciated, his medals and honours — nearly a score of them — from the art societies of Europe and America will testify. Francis Davis Millet (1846-1912) had un- usual talents in many directions. What is most unusual, he cultivated each talent to the point of a trained professional. Whatever came to his hand was done with the whole-heartedness of one who loved his work. It mattered little whether he was acting as a war corre- I02 AMERICAN PICTURES spondent, illustrating, writing fiction, travel and criticism, judging old pictures, raising carnations or amputating an arm ; he did each with rare excellence. And he was an artist. His portraits alone give him a place of honour. Bayard Taylor, in 1878, said of Millet's por- traits of Charles Francis Adams and Mark Twain: "The figures are solid, they detach themselves immediately from the background, and are a refreshing contrast to the dim, va- pory forms which some portraits give us.'' In genre painting Millet strikes a personal note that is most convincing. We feel in ''The Cosy Corner" (Fig. 61), Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art, the touch of one who loved that particular room. Special memories cluster around that fireside and that special corner. Possibly the home-warmth of "The Cosy Cor- ner" helped comfort Millet as he stood on the sinking deck of the fated Titanic — such holy memories bring us close to the Eternal Home. Frank Duveneck was born across the Ohio River in Covington, Ky. (1848), but Cincin- nati is the proud owner of a large number of his works. Mr. Duveneck, as an instructor in the Art Academy of Cincinnati, has trained and influenced numberless students of the Middle West who now stand as masters in the modern art of America. Fig. 64 — Portrait of Youn^? Woman. Thayer. Courtesy of the Metro- pohtan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS It is no easy task to select special pictures to illustrate his work from among the many fine examples in the museum. Probably the most popular picture is the 'Whistling Boy" (Fig. 62), selected by the artist himself as one of his gifts to the museum. The painting is signed with Duveneck's unique monogram, followed by '^Munich, 1872." This little fel- low is a German and he is the type of a whistling boy of any country or any clime. How naturally a poet, a musician or an artist drops into simple, direct and regular metre, rhythm or line when picturing the elemental in life. No one is interested specially in any- thing about this boy but the puckered red lips and the tune that comes from them. The boy's listless attitude and dreamy eyes give the char- acter of the music he is remembering and softly reproducing. We could never tire of that boy. His mellow whistle is of one already compre- hending the philosophy of living. The sketch of the boy's clothes proves that Mr. Duveneck understands impressionism, even in the ex- treme, but that he is master of it. And that the artist could master details broadly, the "Flower Girl" (Fig. 63) is ample proof. Here again Mr. Duveneck chooses a typical figure from a typical class, only this time the class is confined to sunny Italy and I04 AMERICAN PICTURES the city where flowers that bloom in profusion give it its name. We will admit that the ma- jority of the artist's subjects are from foreign parts, but we are conscious that Prank Duve- neck never loses his own identity in any of them. The flower girl is decidedly an Italian young woman, with all the characteristics of her race, yet we see her sitting on the wall through the eyes of Duveneck, the American artist. It is of little consequence whether Albert H. Thayer (1849) P^^s wings on his women or not, for their purity envelopes them with invis- ible wings. ^'The Portrait of a Young Woman" (Fig. 64), Metropolitan Museum of Art, has an element of sacredness that grips our hearts. Her thoughtful, mature expression marks her innocence as that of knowledge — she is in the world but not of it. Such a woman exempli- fies Michael Angelo's answer to the critics of Rome that the Virgin was too young in his Pieta. "Don't you know," he said, *'that chaste women keep their youthful looks much longer than others." Mr. Thayer's large conception of womanhood lifts us from petty things into an atmosphere of truth — possibly ideal, but al- ways wholesome. His high standard is good, for he represents the sacredness of her mission in America. CHAPTER XI ROBINSON— HARRISON— BRUSH— MELCHERS—MARR— TANNER T T seems a great pity that Theodore Robin- son's (1852-1896) career was cut short at forty-four. He was one of the men who, under the influence of his personal friend Claude Monet in Paris, grasped the underlying prin- ciples in the new movement — the effect of light and air gained through light shadows and bright colours — without losing the qualities that make a pleasing picture. He had the com- mon sense to understand that many old art ten- ets still held good even if new ones were being discovered, and his originality taught him how to combine the new and the old to advantage. "In the Sun" (Fig. 65) gives no evidence of a struggle between contending factions; rather it breathes contentment and satisfac- tion. It is a veritable lyric of light. When Thomas Alexander Harrison (1853) painted '^Castles in Spain'' (Fig. 66), Metro- politan Museum of Art, he proved not only his 105 io6 AMERICAN PICTURES originality in dealing with scenes in the full sunlight but his understanding of boy-nature as well. This picture grips us with its in- vigorating salt air, its vitalising sun bath, its wholesome boy life, and its intimation of the great expanse of water and sky. The big out- of-doors is ours and all our dreams are realised in the shell castle on the sand. Mr. Harrison studied with Gerome in Paris, but his work is far beyond the lessons of any teacher. He sees nature with perceiv- ing eyes and helps us to see her, too. Big enough in himself to profit by the eccentric methods of those artists in Paris who were evolving a new art in their close study of nature, he never loses his sense of proportion. To him, as to all heart artists, a picture must reach the heart of the people. Never should that mean lowering of ideals, however, but rather lifting the people to higher planes. When George DeForest Brush (1855) first began his art career he painted many pictures of the American Indian — pictures that sug- gest curious tales without spoiling their artistic nature. Later he became more and more in- terested in home scenes and the people around him. Once he remarked to a friend : '1 shall never be satisfied until I am admired by the people of Cherry Hill/' meaning his neigh- AND THEIR PAINTERS 107 bours. The quiet content of "Mrs. Brush Reading to her Children'' (Fig. 67) is a never- to-be-forgotten picture. The peace of this home dwells in the mother-authority. She guides and regulates the household with the steady hand of one whose idea of love is Serv- ice — service from both parents and children. The intensely human element in these mother- pictures is a quality belonging peculiarly to Mr. Brush. He has developed a mother-atmos- phere entirely distinct from any external come- liness. His heart warmth overbalances mere beauty of person until, like Rembrandt's "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," the drawing quality of his mothers is irresistible. Mr. Gari Melchers (i860), born in Detroit, had his training in Paris, but, contrary to prophecies twenty years ago, he has developed an American spirit in his art that even the French influence of his early years could not obliterate. The "Portrait of Mrs. Melchers" is one of his most strikingly characteristic works. There is a certain dash in design and colour that marks the individuality of the art- ist. He knew his model and has dared to run the gamut in a dashing colour riot ; yet a cer- tain restraint in both model and artists grips us. "The Communion" (Fig. 68), by Mr. Mel- io8 AMERICAN PICTURES chers, is a marvellous collection of portraits of the village people as well as a picture of rare excellence. Those earnest people fascinate us as people do who believe and live their belief. Each individual is a character study and col- lectively represents the character of the village. Drawn together around the communion table of Our Lord as a community centre they never- theless represent varied, and probably con- tending, interests in their workaday life. Mr. Melchers holds firmly to life as it is among the fisher-folk and village centres. He never strays into sentimental babblings. The joys and sorrows portrayed in his pictures are the sentiments of a people who consider life worth the living. ''The Fencing Master" (Fig. 69), Museum of Art, Detroit, speaks for himself. Like Moroni's ''Tailor" in the National Gallery, London, he has dignified his work. No other recommendation is necessary but this man to convince one that fencing is the kind of exercise to produce men. If those of our American young men who slouch along the street, with head pushed forward and feet shuffling behind, could have the inspiration of this portrait, I am sure they would square their shoulders and walk like men of affairs — and Fig. 67 — Mrs. Brush Reading to Her Children. Brush. AND THEIR PAINTERS 109 they soon would be. This fencing master never worked for men but with them. Mr. Melchers' pictures have a strength and virility all their own. The bride in '*Mar- riage" (Fig. 70), Institute of Arts, Minneap- olis, is not one whit less womanly because she stands unflinchingly by the side of the man; the ceremony is to her a bond that holds for life; she sees far beyond the moment and feels that her own soul is responsible for the step she is taking. Not so the man. To him this is the supreme moment; he now possesses what he has sought, and cares very little for what the future has in store. Mr. Melchers is very de- pendent upon the individuality of his subjects, as are all true artists, and he never fails to make us feel that character is the basis of his portraits. One of his most remarkable por- traits is that of Dr. William Rainey Harper, late President of the University of Chicago. Mr. Melchers was accorded unusual honour at the Panama-Pacific International Exposi- tion (191 5) in having a special gallery set apart exclusively for his work. Only a few other artists, leaders of various schools, had this same privilege given them. Mr. Mel- chers is the professor of art in the Academy of Weimar, Germany. Carl Marr is one of our American artists no AMERICAN PICTURES who, unrecognised in his own country, went to Europe, and by genius and great perseverance has won a name for himself. His return to this country is looked upon as a national gain. Milwaukee, his native city, welcomes his home- coming with all the honour due him. She may well be proud of her famous son ! ''Silent Devotion" (Fig. 71), Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee, is one of Mr. Marr's simpler canvases and possibly for that reason one of his most attractive ones. The young wife is the very essence of peaceful thinking untroubled by doubts. She has listened to the World and her mind has wandered on into realms of the unreal, yet with no searchings for the unanswerable problems. The play of light on that woman, unconscious of the world, is as beautiful as anything in modern art. The mobile pensive face, the shapely arms and hands, the expression of perfect ease in the supple body are all there, yet the illusive charm is the filmy palpitating atmosphere that en- velopes the whole. One of the first pictures Mr. Marr painted that was recognised with a medal by the art critics of Germany, was ''Ahasuerus, the Wan- dering Jew" (Fig. 72). For some years the picture found no purchaser, but it was finally bought and presented to the Metropolitan Mu- AND THEIR PAINTERS in seum of Art, New York City. Mr. Marr has succeeded in giving just that sense of mystery to the desolate scene of rock, sand, water, and sky that intensifies the legendary story. What a world of despair that crouching figure of the old Jew represents! Since he refused rest to our Saviour when He was bearing His cross, he has wandered over the earth, ever seeking death, but never finding it. And yet the wom- an, so beautiful and so perfect in her young maturity, has been found and snatched from life and all its promises. The old, old question of why "Death aims with fouler spite At fairer marks" was never more forcefully asked than in this painting. Mr. Marr's native city was very proud when the opportunity came to purchase his master- piece, "The Flagellants." The painting is gigantic in size and shows the artist's skill in filling a large canvas. Henry O. Tanner is peculiarly interesting as an artist with negro blood in his veins. He was born in Pittsburgh and was trained both in this country and in Paris. He is a man of real talent in painting, and his exalted ideas have found expression in his many religious 112 AMERICAN PICTURES subjects. His painting of "The Two Disciples at the Tomb" (Fig. 73), The Art Institute, Chicago, is decidedly original. The disciples are undoubtedly Peter and John, who ran together to the tomb, and the moment when ''that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre saw and believed." John has the vision in his eyes and the calm assurance in his face that marked his career as the beloved disciple, the St. John of the Revelations and the Gospel. The artist has caught the spirit of one who "saw and believed/* Fig. 72 — The Wandering Jew. Marr. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fig. 73— The Two Disciples at the Tomb. Tanner. Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago. CHAPTER XII BECKWITH— CHASE— COX TN the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, is a portrait of William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), by John Singer Sargent, presented as a gift from Mr. Chase's pupils ''on account of his unceasing devotion to American students and American art." This tribute to Mr. Chase finds a response in the hearts of artists and art lovers alike, for his influence as an instructor is universal in its appeal. His schools in New York City and Shinnecock, Long Island, and his travelling classes abroad have been most potent features in the progress of American art for nearly a half century. To have been a member of one of these never-to- be-forgotten classes is of itself a guarantee that the foundation is true even if the super- structure falls. How many of his students have been taught to see beauty in the forlorn, wind-swept, undulating country of Shinnecock! It is the recognising of beauty in just such barren wastes that marks Mr. Chase as the 113 114 AMERICAN PICTURES true artist. The spontaneity of his pictures is one of their greatest charms. His inspira- tion, Hke the sparkle on champagne, must be caught at the moment, and his work is that of a trained master, with every faculty under per- fect control. Now look well at the ''Portrait of William M. Chase" (Fig. 74), John Herron Institute, IndianapoHs, by J. Carroll Beckwith (1852), for it is a loving appreciation of a friend for a friend. Both men are westerners — the West of forty years ago. Mr. Beckwith is a native of Missouri and Mr. Chase of Franklin, Indiana. Both men went to study in Europe at an early age, Mr. Chase to Munich and Mr. Beckwith to Carolus Durand, in Paris. Mr. Beckwith has painted the portraits of many notable persons in Europe, particularly several cardinals of Italy. He has exhibited in the Paris exhibitions and our own Acad- emies. This portrait of Mr. Chase has much of the same direct personal element that Mr. Chase himself gives to the likenesses of his sitters. Naturally Mr. Chase's ''Alice" (Fig. 75), Art Institute, Chicago, attracts us. She is so girlish and wholesome. Like a beautiful cul- tivated flower, she is the product of the guid- ing and pruning of a wise parent — a beautiful AND THEIR PAINTERS 115 cultivated child of nature. She moves witH the ease and grace of a young fawn in his native home, perfectly unconscious of self, which is the height of perfected art. Mr. Chase commands our admiration and respect whatever his subject. It is his dignified reserve and moderation and his insistent originality that give him the place of honour to-day. When Mr. Chase combines portraiture and genre painting as in ''Alice" and "Dorothy" (Fig. 76), Art Institute, Indianapolis, he makes pictures that are simply bewitching. Alice has a charm all her own as she skips away, laughing at her own power to please us ; but "Dorothy" has more of the challenge of the young miss who feels her power, but wants you to know that she feels it. Both have the unconscious grace of childhood, with the awak- ened conscience of young girlhood just mak- ing itself felt. Individually "Alice" and "Dorothy" are as distinct in character as the two girls must have been in real life. And why not? They are Mr. Chase's daughters. Mr. Chase never leaves any uncertainty as to the personality of his subjects. They demand our attention by the force of their presence. We could no more ignore "Dorothy," or suc- ceed in forgetting her, than we could evade the ii6 AMERICAN PICTURES influence of any strong character that has en- tered the room where we are. Let us look again at ''Dorothy and Her Sis- ter" (Fig. 77), this time in a picture that the Luxembourg, Paris, has recently acquired. Mr. Chase's idea of technique is wonderfully verified in this picture. He says: ''To my mind, one of the simplest explanations of this matter of technique is to say that it is eloquence of art.'' And then, amplifying, he pictures a great orator holding his audience spell- bound. Yes, it is the eloquence of his art that is hold- ing us before his pictures. Was anything ever more ideal than this young girl sitting at ease as she listens to the older sister who leans over her shoulder? How perfectly they both fit into the setting and how exactly the setting fits them ! "But,'' you may ask, "where is the setting? I see nothing but a chair." That is just the point. Mr. Chase makes us feel the room, the yard, the place, the common every- day surroundings in the aliveness of his figures and the quivering air that envelopes them. It matters not one whit who is this "Lady with the White Shawl" (Fig. 78), Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia ; she is every inch a woman and a woman gently born. Possibly it is the shawl that designates AND THEIR PAINTERS 117 the woman's character, for only one to the manner born can wear a shawl characteris- tically. Let our friend of the round-shouldered type try wearing a shawl and see how it bunches around her. It is not surprising that, in the Paris Exhibition of 1900, the place of honour was given to the "Lady with the White Shawl." Mr. Chase's portraits give the en- semble of the person. It is pose, natural not artificial, that the artist seeks. An amusing story is told of his little daughter's understand- ing of her father's quickness to catch a subject at the right moment. One day as she stood by the window looking at the sky, she called, 'Tapa, come quickly! here's a cloud posing for you." The aliveness of his figures testify to his keenness in grasping individual char- acteristics. She is certainly a dainty miss sitting ''In the Studio" (Fig. 79), Institute of Arts and Sci- ences, Brooklyn, turning the leaves of the pattern book. Mr. Chase never gave a more personal note to a young woman than he has to this one. She simply dominates the studio. There are many interesting objects around the room that might claim our at- tention were it not for her presence. And what a picture it is — painted with all the aban- don of the painter-artist I The inspiration ii8 AMERICAN PICTURES came suddenly, no doubt ; the girl and the book, perhaps, unexpectedly fell into position and the picture immediately shaped itself in the artist's mind. Mr. Chase's alert artistic sense has made him particularly sensitive to the pictorial qualities of bits of still life, of dainty interiors, of busy back-yards, and monotonous stretches of low bushes and sand dunes; he has made them all sing under his magic brush. Now look at these "Fish" (Fig. 80), Met- ropolitan Museum of Art. They may slip out of the picture before we have time to examine them, for no real fish are more slippery. Fish are not usually chosen for drawing room orna- ments, excepting goldfish, but we should con- sider it a rare privilege to possess Mr. Chase's fish. One wonders if the cook, knowing her master's propensities to see art in her suppHes, does not often use subterfuge to hurry her fish into the oven and her vegetables into the pot before the discerning eyes shall see them. Otherwise her meal might be spoiled for lack of sufficient cooking. It is laughingly said that Mr. Chase's household is ever in a state of preparedness that no sudden inspiration may be lost or his mood lack a subject. Mr. Chase himself says of the elements of a great picture : "I maintain that they are three in number — namely, truth, interesting treat- Fig. 81 — Portrait of Chase. Chase. Courtesy of the Detroit Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 119 ment and quality." And then he amplifies: ''By truth I mean that the picture shall give the impression of a thing well seen. . . . We must add to it (truth) the interest of the artist, and an interest which shall express itself in his manner of treatment. . . . Quality comes as a result of a perfect balance of all the parts and may be manifested in colour or line or com- position. In the greatest pictures it is found in all three, and then you may be sure that you are before the most consummate of human works." Mr. Chase's success as an artist has been phenomenal. Even as early as 1869 (^^ was then thirty) a St. Louis gentleman said to a friend, ''Come with me; I have a young man who paints so well that I dare not tell him how good his work is." The St. Louis people were so impressed with his genius that they gave him a purse for a long stay in Munich. That his early promise has been more than fulfilled it is needless to add. The last "Portrait of William Merritt Chase" (Fig. 81 ) by himself, is one of the cher- ished treasures of the Detroit Museum of Art. In 191 5, when Mr. Chase was having an exhi- bition of his pictures in the museum, the direc- tor discussed with him the plan of starting a gallery of self-portraits of our American art- I20 AMERICAN PICTURES ists. Mr. Chase was enthusiastic over the idea and before leaving Detroit presented his own self-portrait that was in his exhibition, saying, "I would like to start the gallery of self- portraits if you will accept this one of me." The museum is doubly proud of owning the last likeness made of Mr. Chase and that it is a gift from the artist himself. Again we see Mr. Chase in the "Portrait of Saint Gaudens" (the American sculptor, 1848- 1907) (Fig. 82), Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Kenyon Cox (1856). The figure in the bas-relief, that Saint Gaudens is repre- sented as working on, is William M. Chase, his friend and companion. These two artists were about the same age. This painting has quite an interesting history. The original pic- ture, painted in 1887, was burned in Saint Gaudens' studio at Windsor, Vt., in 1904. Mr. Cox painted this replica in 1908, a year after the sculptor's death, from the studio studies he still had. CHAPTER XIII BLAKELOCK—TRYON— MURPHY- WIGGINS— DEWEY Vy^HEN "The Brook by Moonlight" (Eig. 83), by Ralph A. Blakelock, sold at auc- tion this year ( 1916) for twenty thousand dol- lars the picture-loving public added another chapter to the tragedy of artists' lives. It is an old, old story, this indifference to workers with God-given talents. The workers are not many who produce the masterpieces of the world, yet far too often their struggle for bare existence is more than body or brain can endure; then, too late, comes recognition. After sixteen years, the cloud being par- tially lifted from his distracted mind, Mr. Blakelock says of ''The Brook by Moonlight" : "I remember now how I pondered the trunk of that tree for a long time, wondering if I had made it thick enough to support all the mass of top branches and foliage." Is it not pa- thetic that one whose keen common sense kept his picture true to nature should have been 121 122 AMERICAN PICTURES subject to junk dealers? One such dealer said to Mr. Daingerfield, when showing him thirty-three pictures : "Ralph Blakelock painted every one of them, and I got the lot for one hundred dollars/' Oh, the pity of it! And we must all bear the blame. Ralph A. Blakelock (b. 1847) is, or rather was, a man of many parts in his art. His in- nate love of colour has given him an individual command of pigments most characteristic, and with no eccentric qualities to mar our pleasure in them; then, too, he has a subtle genius for leading us by a mysterious hint of untold beau- ties. The wonderful light draws us in "Ec- stasy" (Fig. 84), though we feel that, like Wordsworth's "... light that never was on sea or land," it is a will-o'-the-wisp that is leading us and that in the depths beyond is a world where fancy alone can feel at home. Such pictures express an exaltation that few of us can at- tain, yet it is good for our souls to contem- plate the mysteries that haunt these solitudes. I once rode alone into the forest primeval above El Capitan. The lingering memory of those quivering depths of light and shadows is quick- ened by this picture of "Ecstasy"; the same Fig. 83 — The Brook by Moonlight. BUikelock. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Toledo. AND THEIR PAINTERS 123 spirit of solitude draws and repels, while that curious feeling of wanting to know but hesi- tating to intrude is present. Our American landscapists certainly awaken a great variety of emotions in us. They seem almost to vie with each other in presenting the various moods of nature — at times she is frankly outspoken, and then shyly reticent, and in the latter mood Dwight William Tryon (1849) seems to know her best. Like Corot, Mr. Tryon thinks it no hardship to be up be- fore sunrise to surprise nature as she dons her morning dress. We are out-of-doors with her ''Before Sunrise, June" (Fig. 85), Museum of Art, Detroit, but we feel like intruders invading a sacred shrine. The hush in the air fairly stifles our breath; not even the birds are awake. How tenderly he has lifted the veil, that we, too, may see the trees all shimmering in their early bath and the grass still wet with the glistening dew and the flow- ers lifting their heads. The sky is beginning to smile; all are making ready to greet the great orb of day. We linger long before this morning anthem. Tenderly and lovingly it has lifted our souls into the very presence of the Creator and sends us forth stronger men and women because of its influence. Who can look at Mr. Tryon's ''November 124 AMERICAN PICTURES Morning" (Fig. 86), John Herron Art Insti- tute, Indianapolis, without feeling the thrill of the stiff breeze lifting and swaying the tall grass and crisp bushes? Was there ever such riot in shades of brown, soft, luscious cream tints deepening into glistening chestnut and rich seal brown, yet with the summer's green still making itself felt? Everywhere and over all hangs a grey tone as elusive as the odour of rosemary off the coast of Spain. I doubt if many persons could look out on a chilly November morning, after seeing his pic- ture of it, and grumble, ''Oh, what a disagree- able morning!" as shivers creep up and down the spine. Mr. Tryon has revised Thomas Hood's description of "November." Of course Hood was correct so far as the mere facts are concerned, but his angle of vision saw only the drear, and Mr. Tryon is just as correct in picturing the cheer. Mr. Tryon has a way of arranging his com- position that is very pleasing. He uses some permanent and familiar landmark, such as a row of trees or an old fence, as the sequence of long lines, and encloses all between the dis- tant sky-line and an intimate bit of dooryard or meadow-brook at our very feet. When a painter makes ''quality" his ideal regardless of time, of mental exertion or yearly AND THEIR PAINTERS 125 output, his pictures are bound to be master- pieces. We are not surprised, therefore, to learn that Mr. Tryon considers quality the sumum bonum of all art. In reply to the in- quiry, ''How many pictures do you paint in a year, Mr. Tryon the artist, with an indulgent smile at the inane question, replied, ''Some- times as many as four and again only one. It is quality I want, not quantity.'' Then he added, "Not long ago I finished a picture after working on it four years." What a comment on the hustle and bustle of to-day, in art as in everything else. If only artists could un- derstand that masterpieces are the products of the concentration of trained powers. Thomas Gray worked seven years on his "Elegy" and Leonardo da Vinci, after four years, pro- nounced "Mona Lisa" unfinished. Peace comes to us in the presence of "Au- tumn Sunset," in the Worcester Art Museum (Fig. 87). My Tryon, for years, has been filling his soul from the bounties of old "Sol" and has gathered into this sunset the glory- essence of all autumn time. A mystery hovers over the scene where the problem of life through death is being solved by nature's silent forces. We bow our heads a moment and then lift our eyes to the glory in the great beyond. Mr. Tryon has an exceedingly sensitive un- 126 AMERICAN PICTURES ' derstanding of God's wide out-of-doors. No one knows better than he how to stimulate through our imagination the sense of motion in his pictures. In his sea pieces we feel the swish and swirl of waters, though a mysterious film hides the actual movement ; and the quiver- ing atmosphere caressing the slow moving clouds and soft luminous sand of the fore- ground gives an added sense of motion. And Mr. Tryon's colour ! In it is the mys- tery of all colours. It has been my privi- lege to see unfinished canvases of the art- ist where the colour note was exceedingly bright. In answer to my surprised inquiry, he said, ''Yes, I begin my pictures in a rather high key, but in finishing I bring the tone down to a sense of mystery." A sense of mystery! That is the element that holds us in My Tryon's pictures. To him colour and motion are illu- sive — something not quite within our grasp. Our quickened imagination pursues these sprites that sparkle in all his pictures. What better can we do than stand quietly and drink in the beauty of the artist's "Spring Morning" (Fig. 88), Museum of Art, To- ledo, Ohio? Spring morning! The words themselves mean everything that is delicate, fresh, full of joy, the joy that ''cometh in the morning." Mr. Tryon, with Inness and From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 88 — Spring Morning. Tryon. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Toledo. Fig. 89 — At Sunset. Murphy. Courtesy of the City Art Museum, St. Louis. AND THEIR PAINTERS 127 Homer and men like them, stands for Ameri- can landscape painting. These men have given the national spirit that proclaims to the world our independence. Never was there a more in- dividual interpretation of a spring morning than this lovely, tender picture of it. The light creeping up the horizon is lifting the mist, though it still lingers in the feathery tree- tops to kiss each tiny leaf-bud. The moist air is fragrant with the delicious odours of spring flowers and the tender grasses. All nature is singing praises to Him whose mercies are new each morning. For years Mr. Tryon has been gently and persistently leading the American people into an appreciation of the beautiful in nature. It has been a steady growth with the artist and his followers — clean, pure, up- right, and progressive, never losing sight of the fundamental lessons of the masters of the past, but adding to those fundamentals a bet- ter understanding of God's first temples. Mr. Tryon, a native of Hartford, Conn., is professor of art at Smith College. From the beginning of his career — ^he was a pupil of Charles Daubigny of the Barbizon school — there was a lyric note in his art that has strengthened with years. Then, too, Mr. Tryon has kept abreast of the modern spirit and in his own inimitable way. 128 AMERICAN PICTURES Turning to J. Francis Murphy (1853), we are conscious of a mysterious element that is tantalising in its illusiveness. Self-taught, Mr. Murphy works out the dominant note in his landscapes through his own inner vision. He sees nature in the very act of transformation and, catching with his sensitive brush the filmy something she uses, he paints pictures of morning and evening, springtime and autumn that fill us with questionings. His golden tints, suggestive greens and delicious cream-browns elude analysis. Truly "At Sunset" (Fig. 89), City Art Museum, St. Louis, is a melody on the harp. As delicate and tender as the wind sighing in the trees, it draws us irresistibly, for we enter the very realm of the artist's own vision. Never were the lingering tints of sun- set or the first gleam of the morning enveloped in a more caressing atmosphere than in Mr. Murphy's pictures. His perception of nature is like that of the lover for his ladylove. He sees her as through a veil, where the light re- veals only to confuse the vision. We enjoy "At Sunset" as we enjoy a dream. The mo- ment we try to make it real the bloom is gone. In his "Woodland Boundary" (Fig. 90), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, he is just as elusive as to how he produces his effects. Fig. 90 — Woodland Boiunlary. Muri)hy. (^»lll•te^^^ of the AIut;eum of P'ine Arts, Syracuse. Fig. 91 — Summer. Wiggins. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. Fig. 92 ! — October Evening. Dewey. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gal- lery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 129 Those gnarled and broken trees, reinforced by a tangled mass of undergrowth, stand as de- fiant guardians warning away intruders. The piled logs and scattered chips mark their pow- erlessness against man's incessant war on forests. That stretch of boggy land and storm-broken woodland is not an attractive scene in nature, yet Mr. Murphy has trans- formed it into an exquisite picture. See how the cloud-flecked sky smiles as it tenderly stoops to kiss the denuded soil, and how the mellow light covers all with a mantle of glad- ness. A truly rural scene is ''Summer — Niantic Hills" (Fig. 91), Carlton Wiggins (1848). We recognise at once that Mr. Wiggins has been with George Inness, but no whit of his individuality is lost. The wind-swept hill loses none of its native charm under the artist's strong, sane brush. No wonder this is a favourite browsing place, with the wind sway- ing tree and bush and tall grass. What care the sheep for the fable of the wind and the sun if only they argue their strength together and not give a trial of their skill separately. And what splendid sheep they are — long wool, I suspect. Mr. Wiggins, born at Turners, Orange County, New York, was largely trained in America, in the National Academy 130 AMERICAN PICTURES and under George Inness, though he studied in France for a time. In his broad handHng of landscapes he gives the sense of expansive hill- sides and wide fields, fit pasture grounds for his splendid sheep and cattle. Charles Melville Dewey (1849) is a poet with his brush. Under the influence of his ''October Evening'' (Fig. 92) the twilight gathers around us and we are conscious that in the little church, *'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day/' and never with a shyer grace has "The moon pull'd ofi her veil of light That hides her face by day from sight." The scene is indeed a poet's dream — quiet, restful and full of beauty — but a poet with a true sense of reality. No one could look at that little grove without realising that the artist knew the significance of trees. The deep wheel tracks in the dirt road and the overcast sky both bear witness that the moisture-ladened soil is a direct consequence of a well-wooded country. And how well balanced are the dark mysterious trees against the luminous sky. We feel the quiet splendour of it all and are soothed and comforted that our artists are recording AND THEIR PAINTERS 131 such scenes as this. We need to be reminded that "night unto night sheweth knowledge" if only we would lift our eyes to behold the glory of the night season in God's great out-of- doors. There is a wholesome independence about Mr. Dewey. Largely self-taught, though he spent some time under the influence of Caro- lus Duran in Paris, he says his say in no un- certain tone. These interpreters of nature, who for more than a quarter of a century have been open- ing our eyes to the wonders of the morning and evening, the sun and the moon and every living thing, are strong, health-restoring physicians. They treat nature tenderly and lovingly, with no trace of sentimentality. Individuality marks each man and when once the individual characteristics are known it is comparatively easy to designate the work of each. CHAPTER XIV INNESS, JR.— WALKER— FOSTER— CARLSEN —VAN LEAR — LATHROP — DAINGER- FIELD— CRANE. TXTHEN George Inness, Jr., began his career as an artist and worked in his father's studio in New York, he very soon claimed rec- ognition as a painter of animals and a painter, too, who understood the spirit of the animals he represented. Rochester is fortunate in pos- sessing one of his finest paintings of cattle, "Bringing Home the Cows" (Fig. 93). In this picture we feel his inherent love of evening when moist clouds hang low and a soft radi- ance fills the air. That poetic instinct for "all phases of the ever-varying atmosphere — and all phases of illumination" of the elder Inness is the inheritance that has given power to the son. Mr. Inness' warm sympathy for the life of the great out-of-doors is that of the men of 1830 in France, but with an added note, aspi- ration, to the tillers of the soil. A stiffness is in the backbone of the American farmer that 132 Fig. 93 — Bringing Home the Cows. Inness, Jr. Courtesy ol the Memo- rial Art Gallery, Rochester. Fig. 94 — Wood Sawyers. Walker. Courtesy of the City Art Museum, St. Louis. Vio. 95— Summer Day. Fo^Ur. Courtesy of the Alacbeth Gallery, New \ ork City. AMERICAN PICTURES 133 lifts the head skyward. If he does not reach the goal himself, his children will. And the brisk step of the toiler! See how he expresses the eager home-coming of man and beast at the end of the day of toil. How full of senti- ment is this prosaic scene, and why not? Horatio Walker, a Canadian by birth (185s), is nevertheless an American artist. He is our Millet in painting. The workers of the soil have gained new beauties from his brush ; they are not French peasants, but men and women; the new world has opened wide the doors of opportunity and a new hope has entered into their lives. Mr. Walker always preserves that sense of fitness in his figures which is the true test of harmony. We feel in the "Wood Sawyers" (Fig. 94), City Art Mu- seum, St. Louis, the rhythm of well-balanced workers, where work is done with the least en- ergy. The rapidly falling sawdust shows no hitch in the moving blade. Of course it is a homely scene, but full of the feeling of home comfort. The increasing pile of wood hints at the comfort of a good kitchen fire; then, too, the men work with the steady purpose of those having a vision of home before them. Mr. Walker uses the rough clothes of the sawyers and the varied angles of the blocks of wood as so many radiating surfaces for the light. 134 AMERICAN PICTURES The rich low tones of his canvases are like a harmony on the bass notes of an organ. George Inness, Jr., and Horatio Walker make their landscapes largely a setting for animal life. In other words, they picture the close relationship that exists in America be- tween the farmer's home and his fields and his livestock. In fact all our landscape artists treat the farm as a home centre by itself as opposed to the community centre with sur- rounding farms of the old world. How perfectly Mr. Ben Foster (1852) has brought this idea out in his "Summer Day'' (Fig. 95). The home by the roadside is the heart of the broad fields and dense wood-land. No one knows better than Mr. Foster how to interpret the luxuriance of summer vegetation. Even the quiet water has the content of well- deserved rest as it laughs at the fleecy clouds stopping long enough to primp in its surface. Yes, the heat of summer is in the air, but it is the growing heat that nature uses in preparing her winter stores. Possibly just for bodily comfort we would rather follow this tiny stream into the "Woods Interior" (Fig. 96) with Mr. Carlsen, but the cosey farmhouse and the summer abundance linger with us still. Although Mr. Emil Carl- sen (1853) is a native of Copenhagen, Den- Fig. 96 — Woods Interior. Carlsen. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. Fig. 97 — Autumn. Van Lear. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallerj^ New York City. Fig. 98 — The Meadows. Lathrop. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 135 mark, he gives the spirit of America in his pictures. These tall, slender trees pushing their bare trunks skyward that their branches and leaves may reach the sun and air are typi- cal of the second growth of our temperate climate. See how each tree, regardless of its position on the sloping bank, has gained its birthright; and how together the tops of the trees form a broad level expanse to the open sky. Mr. Carlsen calls us strongly with these sun- lit trees seeking the blue sky. We feel the colourfulness and scent the perfume of the wood's interior. Such scenes are wholesome tonics to the heart and brain. In Alexander Van Lear's (1857) "Autumn" (Fig. 97) the security of summer has given place to the spirit of destruction. The hustling wind mercilessly strips the trees bare, rudely shakes the feathery banners from the tall grasses and scuttles the clouds in breathless haste. Flowers and leaves and clouds are fly- ing hither and yon, but, oh, the riot of colour that flaunts itself in the face of the rushing onslaught ! Mr. Van Lear has caught the van- dal in the very act of destruction. The glory of autumn tints was never more lovingly blended with the living green of summer than in the middle clump of trees, or more triumph- 136 AMERICAN PICTURES antly flung to the wind than in the brighter trees at the left. William L. Lathrop (1859) certainly knew how to make a stretch of level country interest- ing when he painted "The Meadows" (Fig. 98), Metropolitan Museum of Art. One who has once seen the salt meadows of New Jersey when the low luminous sky as a great reflector illuminates marsh sedges, juicy pasture grasses and pools of water, recognises that the artist is telling the truth. It matters not where these particular meadows are, they carry the im- press of all dank lowlands receding inland into patches of pasturage with straggling trees leading to firmer ground. As Mr. Lathrop was born at Warren, in the northern part of Illinois, he no doubt knew well the flat section around Lake Michigan. But whether painting marshy swamps or mountain highlands, Mr. Lathrop ever holds to a defi- nite portrayal of nature as he sees her. His strong lines and pleasing colour give a sense of security, though at times he loses something of the caressing quality of the atmosphere. When Elliott Daingerfield (1859) stood on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina he perceived with spiritual eyes what we simply see with a natural vision. To record a phenomenon so evanescent as a ''Slumbering AND THEIR PAINTERS 137 Fog'' (Fig. 99), Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a mountain valley is to fix in our minds a wonderful vision of one of nature's condensing plants. Yes, the fog is asleep; its form rises and falls regularly as in slumber, but it will wake soon ; then great gaps will tear asunder the huge mass until it falls away, exhausted and spent. Mr. Daingerfield knew well, when he brought the bear into the foreground, that we must be steadied, or the mere horror of that slumbering monster would draw us into its depth. What a marvellous studio that was ! It is given to few artists to see such a vision and to fewer still is given the genius to record it. To describe autumn as Bruce Crane (1857) pictures it is about as impossible as implant- ing the song of a lark into the heart of one who has never heard it. He has literally stolen the entire sodium line from the spectrum, the thief, and has worked it into his pigments until his "Autumn Uplands" (Fig. 100), Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, challenges the sun itself in radiance. And what a luscious yellow it is, restrained yet overflowing with the joy of fruitage! The ripened grasses on the low hills and shallow basins have taken the mellowed hue of hammered gold. And the corded wood 138 AMERICAN PICTURES — ^how quickly our minds fly to open fire with roasting apples and popping chestnuts ! Though Mr. Crane was born in New York City, he has inherited somewhere along the line a keen understanding of nature. He gath- ers into his autumn scenes the essence that un- derlies the coming of fall in the cycle of the year. We feel in these pictures the influence of something completed — the drooping of the full ears of corn, the bending of the wheat heads on their slender stalks. He may not be special- ising in a particular phase of nature, like his master, Alexander Wyant, yet his name brings to mind at once the glow of the field because the harvest is come. CHAPTER XV DAVIS— RANGER A BOUT a quarter of a century ago Charles H. Davis (1856) returned home from Europe and began studying our American landscape. He has become as familiar a figure around the countryside of his home at Mystic, Conn., as was Wordsworth in the Lake Region, England. With a walking-stick and a bit of grass betwen his teeth, he may be seen almost any day, summer or winter, wandering over hill and dale, storing his memory full of choice spots where tree and bush and meadow grass are luminous in the light; where water and clouds and undulating ground give harmony of line and where the spirit of beauty dwells. He never makes a pencil sketch or note — why should he? His whole being is attune to the harmonies of nature. A nature student? Of course he is, and lives in the country all the year around; in fact, Mr. Davis has never had a city studio, but he is not a literalist. Hear what the artist has to say: ''When a 139 I40 AMERICAN PICTURES man has studied long and earnestly he acquires some skill in making things *like/ but it's quite another matter to make them combine together to express one's thought." Then, speaking of his "cloud'' pictures, Mr. Davis' words are: "I go through positive agonies in arranging my cloud masses — and often struggle days and weeks futilely because the uplift moving quality, which is to me of prime importance, will not come." Ruskin wrote, "We look too much at the earth and not enough at the clouds." It took Mr. Davis in his "Clouds" (Fig. loi), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, to convince us that Ruskin was right, for we, Polonius-like, simply shift our point of view to see in the distorted shapes this animal or that as the mood is on us. It is not a mood with Mr. Davis, but a clear vision that sees in "the daughter of the wind and water" pictures that delight our eyes and gladden our hearts. The clouds to Mr. Davis are living, moving personalities. Day after day, from season to season, he watches them from his studio win- dow as they float in from the Sound to pose for him. Sometimes his studio is confined within four walls and his window is a limited space, but more often it is the great out-of-doors with the heavens spread out before him. Like the AND THEIR PAINTERS 141 psalmist of old, Mr. Davis looks upon the earth as new every morning, and he makes us feel the freshness of the new creation and awakens in our hearts new hopes and greater aspira- tions. His clouds lift us out of the sordid and place our feet on firm ground, bidding us go forth to labour with heads erect and eyes steady. As to the working out of Mr. Davis' compo- sitions — all his pictures are compositions — the artist remarks, whimsically: *'The ridiculous thing is that the final results may look as if easily done. Just a little clever brush-work." His pictures combined the varying aspects of the scene under a great variety of wind and weather and change of seasons. Take his ''Evening'' (Fig. 102), Metropolitan Museum of Art. Was ever an old oak and meadow brook fuller of lingering memories ! The evening star twinkling in the cloudless sky might have beckoned to the Wise Men of old. Simple in detail and broad in conception, this picture alone would refute the assertion that Mr. Davis is a literalist. The artist's words are: *'I do not think that a piece of nature in a frame, though wonderfully well done, is very desirable as a picture-effect in decorative ar- rangement; eloquent arrangement, I may say. 142 AMERICAN PICTURES is to me the first thing to strive for, then suf- ficient of the intimate qualities of working out that adds charm to the work." Mr. Davis, a native of Amesbury, Mass., even as a Httle boy had an appreciative sense of good art, and at an early age began his stud- ies in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He then went to Paris for a number of years. His life has been full of romance of that pure, sweet kind that everybody loves. The dear little French wife, whom he married in France, died shortly after they came to America with their two children and were settled in the new home in Mystic. To-day his joy is in a beauti- ful, talented helpmate who is an artist, too. The home at Mystic is one of those hospitable places where no trouble is too great that gives pleasure to those around them. No wonder '^The Time of the Red-winged Blackbird" (Fig. 103), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, is one of Mr. Davis' delightful sonnets on a special phase of nature, spring being the particular rule for this sonnet. The red-wing blackbird ! What bird-lover has not watched him sitting quietly on the topmost branch of some bare tree in an inaccessible boggy marsh, watching his mate nesting? We think of him as gregarious, but not always does he love a crowd or is he scraping an ac- Fig. 103— The Time of the Red Winged Blackbird. Davis. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse. Fig. 104 — On the West Winds. Davis. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gal- lery, New York City. Fig. 105—: ■North West Wind. Davis. Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago AND THEIR PAINTERS 143 quaintance. It is Mr. Davis and Emerson who listen as "The red-wing flutes his 'O-ka-lee/' How simply Mr. Davis has expressed the security of the bird's chosen retreat ! The faint wheel-tracks lead to the stream and there stop. Probably the little stream, swollen by the spring rains, washed over the marsh and then settled into a deeper bed, too deep for a wagon to cross — we think this might be so. The red- wing knows. This bit of nature is lovely in its soft green garments, tinged with rainbow tints on underbrush and rocky slope. It is not surprising that Mr. Davis' pictures are enshrined in a mysterious something that is indefinable. As we look at one of his recent works, ''On the West Winds'' (Fig. 104), we are conscious that in his communion with na- ture he has fathomed secrets that we could not have known but for him. Shelley alone has pictured in words the glory and mystery of the clouds that Mr. Davis has pictured on can- vas. Those piled masses seem to exclaim as we watch them sailing on the wind : "Sublime on the towers of my sky bowers Lightning, my pilot sits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, 144 AMERICAN PICTURES And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains." And in the "North West Wind'' (Fig. 105), The Art Institute, Chicago, Mr. Davis is par- ticularly happy in giving a sense of upv^ard sailing to the clouds which ''all the while bask in heaven's blue smile," making us glad in spite of ourselves. Caecias has no power to quell the wholesome joy of the fleecy mass, blow as furiously as he can, for the clouds, in their haste, simply tumble over each other with the glee of frolicsome children playing in snow- drifts ruthlessly blown together. The gladsomeness of "Early Summer" (Fig. 106), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is typical of Mr. Davis' joy in his art. He paints for the very fun of painting and with a boyish en- thusiasm so genuine that he puts new life into us. Then, too, his point of view for the out- ward changes of nature is flexible and sym- pathetic, yet he never swerves from the defi- nite message he is bringing us. Landscapes and cloudscapes, homey scenes and barren wastes, trees and running brooks, all come from his magic touch singing of the worth- whileness of life. No American artist is exerting a more wholesome influence on the art of the day Fig. 107 — Long Pond. Ranger. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse. AND THEIR PAINTERS 145 than Mr. Davis. He is ever alert to profit by new movements of broad scope, yet his sense of proportion keeps his judgment sane. That he has proved himself a just judge his many memberships on awarding committees bear testimony. His work is of one who loves his art; his principle '*to harmonise positive colours" to gain the quality desired and ''al- ways without sacrifice of strong blues, greens or other colours," gives a sense of truth and sincerity that pleases, but with no hint of the literalist to mar the poetry of his pictures. That Mr. Davis is one of the modern old masters the masterpieces from his brush bear record. Ten years ago an English critic called a group of American landscape-painters "the rising sun in art," and in the group was Henry W. Ranger ( 1858-1916). I know you will ex- claim at his 'Xong Pond" (Fig. 107), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, ''How much like Corot !" Yes, it is similar to the great French landscapist, but is it the same ? It took courage to enter the path Corot trod, and only a man who knew his own strength would have dared do it. When we stop to think, however, why should not other artists see nature as Corot saw her? Mr. Ranger's unafraid frank- ness wins us at once. He is not imitating an- 146 AMERICAN PICTURES other, but expressing his own personality some- what in the same manner of another. It is Corot-like, this 'Xong Pond/' but it is not Corot; the trees are firmer and more steady, the composition more definite, yet the atmos- pheric effect is just as luminous and all-em- bracing. What if it does show the influence of the Barbizon school? Does that make it a less original production by Henry W. Ranger ? The controversy still rages that Shakespeare borrowed his plots, but somehow Shakespeare still continues to be the great Bard of Avon, and Ranger, though Corot-like, remains the American artist, and his landscapes are rep- resentative of the leading landscapists of America. That Mr. Ranger and Mr. Davis were per- sonal friends is only another instance of the attraction of opposites. As this century opened these two artists found themselves artistic neighbours, as it were — Mr. Ranger at Lyme, Conn., and Mr. Davis at Mystic. And there began the friendly relationship. A few years later Mr. Ranger came still nearer and made his home at Noank, where, for half the year, the two men were within two miles or so of each other. Naturally their very difference was an ele- ment of helpfulness to each. Miss Davis laugh- AND THEIR PAINTERS 147 ingly portrays an amusing picture of Mr. Ranger's portly form close in front of one of her father's canvases pointing out some par- ticular spot that pleases him well: ''Yes, Charley/' muses Mr. Ranger, "that is just right, just right and said ''Charley," a slight man, tries in vain to see the praised spot around, above or through the friendly critic. We would characterise Mr. Ranger as ad- hering rather closely to traditions, even at times sacrificing nature's colours. Pure blues and greens and others it seems must go if they interfere in bringing about a certain quality. Sometimes we wonder about the last- ing quality of his work, considering the manipulated brilliancy of his colours to-day. His glorious "Highbridge, New York," Metro- politan Museum of Art, sparkles with the iridescence of the fire-opal. Incidentally, this picture has no resemblance to a Corot. That Mr. Ranger's pictures have a charm that is most attractive no one will question. Possibly none of Mr. Ranger's pictures has more of the sturdy qualities that mark him as an artist than his "Group of Sturdy Oaks" (Fig. 108), Albright Art Gallery, BufTalo. The oak, the monarch of the forest, has from time immemorial held a peculiar place in civic and religious ceremonies. The Druids 148 AMERICAN PICTURES venerated it; ancient European peoples held that within its bark lived gnomes and fairies ; in Greek myth it is dedicated to the god of thunder; to wear a chaplet of oak leaves was a special civic honour among the Romans; and England's oaks of honour commemorate many events of historic importance. These oaks of Mr. Ranger's invite us to enjoy their cool shade, and as we do so let us recall one of the curious legends that linger around these noble trees. The monks of Diinwald near the Rhine were rich and avaricious. Near them a young nobleman owned wide ancestral acres which they determined to acquire by fair means or foul. The young nobleman, knowing that his inherited right was centuries old, was deter- mined to hold his property. He tried the judges but they were too afraid of the church to give a just decision. At last he promised to relinquish his estate if the monks would grant him one more season of planting and harvesting his crops. This the monks hastened to grant and gave the young nobleman a legally written contract signed and sealed by them. They now watched with great interest, and considerable glee, to know what kind of crop was to be harvested. The seeds were sown and the plants appeared when, to their chagrin, From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 109 — Landscape. Ranger. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Toledo. AND THEIR PAINTERS 149 they were not wheat or oats but young oaks. The monks were fairly outwitted, for before the trees were grown to the top of their cloisters the monks were all dead ; the cloisters themselves crumbled away while the sturdy oaks still stood. We feel, as we enjoy Mr. Ranger's oak trees, that he has pictured Emerson's trees spreading themselves **. . . in the air As if they loved the element and hastened To dissipate their being in it." There is no question about Mr. Ranger's love for trees — and New England trees, too. These triplets in his 'Xandscape" (Fig. 109), Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, form splendid sentinels on the point of land jutting into the water. His understanding of trees grows more intimate with each study of them, and they, in turn, are claiming from him the ten- derest and most sympathetic treatment. This could scarcely be otherwise with one who lives with them and loves them. Mr. Ranger was born in Western New York and lived part of the year in New York City. He studied his art outside of the academies and spent several years abroad in France, Eng- land and Holland. CHAPTER XVI ABBEY— BLASHFIELD—VOLK DRIOR to the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893, the American artists had made com- paratively little progress in the art of architec- tural decoration. That exhibition, seconded by the Municipal Art Society of New York and other cities, brought about a Renaissance in this branch of art that already has trans- formed our public buildings, and that may in the future make them close rivals of those grand old buildings of Venice, Florence and Rome. As soon as the opportunity arose there were plenty of American artists ready for the work — such men as Blashfield, Abbey, Sar- gent, Alexander, and a score of others. That these men understood mural decoration simply emphasised the fact of their many-sided pow- ers. Architectural decoration in America, however, is a study by itself. Possibly Edwin H. Blashfield (1848) is bet- ter known through his mural decorations, for, without question, he has attained a rare de- 150 AND THEIR PAINTERS 151 gree of excellence in this branch of his art. His mural paintings in the Congressional Li- brary, in the new Minnesota Capitol and in the Capitol of Iowa, at Des Moines, are good examples of the versatility of his conceptions ; and in the latter — 'Westward" — his handling of sunlight is a stroke of genius. The long red rays of the setting sun illumine the whole scene with a golden glow, as though the artist had caught some of Old Sol's rays and mixed them with his paints. The airy lightness of the radiant beings who are the guides into the unexplored West is in fine contrast to the sturdy company of pioneers. The combination of lightness and strength that Mr. Blashfield knew so well how to man- age in a composition is specially fine in his ''Uses of Wealth" (Fig. no), a decoration in one of the banking houses of Cleveland, Ohio. With perfect ease he unites the purely allegori- cal with the delver and artificer, so that one supplements the other, making a harmonious whole. Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) was born in Philadelphia and trained in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. When only nineteen he began his artistic career as a magazine il- lustrator. Probably no artist past or present ever has come so near to the heart of the read- 152 AMERICAN PICTURES ing public as has Abbey. His wide and com- prehensive knowledge of legend, literature, his- tory, and fiction, together with his deep sym- pathy in the portrayal of character and stories, have endeared him to all. Mr. Abbey certainly has refuted over and over again the assertion that story-telling pic- tures could not be true art. His pictorial in- terpretations of the ^'Holy Grail" in the Bos- ton Library, "She Stoops to Conquer" and Shakespearian scenes have given those master- pieces in ancient legend and literature a sig- nificance undreamed of before. He not only entered into the spirit of the stories as their authors represented them but, adding his own personal characteristics, has given to each an originality that stamps them as master- pieces in art. Of course we are interested in the story un- derlying Abbey's portrayal of special scenes, yet that does not detract from our enjoyment of the picture itself. As we stand before "The Penance of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester" (Fig. Ill), Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, we feel the fascination of the beautiful, haughty woman. Our instinctive sense of what is due womanhood is being outraged. We recog- nise that here is represented an elemental truth in civilised life. Even the fact that overween- Photo by the Enslee & Deck Co., New York. Fig. 110 — Uses of Wealth. Blashfield. Banking House, Cleveland. Courtesy of the Artist. AND THEIR PAINTERS 153 ing ambition has brought to pass this punish- ment does not prevent the artist from centring the charm of the composition around the Duchess. The story told in Henry VI, Act II, Scene 3, is in outline that Eleanor plotted that her husband, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Pro- tector of the Kingdom, should supplant his nephew, King Henry VI, and she would step from the rank of second lady in the realm to that of queen. When her schemes were dis- closed, her fellow-intriguers were put to death and she, said King Henry, "Shall after three days open penance done, Live in your country here in banishment." The painting represents the moment of Eleanor's speech to the Duke of Gloucester, who, dressed in mourning, listens with bowed head. "Ah, Gloster ; teach me to forget myself ! For whilst I think I am thy married wife And thou a prince, protector of this land, Methinks I should not thus be led along, Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back And follow'd with a rabble, that rejoice To see my tears, and hear my deep-felt groans. The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet; And when I start the envious people laugh, And bid me be advised how I tread." 154 AMERICAN PICTURES In the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a gorgeous ^'Scene from King Lear'' (Fig. 112), by Mr. Abbey. Cordelia in this picture is one of those marvellous creations of the human brain that exists as a real person to us. Ab- bey has painted a portrait of Shakespeare's Cordelia — and Cordelia lives, as do Jeannie Dean, Dinah Morris, Uriah Heep, Rip Van Winkle, and scores of others. They are indi- viduals whose influence lives on through all time. What a splendid Cordelia she is ! How noble and dignified and true and womanly. Our hearts burn with indignation against the jeering, flippant, untrue sisters who in their very attitudes of scorn show their unworthi- ness as daughters. You will recall the scene — King Lear has decided to divide his kingdom in three parts, each daughter a part. He asks, in turn, 'Which of you, shall we say, doth love us most? — Goneril, our eldest born, speak first." And then "what say our second daughter, our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak." Both daughters speak honeyed words from false hearts. And when he asks Cordelia he fails to understand that in her answer speaks the true daughter. Abbey has chosen the mo- ment when the poor, deluded, broken-hearted old king, having severed all ties with his young- AND THEIR PAINTERS rss est, his best beloved daughter, leaves the room. Cordelia turns to her sisters and gives those memorable words of reproof : *'Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes Cordelia leaves you : I know you what you are ; And, like a sister, am most loath to call Your faults as they are nam'd. Love well our father : To your professed bosoms I commit him: But yet, alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. So, farewell to you both." The decorative quality of this painting is superb, and in the delineation of character Ab- bey has rarely equalled the figures of Cordelia and King Lear. Was anything ever more ex- pressive of crushed love and hopes than the bent old man feebly leaving the room in a state of collapse after his denunciation of Cordelia? The picture of the dog is a bit of genre paint- ing of rare excellence. Some men and some portraits are epoch- making. And if the man and the portrait are one and the same the world delights to give homage. When the ''Portrait of Felix Adler" (Fig. 113), Metropolitan Museum of Art, • occupied the place of honour at the National Academy of Design, New York City, in 191 5, the enthusiasm of the visiting public verified 156 AMERICAN PICTURES the genius of the artist, Douglas Volk (1856). The personality of the founder of the Society of Ethical Culture pervaded the gallery. That portrait compelled attention, just as the man, Felix Adler, compels his audiences to listen. Mr. Volk, grasping the salient qualities that mark the lecturer, has made us feel the power of the man. The kindly eyes and genial mouth bespeak human sympathy, yet in them lurk the power of righteous scorn against injustice. Almost under our gaze the expression changes and we wonder what great problem is working to solution in the massive brain. Already this portrait and this man belong to the ages. Fig. 113— Portrait of Felix Adler. Volk. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. CHAPTER XVII SARGENT JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856) is an ^ artist who cannot be limited to any country or any time. We are proud to claim him as an American, but we are still prouder to recognise that he is one of the great portrait painters of the world. Besides being endowed as he is by nature with almost every gift that makes a perfect technician, he has that varied gift, genius, which stamps his work as coming from a master's brush. Mr. Sargent was born in Florence into a home of culture and refinement. What more could a talented child have had to perfect him than he had in that home and in that art centre of the world? When at eight- een he entered Carolus Duran's studio in Paris he took with him the American temperament, so quick and susceptible to impressions, united with an appreciation of the truly beautiful in art absorbed from the grand old masters of the past. After his studies in Paris he went to Spain, where, in the works of the great Span- 157 158 AMERICAN PICTURES ish painter, Velasquez, he found that perfection in simplicity of handling, in the relationship between colour and light, in surrounding every object with atmosphere, and in freedom from all mannerism which supplied the very re- quisites most needed in forming his own methods — and Mr. Sargent's methods are de- cidedly his own. Certainly "arrested action'* was never a truer description of any portrait of Mr. Sar- gent's than in that of the ''Misses Boit" (Fig. 114), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The children have stopped just for a moment to watch the artist paint; he ''dashes it right off carelessly" but with a rapidity of skill that is directed by an acutely trained mind. An Eng- lishman once said of Sargent, "As the Ameri- cans say, he works like a steam engine." Sar- gent's concentration of mind is such that when a line is once drawn it remains — he does noth- ing in a hurry. The decorative quality of the picture of the Boit children is like that of any harmoniously furnished room after four little girls have en- tered and given the warmth of childhood to the furniture. These little girls are darlings ; but all children are darlings when their lives are regulated by the taste and skill of thinking parents. Taste and skill — yes, those are the AND THEIR PAINTERS 159 qualities that Mr. Sargent puts into his pic- tures. Nothing is done in a haphazard man- ner, but the beauty of it all is that no trace of the manner of doing is felt in the result. Each little girl has a definite personality, yet who can fathom the method by which the artist has brought out that personality? We only know that what he has done 'lives and breathes and moves and quivers." Mr. Sargent's portraits are not simply per- sonal character sketches ; his habit seems to be to study the character of humanity en masse, and then the individual is treated more as a type in which a certain temperament is empha- sised. Perhaps this is best illustrated in his portraits representing public characters, as Coventry Patmore, the poet, and again in "Carmencita'' (Fig. 115), the Spanish ballet- dancer. It is not alone this particular dancing girl, as she appeared before the Paris students in all her insolent beauty and charming grace, that Mr. Sargent was representing, but the acme of the dancer's art. As we stand before this painting in the Luxembourg, Paris, the sparkle and glitter of the deliciously coloured gown fairly takes our breath. We feel that we have come suddenly before a brilliantly lighted stage. Mr. Chase has a picture of ''Carmencita" i6o AMERICAN PICTURES in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of which Sargent miglit say, as did Michael Angelo when he saw Raphael's ''Sybil," "He has walked through my chapel!'' Alike, and yet how different! Both are marvels of the paint- er's art. When Mr. Sargent painted the "Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley" (Fig. 1 16) , John Her- ron Art Institute, Indianapolis, he gave a masterpiece of rare value, portraying Indi- ana's most distinguished son. It is easy to grasp, from Mr. Sargent's likeness of him, the genuine quality in Mr. Riley that has made his dialect writing a success. When Mr. Riley chose Benjamin E. Johnson as a sobriquet he created a real character. An aged, uneducated rustic was Johnson, who said to himself, in his own words: "From child- hood up tel old enough to vote, I alius wrote more or less poetry, as many an album in the neighbourhood can testify . . . from the hart out." The public at once recognised the ring of truth in the "Old Swimmin' Hole" and scores of other poems. Mr. Riley began to ab- sorb the characteristics of the "hoosier" — per- haps derived from "Who's yere?" — when a mere child. He was the constant companion of his father, an attorney-at-law, and on court days in some obscure corner of the courtroom Fig. 117 — Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth. Sargent. Tate Gallery, London. Fig. 118 — Carnation Lily, Lily Rose. Sargent. Albert Victoria Museum. London. AND THEIR PAINTERS i6i he was unconsciously preparing for his fu- ture career. Several of his earlier years were spent wandering over the country decorating the fences and roadsides with business signs to please the people and entice their trade. At one time he even had yearnings toward por- trait painting, but signs brought larger re- turns for his time. With such a man as James Whitcorab Riley for a subject, Mr. Sargent must have felt the tingle of a war-horse on his mettle. And the portrait is proof that he recognised the subtle traits of the man who is known as the *'Burns of America." The portrait is true to the man — ^humorous yet ever kindly, witty with no sting, seeing weakness but with the sympathy of a true friend, quick to scent the absurd but quicker to heal the hurt — such is a true pic- ture of James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1916). Mr. Sargent is perfectly at home in portray- ing the tragedy queen, as his painting of ''Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth" (Fig. 117) testifies. One critic writes: ''Sargent's picture of her (Ellen Terry) will stand out among pictures of distinguished women as one who bears no resemblance to anybody else." It would hardly be possible to conceive of a more subtle union of characters into a perfect being than is por- trayed in his Lady Macbeth. It is Shake- i62 AMERICAN PICTURES speare's Lady Macbeth, and yet it is Ellen Terry who has made her alive. It is Ellen Terry's Lady Macbeth, and yet it is Mr. Sar- gent who has caught her on canvas in his own original way without detracting in the small- est measure from her originality. The three characters are perfectly distinct, yet perfectly blended. This portrait of ^'Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth" is in the Tate Gallery, London. In Mr. Sargent's ^'Carnation Lily, Lily Rose" (Fig. ii8), in Victoria and Albert Mu- seum, London, we feel that rare sympathy where every brush-stroke is a token of love. And we know at once that the friendship be- tween the artist and these little girls is a very close one. The scene represents an English garden just at twilight. The two little girls, standing in a thicket of green leaves and bright flowers, are lighting Japanese lanterns. The reddish rays from the candles gleam and tremble on the foliage and the simple dresses of the little lamp-lighters. Nothing could be simpler or more sincere than these dainty misses intent on the task before them. As a piece of decoration this picture is simply su- perb. It is an exquisite bit of nature softened by the evening shade and made permanent on canvas by a true artist. Nearly a decade ago it was rumoured in Lon- Fig. 119 — Tyrolese Interior. Sargent. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 163 don that Mr. Sargent was tired of painting portraits, which meant simply that this artist would paint something else with equal skill. It also meant that in turning from the incessant demands of sitters in high places, Mr. Sargent could paint his marvellous landscapes and mountain regions where the working people and the Tyrolese peasants are his sitters. These scenes are no less portraits because they are pictures. In the ''Tyrolese Interior" (Fig. 119), Met- ropolitan Museum of Art, the group around the table is just as individual in characterisa- tion as is the Boit group of children. Deffra- ger, the German artist, has devoted much of his work to the Tyrolese peasants, yet in none of his pictures is the religious spirit of the mountaineers so impelling as in this one. So fervent is the spirit of religious fervour that each meal is eaten with the crucified Christ looking down in blessing. Even the light is a benediction under Mr. Sargent's illuminating brush. The warmth of a holy communion is in this home, rough as the exterior seems. Such a picture breathes pure religion in the very joy of colour and light and breadth of handling under a master's touch. CHAPTER XVIII ALEXANDER— BLUM QNE of John White Alexander's (1856- 191 5) most exquisite harmonies in colour and feeling is "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" (Fig. 120), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The long lines of the soft greyish-green filmy robe, the graceful curve of the lovely arm and the pathos of the sad, pale face make a picture to be remembered. We love it as a work of art and also because it brings to mind that pitiful story as told in Keats' poem of "Isabel.'' Isabella v^as a beautiful Florentine maiden living with her two brothers. They had planned to marry her "to some high noble and his olive trees." They found, however, that one Lorenzo, their servant, had dared to love her and that she, "Fair Isabel, poor simple Isa- bel !" returned his love. It was nothing to the brothers that these two loved each other. Lorenzo must die. They beguiled him out of Florence beyond the Arno to a forest where they slew him and buried him. They told their 164 Fig. 120 — Isabella and the Pot of Basil. Alexander. > Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. AMERICAN PICTURES 165 sister that Lorenzo had been sent in haste to foreign lands. She waited until her heart grew sick, but no Lorenzo came. At last, in a vision of the night, Lorenzo stood by her bed- side. He told her of his murder and just how to find his grave. In the morning, with an aged nurse, she followed her lover's descrip- tion until she came to the large flint stone, the whortleberries, the beeches, and the chestnuts and under the fresh mound she found her lover. She took the precious head and kissed it. "Then in a silken scarf She wrapped it up ; and for its tomb did choose A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by, And covered it with mould, and o'er set Sweet Basil, which her tears kept wet." Her brothers, wondering why she always sat by her pot of Basil, stole it, and when they found Lorenzo's head, they fled from Florence. Isabella pined and died with the pitiful wail on her dying lips, *'0 cruelty, to steal my Basil-pot away from me." As we stand before ''The Ring" (Fig. 121), in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we feel like saying of Mr. Alexander as did Sir Joshua Reynolds of his rival, Gainsborough, "I can- i66 AMERICAN PICTURES not think how he produces his effects." There is something impalpable about this picture, something that baffles explanation. Exqui- sitely beautiful, it satisfies because it gives the feeling of simplicity — no overcrowding and nothing uninteresting to mar the joy of the picture. Mr. Alexander is originality itself in his arrangement. His poses are perfectly natural to each individual represented, yet the moment any one in real life uses them nat- urally, that person is accused of being Alex- andrian in manner. It is interesting to ex- amine Mr. Alexander's coarse canvas and see how the unglazed surface responds to his vary- ing brush strokes, thus adding interest to the work. His pictures are individually his, re- gardless of any influence from Germany, Italy or France. It would have been impossible for one so filled with the artistic instinct, as was Mr. Alexander, not to have given to the world an art peculiar to himself. Mr. Alexander, a native of Allegheny, Pa., and an orphan at five years of age, was brought up by his maternal grandparents. When scarcely in his teens he found school work very irksome, so at an early age went to New York City, where he acquired consider- able fame as an illustrator. He then made the usual tour of inspection of the European art AND THEIR PAINTERS 167 centres, until he finally settled in Paris for an extended stay. His exhibitions in the Champ de Mars took the French people by storm. While for many years he continued to spend half of each year in Paris, he never lost that peculiar charm that belongs to a true Ameri- can. In Mr. Alexander's portraits we find a com- bination of the purely decorative with the per- sonality of the sitter; the latter is revealed through the expression of the face and figure. He is most original in the extraordinary effects of colour he secures with a limited use of pig- ments, and in the marvellous likenesses he evolves through peculiar poses, marking spe- cial moods of the individual sitter. "Walt Whitman," by John W. Alexander (Fig. 122), dominates the room. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Possibly because Whitman was our most typical American poet we thus feel his presence, but more probably because Mr. Alexander has preserved his own nation- ality in representing this true American man of fourscore years. Just such typical pictures as this, and scores of others by our own men, show our nationality and give us an American art. Foreign influences may guide but they do not obliterate our inheritance. Can you not hear this brave old poet repeat i68 AMERICAN PICTURES that heart-rending tribute to our martyred hero : — Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we sought is won. But O heart! heart! heart! Leave you not the little spot. Where on the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead." And now in this magnificent portrait of "Au- guste Rodin" (Fig. 123), Cincinnati Museum, we see the artist's mastery of French traits. It is a master-portrait of a master-sculptor. Was ever anything more original than that pose ? A thinker has stopped as he crosses the room, for a special thought has come and he must examine more carefully the bit of work he has in his hand. Almost can we fathom the intent of that master mind, but not quite, for he is too deep for the most of us. Very few, indeed, are the pigments that Mr. Alexander uses, but with those few he obtains results that are simply marvellous. Original, individ- ual and distinguished are the attributes of Mr. Alexander and his work. To have a portrait of ''Robert Blum" (Fig. 124), and by Alexander, too, is a mark of special good fortune, the Cincinnati Museum. AND THEIR PAINTERS 169 As we look in his face, it is easy to understand why this man could remain himself in his work, and still gather inspiration from his associates and strength from the old masters. Those clear dark eyes are seeking for truth, but their steady depths index a mind that is reasoning and analysing and absorbing. Then, too, there is a genial quality shining out at us that ac- cords well with the easy and, without doubt, natural attitude he has taken to converse with a friend. And that Mr. Alexander knew Rob- ert Blum intimately we have a right to assume from the warmth of personality of this por- trait. Quite naturally we turn next to the works of a native of Cincinnati, Robert Frederick Blum (1857-1903). After his death in 1903, his sister Mrs. Haller assisted in collecting a large number of his paintings and studies for the museum. The addition of these represen- tative works by Blum was an acquisition of immense value to the students and lovers of art. Mr. Blum was less than twenty when he settled in New York City, and almost imme- diately success came to him. He was a man of keen perceptive powers, alive to the merits of others, ready to be influenced, but never domi- nated by the genius of other artists. He made many journeys to Europe and one to Japan. I70 AMERICAN PICTURES The results of these visits are seen in the sub- jects of his paintings, but not unduly in his manner of work. One of the most attractive of his pictures is the ''Venetian Lace Makers'' (Fig. 125). So true to life is this group of young women gos- siping over their pillows, as their deft fingers manipulate the thread and pins, that we scarcely believe it is only a picture before us. How many times have we stood in the door- way of some lace room back of San Marco, Venice, and watched just such a scene as this. See the sun stealing in through the cracks in the Venetian blind and boldly pouring through the open door and window. And how it brings out the eagerness of the faces and plays with the hair and sparkles on the beads and makes each dress and apron and basket like an illu- sive elf of first one tint then another. Firmly and delicately the artist has placed the scene before us with no superfluous details; simply and clearly the story, if we may call it a story, of the Venetian lace-maker is made a reality to us. Mr. Blum's studies of Japan were really the first to introduce the American people to the charm of that land of the cherry blossom and chrysanthemum. CHAPTER XIX TEN AMERICAN PAINTERS HASSAM— WEIR— DEWING— Decamp ^T^ EN American Painters separated them- selves from the National Academy in 1868 and began an unusual existence — if we may express it so — by exhibiting their paint- ings at the gallery of Durand Ruel, New York City. A few years later, through the kindness of Mr. Montross, they continued to exhibit at the Montross Gallery, New York City, for sev- eral years. Now, however, most of the men are again members of the National Academy and exhibit there, too. The original men who formed this unique group were: Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Thomas W. Dewing, Joseph DeCamp, John H. Twachtman, Frank W. Benson, Edmund M. Tarbell, Robert Reid, Willard L. Me teal f, and Edward E. Simmons. In exhibiting together these artists were forming no organization with rules and regulations and governing mem- 171 172 AMERICAN PICTURES bers — rather the contrary. They repudiated all suggestions of following special tendencies in the selection of works — perish the thought ! They have emphatically refused the article "The'' in designating the group, and have sim- ply continued to exhibit together these nearly twenty years as friends and lovers of independ- ent work founded on truth. In writing about these men, "Ten American Painters'' makes a convenient chapter heading and possibly the public is remembering them better under this title. After Mr. Twachtman died in 1902 Mr. Chase was elected to take his place. We recognise that it takes a peculiar kind of wisdom to strike into hitherto untrodden paths and wander far afield without losing the fundamentals of the old ways. Ten American Painters and a few others have that wisdom and, while some have fallen by the way, they are still binding the old and the new into an art that prophesies much for America. Mr. Childe Hassam was born in Boston in 1859. From 1889, when he was awarded the bronze medal at the Paris Exposition, until the present time his art has received nearly a score of medals and prizes as tokens of appro- bation from the critics of Europe and America. Probably the fact that Mr. Hassam is not only a genius but a thoroughly trained craftsman From a Thistle Print. Covvright, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 120 — The New York Window. Hassam. Courtesy of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington. AND THEIR PAINTERS 173 is the secret of his success. No artist stands out more prominently among the Independents of the so-called Impressionist school than Mr. Hassam. His personality is behind the modus operandi of all his pictures. The "New York Window'^ (Fig. 126), Cor- coran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C, is one of a number of similar paintings in which the artist doubtless is dealing primarily with light and its effect on the various objects, but personally we cannot look at the young woman as simply an object. She is far too individual for that. To one at all familiar with New York City houses and their high narrow-paned windows that catch the full light of the sky, this picture will touch a responsive chord. Only an artist with the sensitive appreciation of the effect of light that Mr. Hassam has could have originated these unique pictures. Who has used this theme in like manner — given a girl, a dish of fruit or spring blossoms, a round table, a city window and light and colour? One American critic says of Mr. Has- sam's daring methods and originality: "I am inclined to believe that the amazing satisfac- tion of his art can best be explained by the ac- curacy of his accentuation, the perfection of his emphasis in colour. That he is a master of colour we frankly admit, though at times we 174 AMERICAN PICTURES are stupefied and turn away feeling that he is beyond us. Not so with this lovely picture. The New York window has taken on a new character since Hassam has shown it to us." ''Spring Morning'' (Fig. 127), Carnegie In- stitute, Pittsburgh, is a picture that is tantalising in its hint of the rebirth of ani- mate things. The thoughts that are stirring in the young woman — or is it in our own mind ? — are fraught with intense feeling. Not even the birds skimming across the screen are more intent. A dreamer is she? yes, but a spring dreamer where all is possibility. Light and air caress the canvas until colour and form have become component parts with them and the whole picture sings in harmony, but without loss of solidity, the quality that the later in- dependents are gaining. If Mr. Hassam meant to convince the world that shades in colour exist which only the art- ist, with his trained eye, can reveal, he has proved his point, just as he has convinced the world in every new theory he has advanced. We have followed him with delight as he pic- tured the "New York Window" and "Spring Morning," and now in "The Church at Old Lyme" (Fig. 128), Albright Art Gallery, Buf- falo, gives us another phase of his art. Inter- esting? of course it is. That church is so AND THEIR PAINTERS 175 typically New England; its tall spire, Ionic columns and plain whiteness are much like many a historic American church that to-day is being repaired and reclaimed as belonging to Colonial days. How we are fostering the old to gain a past for ourselves! But this church at Old Lyme may or may not be ancient. The trees that shelter it so lovingly are mere striplings, but no carved choir screen was ever more lacy or delicate in pattern than they. The light sifting through the interlac- ing branches and fluttering leaves has gathered into itself all the tints of the autumn and has left its delicious colour on every object. Can you not hear the chimes ring out on the clear air or the clock striking its note of warning that time is fleeting? Look! the people are gathering — the dry leaves crackle under their feet — the young people glance shyly at each other as the parents cordially grasp each other's hands — strains from the organ sum- mon all to enter — a hush, then the congrega- tion breaks forth, "Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love." Silence — the minister prays ! Yes, the spirit of worship is in this Church at Old Lyme. If it is true that Mr. Hassam uses his figures 176 AMERICAN PICTURES simply to play upon them in his marvellous ren- dering of nature, he certainly gives them such vitality that the place would be void without them. Even in ''The Caulker" (Fig. 129), Cincinnati Museum, the man attracts us, small though his part in the picture may be, not be- cause he is human but because there is some- thing vital in his being there at all. Again colour to Mr. Hassam is a real, an innate power. He is really "creating design by means of colour,'' says one critic. Possibly one of the most striking features, if we may call them such, of the modern Amer- ican artist is his choice of subjects. Again and again it is some special aspect of the great mechanical problems that face the world. In ''The Caulker" the great hulk of the ocean vessel hints at the tremendous traffic on the seas; the pictures of the Culebra cut suggest the open waterway between the continents ; the many paintings of the night furnaces of Pitts- burgh tell of the great industries that govern nations. Then, too, there are the pictures of river dredging, the building of bridges, the dig- ging of tunnels, and the laying of railroad tracks. We do not say that the artist chooses his subject for any other reason than artistic value, but we do believe that the dignity of labour has no better exponent than the artist AND THEIR PAINTERS 177 when he helps the public to see beauty in the work of everyday Ufe. Mr. Kreisler, the emi- nent violinist, was right when he said recently : '1 believe that art is to be the uplifting power in America." "The Portrait'' (Fig. 130), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, by J. Alden Weir, is specially interesting to us as a likeness of the artist's daughter. It is difficult to decide when Mr. Weir is at his best, in portraiture or landscapes. We feel like saying of his paint- ings as Gainsborough said of the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds, "How various he is." Syra- cuse is fortunate in owning examples in both branches of Mr. Weir's art. Again note that it is the simplicity of the composition, tem- pered with a self-restraint that has eliminated everything but the essentials, that charms us. The arrangement of the hair, the gown, the pose — all are in perfect harmony. There is no catering to the ultra-modiste that savours of the ridiculous, either in artist or subject. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art is Mr. Weir's "Red Bridge" (Fig. 131) — an iron bridge thrown across the Shetucket River, Windham, Conn. Was anything ever more picturesque ? And notice how exquisitely deco- rative it is. It has the quality of a bit of old lace that adds charm to an elegant gown. Mr. 178 AMERICAN PICTURES Weir, born at West Point in 1852, was first a pupil of his father, Robert W. Weir, then of the National Academy of Design, New York City. He went to Paris and studied under Gerome in ficole des Beaux-Arts. He now lives in New York City and is president of the National Academy of Design — elected to fill the place of Mr. Alexander who resigned just before his death. Mr. Thomas W. Dewing, a native of Bos- ton, 1 85 1, was trained largely in the Julian Academy, Paris. His paintings have a qual- ity of their own, so insistent that when once felt it is impossible to overlook. His pictures are like letters from a personal friend; each one is distinct, and yet each has the familiar phraseology of the writer. In ^'Writing a Letter'' (Fig. 132), Museum of Art, Toledo, the element of aloofness at first almost says "stand off," but the soft persuasiveness of the enveloping atmosphere holds us as it also holds these two figures in the perfect design. There is no emptiness in that room, yet we frankly aver that a real room so bare as that would be empty; even the personality of two women could not illuminate it and make it palpitate as has Mr. Dewing with his magic brush. His women are exquisite in dainty gowns of soft material and tender colours, and their ex- AND THEIR PAINTERS 179 quisiteness is that of women used to selecting beautiful apparel, rather than fragile women with no power of endurance. Look at these two in 'Writing a Letter/* They have square shoulders, with well-developed muscles, and finely poised heads and no superfluous flesh to interfere with the full use of the nervous tem- perament that is the American woman's spe- cial asset. A nervous temperament is some- thing to be desired, but the ''Oh, I am so nerv- ous!'' habit is to be shunned as one would fight a wasting disease. The first can remove mountains; a mole-hill overcomes the second. Possibly we might be better pleased if Mr. Dewing would always represent a robust type of American womanhood in his paintings. "The Lady with the Macaw" (Fig. 133), Al- bright Art Gallery, Buffalo, is a delicate, lovely woman and probably has the nervous energy that would outstrip many of her plumper sisters, yet a wholesome, pink-fleshed woman is not only a pleasing picture but holds possibilities of great reserve force. We love the soft hazy atmosphere Mr. Dewing knows so well how to use in developing his delicious tones. His colour is like that of ripe fruit, mellow and illusive. How the rich, warm blood of the American girl of to-day glows un- der his atmosphere and colour; and how she i8o AMERICAN PICTURES gains in dignity and poise in his compositions so full of strength and repose! We are re- minded in many of his paintings of what Mr. Kenyon Cox says: ''Horizontal lines will sug- gest repose; vertical lines will suggest rigid- ity and stability; curved lines will convey the idea of motion." Our artists need to give our American women just these qualities if they are to keep abreast of the wholesome, well- trained, up-to-date woman and represent her as she is in her true womanhood. Joseph R. DeCamp was a pupil of Duveneck (see page 102), and naturally his work savours of Munich. This, however, does not detract from his own manner of expressing himself in his work. In the ''Silver Waist*' (Fig. 134) he shows a strength in handling his subject that marks the ease with which he obtains results. Mr. DeCamp inspires confidence because he is perfectly sure of himself. His foundation was well laid and he never fumbles at his work. Not always are his compositions interesting, especially those where his women are holding vases or cups up to the light. It is one thing for the doctor, in Don's "Dropsical Woman,'' to hold his beaker to the light and another for a woman, with no earthly reason, to hold a glass to the light. The pose is strained, to say the least. CHAPTER XX TEN AMERICAN PAINTERS— (Continued) TWACHTMAN— BENSON— TARBELL—REID— METCALF— SIMMONS HE spiritual vision of the late John H. Twachtman gave him an understanding of nature's secrets that few artists have ever attained. He seemed to divine the underlying principles governing the elements. Unreal and unsubstantial were many of Mr. Twachtman's visions, when his grasp fell just short of his reach, yet they never lost the impelling force of his artistic instincts. Naturally it is given to few to understand his fleeting dreams and wandering sprites that mark a spring morning or a gathering mist, but none of us can mistake the tremendous forces of "Niagara in Winter" (Fig. 135). The magnificent strength in the drop of that water, made manifest in the foaming, seething mass leaping up to the very source of its latent energy, is superbly matched in the cold, stern i82 AMERICAN PICTURES force that grips the laughing, glittering tor- rent and piles it high, as in mockery, at the very feet of the boasting opponent. Twacht- man has here grasped the elemental in nature and with a swift, sure brush has laid bare her fundamental forces. We have often stood beside cascades like this very "Waterfall" (Fig. 136), Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, and watched the dancing stream slip over and around the obstructing ledges of rock on its way to the pool below, but not until Mr. Twachtman touched it with his vitalising, cool, grey-blue hue did we feel, with Goethe, that, *'Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose." Mr. Twachtman was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853, and died at his home in Glouces- ter, Mass., in 1902. He first studied with Frank Duveneck in his native city, and was associated with him again in Venice. He spent two years in Munich, and later in Paris came under the influence of the French tonalists and impressionists. Although Frank W. Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell and Robert Reid studied together in Paris at the Julian Academy and also under Fig. 135 — Niagara in Winter. Twachtman. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. Fig. 136 — The Waterfall. Twachtnian. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 183 Dannat, they are entirely dissimilar in their manner of work. Each man accepted the teachings of the French masters in his own way, transmuting the methods into distinctive traits that characterise the works of each. In fact, individuality is the dominant note in their paintings. Mr. Benson's brush has caught a certain brightness of colour and light that speaks a language of its own. No one could mistake his manner of entangling the sunlight in the hair and garments of his open air fig- ures. He plays them in the early morning light, and as the evening shadows fall he fol- lows them in the open field and on the hilltop, under sun-shades and in open verandas, ever catching the varying quality of sunlight with unerring artistic instinct. In ''Sunshine and Shadow'' (Fig. 137) Mr. Benson has done more than make a picture with exquisite decorative quaHties; he has added a personal note that goes deeper than the mere effect of sunlight, as the title implies. These people interest us. The feeling of good fellowship existing between them — this mother and daughter — echoes in our hearts. Such a picture is warm with the comradery of the true home. In no portrait has Mr. Benson caught the vital spark more truly than in his "Portrait of i84 AMERICAN PICTURES a Boy'' (Fig. 138), Carnegie Institute, Pitts- burgh. Curious and a little doubtful is he, with a hint of rebellion at being disturbed. These are the dominating traits that mark this boy, and in those traits this is a universal boy. A boy is self-centred, wanting to be let alone; a girl is self-centred, expecting notice. It is not always that Mr. Benson's portraits have the charm and personality of this boy; at times he seems so obsessed with the artistic quality of his work — making a picture pure and sim- ple — that the element of likeness is all but eliminated from the portrait. Mr. Benson was born in Salem, Mass., 1862, and on his return from Europe settled in Boston. Impressionism in Edmund C. Tarbell's paintings is a sane and harmonious use of col- our, united with sufficient amount of form and detail. When we remember how, in the move- ment a quarter of a century ago, the pendu- lum swung, as usual, to the extreme in the lack of all form and detail and in the riotous use of violent colour, we are specially gratified with the sanity of the men who have come to stay. If ''colour impression" is the essential element of impressionists, then Mr. Tarbell has relegated that element to its proper place. As we look at the 'Woman in Pink and Fig. 137 — Sunshine and Shadow. Benson. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 185 Green" (Fig. 139), Cincinnati Museum, our sensation is that produced by harmony. The perfectly balanced cool and warm tones of the young woman's costume are a vital part of the soft rich light that caresses the whole. Then, too, the composition is exceedingly attractive artistically. It might be a quiet corner in some summer hotel; the young woman, sufficient unto herself, is in no hurry; the women at their embroidery are self-centred — just a bit of conventional life of singular charm under the refining influence of Mr. TarbelFs brush. If only his people had a little more of the ac- tive alert element, so characteristic of our time, possibly their refinement and sincerity would strike a deeper chord in the heart of picture lovers. As it is, we love them and go away feeling that it was good for to have seen them. Mr. Tarbell was born in Boston in 1862 and on his return from Europe took up his resi- dence in his native city. He has been a teacher in the Museum of Fine Arts school for many years. That the Boston artists, Mr. Benson and Mr. Tarbell and others, have a charac- teristic undertone of their own is unquestioned, and that their exclusiveness, if we may so name it, stands for strength and simplicity is equally true. "The Miniature" (Fig. 140) Museum of i86 AMERICAN PICTURES Art, Detroit, Mich., is one of Robert Reid's brilliant, decorative pictures, in which he has combined everything that contributes to form- ing the true portrait of a woman. There is the artist's usual skill in short broken pastel strokes, in a woven network of strong colours, leaving the canvas partly covered to enhance the vitality of the whole. But aside from all this, there is the woman, individual in every line from the pose of her head to the flirt of her gown around the table leg. Decorative? yes, but it is especially so because Mr. Reid knew how to catch the woman at the right mo- ment. No man, not even an artist, could have told this woman how to take that particular position. The tender modelling of the head, with its glorious hair, is a perfect delight. Mr. Reid was born in Stockbridge, Mass., 1862, and on coming home from abroad made his home in New York City. When Willard L. Metcalf (1858) painted ''Midsummer'' (Fig. 141) he gave more than the impression of a country road in summer; he gave the road itself. How often have we jogged along that dirt road, feeling the com- fort of the cool shade — if there was any cool- ness that still summer's day with the sun pour- ing its heat over everything — and urging the horse along the open places to the next shaded From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co. . Fig. 140 — The Miniature. Reid. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Detroit, Fig. 141 — Midsummer. Metcalf. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 187 stretch beyond. Mr. Metcalf thoroughly un- derstands the impressionist's methods of high- pitched pictures where the feeling of the open air is gained by contrasts of pure colour used in broken patches, to give vibration and bril- liancy. But he usually stops just short of the vibration line and lays his paint on thinly and smoothly. This gives the quiet power to his pictures that makes them so loved by the gen- eral public. Not only are his pictures admired by the Philistine but, if a dozen and more prizes and honourable mentions in this coun- try and abroad count for anything, they are admired and thought worthy by artists and art lovers. A dozen or more galleries, too, have specimens of his works. Mr. Metcalf was born in Lowell, Mass., 1858, and now lives in New York City. Edward E. Simmons (1852) is widely known by his mural painting. He was one of the artists chosen for decorating the buildings of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and since then his work has been placed in many public buildings of our cities and states; he was also one of the decorators of the Library of Con- gress at Washington. The study of American Mural Painting is a subject by itself, of the greatest importance in the development of American painting. CHAPTER XXI WINTER SYMONS — REDFIELD — OCHTMAN— SCHO- FIELD^HARRISON-^ROSEN— CARLSON —RYDER /^ARDNER SYMONS (1863), Hke some of the later men, seems so largely depend- ent on the Frost King for his inspiration that he naturally slips into the winter group. It is our province, as the lay public, to try to un- derstand the works of artists who are sincerely and sanely picturing for us the world we live in. We may not personally enjoy some par- ticular picture, but we can be sensitive to whether it rings true or not. To those of us who are familiar with country scenes all the year round the paintings of our landscapists will form quite a complete monthly calendar. We are becoming very well acquainted with the winter king; we come upon him so often in the various galleries, and are conscious that his stern, uncompromising reign is a favourite 188 AMERICAN PICTURES 189 theme of the year's seasons. It is exceedingly interesting to follow the artists' treatment of winter — as various as the artists are different one from another. These artists are dealing with light, and never is light so fickle as when it plays about the snowdrifts and through the stripped trees. The ^^Sunlight in the Woods'' (Fig. 142), Car- negie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas, as Mr. Symons shows it to us, is frankly co- quettish slipping in and out, catching this bare trunk and that snow bank, this dark evergreen and that bubbling water tumbling over the rough stones. The wood and stream are full of the glee of laughing children playing hide- and-seek in the soft clean snow and hiding be- hind boulder and tree trunk. In imagination you can see the children; and do you not feel the gladness and sparkle that the winter sun has brought to the wood and stream and bar- ren trees, standing knee-deep in the snow- drifts? Mr. Symons has a certain American independence that is delightful. He is bound by no rule that does not harmonise with his own originality. His independence is con- trolled by clear-sighted good sense. The "River in Winter" (Fig. 143), Institute of Art, Minneapolis, by Mr. Symons, is flowing steadily through the valley, where IQO AMERICAN PICTURES for ages it has been eating out the crumbling banks, making a lake of itself, then drawing in its forces because the rocks and trees com- pel it, only again, however, to tear out new ma- terial with its collected force. Mr. Symons has vividly portrayed the history of that sul- len water in its devastating moods. The heavy cold of the dark ice-laden river penetrates to the very marrow — the air is cold; the snow is cold ; the water is cold ; not even the sun cares to linger, for the winter king is in no mood to give out joy, though he makes us wish for the open fire in the home near the river. These two scenes show how sympathetically he approaches his subjects and how susceptible he is to the ever-changing aspect of nature. We might name our landscapists *'Interpre- ters of Nature," for such is the burden of their theme, only unfortunately not always are their renderings understood by us, the public. When not comprehended, both they and their pictures , fall by the way. Of the American landscapists now nearing the half-century mark probably Mr. Redfield is the most widely known, though as one critic says : ''He was no precocious prodigy, and it is doubtful if any one realised . . . that he was destined to become one of the foremost paint- ers of America, whose work would receive gen- AND THEIR PAINTERS 191 eral and substantial recognition before he had turned forty." He was the first American landscapist from whom the French Govern- ment bought a picture to hang in the Luxem- bourg Gallery, Paris. It would be impossible for Mr. Redfield to paint a hopeless winter, yet he never fails to make us feel the true spirit of the frost king. There is no sentimental masking of the deso- lation that follows in the wake of snow and ice. At one time we feel the light fluffy snow that, is soft and warm, like a wool comforter; then again the heavy wet snow that weighs down, like a cheap cotton comforter, with no sem- blance of warmth and comfort in it. He often changes his point of view in dealing with the cranky, uncertain king of winter, but he does it to help us to a better appreciation of the whimsical vagaries of a monarch subject to powers beyond him. A certain desolateness hangs over the bare hillside and heavy flowing river in "The Crest" (Fig. 144), John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, but the tiny set- tlement snuggled against the rough sidling road and the glistening snow caught in the hol- lows suggest that hope still lingers. His keen appreciation of the latent power buried under the snow and ice and hidden in the gaunt leaf- less trees infuses a sense of life. The barren- 192 AMERICAN PICTURES ness of the aspect gives no hint of a dead world — nature is simply accumulating forces as she sleeps. When Mr. Redfield chooses winter as his theme in the "Laurel Brook" (Fig. 145), and pictures it in such frank, simple language, we love him. The optimistic spirit of that scene would dissipate the worst case of the blues. The brook pays no heed to old winter except to laugh as it works its way in and out over the obstructions thrown in its way. The laurel shakes her dark shiny leaves and laughs as the white burden slips to the ground. Even the stark trees are snug with their feet buried in the soft snow. The short strokes, used with the restraint of one who is not carried away by a fad, have given just the right amount of aliveness to that dark, merry brook. Possibly because December was Mr. Red- field's birth month he was given a deeper knowledge of the old winter king. Certain it is he never fails to give the thrills that the biting air brings, whether it is to shiver as the dampness clutches us or to laugh as we glide over the soft snow. It is cold along the "Delaware River" (Fig. 146) when the snow is caught in patches and skims of ice hold the water here and there, so no wonder the picture makes the flesh pimple Fig. 145 — Laurel Brook. Redfield. Courtesy of the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo. From a Thistle Print. Copyright, Detroit Publishing Co. Fig. 146 — Delaware River. Redfield. Courtesy of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington. AND THEIR PAINTERS a little. Only the other day I saw a number of paintings of winter scenes — one was Mr. Red- field's — and then realised as never before that it is Mr. Redfield's sympathetic touch that warms our hearts. He is picturing something dear to him, and the personal note in his sim- ple lines appeals to us at once. Nothing ex- travagant, nothing overdrawn, just candid truth, is the element that made the artificial winter scenes slip in the background. The ''Delaware River'* was one of the paintings purchased for the Corcoran collection from the First Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings in 1907, held in the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Possibly we never saw ''Sycamore Hill" (Fig. 147), Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, until Mr. Redfield showed it to us — "we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see," but when an artist whose heart is alive to God's universe fixes on canvas a bit of nature with the breath of heaven in it, we love it. Mr. Redfield is widening our ideas of winter and helping us to feel the pent-up joy of the close- locked earth. Edward W. Redfield, born in Bridgeport, 194 AMERICAN PICTURES Delaware in 1868, is decidedly individual, yet his individuality is not of the eccentric kind. He works almost exclusively out of doors, and very rapidly, so that many canvases are the result of a season's work. To have one of his winter scenes on the wall of a living-room brings joy the season through. In winter the home is the cosier because of the presence of his literal portrayal of winter, and in summer there comes from it a breath of crisp cold air deliciously refreshing. Many of his paintings are scenes from near his home in the Delaware Valley country, but their import cannot be con- fined to any special section ; wherever is found snow and ice there is the essence of his art. "December" (Fig. 148), Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas, is certainly a raw bleak month in this section, wherever it is, and the scene itself is not one to hold us, but Mr. Ochtman commands us to halt. Now we begin to realise that here is beauty of the most en- chanting kind. See how well balanced it is. Our eyes follow along the narrow pass between the low sloping hills and the broken line of trees, conscious that the sunbeam struggling to break through the clouds is calling us. We see its light reflected in the pool in the fore- ground and follow it on and on, realising that we are under a spell. After all, is the scene AND THEIR PAINTERS 195 bleak and drear? Is it not rather one of hope? These men have opened vistas in the realm of light of which we never before were con- scious. We may not always agree with their methods, possibly because of ignorance, but they have set us to thinking. The lovely soft radiance that envelopes this winter scene speaks to our souls; we are learning to love winter scenes when the brush of a genius shows them to us. Leonard Ochtman, born in Zonnemaire, Hol- land, in 1854, came to America when twelve years old and settled in Albany. He worked in a wood-engraver's office in that city but, except for that training, he is self-taught in the art of painting. He lives at Cot, Conn. W. Elmer Schofield (1867), a native of Philadelphia, was first trained in the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and then studied in Paris. He is now living in his native city. One would scarcely think of us- ing scenes from a snow-covered field, a river of broken ice, or shadeless trees scattered over undulating ground ornamented with snow- patches for decorative patterns, yet Mr. Scho- field does. His pictures are like so many pat- terns for tapestry work and as varied as those taken from the kaleidoscope. 196 AMERICAN PICTURES When he painted "A January Day" (Fig. 149), Cincinnati Museum, he attained just that quality of atmospheric illusiveness that leads us through this open wood into the fields and then beyond into the unknown. We care not for the hard broken patches of snow nor for the bare places where brush-heaps and stones are gathered, as we follow his lead. The spirit of winter is in this open wood. The dancing light and shade, the blue cloud-flecked sky, the tall grey trees, and the shorter glossy green ones, the whistling wind creaking the bare branches and soughing in the evergreens — Mr. Schofield has made us conscious of it all. And colour ! what is the colour of nature in winter but the haunting sense of something gone or something that is coming again? Even the glow of the setting sun in the west is but for a moment. The real radiance is the under- tone coming from within the bare trees and brown earth. Every true painter of winter makes us feel the hidden power temporarily held in leash. The '^Old Mills on the Somme" (Fig. 150), by Mr. Schofield, is a quiet scene, yet we feel that the whirr of the stones and the hum of the belts fill the air with the music of industry. The open door and the snug well-kept air of the buildings indicate the thrift of labour. The fioin a Tlnxtic J^rinl. Copyright. DilruU I'ublisfnny Cu. Vu\. 151 — Woodstock Meadows in Winter. Harrison. Courtesy of the Museum of Art, Toledo. Fig. 152 — Frozen River. Rosen. Courtesy of the Deigado Museum of Art, New Orleans. AND THEIR PAINTERS 197 ancient buildings beside the picturesque, rag- ged old stream, peer anxiously into the deeper pool and smile as they see their own faces. The snow clinging to the stones and water-grass seems to catch up the smile and give it back to us. The shimmer of green and purple-brown that lurks in the shadows and around the bare trees has the tantalising quality of the opal and defies too close scrutiny of its exact tint. 'Woodstock Meadows in Winter'' (Fig. 151), Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, by Birge Harrison, is a very personal scene. Let us stand in the loft window of the barn and allow our eye to follow the course of the little stream. Yes, it is the same brook we paddled through barefooted only a few summers ago. See, the murky sky smiles at times. The water sparkles and glistens as each tiny drop acts like a self-appointed mirror. We are seeing a beauty in this leaden day and this cold running water that we would scarcely have taken time to see had not the artist shown it to us. Mr. Harrison says: '1 believe it is one of the artist's chief functions to watch for the rare moods when nature wafts aside the veil of the commonplace and shows us her inner soul in some bewildering vision of poetic beauty." Mr. Harrison is a native of Philadelphia 198 AMERICAN PICTURES (1854) and was first trained in the Pennsyl- vania Academy of Fine Arts and then studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. As early as 1882 the French government bought one of his paintings. He is also well known as a critic and writer on art. The painting about which a wholesome sen- timent clings is ''Frozen River'' (Fig. 152), by Charles Rosen (1878), Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans. The museum has two pay- days each week and the first picture purchased from the admission fees (25 cents each) was "Frozen River." How quickly our interest is enlisted and how grateful we are for the wise selection ! Mr. Rosen, a native of Pennsylvania and a pupil of Mr. William M. Chase, is young in years, but already he has had many marks of honour and respect in prizes and club member- ships. His works speak for him in no uncertain language. The scene of the "Frozen River'' is of no special significance, but the intense cold of a winter morning brooding over it is that of any river when the mercury drops be- low zero. How plainly we understand the treachery of the undercurrent that comes to the open under the tree and bushes ! We feel that unsuspected airholes lurk under the white surface. What a splendid example of con- AND THEIR PAINTERS 199 tending forces are the tumbled and contorted rapids, caught at last by the stronger force! Who could look at this strong, vigorous paint- ing of winter's tightest mood without a feel- ing of weakness to battle with it? The cold lowering sky hovers over the colder white ex- panse, and even the dark green-blue water is struggling against the power that threatens it. Mr. Rosen has caught the spirit of winter and has made us feel its power. But in ''The Brook in Autumn'' (Fig. 153) Mr. Rosen is equally forceful in foreshadowing the coming winter. The tang in the air and the glint in the water warn us that the sun is losing his power. Another artist — one of our younger men (1875) — is portraying winter in a peculiarly sympathetic mood. Over and over again Mr. John F. Carlson takes us to the woods to show us how the snow lodges on the trees, always on the north side, and how the hollows are filled to overflowing and how the sun is seeking out every snow patch as a fit place for his dance. Not long since it was my joy to see a dozen or more of these woodland scenes at the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. I felt the years slip away and again I was exploring every nook and corner of the old woods at the home farm. Again Father was saying: ''In a moment, 200 AMERICAN PICTURES daughter, we will reach the open space." And sure enough there was the bright spot. The big tree trunks stood apart, as it were, that we might catch the glory of the full sunshine. And the "Woodland Brook" (Fig. 154) ! Who has ever made a truer. picture of the dark, rest- less water insisting on its right of way regard- less of snow and cold? Although Mr. Carl- son is a native of Kalmar Lan, Sweden, he is a true American in his woodland scenes. Chauncey F. Ryder is also an artist who finds poetry in stripped trees and bare hillsides; in sullen waters and wind swept fields. His sym- pathetic appreciation of nature has revealed to him many of her secrets and made him pe- culiarly sensitive to her moods. When he in- terprets for us "Pack Monadnock" (Fig. 155) in its undress and bare grey head, we at once feel the tang of the New England winter in the air. It is scarcely necessary to explain that Monadnock is an isolated mountain in southwestern New Hampshire, for Mr. Ryder has so specialised the individual character of the piled up mass that he has revealed it to us. The snug homes, each with its element of aloof- ness, have an air of exclusiveness that speaks volumes about restricted property. "We," they seem to say, "are a privileged class ; this lone AND THEIR PAINTERS 201 peak is ours; intruders are warned to keep ofif." Fortunately for us the artist thought differ- ently and has invited us to enjoy a rare treat. And what a wonderful glimpse we have of the hoary monster ! The scattered homes, centres of human interest, are an added charm to the scene. The tall, gaunt trees in the foreground acting as sentinels are a setting for the picture that enhances the beauty of the whole. They give a sense of stability to the level space that offsets the almost stern aspect of the bald mountain beyond. And how lovingly the dis- tant trees and low shrubs snuggle close to the ascending sides as they climb toward the sum- mit. Mr. Ryder has a most convincing way with trees. He not only makes us feel their power as community centres, but at times, as in his painting ''The Makers of Magic," privately owned, we are conscious of the haunts of dry- ads and fauns. Here are tall, straight, bare- trunked trees gathered in a close group with their tops joined and the sun sifting through — each tree the home of a nymph and the open space a sunlit ball room inviting them to the dance. The spirit of the past is awakened by the magic makers until in every tree trunk lurks a fawn, a dryad or a nymph. Wait a moment 202 AMERICAN PICTURES and we will see them come flocking out and again the woods will ring with song and laugh- ter. We would live in a prosaic world were it not that we are all makers of magic. We are all building our own castles in Spain and peo- pling them with creatures of our own brain. Let us see to it that we keep our imagination, for then we will keep our youth. Much of our real joy is in the things of our own creation and most of those things are mere phantoms of the mind. But when an artist in pictures or words makes permanent these imaginings he touches our hearts and we are pleased. Mr. Ryder was born in Danbury, Conn., in 1868. He studied in the Chicago Art Insti- tute and then went to Paris. While in Paris, in 1907, he had the honour of being Awarded Honourable Mention from the French Salon. CHAPTER XXII BEAUX— HAWTHORNE— CASSATT. TYJISS CECILIA BEAUX literally forged her way to success. Nothing was too small for her to use in gaining a definite end. At first it was certain geological survey work, then china painting, then crayon portraits from photographs, and much of the time teaching, always gaining knowledge and applying it to her art. Completely absorbed in doing her best, whatever her task, inch by inch she gained power, and, in the words of William James, she suddenly became conscious that she was one of the competent ones of the world and that the world acknowledged her as a master- painter. A master-painter Miss Beaux certainly is and never is she more masterful than in her portraits of young girls. Only an artist who was in perfect sympathy with the ambitions of girlhood could have painted "The Dancing Lesson" (Fig. 156), in the Richard Watson Gilder Home, New York City. These sisters, 203 204 AMERICAN PICTURES the daughters of the late Richard Watson Gilder, show the perfection of grace and nat- uralness. Could anything give a truer idea of sisterly solicitude than the older girl's manner in leading the little one through the steps of the dance? The firm grasp of the little hand and the words of encouragement coming from her parted lips are reflected in the extended foot and pleased smile of the younger sister. We seem to hear the music of the dance and to see the poetry of moving figures as we stand before this charming group so perfect in its simplicity. One of the most charming portraits in all American art is Miss Beaux's "Ernesta'^ (Frontispiece), a late acquisition to the Met- ropolitan Museum of Art. The young woman is not unknown to us, for in 1896 she appeared, a tiny tot holding the hand of her nurse, in the Salon of Champ de Mars, Paris, together with ''A New England Woman'' and several others by Miss Beaux. Just here let me quote from M. Henri Rochefort, a prominent critic, who wrote of Miss Beaux's portrait of Dr. Grier in the Salon of 1896: "I am compelled to admit, not without some chagrin, that not one of our female artists. Mile. Abbema included, is strong enough to compete with the lady who has given us this year the portrait of Dr. FiQ» 156 — The Dancing Lesson. Beaux. Private Collection. AND THEIR PAINTERS 205 Grier. Composition, flesh, texture, even draw- ing — everything is there, without affectation and without seeking for an effect/' Miss Beaux painted Ernesta, her niece, with her nurse first and the latest one our own "Ernesta." When Ernesta entered the gallery where she hangs in the museum, her person- ality asserted itself at once. She softened and harmonised and adjusted her surround- ings, drawing all eyes to herself yet em- phasising the beauty around her. She is lovely in her simplicity — alert and eager for life, yet with a poise of manner that brooks no liberties. This picture belongs in every girl's school in America. It stands as an incentive to simplicity in dress, reserve, eagerness for the good things of life, and girlishness in manner. To say that the work is superb is to reiterate that Miss Beaux is a master-painter and that her pictures are masterpieces. ''A New England Woman" (Fig. 157), by Miss Beaux, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, one of the paintings ex- hibited at the Paris Salon in 1896, took the French people by storm. In acknowledgment of her talents she was given the honour of associate membership in the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts and four years later, after exhibiting in the Paris Exhibition, she was 2o6 AMERICAN PICTURES selected an associataire, a rare honour for a woman. Miss Beaux inevitably keeps in close sympathy with her sitters — she is not repre- senting a type but a particular person. The article ^'a" gives exactly the idea, for though no name is given we feel that the New Eng- land Woman is some one the artist knew, and she has made us know her too. There is much that is New England, however, in this special woman. She may not live in the Eastern States but she has the air that marks the de- scendants of Puritan blood. This portrait be- longs to the earlier years of the artist's work when she often made her pictures studies in white, black and grey — and she does now, for that matter. These studies show just the intimate quality that portrays character. This woman's habit was white; she decked herself, her chair, her bed, her stand, her doorway in white because white suited her. The touches of colour that peep out at us are like flashes of humour that come unexpectedly in the conver- sation. In the picture of the "Mother and Child'' (Fig. 158), Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse, N. Y., Charles W. Hawthorne is at his best. The young woman is a beautiful type of motherhood. The mystery of a new Hfe lies in the depths of those wide-open eyes, yet she AND THEIR PAINTERS 207 scarcely comprehends its meaning. She feels the pride of possession as never before, for a great responsibility is knocking at her heart; the faint smile of ownership is giving place to the awe that comes when the young mother first recognises that the child is her very own. How lovely is the wealth of midnight hair that like an aureola frames her face and how the tender colour of her robe emphasises the warm flesh and draws us very close to her ! We love the baby. Probably nothing that Mr. Hawthorne has done in the past or will do in the future will live more truly as a masterpiece than "The Trousseau" (Fig. 159), Metropolitan Museum of Art. The young girl is the embodiment of innocent wonder as to what the future means. She sees a mysterious land — a land filled with perplexing questions. She is to enter this land with the man she loves, and she trusts him. It is a solemn journey. The mother feels the re- sponsibility of it, for she knows; the daughter, dimly conscious, trusts. Mr. Hawthorne has the rare quality of pleas- ing the public without lowering his standards. He makes us feel the intrinsic worth of his people; they have like passions with us. One needs but watch the visitors stop before the painting of "The Trousseau" to understand 2o8 AMERICAN PICTURES that the pubic does appreciate the best in art. If Mr. Hawthorne is a "painter for the love of painting" he certainly paints many pictures that we all love. There are little personal incidents connected with Mr. Hawthorne's young days as an artist that endear him to us and help us to better un- derstand his perception of the inner life of his sitters. One of these incidents had to do with his practice days at Shinnecock where Mr. William M. Chase was conducting his famous criticisms before a large and admiring class of students. Mr. Hawthorne's enthusiasm for his chosen work was great, though he was not among the privileged ones to attend the dis- tinguished teacher's classes. One day, how- ever, he was sketching on the beach when Mr. Chase came swinging along. Not specially noticing young Hawthorne, but possibly think- ing him one of his own students, he stopped and looking closely at the sketch, asked: "Young man, why don't you come to my criticisms?" Mr. Hawthorne hesitated, prob- ably not wishing to give the real reason, but Mr. Chase, in his quick nervous manner, added : "Come to the next one," and walked on. This was the desire of young Hawthorne's heart. The Chase students soon understood Fig. 161 — Moiniug Bath. Cassatt. Courtesy of the Metropohtan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 209 the state of affairs and brought young Haw- thorne to the next day's criticism with his picture. He chose his seat in the corner on the topmost tier of benches, and looked down on the assembled students and the great teacher. It was Mr. Chase's habit to put a canvas on the easel and call out, "Whose picture is this?" The owner would stand up and then the criticism was given. On this day everything proceeded as usual until Mr. Chase put a special picture on the easel; instead of asking the usual question, he turned and faced the corner where Mr. Hawthorne sat. Rais- ing his finger and pointing straight at him, he said: "Young man, you'll be a painter !" It was several minutes before the enthusiastic stu- dents were ready for the next criticism. Mr. Hawthorne was a pupil of Mr. Chase and, like his master, is now an art teacher him- self — one of the most noted in America. He has a home in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Mass. Mr. Hawthorne was born in Maine in 1872. Possibly no American artist was more di- rectly moulded artistically by Manet, the French impressionist, than Miss Mary Cassatt. But Manet's moulding changed not one whit the native talent of the young painter. She simply responded to the seeking for essentials 2IO AMERICAN PICTURES and when that idea was firmly grasped, to- gether with the austerity of Degas, she began her work- as a free agent in art, and is con- tinuing her career as such. No one for a moment would accuse Miss Cassatt of being an imitator after looking at her "Mother and Child" (Fig. i6o) painted in 1904. Neither is she any less an American because they are French in a French park. Over and over again she pictures a mother and her child — the child a good, wholesome prod- uct of nature with every function in working condition and the mother alive to the needs of a healthy, growing young human animal. We are conscious that Miss Cassatt has gained a certain independence with the passing years as we compare the "Morning Bath (Mother and Child),'' in the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art (Fig. 161), painted the last of the nineteenth century, with the mother and child above. In the "Morning Bath" her modelling is harder and the colour harsher. But how well the sturdy little body, firm in its elasticity, shows the active power of growing muscles! See how the little fingers grasp the mother's gown and the toes stretch with the compelling force of growth. Fortunately, time is toning the vivid green background and rather cold sur- roundings into a delightful cosy corner of the AND THEIR PAINTERS 211 nursery where centres the life of the mother and her child. One of the strong points, and there are very many of them, in Miss Cassatfs paintings, is the ripening quality which de- velops with time. The artist's mastery in the technic of art and her courage in working out her own problems in her pictures have given her a place of hon- our among artists. Although she persistently keeps motherhood before us, yet her reiteration never for one moment bores us, for each group is individual. The personality of the mother is always distinct and the colour and handling are ever adapted to the particular mother and the special child — every baby has its own per- sonal magnetism and is not "just a baby like all others," Miss Cassatt understands so thor- oughly the muscular development of the grow- ing child that her various pictures might well be adopted as models in the physical develop- ment of children. Then again look at the wholesome attitude of the mothers as she pic- tures them. How sane they are in instinctive tenderness and solicitude — a beautiful re- minder that motherhood, coeval with the begin- nings of the race, demands the use of mother- hood function! Miss Cassatt is a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., and has her home in France. We much regret 212 AMERICAN PICTURES that our young American mothers are not be- ing immortalised by her brush, for we need her honest, truth-seeking eyes and her courage to picture for them the duty and joy of American motherhood. Mr. Melchers says: ''Mary Cassatt, ah, there is a great artist! She is a brilliant, intellectual woman, and stands at the head of the American women painters. I ad- mire her and her work extremely." CHAPTER XXIII GROLL— WILLIAMS— GENTH— LIE— KROLL TN no country has nature specialised more efficiently than in the United States. Be- tween the glaciers of Alaska and the ever- glades of Florida she has wrought natural won- ders and emphasised abundance and sterility of the nth power. Not often, however, have our artists sought out the unusual — unusual only because of our ignorance — for subjects of their art. So it is with peculiar interest that we enjoy the ^'Silver Clouds, Arizona" (Fig. 162), by Albert L. Groll (1866). Until Mr. Groll began to picture Arizona, under the varying conditions of wind and weather, we have never realised the artistic possibilities of the desert lands of that marvellous state. The broad, low country, with its sage brush, bunch grass and cacti clinging close to the arid yellow soil, stretches away to the horizon and over it hovers a sky full of silvery clouds, mak- ing a never-to-be-forgotten picture. Deserts 213 214 AMERICAN PICTURES these plateaus certainly are until man comes with his irrigating plant, then "the desert shall blossom like the rose/' Mr. GroU never makes a hopeless desert out of his Arizona scenes. No, he gives an undertone of gold and silver that sparkles and shimmers on bush and sand and cloud, suggesting boundless wealth. We feel that these desert scenes are as truly God's great out-of-doors as the mountains and the fruitful valleys. Mr. Groll, born in New York City, where he now lives, was largely trained in Munich. He is represented in many of our large gal- leries and has been recognised by honourable mention, medals and prizes in America and Europe. Three hundred years ago Nicholas Poussin painted landscapes largely as settings for his classical figures, and to-day our American idyl- lists are showing much the same spirit. Having the advantage, however, of three centuries of training in landscape painting, they are evolv- ing pictures so full of the joy of living that they seem all but true to life. Nothing could be more ideally beautiful as a piece of decora- tion than Frederick Ballard Williams' "Sum- mer" (Fig. 163). Never were shades of colour more exquisite — flesh and gowns, lapping tide and floating clouds, rocks and mosses blend as Fig. 163— i ■Summer. Williams. Courtesy of the Macbeth GaiUny, New York City. Fig. 164 — Woodland Pool. Genth. Courtesy of the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester. AND fTHElR PAINTERS 215 harmoniously as instruments in an orchestra. Mr. WilHams is sounding a note, with his Venetian figures set in a modern landscape, that is decidedly attractive to the lay public. They probably do lack the rugged strength of the insurgents who are crowding out the weak- lings, but they hold their own and sweeten art with their charm. Surely a fairy has touched Miss Lillian Genth with its magic wand and then trans- ported her to some woodland dell where only fairies dwell. Not that this "Woodland Pool" (Fig. 164), Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, N. Y., cannot be found on this old earth of ours, but it has taken Miss Genth, with her 'Vital, optimistic, stimulating" art, to find it for us. Over and over she draws us aside from the work-a-day world into lovely wood- land retreats and there quiets and soothes our overheated brains. Her nude figures, breath- ing a wholesome sane joy, are as much a part of the secluded dell as the trees, the pool and the sky. How empty this retreat would be without the warmth of the lovely vision in the flesh! The light playing upon the healthy form is like the wind playing upon the swaying branches. When Miss Genth firt posed a nude figure out-of-doors in Brittany, and the light played 2i6 AMERICAN PICTURES over the pink-tinted surface, she found the key that unlocks a new world to us. And later, under the brilliant American light, she fitted her key and unlocked the secret of sunlight playing upon vital human flesh. Her figures in the open and beside the waters and under the spreading branches have assumed the char- acter of an autograph and, like the latter, can never grow monotonous to those who love them. Miss Genth is already represented in many of our public museums. One of the younger artists of to-day who has struck an original note is Jonas Lie (1880). He is original not so much in the choice of subjects, for others have used much the same, but in his manner of treatment. We have again an artist who sees the poetry of labour, but he sees it f ron an angle all his own. At first we might think his individuality is due to the section of the country he has chosen — he has painted many pictures of the Panama Canal section — but in the "Morning on the River" (Fig. 165), Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, the same personal note is there. The sense of depth and height in both the ''Morning on the River" and the "Culebra Cut," Metropolitan Museum of Art, is that of strength and dura- bility and also emphasises the power of man's mind to overcome great natural obstacles. o. IGG — The Conquerors. Lie. Courtesy of the MetropoHtan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 217 Now look at "The Conquerors'' (Fig. 166) as the Culebra Cut is often called, and see how the bigness of the idea has gripped the artist. He thinks big artistic problems and, unafraid, places those prob- lems before us. Height and depth lose noth- ing of their mystery, nothing of their im- pelling force, and yet both are brought un- der the dominating power of man and both are compelled to yield and become servants in his hands. The marvellous steel-blue atmosphere binds and rivets into perfect symmetry the stu- pendous problem. Nothing seems insignificant. The cars moving in the depth of the cut, the men toiling up the grade, the cranes lifting the loosened dirt are all significant and necessary parts of the great scheme. Mr. Lie saw not only the possibility of per- pendicular lines in his days with the sky- scraper and Brooklyn Bridge, but his artistic skill grew with his expanded vision. Not al- ways do our artists keep pace in their means of expression with the extended visions of country and development. Too often bombast kills where simplicity would have lived. Mr. Lie's keen sense of the essentials of big things is the quality that holds us. His perfect mastery of the thing he is representing compels our at- tention and appeals to our understanding. Not 2i8 AMERICAN PICTURES that our 3esthetic sense is unstirred, far from it. Who can stand before Culebra Cut and not feel a glow of pleasure in the harmony of col- our and line and in the feeling of being in- itiated into the big things of Hfe? Surely Jonas Lie has a message and a vision that are true and noble. There is a wonderful charm in his straight lines — they give such stability to his composi- tions, and the strange glamour of light and shade and steel-blue colour grips us like steel girders. We feel almost under the power of some titanic monster, only that the pale light creeping in lifts us as it follows the straight columns of smoke reaching skyward and glints the scuttling clouds with ever-vary- ing tints. The artist's early training under Brooklyn Bridge and beneath skyscrapers has given him an astonishing insight into the artis- tic value of vertical lines. Mr. Lie's pictures are found in many of the galleries over the country. In fact, the public is recognising that Mr. Lie has come to stay. He was born in Norway, but most of his train- ing was gained in the National Academy of Design and Arts Students' League in New York City. Albert Leon Kroll is recording big achieve- ments in the mechanical world, and his records ! Fig. IGS— The River Front. Kroll. AND THEIR PAINTERS 219 are not simply of material building. Into ''Building New York'' (Fig. 167) has entered the soul of the builder as well as his brain. Mr. KroU has a vision of big things and also the power to visualise on canvas commensurate with the bigness of his theme. One cannot look long at ''Building New York" without feeling the sense of elation. He lifts one into loftier conceptions, not because of the height of the structure, but because the lines lead sky- ward. The labourers are not necessarily earth-bound, for the placing of every stone and brick and iron girder is a necessary link in the completed building. Their skill alone has made possible the realisation of the architect's vision. Mr. Kroll, with strong, vigorous brush- strokes, is giving a solidity and worthwhileness to his construction-pictures that stand for bet- ter things in the world of labour. The "River Front" (Fig. 168) has the smell of fishing smacks, steam tugs, river barges, warehouses and long-shore's men true to the activities of any waterfront. Interesting? Of course it is! Life among these rough, raw materials is re- duced to the simplest elements, and Mr. Kroll knows how to represent the strong, firm es- sentials of life. CHAPTER XXIV DAVIES—BOHM—FRIESEKE— MILLER— MacCAMERON— MORA ^[7E realise that our painters whose inde- pendence in methods of painting — which may or may not please us — are yet too close for the public to gain a proper sense of propor- tion as to their work. That any art, be it lit- erature, music, sculpture, or painting, is kept up to the proper standard of excellence by a certain infusion of new ideals, is self-evident, but just how far those new ideals are to be permanent acquisitions is a question settled by time. Millet used to say: *'Art is a language and all language is intended for the expres- sion of ideas.'' And again he said: "The artist's first task is to find an arrangement that will give full and striking expression to his ideas," and to these tenets he added the scathing criticism: ''To have painted things that mean nothing is to have borne no fruit." When Arthur P. Davies (1862) painted "A Dream" (Fig. 169), Metropolitan Museum of 220 Fig. 170— Mother and Child. Bohm. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gal- lery, New York City. AMERICAN PICTURES 221 Art, he gave a picture of his mental vision ex- quisite in composition and in spiritual signifi- cance. The motive is taken from Meredith's ''Huntress of things worth pursuit of souls; in our naming, dreams." Surely the author himself could scarcely have imagined so subtle an interpretation of the thought he had in mind. The young woman, eagerly pressing forward, whither? "In a dream, in a vision of the night. . . . Then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." She shows no hesitancy in following her instructions. As pure as the moonbeams she glides over the water up the height into the beyond and we watch as one detached, striving to join our souls to hers. Not always, however, do Mr. Davies' crea- tions find a response in our hearts. Dare we wonder if his own visions are as clear as of old, or are we at fault? Naturally a romantic painter is only remotely connected with things of real life, yet we all have dreams and visions of the night and are ever eager with our sym- pathy to welcome a dreamer who has the gift of visualising creations of the brain — whole- some fancies are invigourating and helpful. If the purpose of a picture is to give the un- derlying sentiment that justifies the picture's existence then Max Bohm (1868) has sue- 222 AMERICAN PICTURES ceeded in the ^'Mother and Child'' (Fig. 170)". Strong? Of course it is. The mother instinct; and child-recognition are compellingly beauti- ful. The sentiment is that of elemental beings on the shores of the primeval sea. Strength of line, of colour, of composition, are splendid principles. Michael Angelo proved them long ago and he also demonstrated the necessity of pleasing details. Even in the awful 'Xast Judgment" the condemning Christ is softened by the gentle, pleading mother by his side. Mr. Bohm, born in Cleveland, Ohio, had most of his training in Paris, where he now lives. He was a member of the European Advisory Committee for the Panama Pacific Exposition, in 191 5. Stepping into a room of Frederick Carl Frieseke's pictures, one feels that a curtain has suddenly been drawn and a burst of sunlight let in. At first one involuntarily shades the eyes. And why not? Look at ''Summer" (Fig. 171). Was ever light brighter? Even with her hat tipped over her face the woman squints her eyes from the glare. Picture after picture calls to mind sunlit verandas, old-fashioned gardens of hollyhocks and pinks flooded with light; morning rooms open to the sun and late afternoon with every- thing quivering in the long, lingering rays of AND THEIR PAINTERS 223 a power spent. And colour? a perfect riot of colour so bewitched under the glare of light that one simply feels it without trying to de- fine the quality. In "The Hammock" (Fig. 172) the sun has bewitched us again. We do not agree that ''It's because his work is 'classy/ " as one of the members of the awarding committee at Chi- cago stated, that he is attracting the public, but because he is giving a new interpretation of the effect of direct sunlight. We look out upon a sunlit garden or into a veranda with the afternoon sun flooding in and have a feel- ing of exuberance, possibly of excessive light that hurts our eyes. Now when an artist has the power of awakening sensations similar to those that nature produces through the skilful manipulation of his mediums he certainly has earned more than "classy" excellences to dis- tinguish his work. Surely Mr. Frieseke has achieved great success in harnessing the sun's direct light to canvas and in doing so has given us joy. The palpitating light playing over the mother and child in the hammock is full of vital force ; it is recreating in its healing qualities. Then the picture quality is convincing in the joyous colour, illusive yet persistent; the note of bodily comfort in the limp form, the pushed aside empty tea cup and the swing hammock 224 AMERICAN PICTURES all are things long to be remembered. Unfor- tunately drawing is not always a strong point with Mr. Frieseke, but the artistic charm of personality is there. The artist is present- ing daily scenes from a new standpoint with his angle of vision wholesome and pleasing if at times a little dazzling. We all welcome new visions even when they come from impossible probabilities ; it is when improbable possibilities are forced on us that we rebel. Mr. Frieseke was born in Owosso, Mich., in 1874, and until the European upheaval made his home in Paris. He was awarded the Grand Prize at the Panama Pacific Exposition (1915), the highest honour in the power of the international jurors to give. Richard E. Miller (1875), born in St. Louis, also lived in Paris. Possibly no two of our modern men treat light and colour so similarly as Mr. Miller and Mr. Frieseke. To define how they differ would mean to define the tem- peramental traits of each. They are telling the same story of the joy and gaiety of colour and light, yet each tells it his own distinctive way. When once that way is recognised then, like dis- tinctive traits of twins, they easily stand apart as individual in method. In 'mrning Sunlight'^ (Fig. 173) Mr. Mil- ler defines the sun parlour in a most convinc- Fig. 173— Morning Sunlight. Miller. Courtesy of the Macucth Gal- lery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 225 ing manner. While we recognise that the peo- ple in these pictures are admirable objects for displaying colour and light, we assert that the picture would be uninteresting without these human personalities. This young woman in kimono and fluffy skirt is just the type to en- joy arranging flowers in the early morning hour with the sun flooding everything. In "Gold Fish" (Fig. 174) Mr. Miller in- terests us in the child as well as in the lovely light and colour of the picture. The human warmth is as caressing as is the delicious air coming through the open French windows. Now turn to the ''New Orleans Negro," another child of the sun (Fig. 175), Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, N. Y. To those who know the coloured people in the southland this portrait speaks volumes. Robert Mac- Cameron (1866) has delved deep into race characteristics and with unerring skill has pic- tured a composite negro, perfectly individual, yet answering to the name of John or James. He notes not only the flat nose, the thick open lips and white teeth, the half sleepy sensuous eyes and stocky neck, but the poise of the bullet head with its tendency to tip backward. Who has not seen this identical negro slouching along the street ready to guffaw at the slightest provocation? Good-natured to excess when 226 AMERICAN PICTURES controlled and unprovoked, but sinister and unreasoning when once aroused is written on every feature. This is one of Mr. MacCam- eron's earlier pictures, yet in it he shows the keen insight into the underlying principles governing human beings that characterised his later works. The marvellous portrait of Auguste Rodin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is sufficient proof of the artist's power to make individuals live on canvas. We feel the personality of the great French sculptor and realise that a master has made him live before us. We regret exceedingly that an artist who grasped the elemental truths as did Mr. MacCameron could not have lived the full number of years. He died in 1912. Mr. F. Lewis Mora (1874), a native of Montevideo, Uruguay, was a pupil of Mr. Benson and Mr. Tarbell in the Boston Art School. Mr. Mora is often decidedly inde- pendent in his choice of subjects, and some- times the subjects are even fantastic. A recent exhibition displayed his ''Fantasy of Goya,'' certainly an interesting departure from the usual. We could easily imagine Goya — to whom we render homage as a master — re- calling similar episodes from his early life. Mr. Mora has composed most cleverly the fleet- ing visions without detracting from our in- Fig. 176— Flowers of the Fields. Mora. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. AND THEIR PAINTERS 227 terest of the artist himself. Surely Goya has reaped the whirlwind physically, as he did in real life; or do we imagine we see it in the impelling figure of the old artist? Of an entirely different character is Mr. Mora's "Flowers of the Field" (Fig. 176). The smell of sweet grasses, clover blossoms and daisy fields still lingers in the flowers and around the young girls. This is a wholesome picture full of the quiet joy of young girlhood. It says to all alike: 'Gather, then, each flower that grows, When the young heart overflows." CHAPTER XXV BELLOWS— LUKS—NOURSE—BEAL— McLEAN \;i7HEN George Bellows painted ''Anne/' Art Institute, Chicago (Fig. 177), he left no doubt about a child's personality. That child will live as does Little Nell and Rose of Lyme Regis. She is distinctive among her friends or non-friends because she is, Mr. Bellows is representing life. He may not see it from our angle — at times his angle of vision is displeasing, which, however, is a matter of personal likes or prejudice if you please, yet he sees life in the living; and when his transcriptions are full of wholesome sentiment (not sentimentality, as in the "Saw- dust Trair*) he is making pictures for all time. Take the "Cliff Dwellers,'' for instance, where the people who live among the skyscrapers are seen scurrying hither and thither, each intent on a particular pursuit or contentedly doing nothing, and the whole expressed in delicious colour notes and enveloped in an atmosphere of joy and hope. What could give greater sat- 228 Fig. 177 — Anae. Bellows. Courtesy of the Carnegie Institute, Chicago. AMERICAN PICTURES 229 isfaction in the pictorial qualities of decora- tion and helpful sentiment? George Bellows was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1882, and lives in New York City. He was a pupil of Robert Henri and is now de- veloping along lines under his own artistic guidance. A word of caution is not to be despised by the young artists who are making history in the art world to-day. Remember that ''to make out of a fine art a fad is not inherently the gift of a heart artist.'' The arts — poetry, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting- are the great purifying influences 'of man- kind, and one born with genius for one of these is inspired of God for a great work. If ever an artist had all sorts and conditions of subjects at his very window ledge in all seasons, at all times of day and night, with people of all grades, it is George Luks at Jumel Place, Edgecomb Road, New York City. "Evening'' (Fig. 178) is one of scores of the pictures posed for him just across the road from his studio. Mr. Luks is a true naturalist for, accepting the wind-sown forest as the only really artistic grouping of trees, he catches his children and mothers and grandmothers on the fly and avoids the artificial pose. What a glorious scene it is! The sun lingers to kiss 230 AMERICAN PICTURES every hair, every dimple and every wrinkle as if loathe to leave a group so full of the joy of life. Those little ones are the backbone of our great republic. Mr. Luks, in strong, simple lines and beautiful colour, certainly is solving the problem of better babies. No two children ever were any more be- witching than "Annie and Dora" (Fig. 179). They captivate us, yet I doubt our power to win them unless we are absolutely sincere in our advances. Little waifs, who are you? and where do you come from? Murillo's beggar boys were never happier in the sunny south- land than are you in the storm-threatening, changeable New York City winter. Your clothes are the cast-offs of some poor little rich girls and your umbrella probably was the sport of the wind, but what care you? You are nourished under excitement and variety, and a picture-man is only an added drop to your cup of happiness. Mr. Luks, we bid you ''God speed'' in catching such waifs — your pictures of those bright, joyous creatures of nature will live so long as there are human hearts to love them. Miss Elizabeth Nourse lives in Paris and, following much the same lines as Miss Cas- satt, paints mothers and nurses and children, making them tangible realities. We, too, feel AND THEIR PAINTERS 231 the sobs of the hurt child in '^Consolation" (Fig. 180) and can almost hear the crooning tone of the mother as she comforts the little one. Miss Nourse is specially sensitive to the mothering instinct, strong in the heart of most women, and in direct simple lines she makes her appeal to us. We would stop — of course we would — to learn the cause of the child's grief and our hearts would be the warmer after a word from the mother. Common occur- rences — the hurt child seeking mother-com- fort — we might almost say trying ones at times, yet how dull and colourless life would be without the hurts and the comfort that is sure to come from somewhere. Miss Nourse is holding our interest and in each new work we are conscious of a widening sympathy and a deeper knowledge — she sees life in the living. Another artist who is picturing people in the parks and along the river drives and at the "Picnic'' (Fig. 181) is Gifford Beal. That the artist appreciates the effect of light and air on distant scenes is without question. His splendid arrangement, glorious colour and moving quality of the picnic group are those of a real crowd seen through the medium of light and air. Yet, dare we suggest, these play strange pranks as we approach nearer to see 232 AMERICAN PICTURES some pictures of Mr. Beal's. We are keenly alive to the necessity of a breadth of treatment in picturing a restless crowd of living things enveloped in a quivering medium and we also know that our eyes do not see distant things in detail. Is it not possible, however, that liberty in the use of the medium is becoming license when a picture gives no impression at all unless a volume of light and air ten feet and more in thickness is between the beholder and the picture ? Mr. Bears "Autumn in the City" (Fig. 182) is as comprehensive in treatment as in subject. He gives us the sense of the whole city in this limited view. We see in imagination the build- ings stretching away into the space beyond and feel that behind us are buildings innumerable. And what a glorious autumn it is ! The trees filling the parks and marking the tiny resting places radiate a glow and warmth onto build- ings and streets that gladden thousands of hearts. People hurrying across the parks or sitting on the benches have a new feeling of courage and joy, little dreaming as they hurry away or stop to rest that it has come to them from the laughing trees in their gay attire. How few of us realise the effect of a bright spot in monotonous surroundings! Let a red Fig. 183 — Girl in Green. McLean, Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Syracuse. AND THEIR PAINTERS bird flit across the lawn where the friendly robin has been foraging for hours and we smile a welcome to the gay stranger. The artist has set the whole city aglow with the rich tones of those trees. Brown and yellow leaves were never more golden as they rustle to the ground. They may not reach the high key of red and orange in the leaves of single trees in the open, but they sing a glorious song of richness and warmth. Miss Jean McLean can make a picture of a portrait likeness. None who knew the "Girl in Green" (Fig. 183), Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, could mistake her. The features are specialised until eyes and nose and mouth and chin play the natural role of character revealers. This is accomplished with breadth of handling. The young woman compels no- tice; she not only fills the direct foreground but she fits the rugged background and cloud- swept sky. The splendid sweep of her ample gown and filmy scarf synchronise with the wind-swelled clouds in harmony with big movements. Miss McLean holds steadily to big ideals, not always with delicate perceptions, but ever de- manding truth. Her children are vigorous young things full of animal spirits and of fine physical development. CHAPTER XXVI SPENCER— HOPKINS— DESSAR—GARBER —SPEICHER— BROWN "II/HEN Robert Spencer began painting the ' water-fronts along the canal at New Hope, Pa., he opened our eyes to a new beauty in the commonplace. There is beauty in every- thing if only we are attune to the effect of light, atmosphere and colour that radiates and envel- ops and glorifies the world about us. Unfortu- nately we are so intently grubbing for material possessions that the marvellous pictures in the work-a-day world escape us. We need Mr. Spencer. He gives us a new vision of life. It was my good fortune to see ''On the Canal, New Hope" (Fig. 184), in the exhibition of the National Academy in the spring of 1916. The charm of the picture is indescribable. I was drawn to it with a feeling that the artist had caught what I had missed in these homely scenes, and I was seeing life anew. The beauty of the commonplace! What a message to give to the world! Those weather-worn houses, 234 AMERICAN PICTURES 235 with plaster broken and hanging and paint al- most a thing of the past, look down into the tiny yards with a smile of content that sets our hearts a-singing. And was there ever a more fascinating design for embroidery work than that bare and leafless tree with its shadow sil- houette? But even the most practical minded could find satisfaction in this picture. The sun on the drying clothes, the fitness of the man at the bench and the joy of the woman over the stray bits of coal for her hod, — here is life in the living. Bare facts? Of course they are, but given with the master hand of one who knows when to amplify and where to eliminate. The Detroit Museum of Art is to be congratulated because it owns Mr. Spencer's "On the Canal, New Hope.'' Another waterfront of Mr. Spencer's, strong in line and big in composition and design, is "Repairing the Bridge" (Fig. 185), added to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1914. Here also we have the delicious colour that time under the stress of wind and weather gives to stone and plaster and wood. Again it has taken the artist to waken our sense of beauty. The beauty in the scene itself has al- ways been there — we were blind to it. How daring it was to place that square, inflexible house in the very centre of a picture! But 236 AMERICAN PICTURES look at the flanking — trees covered with lace- work leaves like a bride under her wedding- veil on one side, and a bit of country on the other. Was ever a homelier subject set in a more delightful frame — a smiling landscape, blue sky, wedding-veil, and strong, wholesome workmen setting to rights jangled forces in the commercial world ? The artist has centred the interest in that bridge. See how vitally concerned the crowd in the doorway of the old warehouse is about the completion of the job, yet it is doubtful if it would lift a finger to push the work. And the man leaning on the parapet has plenty of advice to offer ; advice is cheap and costs no effort. But above every- thing else is the joy we feel in the picture. Its power of holding us lies in the individuality of the artist. A photograph of the scene would have but a passing interest. Not so a paint- ing when it comes through the alchemy of an artist's soul with the mystery of creation still clinging to it. Mr. Spencer was born in Harvard, Ne- braska, in 1879. He was a pupil of William M. Chase and Robert Henri, two men who stand for very definite phases in painting, yet Mr. Spencer has developed an individual art that promises much for the future. That the picturesque among our American 'J ■ Fig. 184 — On the Canal, New Hope. Spencer. Courtesy of the Detroit Museum of Art. Fig. 185 — Repamng the Bridge. Spencer. Courtesy of the MetropoHtan Museum of Art. AND THEIR PAINTERS 237 people is not confined to the foreign element of our cities or even to the Indian is being very forcefully proved by James R. Hopkins in his pictures of the Cumberland Mountain folk of Kentucky. Mr. Hopkins is opening our eyes to the wonderful possibilities of these sturdy mountaineers. His pictures are verit- able character sketches yet never for one mo- ment does he lose sight of their artistic value. It is joy to feel the intimate understanding that Mr. Hopkins gives in the portrayal of these people. We realise that his home was among them ; their joys were his joys and their sorrows found sympathy in his heart. No one could look at the ''Mountain Lovers" (Fig. 186) without feeling a thrill of happiness in the love of these two young beings — true chil- dren of the soil. The purple haze creeping to the water's edge from the wooded slope above, and the laughing, dancing river are as much a part of the romance as the discreet mother whose courtship days are now the daughter's. How truly the story of woman- hood among nature's primitives is told in these two — the girl elusive, tempting; the mother cowed, obedient, self-effacing. One can scarcely believe the maudlin, love-lorn, hesi- tating boy is to become the dominating, over- bearing husband of the future. Over and over 238 AMERICAN PICTURES again Mr. Hopkins represents the domineer- ing man and the subservient woman. He has caught the elemental spirit that dwells untamed where nature and man are one. Mr. Hopkins, born in Ohio in 1877, first studied in Cincinnati then in Paris. His com- prehensive travel in Japan, China, Ceylon and Egypt has given him a wonderful grasp of spacing and arrangement. Louis Paul Dessar (1868) is a native of Indianapolis, and lives in New York City. In the 'Wood Cart" (Fig. 187), MetropoHtan Museum of Art, Mr. Dessar has taken an incident out of the unpoetic life of the toil- worn farmer comparable to that of Millet's French peasants. To ride on a load of poles drawn across a roadless stony field by a yoke of oxen is anything but a comfortable ride, yet the artist's picturesque handling has glorified the scene. Under his brush the rough stones and uneven ground glow with warmth; the light plays hide-and-seek over the patient oxen, moving with slow, even gait, regardless of any obstacles, and gleams on the striped poles. His brush has caught the hues that Jack Frost has left in his wake on trees and shrubs. Always individual, Mr. Dessar makes us feel the thrill he felt when selecting a particular spot to set up his easel. Fig. 187 — The Wood Cart. Dossar. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Mu.s(>iini of Art. Fig. 188— Fields in Jersey. Garbor. Courtesy of the Macbeth Gallery, New York City. Fig. 190 — Poplars. Roy Brown. AND THEIR PAINTERS 239 Daniel Garber (1880) is a little disconcert- ing. His painting of ''Tannis/' which was awarded the second Altman prize of the Na- tional Academy of Design, is so much a child of nature that it seems as though no fields of his would be interesting without her. Yet "Fields in Jersey'' (Fig. 188) is interesting. It may be that the warmth of her presence lingers under those vine-covered trees, and possibly she may be paddling her bare feet in the pond hidden behind the screen of leaves. Or she may be chasing butterflies in the open field beyond. At any rate there is a feeling of intimacy in the picture. Mr. Garber's landscapes leave a peculiar, haunting green clinging to the memory. One wonders if it is due to the close range of his pictures, if one may use that term to describe them. They seem to invite a look with the artist through the tangled network screen to see the picture spread out there. Sometimes the screen gives place to low bushes or a bor- dering walk, and these always warn the in- truder not to enter, only to look in. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a landscape by Eugene Speicher called ^'Morning Light'' (Fig. 189). It is a representation of early spring when all nature is rejoicing in a new creation. The rejoicing is that of birds 240 AMERICAN PICTURES twittering to their mates that a new home-mak- ing time has come; of the flowers awakening to greet a new world ; of leaves bursting their bondage into a new freedom; of grasses bow- ing and swaying to the passing breezes ; of the dew responding to the caresses of the rising sun. The whole hillside is a song of praise sung in a harmony of tender greens. This morning light awakens our better selves and stirs our imagination to higher ideals because in it is the potential element of growth. One of the most marked features of success among our modern American artists is their ability to express motion — change — without their results being restless and unbalanced. They are recog- nising that life is full of movement, either in- ternal or external, and that it must be ex- pressed although not by sacrificing other essen- tials. No true artist finds this an easy task. Even Corot must have met with difficulties at first. He said, you remember, ^'Although when I was young it annoyed me that the clouds would not keep still, now I am glad that they will not, for therein lies their beauty." Mr. Speicher was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1883. He laid the foundation of his art in America and then spent some time in Europe. He is doing equally as good work in portraiture as in landscapes. In his modelling AND THEIR PAINTERS 241 of flesh he is firm and convincing and gives his people character. In many of his portrait pic- tures simpHcity is the element of charm. Roy Brown's trees have a personality that reminds one of Rousseau and his beloved trees. These 'Toplars" (Fig. 190) surely have been confiding their secrets to Mr. Brown just as the French master wished his trees to confide in him. There is nothing specially attractive about the tall, gaunt, almost branchless trunks swaying to the breeze, yet they speak volumes to us. CHAPTER XXVII SNELL— LEVER— YATES— WAUGH— DOUGHERTY— KOOPMAN XJENRY B. SNELL is ever keeping abreast of the modern movement in art without for a moment losing his firm grasp of essen- tials. Few younger artists understand as he does the effect of light on quivering water and a wind-swept spit of land. Then, too, the stay- ing quality of vertical lines and solid masses in his pictures make one feel that sincerity is a fundamental principle with him. How quickly "Backwater" (Fig. 191) awakens our memory of just such scenes along water fronts. The intimate colour caressing in turn the water- soaked logs, water-worn hulks, water-washed houses, water-denuded rocky hillsides, gives to the whole a delicious note of familiarity. Then the dull green of the foliage is a healthful un- dertone broadening the life of the homes. The men on the pier are an added note of good cheer to the constant swish of the confined water. How the tall, stark masts give a sense of free- 242 AMERICAN PICTURES 243 dom to the imprisoned crafts and how delight- fully their quivering shadows suggest possibili- ties lying in wait! Mr. Snell was born in Richmond, England, in 1858, but he is an American by adoption and had his training at the Art Students' League in New York City. He paints both landscapes and marines, and in the latter he usually keeps close to shore and the human side of life. He often represents boats near the shore deliver- ing their products gathered from the sea. In one scene, ''The Beach,'' Mr. Snell shows us boats pointed seaward. The background is a level beach and beyond a broken low-lying rocky coast against a cloudy sky. The light breaking through catches the glint of the tum- bled sand and water until the little fleet is radi- ant with the glory of it. Again boats are rid- ing at anchor in an "Outer Harbour/' where they are protected from the dashing waters on the threatening rocks all aflame with a glori- ous light. Another artist, a much younger man, who is showing us the glory of light on along shore scenes in Hayley Lever. In his ''Boats at Gloucester" (Fig. 192) he gives in water colour an interesting picture of the water front of the old New England town. The fishing industry makes itself felt in the restless boats swaying 244 AMERICAN PICTURES and tugging at their moorings. How the crin- kled shadows of the tall masts emphasise the sense of motion and how the bulging sails carry the impression of a stiff breeze sweeping seaward ! The tall church tower hints that the gabled houses peeping from their green setting has kept close to the welcoming centre of the home-coming of the sea-toilers. The animated colour of this harbour scene is full of the exuberance of youth and gives one the impression that Mr. Lever revels in colour because it thrills him and he loves it. His success with a water colour medium in this pic- ture is self-evident, yet the regret will come that it was not done in oil, where paint and can- vas are more permanent and lasting. We all admit that a good water colour picture is bet- ter than a poor oil painting, but paper, as we know it, very soon deteriorates. When Cullen Yates painted this "Rock Bound Coast,'' in the National Gallery, Wash- ington, D. C. (Fig. 193), he certainly put the very spirit of desolateness into it. Stern, un- compromising, immovable are the attributes written on every line of the projecting rock, and yet the restless, uneasy, persistent wash of the waters is doing its work. Centuries may come and centuries may go and these two op- posing forces will continue to harass each AND THEIR PAINTERS 245 other, always with the odds in favour of the dynamic power. Mr. Yates deals with the very fundamentals of life. And how he makes us feel the ele- mental forces in his strong, straightforward lines ! His frank, simple, brush strokes tell the story of the Rock Bound Coast with the naivete of a child. It is the work of one whose art speaks the truth and is understood by sage and rustic alike. Even to those who have never seen a rock bound coast this picture will bring a message of the ceaseless strife going on be- tween land and water. To give the very essence of the eternal strug- gle constantly at work is great art and Mr. Yates is doing that in his work. Whether he pictures rocks and sea, the river forcing its way through the land, or ''A Crisp September/' he gives the sense of nature changing and of the working of forces within. Then there is al^ ways a hopeful touch in the caressing atmos- phere hovering over his colour notes, be they sombre or gay. Mr. Yates was born in Bryan, Ohio, 1866. He was a pupil of William M. Chase, also of Leonard Ochtman. He studied in the ficole des Beaux Arts, Paris, but his art has always been peculiarly original and progressive. Mr. Frederick J. Waugh, born in Borden- 246 AMERICAN PICTURES town, N. J., in 1861, was first trained in the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts, Philadelphia, then studied in the Julien Academy, Paris. Many of his marines are scenes from the open sea where the restless blue waters meet the greenish sky and pink-edged clouds float above. The sense of infinity in these pictures is almost overwhelming. In the painting of "Sea and Rocks" (Fig. 194) Mr. Waugh has pitted opposing forces with a fine appreciation of what ceaseless onslaughts will accomplish. The terrible impact of the rushing water seems powerless against the solid defense, yet the broken surfaces of the rocks, where the foam is quietly working its way back to the open sea, foretell the final victory of the offensive waters. In no marines does the water reflect the blueness of the sky as in Mr. Waugh's. We wonder at times if his blue glasses are not ex- aggerating. There is a delightful joyousness, however, in the frank blue surface of the water. That Mr. Waugh's perception of the unusual has led him into a strange wonderland is abun- dantly verified in his book, ''The Clan of Munes" (Fig. 195), from which our illustra- tion is taken. These queer little figures are fashioned from weather worn spruce tree roots Fig. 197- ' — On the Rocks After a Storm. Koopman. Courtesy of the Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans. AND THEIR PAINTERS 247 that the artist picked up on the island of Mon- hegan when there painting marines. It is in- teresting to know the beginnings of the fan- tastic little beings so graphically described both in word and picture by the artist. He says, ''I began seeing little people with queer, tall caps and then made careful drawings of roots and placed these little people near them, and by and by I began to think it would be a good plan to form a story or a series of stories about these drawings." Certainly Alice never saw stranger antics in Wonderland than these of the grotesque little creatures performing under the spruce tree. The remarkable draw- ing and artistic arrangement of them make a pleasing picture; and the curious little beings have a fascination because of the constant revelation of hitherto undiscovered wonders. What an incentive to the inventive genius of children summering near the sea this Clan of Munes will be ! It ought to open their eyes to new possibilities in the drift wood where they can discover for themselves other members for the Clan of Munes. Since Winslow Homer (see page 64) found the ocean a source of artistic inspiration many of our artists have followed in his train. Paul Dougherty, one of the younger men, is painting the varied moods of Neptune with 248 AMERICAN PICTURES keen appreciation of the old god. He not only understands the desolateness of the open sea under the fury of Neptune but his ''Manana Point" (Fig. 196), Carnegie Public Library, Fort Worth, Texas, is just as drear, with its wild waste of waters. With what rush and swirl they lash the sturdy rocks at the point, and then defeated pour back to gather force for the next attack! The foam and roar of the water is like some wild beast lashed into im- potent rage. And see how wonderfully the light plays upon the seething mass, until the whole is a sea of glory. Mr. Dougherty un- dertook a daring deed when he thought to fashion that stupendous onrush in paint, but he was equal to the task. The vibrations of light quiver and palpitate under his brush-strokes until the whole mass of water is ready to burst its bonds while we watch it; and then the sul- len retreating mass glides back as though ashamed. The power in that tumult is tre- mendous — the spirit of the great deep is there. Mr. Dougherty was born in Brooklyn in 1877 and first studied art in New York City. He then studied in Paris and went to London, Florence, Venice, and Munich and now lives in New York City. A picture of nature in one of her changeable moods is ''On the Rocks after the Storm" AND THEIR PAINTERS 249 (Fig. 197), Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, by Augustus Koopman (i 869-1914). The storm has spent itself and the sunlight is bursting through and illuminating the scud- ding clouds and fast-running water. What a glorious light it is, too, and how it spreads itself from surf to whitecap! Mr. Koopman has captured the very magic of sunlight, and has fixed it on canvas in a radiance scarcely believable. The glory of the scene is such that not even the victims of the storm can mar it. What matters the storm, now that the clouds are smiling again? Mr. Koopman was born in South Carolina, and after special training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, went to Paris. He re- ceived a number of medals from America and Europe, and his works are in many of our mu- seums. CHAPTER XXVIII LEIGH— COUSE— BURROUGHS— PARRISH TIT'ILUAM R. LEIGH^S (1866) pictures of the Navajo Indian in his native home south of the San Juan River present a new point of view of the western deserts and their picturesque inhabitants. The breath of ro- mance that he gives to them recalls the joy and pain that came to us in following Hia- watha as "Forth he strode into the forest, To the kingdom of the West- Wind, To the land of the Hereafter." A note of pathos like a dirge vibrates through these Indian scenes. Sometimes it is a crashing blare of battle where the Redskin fights for freedom, and again it is a whisper to the boy in "The Land of his Fathers'' (Fig. 198). This child of nature, a little Navajo goat-herder, is as fine a type of the Indian boy of old as was Hiawatha. Well formed, alert, quick of comprehension, he with his 250 Fig. 198— The Land of His Fathers. Leigh. Courtesy of the Snedecor Gal- lery, New York City. Fig. 199 — A Vision of the Past. Couse. Courtesy of the Artist. AMERICAN PICTURES 251 dogs starts at dawn to care for a flock of two hundred or more sheep and goats. What a bright, merry object he is in his ragged shirt, blue overalls and red buckskin moccasins! Mr. Leigh speaks with the greatest affection of this particular boy. He says: "'My picture is nearly a portrait of the lit- tle chap nine years old. I hired him from his mother to pose for me. . . . His appreciation of a picture was as keen as that of any white boy and his reliability left nothing to be de- sired.'' It is impossible to appreciate in half-tone pictures the brilliancy of Mr. Leigh's paint- ings. His portrayal of the marvellous colour- ing under the sun's evening and morning rays, the clarity of the atmosphere intensifying the sheen of the sage bush and the glitter of the sand and opalescence of the overhanging sky is most convincing. Mr. Leigh was born on his father's planta- tion in Berkely County, West Virginia. His first training in art was at the Maryland In- stitute and at seventeen he went to Munich, Germany, to study. He did not return to America permanently until he was thirty years old, and then began illustrating for Scrib- ner's and other magazines. It was several years later before Mr. Leigh began his pictures 252 AMERICAN PICTURES of the West and the Navajo Indian in his na- tive haunts. If we were travelling in the south-west sec- tion of the Rocky Mountains near the Taos Range we certainly would make an effort to see E. Irving Couse in his studio, remodelled from an old Mexican convent. This old con- vent is now Mr. Couse's permanent summer home and here he comes in close touch with the Pueblo Indians and their beautiful moun- tain setting. Indians are naturally superstitious. *Tar- ticularly/' says Mr. Couse, ''about leaving be- hind them pictorial representations of them- selves, claiming that their souls after death will inhabit the picture instead of going to the Happy Hunting Ground.'' Naturally, until this superstition is overcome, it is difficult to obtain Indian models, but artists are gradually winning their way with the red man. This is particularly true with the Pueblos. Too far from the railroad to be spoiled by modern civil- isation, they are still in their native state of liv- ing and dress. It is not surprising that Mr. Couse Has gained the confidence of his dusky neighbours. When painting "A Vision of the Past" (Fig. 199) he no doubt listened to many tales of the long ago — tales of when the mountains rang AND THEIR PAINTERS 253 with the scream of the red man in battle. Lit- tle wonder that those shadowy mounted fig- ures leaping from crag to crag in deadly com- bat aroused the enthusiasm of his new found friends. How intimately illuminating the lit- tle personal touch in the artist's statement, "They are much interested in seeing the pic- tures grow and frequently oflfer suggestions which from their primitive point of view are often invaluable to the artist"! Those stern, uncompromising figures in the foreground are the embodiment of offended dignity. In the child's wonder is an eagerness that suggests faint stirrings of the primitive war passion. Mr. Couse is not only true to the spirit of the red man, but in portraying this scene he has made a beautiful picture. That pyramid of delicious colour set against a background alive with the mystery of visions and enveloped in an atmosphere quivering with life fluids is a picture long to be remembered. It is not sur- prising that it was awarded the Altman five hundred dollar prize in the National Academy of Design in the winter of 1916. Mr. Couse's pictures of Indians are pecul- iarly personal and friendly in that they show an intimate understanding of their heart sorrows and joys. In the picture of "An Autumn Mel- ody" a young, half-clad Indian, crouching by 254 AMERICAN PICTURES a mountain stream against stones and tree trunks, is piping a tune to the solitude. The wreath of autumn leaves on his black hair and the sun glistening on his bare skin make a pic- ture full of the poetry of life. And again in "The Redstone Pipe" one feels that the artist has pictured the comfort of a tried and trusted friend. Mr. Couse was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1866. He studied art in Chicago and New York City and then went to the ficole des Beaux Arts, Paris. His work has been recog- nised by numerous prizes and medals, and his pictures are found in a considerable number of our public galleries. It is not strange that *'The Young Men and Horses" (Fig. 200), by Bryson Burroughs (1869), is reminiscent of the Parthenon Pro- cession of Mounted Youths, for there lingers about all of his pictures a vague something suggestive of the past. Not that Mr. Bur- roughs lacks up-to-dateness — far from it — but that his modernity is founded on funda- mental principles. While Pheidias brought to perfection physical activity in the Athenian youths of the Panathenaic ceremonies Mr. Burroughs has pictured with consummate skill the clean-cut American athlete in repose. In these young men, athletes in the broad sense of AND THEIR PAINTERS 255 the word, every muscle is subservient to the trained mind. In each face shines the spiritual strength of one whose body is the temple of God. How like the portico of some old Greek temple the conventualised river-bank! and the luscious coloured statues — see! they suddenly begin to breathe as the rich blood pulses under the velvet skin. The limitless horizon, stretch- ing far beyond the river, the hills and the widening waters, is stupendous in its bigness of vision. Yet how simple in concept! Mr. Burroughs has the rare gift of expressing big themes in an understandable way. Was ever grief so beautiful as in "The Fu- neral of Adonis" (Eig. 201)? We feel that the sorrow of these lovely beings is our sorrow. Could anything be more exquisitely expressive of the helplessness of love against death than the unconscious Venus? The tender sympa- thy of the three friends with its element of helpfulness speaks volumes for the sympathy that strengthens strength — not coddles weak- ness. Mr. Burroughs has given to the old story of the dying year a new hopefulness. Death simply begins the new birth — already the flowers have sprung into life, blown open by the wind and, alas! blown away by it, yet it is life. Beautiful Adonis! not even Venus could 256 AMERICAN PICTURES keep you from harm. The old myth is very human, for the spirit of keeping beautiful the memory of loved ones is in it. Venus, in her swan-drawn chariot — the story says — ^hears the groans of her beloved Adonis but, too late, she reaches the fated spot where his lifeless body lies torn and bleeding from the fangs of the wild boar he had attacked. Through her crushing grief came the thought, ''Your blood shall be changed into a flower ; that consolation none can envy me." Tenderly she sprinkled nectar on the blood and in an hour's time the lovely Anemone with its red-striped petals ap- peared. "And," said Venus, "the spectacle of your death, my Adonis, and of my lamenta- tions shall annually be renewed." Again in this picture is the haunting essence of varieties belonging to ancient art; and again broad simplicity and pleasing colour notes — rich and harmonious — lift us out of the arti- ficial into a realm of clean, wholesome living. Mr. Burroughs never fails to express himself with a broad sense of the proportion of things. His themes, be they motherhood, immaturity of youth, readjusting some old legend or purely realistic, have the element of sane common- sense running through them. Beautifully dec- orative with their simple lines, restful compo- sition and harmonious colour scheme they Fig. 200 — The Young Men and Horses. Burroughs. Courtesy of the Artist. Fig. -^ui — The Funeral of Adonis. Burroughs. Courtesy of the Artist. AND THEIR PAINTERS 257 calm and strengthen us. Mr. Burroughs, a native of Massachusetts, was trained in this country and abroad. His versatility is that of one who has trained his faculties to grasp the essentials of life and use them in his varied works. While most of his paintings are easel pictures his mural decorations in Mr. H. H. Flagler's home are but the beginning of more extended work in public buildings. As curator of painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. Burroughs is a power. When Maxfield Parrish ( 1870) painted ''Old King Cole" on the walls of the Knickerbocker Hotel, New York City, he delighted every- body. Painter and Philistine, children and grown people all sang and are still singing the praises of the ''Merry Old Soul," as Mr. Parrish represents him. Replete with genuine humour these worthies wriggle one's risibles without offending the most exacting critic. And as to arrangement, colour, harmony — everything that makes for a picture — all are perfect. But Mr. Parrish does not aways draw on the classics — Mother Goose or otherwise — for his subjects. His own brain is a rich mine of romantic themes. Never has he worked out a more delightful series than in the girls' dining- room of the Curtis Publishing Company, 258 AMERICAN PICTURES Philadelphia. The gladsome freshness of youth is in "The Carnival/' The joy of the soul awakening to consciousness of mate com- panionship is the dominant note — a note as pure as that of the lark winging upward with its song. The series represents a terraced garden, as it were, against the loggia of an Italian pal- ace, arranged in panels placed between tall arched Colonial windows. Each scene is com- plete in itself yet the same undertone of joyous seeking is in all. The "Three Panels'' (Fig. 202) represent on the left, "Love's Pilgrim- age," centre, "The Garden of Opportunity," and right, "A Call to Joy." Not the least of the elements that add to the pleasure of the scenes is the glorious colour. The rich, luscious tones thrill the optic nerve like loving glances throbbing in the heart. Blues, oranges, reds, lavenders, marshalled by the skilled tactician, all play their part in cooling, warming, chal- lenging, subduing until "The Fete" is one grand manoeuvre of joyous emotions. Mr. Parrish has dipped deep into the treasures of his heart and brain for the carnival of love. Every scene speaks for heart-purity to the girls who day after day eat and chat under its influence. "Blessed are the pure in heart" was never more forcefully pictured since the AND THEIR PAINTERS 259 word picture of One on the mount than by Mr. Parrish. Surely the artist scarcely could have given greater honour to his native city than in this beautiful, chaste, artistic mural painting for a Philadelphia publishing house. CHAPTER XXIX WILES— DEARTH— TURNER— HENRI- WALTER— SEYFFERT— NORTON 'l^T'HEN Irving R. Wiles painted the por- ^ ^ trait of his father, ''Lemuel Maynard Wiles" (Fig. 203), now in the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, he proved to the lov- ers of modern art that broad, swift strokes are as forceful in his hands as is the de- tailed work of the more finished portrait. No one could mistake the mental calibre of the elder painter — his father was an artist — after seeing that splendid head. The rugged han- dling emphasises the framework of the head without in the least detracting from the mark of intelligence that stamps every feature. One is conscious that the skull is typical of intel- lectuality in the white race, but with no loss of individual personality. Such a man could not be represented by the flash of his eye, for the whole contour of his head bears the impress of the mind within. The son's revelation of his father is the kind that comes from a living contact. Such a portrait lives. 260 Fig. 203 — Portrait of His Father. Wiles. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AMERICAN PICTURES 261 Mr. Wiles was born in Utica, New York, in 1861, and, in training for his profession, stud- ied under William M. Chase and then spent some time in Paris. We are indebted to Mr. Wiles for portraits of a number of our artists. His group of "Charles Bittinger and Daugh- ter Isabel" is exceedingly characteristic. As we look at the portrait of Mr. Bittinger and then turn to the exquisite "Madame du Barry" (see Fig. 213), which he painted from a bit of decoration in the old palace of Versailles, we understand better the comprehensive character of Mr. Wiles' portraiture. No two pictures could be more dissimilar in treatment than these two. Look again at the artist's father. The lines carved on the head are of constructive work and need no explana- tion. He simply marks the elemental forces of passing years with a few brush strokes, realis- ing that strong, simple lines are a force in them- selves. In the other portrait of Mr. Bittinger he has a far more varied problem. The vision of life is the present and future. The realisa- tion is only beginning, and Mr. Wiles, with a prophet's insight, gives us a glimpse of the pos- sible visions stirring in Mr. Bittinger's brain. The group is well composed and its pictorial quality is attractive. When Henry Golden Dearth (1864) paints 262 AMERICAN PICTURES decorative pictures the adjective stands for more than a mere fetish, used as it often is to- day to cover up a multitude of sins in art. And again his deliberate return to past ages for tapestry effect has no hint of affectation or at least not of an eccentric desire to produce something unusual. ''Cordelia'' (Fig. 204), Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art, compels attention. She is most picturesque in her red jacket and white shirt- front. It is a little daring for a young woman with pale blue eyes to wear a red jacket — well, we like her staying qualities against the flat wall and leather-bound books. The picture is a bit of decoration that holds its own even in a museum — but then there is no screaming at each other among the pictures now, for the hanging committees are artists, and true artists make all things harmonious. Somehow this picture of Cordelia calls to mind the cells at San Marco, Florence — each with its single Fra Angelico. Cordelia would fill a room. Helen M. Turner is unique ; she was so even in her early training in art. She says, "Un- like so many beginners I had no desire to study in Europe, feeling on the contrary that it would be something like being plunged into a swiftly running current before one learns to swim." Miss Turner is a native of Louisville, Ken- AND THEIR PAINTERS 263 tucky, but her childhood was lived in Louisi- ana during the awful readjustment in the South. Those troublous times doubtless helped develop that stability of purpose in the child which is working out in the artist's splendid products to-day. When Miss Turner states, "I paint almost entirely in oil/' we feel like substituting the word "model" for ''paint" as she works her pig- ments into those strong, vibrating human be- ings. She manipulates her paints with the ca- ressing touch of one who feels in sympathy with her medium. The inanimate paint is her friend and responds to her slightest wish. This seems to be one of the secrets of Miss Turner's power as an artist — this intimate understand- ing of the friendliness of inanimate things or, contrariwise, the cussedness of the same. When ''A Lady with a Parasol" (Fig. 205) called to see Miss Turner, we are sure the caller's face and form made a picture in the artist's mind. The dull blue coat, offset by the flower-trimmed hat, pink parasol, and bright beads, formed a beautiful pattern for a picture.^ Miss Turner says, ''I am principally concerned with the pattern, the great design, the swing of line, and the harmony of masses." And yet her pictures are more than all these, for in them is expressed the great human side of life. 264 AMERICAN PICTURES So warm and close is the understanding be- tween the painter and her subjects that the pic- ture is a living personality. One of Miss Turner's most charming groups is "A Mother and Child," in which she ex- presses the very essence of the joy of mother- hood. Into the face of the mother as she nurses her little one has crept an ineffable pride of ownership; a sense of the complete knowl- edge of parentage that is hers alone, with a tenderness and apprehension that belong to the true mother. And the baby is a darling. See him tug away at his dinner, one eye buried in the soft, warm pillow and the other sending a roguish little side glance up to his mother. We can hear the mother saying tenderly, "Now take your dinner, you little rogue, and stop your play.*' And then she hugs him close in a warm embrace. ^Tauline," privately owned in Philadelphia, represents a fine, half-grown girl. Fearless and unafraid she looks out on the world. The stirrings of womanhood are unheeded, though faint warnings of a new birth lurk behind the wide open eyes. "Pauline" is a picture every growing girl should know and love. Simple and straightforward in line and harmony of colour the picture stands for perfect develop- ment with every function working according Fig. 205 — A Lady with a Parasol. Turner. C'cnirtesy of the Artist. Fig. 206 — Spanish Gipsy Girl. Henri. Courtesy of the Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, AND THEIR PAINTERS 265 to natural laws. Miss Turner is revealing forces that stand for true art, whether in life or painting. Strong, honest, true to herself, she is lifting us to her high ideal of progress. One of the very interesting loans in the Delgado Museum of Art, New Orleans, is the picture of a "Spanish Gipsy Girl" (Fig. 206), by Robert Henri. Mr. Henri stands for modernity in the art world to-day. His aim is to gather up the essential elements as they impress him, and in broad swift strokes pre- sent the picture to us; sometimes, we must admit, he is so disdainful of details that we fail to catch the impression — due perhaps to our stupidity. It is not so in the gipsy girl. No one could possibly mistake this child of sunny Spain. Again Murillo's "Beggar Boys" are before us, but with an added element drawn from the new world. Mr. Henri's broad syn- thesis of Spanish characteristics in the happy- go-lucky children of the vagabond race — who originally may have come from Egypt — is that of one who sees racial traits as well as those of environment. The picturesque quality in this free child of nature is perfectly bewitch- ing. The wide-set eyes that twinkle with fun index her innate sense of the artistic — not that she knows anything about being artistic. How the dusky hair, drawn back from her low broad 266 AMERICAN PICTURES forehead tones with her brilliant shawl and brown skin, and how the light loose frock in- tensifies the smiling face! The whole picture centres in that face, for in it the artist has typified not only the Spanish gipsy girl, but a particular gipsy girl. And again did ever a child look at you with more compelling eyes than ''Catherine'' (Fig. 207) ? If you gain the confidence of that child you must be true to your best self. In Mr. Henri is the acme of modernity. He ignores detail to the extreme limit, yet he seldom fails to give a portrait that reveals the very soul of his subject. There are times, however, when his spirit of daring savours of bravado — more's the pity — and the brilliancy that was our admi- ration becomes like Apples of Sodom. Robert Henri was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1865, is one of the leading teachers of art in America. His several years of inde- pendent study in Italy, Spain and France broadened his understanding of the funda- mentals as demonstrated by the masters of the past, without in the least undermining the true American spirit of his art. It was said of Ghirlandajo's quick perception of individualities that from his studio window he would make speaking likenesses of the passing crowd. Miss Martha Walter seems Fig. 207— Catherine. Henri. AND THEIR PAINTERS 267 to have inherited the old Italian artist's adept- ness. Her people, mostly women and children, are in the street cars, lolling on park benches or lying in the sun. Taking them unawares, she records bits of humour and pathos play- ing upon their faces like sunshine and shadow from the passing clouds. Miss Walter paints her people in the direct light but without the dazzle of light. Her colour is warm and steady and the feeling of form is strong and substan- tial. That Miss Walter's picture of the ''English Nurse" (Fig. 208) makes us wish that she had recorded more about the woman and her charge gives the keynote of the artist's art. She certainly has the power of selecting pic- torial moments in the acts of the people around her — in fact any moment is a picture when she touches it. Is it not true though that in some of her pictures a little more attention to de- tails (a tabooed word in modern art) would give greater pleasure to those who love the people she paints? After all is said, pictures are for the people. It matters little whether Leopold Seyf¥ert is painting a portrait of a social leader or mak- ing a picture of a "Dutch Woman" (Fig. 209). In each individual he gives the keynote of the person's existence. The spark that individual- 268 AMERICAN PICTURES ises humanity in his eyes lies deeper than the flesh covered with the conventional clothes of a country. His Dutch woman, I grant you, has the Netherlands stamped all over her, yet she stands for herself alone. Put her into Ameri- can clothes and she is still the woman who mothers the neighbourhood. Keen, kind and courageous she has made her way in life in spite of hardships and has lived her own life in her own way. Mr. Seyffert though still very young has a keen sense for the human element in the world. He has gone to the market place and among the peasants in Spain, and has given us many pictures representing types of the country, al- ways catching some vital point that makes each model a special human being. This gift of in- sight that has enabled Mr. Seyffert to catch the vital spark which distinguishes individuals has drawn to his studio numbers of well known society people. If only the young artist will hold himself steadily to quality in his work and not be obsessed with the poster-art tendency that marks some of his work, his future holds great possibilities. Mr. Seyffert, a native of West Philadel- phia, had his early training in the Penn- sylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His trav- els in Europe broadened his perceptive powers AND THEIR PAINTERS 269 and gave him a fine grasp of fundamentals. We shall watch his development with great interest and prophesy that coming years will bring from his brush works belonging to the ages. To acquire a distinctive individual quality in work without falling into mannerisms is the mark of an artist with real artistic instincts. This is the quality Clara Mamre Norton has attained in her art. In her portraits we feel her warm intimate understanding of personal traits. She not only puts her sitters at ease, but they unconsciously assume a pose — no, a natural posture — that reveals their inner selves. These character glimpses of people are exceedingly interesting in studying Miss Norton's individual methods in her painting. In her '^Study in Black and Gold" (Fig. 210) Miss Norton's colour note is full of vitality. The delicate flesh glows with the warmth of pulsing blood and the light caught in the sunny hair sheds a radiance over the whole picture. Miss Norton was born in New England and trained in Boston under Mr. Edmund C. Tar- bell. She was awarded the travelling scholar- ship from the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts which gave her two years of in- timate study of the old masters in Europe. She now has her studio in New York City. CHAPTER XXX PEARSON— TACK— BITTINGER—BORONDA —PETERSON— BERNSTEIN nPHE honour of being an instructor in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the double honour of the Temple Gold Medal and the Stotesbury thou- sand dollar prize belong to Joseph T. Pearson, Jr., who is presenting nature to us from a new angle. "But it is Japanese I hear you exclaim. Yes, a little in its general character but perfect- ly Occidental in spirit. "By the River" (Fig. 21 1 ) would never be mistaken for an Oriental scene. Those ducks have never crossed the Pa- cific Ocean — they belong nearer home than that; and that scraggy tree trunk and those bent branches covered with flat grey lichens are too familiar objects to belong to Japan. And again in another of his paintings, "On the River," the picture that took the above medal and prize, we feel originality in the arrange- ment of the ducks guarded by the gnarled trunk and one broken branch. 270 AMERICAN PICTURES 271 Now stop again "By the River" and see how the decorative quality of the picture pleases the eye. The canvas is bare of objects almost to desolation except for faint whispering of habitation across the river and in the tiny boat beneath. It in indescribable — the something that makes this a picture. Four ducks, a scraggy tree trunk, a bit of water worn rock and a hazy beyond are not very suggestive of picture value, yet to Mr. Pearson they were just the elements needed to build into a thing of beauty. It is only when decoration is sub- ordinated to the principles of art that it be- comes a joy forever. Then, too, the sentiment in Mr. Peterson's picture is wholesome and true. One of the most healthful signs of progress in most of our young artists is the glad, hopeful undertone that, like a gold thread, binds the pictures to our hearts. When their independence is that of men and women who think clearly because they are learning to exercise a just sense of proportion, then that independence results in good art. A just sense of proportion is a car- dinal virtue in any walk of life. It is the abil- ity to select and eliminate in working out prob- lems until the final results have harmony of purpose that works for the progress of hu- manity. When, therefore, a picture lifts the 272 AMERICAN PICTURES mind from the sordid into the realm of hope and joy the message has been one of strength. Mr. Pearson had the good fortune to study under William M. Chase and J. Alden Weir, two men who for years have stood for a prog- ress that steadily leavens the whole of life. Possibly the fact that Mr. Pearson was born in the Centennial Year, 1876, in Germantown, may account for the stirrings of genius in him. Is it a mere coincidence that so many of our young men and young women who are doing worth while things to-day are products of 1876? When an artist treats old themes with a pe- culiar twist that is original yet devoid of con- scious striving for effect the public is inter- ested, even if it is mystified. That Augustus Vincent Tack's (1870) art is pregnant with great thoughts and noble aspirations none will question. His conception of such themes as "Eve," "The Thief on the Cross," "Eternal Motherhood," and others are of the deep un- dertones of life. We feel dimly that his own inner self is communing with these fundamen- tals, yet his method sometimes fails in its con- vincing power — in other words his modus op- erandi does not seem commensurate with the bigness of his thought. That pure colour laid in mosaic does melt into a harmonious whole AND THEIR PAINTERS 273 at a distance is not sufficient of itself to make that method an entire success. Mr. Tack for- tunately is an honest seeker, who we believe is developing something of real value to artists out of his use of pure pigments — often applied directly from tube to canvas. There is always a sense of the mysterious about Mr. Tack's pictures, a haunting vastness of height and distance. ''The Sea of Hills" (Fig. 212) vibrates with the music of the spheres. The ''mystery of beauty and the beauty of mystery" are in these everlasting hills as they rise and fall with the heart throbs of the eternal. There is a steadying quality in the quiet power of the undulating mass that speaks to our souls. Surely a thousand years were but as a watch in the night in evolving this sea ! Over and over again Mr. Tack deals with elemental forces in his art. And if, like Daniel Webster, he can simplify his expression of them so that the veriest rustic will say to him : "You are not very great, for I understand every word you say !" then will he be a master. It is a pleasure to find a young artist paint- ing pictures of historical significance with such pictorial value that they are interesting and attractive. Charles F. Bittinger made a dar- 274 AMERICAN PICTURES ing choice when he pitched his tent at Versailles and set up his easel in the old palaces. Naturally the very name Versailles suggests a long array of people and events covering nearly four centuries in the life of the French nation. From the time when Louis XIII (1624) reclaimed the swamp and built the cen- tral part — cour de marbre — through its en- largement by Mansart to accommodate 10,000 guests for Louis XIV, down to the present that particular spot, twelve miles south of Paris, has been in the public eye. It has stood for the French renaissance in literature, music and art of the seventeenth century as well as for its wars, intrigues and licentious living. True, Mr. Bittinger is not painting the Ver- sailles interiors from a historic standpoint, yet one cannot look at ''Madame du Barry" (Fig. 213), for instance, without being re- minded of her baleful influence on Louis XV and that "her very presence was a stain upon Versailles." For two years Mr. Bittinger painted in this vast storehouse replete with beautiful finishings of rare marbles, semi- precious stones and exquisite bits of hand work. Over all the pictures lingers enough of the spirit of the past to pique one's curiosity and add interest to the joy one feels in their beauty. AND THEIR PAINTERS 275 Mr. Bittinger, born in Washington, D. C, has distinguished himself also in his pictured interiors of many of our American homes of wealth. His appreciation of beauty has a se- lective quality that enables him to detach sec- tions of a whole and make of them complete pictures. When Lester Boronda painted *'The Fan- dango" (Fig. 214) he gave a sense of motion that is almost uncanny in its aliveness. The young woman sways and glides as one under the spell of alluring music and an admiring crowd. There is nothing of pose, nothing to suggest arrested action, just a rhythmic aban- don where the whole being is attune to the spirit of motion. The hooped skirt has scarcely stopped swinging or the shaking tambourine its tinkling. The twinkling colours sparkle and glitter until we are made to feel the very es- sence of joy in the dance. Mr. Boronda, born in California, and a num- ber of other young American artists are com- ing to the front with strong individual work full of the harmony of good art. Modern? Of course they are! But their modernity is tempered with sufficient common sense to steady them and help them realise that new movements must be governed by a proper sense of proportion. Monstrosity in art is no more 276 AMERICAN PICTURES true art than monstrosity in nature is true nature. A roomful of Jane Peterson's pictures fairly intoxicates one with colour and yet she seldom sets her pallette with more than three colours. Many of the hues separately would be startling in vividness, yet under her manipulation they are playing hide and seek with the shadows and gloom. Miss Peterson's whole nature is attune to the colourfulness of nature. She has been absorbing varying colour schemes for years in her travels north and south from Alaska to Africa, west and east from Califor- nia to Italy, staying long enough in each place for the changing seasons to express themselves. She makes one feel the rich, dusky, sun-kissed native of the tropics, and, again, the ice-king compels us to draw our fur closer before the row of shanties bordering the ocean front or hugging the foot of the snow mountains. It is when Miss Peterson takes the water- front of some old coast towns along the At- lantic and shows us life in the living among the sturdy folk of the sea that she warms our hearts. Could anything bring us closer to hu- man beings, whether summer-resorter or those of the homes near by, than the hurrying people of ''A Busy Street" in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard (Fig. 215)? It has been raining. AND THEIR PAINTERS 277 The wet street catches the glint of the bright costumes and laughs gaily in the very faces of the old houses. And what delicious faces they have, lemon-yellow, rose-pink and dull grey! And what a sense of stability they give to the otherwise restless scene! Straight lined and square bodied they stand like soldiers at atten- tion. And the converging wires across the cor- ner opposite, how they liven the solidity of facts with the gossip of trifles ! At one time Miss Peterson devoted much time painting gardens until her grasp of na- ture's prodigality under encouragement gave a perfect tangle of growth and luxuriance of colour notes. To keep pace with the artist's variety of subjects, one must follow in her wake as she travels. She is also equally at home in working in oil or water colours, though the former medium gives a feeling of stability against the ravages of time. Miss Peterson is a native of Elgin, Illinois, and received her initial training in her art in America and then began her travels abroad. It was her good fortune to have F. Hopkin- son Smith as a friend while she was in Venice, and, later in Spain, to work with Sorolla. In the latter she found a congenial artistic spirit and with him, though her own tendencies were already well established, she gained a feeling 278 AMERICAN PICTURES of confidence in herself that has been invalu- able. We shall watch eagerly the development of Miss Peterson's art. She has struck a note that is simple and understandable to the public. Let us stop a moment and look into "The Opera Lobby (Eig. 216) as painted by Theresa Bernstein. The artist came one day, bought her ticket expecting to enjoy the opera, but the lobby held her — and no v^onder. She has made us see it. I doubt if you or I would have seen it without her help. "Composition, design and colour,'' Miss Bernstein says, are the three necessary attributes for her to see a picture in embryo. Now look again at the lobby. The door in the background with the artificial light behind it, the stairway leading to balconies, the open space, all form the com- position as a whole. The grouping of people, two men at the left, a man and a red-headed woman, a couple climbing the stairs, all are held together by a one tint floor covering like a pattern for a tapestry design. Then the weaving in and out of the colour problem! The men at the right, in black, on the red car- pet, the shimmery pink and white woman in the decollete gown, the sparkle of the electric light through the door-glass delight the mind like a delicious taste to the tongue. Beyond AND THEIR PAINTERS 279 all, however, is the human element, the vital touch that binds the group together and brings it in close touch with us. We recognise that the two men are talking stocks in Wall Street vernacular rather than about the opera, that the man at the left is ingratiating himself into the good graces of the red-headed woman, that the people on the stairs are finding them rather long and steep — in fact, a certain haunting familiarity pervades the scene. Miss Bernstein loves scenes where people gather by common consent. She loiters in the ticket-office, in the elevated train, and particu- larly among the crowd gathered at the beach. Of these beach scenes she has painted a score or more. She uses the restlessness of the crowd and the ceaseless motion of the ocean as under- tones giving life to the whole. One feels the constant shifting of position that is so charac- teristic of people on the beach. This moving crowd might of itself be irritating were it not that the artist has tempered it all with the rest- ful sky line and gently swaying clouds. Miss Bernstein is a native of Philadelphia and studied painting in the American art schools; she then travelled in Europe. Though quite young, she already has a broad grasp of funda- mental principles in art. CHAPTER XXXI SLOAN— CONGDON— FRY— EYRE— ROU- LAND— DAVEY ALBRECHT DliRER, though not the in- ventor of engraving, was the first artist in whose hands the etching needle became the medium of true artistic expression. From his time (1471-1528) on it has been used more or less by individual artists of all countries and now quite an unusual number of our modern American painters are adopting its use, some of whom, like Whistler and Joseph Pennell, have already acquired international fame. In fact, one of the characteristics of our artists is to become versed in the various modes of ex- pression, ancient and modern, that belong to pictorial art. This spirit of investigation and enlarged field of action in a particular calling, and also in general, is a good outlook for broader ideas of citizenship. "Know one thing well, then as much as pos- sible of everything" is a good motto in the study of art if it is followed equally well in 280 AMERICAN PICTURES 281 both propositions. It is always a joy to find an artist specialising without detriment to his art as a whole. It is fine to be a specialist but no one wants the other faculties atrophied while becoming efficient in a particular line. We feel the greatest pleasure in the work of John Sloan because he is a master in each branch he undertakes and still keeps himself close to the human side of life. Whether using the brush or the etching needle, he sees people ; he portrays them coming and going, bent on business and pleasure, with such accuracy that we recognise the impulse governing their ac- tions. Individually and collectively Mr. Sloan presents life to us. Look at the "Portrait Drawing of Paul de Kock" (Fig. 217), in the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art. Was everj the characteristic traits of a writer more keenly noted than in this chalk drawing? Strong, free and simple it reveals the heart of the man and the intense desire of the artist to speak the truth sin- cerely. Unlike Hogarth Mr. Sloan's humour is always kindly, but then, bad as we are, the state of America to-day is not that of Eng- land in Hogarth's time. One of Mr. Sloan's specially telling etchings is "Fifth Avenue Crit- ics," belonging to his New York set of thir- teen etchings, in which is represented a ba- 282 AMERICAN PICTURES rouche with two grand dames and a liveried coachman meeting a pretty, meek Httle lady, with a fluffy dog, in a hired hansom. The look of disdain on the wrinkled faces of the critics is ludicrous in the extreme, especially as seen against the perked up ears of the horse of the hansom which is in line with their faces. Mr. Sloan was born at Lockhaven, Penn'a, in 1 87 1, and was trained in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He makes his home in New York City. Much of his time to-day is devoted to painting landscapes and New York street scenes. Thomas R. Congdon is another American artist whose use of the etching needle is that of a master. It is only recently that we have him with us again, but his long stay in Paris is easily forgiven because of the fruitfulness of the sojourn and the honour bestowed on him while there. It is a delight, too, to look at dear, charming Paris through his American eyes — an artist does not lose his national traits when out of his own country — and feel the same thrill creep over us that we, as travellers, felt when standing by the Seine, or in front of Saint Etienne du Mont, or looking across the little pond to the Palais de Luxembourg. All these points of view so dear to us Mr. Congdon has made doubly dear with his etching needle. Fig. 219— a Dryad. Fry. AND THEIR PAINTERS 283 Now let us go to dear, old London and lazily sail along the Thames. Mr. Congdon shows us the same old "Factories on the Thames" (Fig. 218), only he has helped us to see more of the beauty of the English atmosphere that clings to and embraces them. Did we ever see that enchanting light and shade? And yet it was there waiting for a master to catch it and hand it down to posterity to enjoy. How the black smoke blotches the dull sky or mer- rily sails away in thin streaks; and how the old buildings snuggle against each other just as the anchor piles stand together for strength in the foreground. Who cares that the air IS full of the smudge of soft coal ? The hum of the machines sings of the poetry of labour. We are glad to welcome Mr. Congdon home again, for no doubt he will now help us to look at our own land with more seeing eyes. It is very refreshing nowadays to find an up-to-date artist filled with the ideals of the past. ''Something new" may be a good slo- gan to keep us from growing stale and shelf- worn, but we need to cling to the master ideals of the past — ideals that are founded on fun- damentals as solid as the eternal hills. In the works of John Hemming Fry we see that he has communed with the Greeks. His com- munion has been that of a seeker after truth. 284 AMERICAN PICTURES He IS no imitator or copyist but one whose soul is filled with the beauty of the human form with the touch of divinity still clinging to it. The dear old stories that belong to the childhood of the world, that we all love, have taken on a deeper significance under his brush. Was ever a ''Dryad'' (Fig. 219) more beau- tiful or more human than Mr. Fry's interpre- tation of her? Exquisite in form and pure in motive she is an intimate part of her beloved trees; with them as part of their life she came into existence and when they die she will die too. Mr. Fry, however, has given to her an element that was unknown to the Greeks — the new birth that springs from defeats and thwarted ideals into a stronger womanhood. Over and over again he uses mythological themes, but shot through them all is this firmer realisation of ideals that is our heritage. See the glorious light flooding the background and gradually embracing the trees and flowers and dryad in its vivifying influence. And again in ''The Eternal Drift" (Fig. 220) the warm, luscious flesh and firm elastic bodies of the nymphs are reminiscent of far- off Greece, but with a fuller understanding of woman's reclaiming power. Rarely did the Greek artists give greater satisfaction in phys- ical perfection and charm of femininity than is AND THEIR PAINTERS 285 in these two lovely beings. Mr. Fry's inspira- tion is drawn from the fountain head, conse- quently his nude figures are as pure as the water springing from that source. Beauti- ful and chased yet mortal beings with possi- bilities of evil but with greater probabilities for good. It matters little to what age these lovely creatures of the eternal drift belong; they are always a definite part of the great problems of life and ever to be reckoned with. It is when an artist, whose heart is warm to- ward humanity, transmutes these frailties into a power for good that physical perfection in art reaches its goal. The Greeks ignored the evil in perfecting the body; Mr. Fry makes it beautiful in spite of its weaknesses. A certain wistfulness has crept into the faces of his mod- ern nymphs and dryads and mythical maidens that makes us feel they are our sisters and we love them. Mr. Fry's figures are such an in- timate part of the scene that the bit of land- scape, or shore inlet, or ocean expanse would be void without them. They are vital prod- ucts of the trees and the foam and the tumbling waves. His colour scheme is low and rich yet his effects are full of vitality and strength. When Elizabeth Eyre painted ''The Upper Box" (Fig. 221 ) she gave a picture of the sur- feited opera habitues that words fail to express. 286 AMERICAN PICTURES Boredom to extinction is written large on every line of the young man leaning on his hand. And one can almost hear the war of words be- tween the couple at the right ; and the tolerant smile of the older man is that of one satiated yet hoping for new sensations. Miss Eyre has certainly used her eyes in studying the box fre- quenters of opera and theatre. And how unique is her arrangement and simple her de- sign. Surely our architects would do well to study this upper box as a model in simplicity. Possibly a little of the depressing influences of too frequent attendance at play houses might be alleviated if the rococo decorations were done away with. At least the artistic effect of beautiful gowns would be greatly enhanced in simpler surroundings and incidentally add pleasure to being the most elegantly attired lady in the house. Miss Eyre sets her palette in a rather low key which intensifies the sil- houette of flesh tones. Her appreciation of moods as expressed in face and body is exceed- ingly keen and promises, in the coming years, that delineation of character will be a strong feature of her art. After all, it is the clear eye and steady brain of the artist who has given and is giving historical sketches of worth to the world. Orlando Rouland is a member of the AlHed AND THEIR PAINTERS 287 Artists of America. This association broke away, a little rebelliously, from the parent stock, the Academy of Design, several years ago. The basic cause of the rupture was jus- tifiable, for parents forget sometimes that their oif spring can think. Fortunately the relation- ship between the two associations to-day is friendly and both hold their annual exhibitions in the Academy on S/th Street, New York City. Not all the work presented to the public by the young society is praiseworthy or even above mediocre, any more than that of the Academy, but the sifting process is more ener- getic when the sieve is in younger hands. As we study ''Guided by the Stars'' (Fig. 222) we feel that the strength of young blood, steadied by responsibility, is before us. Mr. Rouland understands the power of silent con- templation. He is not afraid of making his people think. This young chief, for chief he certainly is in features and bearing, is using his mind as a perfectly balanced instrument under the control of the manipulator. There is no hesitancy or vacillation, for by no possible chance can he go astray with the eternal heav- ens as a map and the trained indicator as a guide. How well the self-contained, forceful traveller fits the solitude of that snowy height! One's own convictions grow stronger under 288 AMERICAN PICTURES the influence of this solitary seeker after wis- dom. Studying the heavens brought this people near the Great Spirit just as it compelled the psalmist of old to exclaim, "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge.'* Mr. Rouland's message to the world is big and wholesome ; it reaches deep into our heart of hearts because he touches the mainspring of life — the Eternal God — and we too exclaim with the shining host of twinkling stars, **The hand that made us is Divine." It is interesting the many and varied ways of approach the artists are using to-day in pre- senting life to us. They are not painting a dead world but one palpitating with vitality. Still life is a paradox, for life is motion and not even material things are still. Then, too, still life subjects are vibrant with atmospheric quiverings. And again our artists are becoming thinkers. Of course at first certain mannerisms of the teacher cling to them but these disappear as AND THEIR PAINTERS 289 the individuality grows. I am not speaking of the would-be artists who are falling by the way — and some in this book may be among that number — but of those who have come to stay. A true artist is a thinker; he works out his own problems and when his solution is accepted by the thinking public, educated or uneducated, he has arrived. Randall Davey is doing some of this think- ing. His character sketches are like biograph- ical notes in their portrayal of individual traits, yet they evince the intimate knowledge of ra- cial peculiarities of one versed in the study of physiognomy. No one could mistake the "Old Sea Captain" (Fig. 223), in the Corcoran Gal- lery, Washington, D. C. He and his fore- bears have for centuries fought the sea and with dogged determination have kept it at bay. Every inch of him is as solid as the hills and with a heart as warm and tender as a child's. He no doubt was a special friend of Mr. Davey's, yet he represents the whole race of Gloucester Sea Captains. There is a certain vigour of purpose in his makeup that speaks in no uncertain tone of the sturdy little town that has held its own against odds that would have conquered bigger places. Mr. Davey is developing an individual art while using subjects that are common to a num- 290 AMERICAN PICTURES ber of painters to-day. His two years' sojourn in the Netherlands and later in Spain have not only opened his mind to perceive the underlying reasons of racial differences, but they started an individual growth in Mr. Davey of good judgment and clear thinking that is becoming more pronounced each season. Is anything of greater value than healthful growth in the de- velopment of a nation? And as nations are made up of individuals nothing can be more en- couraging than to say to a fellow worker, *'You have grown!'' Mr. Davey is young in years and is full of the enthusiasm of youth. One feels the impetuous blood of an undaunted conqueror in his rich colour, his daring compo- sitions, and his rather unusual technique. At times his conquering is a little ruthless, yet the spirit of honest courage and an undertone of good sense and sincerity generally prevails. We are very proud of the large company of young American thinkers who are working out their own salvation in their art. The majority of them have scarcely reached two score years of life, yet they already stand for progress. While a list of names means little in general when it comprises men and women whom the public is watching expectantly, it holds big possibilities. To such a list belong Harry Fig. 223 — An Old Sea Captain. Davcy. Courteav of the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C. AND THEIR PAINTERS 291 Townsend, Howard Giles, Leon Gaspard, Jules Turcas, B. Gutmann, Guy Wiggins, Arthur Crisp, Ossip L. Linde, Althea H. Piatt, Clif- ford W. Ashley, A. Hanson, W. G. Beuley, George Elmer Brown, C. C. Campbell, A. Ba- rone, and many others of equal merit. CHAPTER XXXII ULTRA-MODERN ART MARIN— BENTON— ZORACH— RAY— WRIGHT —RUSSELL T JNREST IS not a modern state of being; and it is not confined to a special country or people. Unrest is both destructive and con- structive. If, like the prodigal son, it wastes itself in riotous living it retards progress and comes to naught. If, on the other hand, like the pioneer it conserves as it breaks into new fields, it comes to fruition. Progress, therefore, depends upon the char- acter of the spirit of unrest. That a certain amount of destructive unrest is necessary for healthful advance is true, but it is equally true that the inconoclastic spirit often works dis- aster for lack of steadying qualities. Unrest in the art world began with the be- ginnings of the race. In fact its very being sprang from the desire to tell others the where- abouts of the restless seekers for new fields of 292 AMERICAN PICTURES 293 action. Down through Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Egypt, and Greece came this spirit of unrest, at times reaching, through construc- tion, states of perfection that stand out as mountain peaks, and again leaving direst wastes in its path. It is not surprising that with such an in- heritance America should feel unrest stirring in its very vitals. "Up-and-doing'' is the watchword in every branch of life in this vast country. Not always does the doing come to fruition, yet the whole body politic is the bet- ter for action. Possibly the beginnings of the present unrest in art came from the Paris of the last century when scores of our artists, eagerly receptive, were absorbing the insurgent spirit of new France. That this insurgent spirit in the final reckoning spells progress no one will question, yet it is true that the work- ings of the spirit are generally misunderstood. This misunderstanding is often due to ignorant misinformation and lack of explanation by the workers themselves. It is not fair to the public to keep it in ignorance, for the average mind is capable of judging. In approaching the new movement of the ultra-modern artists one must ever bear in mind that these men are dealing with funda- mental principles. Unvarnished, unadorned 294 AMERICAN PICTURES elemental truths, as they see them, are ex- pressed in all their works. The six represen- tative men chosen stand for different phases in the development of Modern American Art ; and in these painters' own words and works I present them to my readers. Also I advocate public inspection of the works of these modern painters. '^The establishment of galleries is desirable," says Mr. Robert Henri, ''where small groups of artists, self-selected and self- organised, might have space on demand to present their works for public inspection, where the people would be invited to come, see, and in the act of personal judgment develop the taste that is latent in them, rather than accept the dictates of those who have assumed authority as juries of admission, juries of award, and critics." In the Forum Exhibition of Modern Ameri- can Painters, the spring of 1916, the exhibitors not only exhibited their paintings but gave the reasons for the faith that is in them. To appreciate ''Marin's Island (Maine)," by John Marin (Fig. 224), we must read what the painter himself says of his works: "These works are meant as constructed ex- pressions of the inner senses, responding to the things seen and felt. One responds differently toward different things; one even responds dif- AND THEIR PAINTERS 295 ferently toward the same thing. In reality it is the same thing no longer ; you are in a differ- ent mood, and it is in a different mood." "If you follow a certain path you come to something. The path moves toward direction, and if you follow direction you come to some- thing; and the path is through something, un- der something and over something. And these somethings you either respond to or you don't. There are great movements and small move- ments, great things and small things — all bear- ing intimacy in their separations and joinings. In all things there exists the central power, the big force, the big movement ; and to this central power all the small factors have relation.'' '^Thus it is in life. Life is like a path which one follows. All things one meets are relative and interdependent. They may be good or bad, but they are never perfect. It is the same with the artist's expression : it, too, may be good or bad, but it is never perfect." "However, the paths and the factors of life may broaden. They may become more and more revealing. Some may travel and find, others may travel and never find the things relative to them. Thus the journey may be sensed or not sensed, expressed or not ex- pressed." "So, in all human consciousness there are the 296 AMERICAN PICTURES seekers and those who do not seek, the finders and those who do not find/' ''Coming down to my work, you have these pictures. They are the products of a seeker or finder, or of a man who neither seeks nor finds." We turn to "Figure Organisation" (Fig. 225), by Thomas H. Benton, and read: "My experience has proved the impractica- bility of depending upon intellectualist formu- las for guidance, and I find it therefore impos- sible to ally myself definitely with any particu- lar school of aesthetics, either in its interpre- tative or constructive aspect." "I may speak generally of my aim being to- ward achievement of a combat, massive and rhythmical composition of forms in which the tactile sensations of alternate bulgings and re- cessions shall be exactly related to the force of the line limiting the space in which these ac- tivities take place. As the idea of form cannot be grasped without mental action on the part of the beholder; as its comprehension, that is, implies the necessity of a more intense mental state that is requisite for the enjoyment of sim- ple loveliness of colour, I value its develop- ment, manipulation, etc., as by far the most important element entering into the construc- tion of a work of art." AND THEIR PAINTERS 297 ^'The generation of the idea of form depends upon comparison of contoural or linear exten- sion, their force, direction and the like; this generation is caused by attention to boundaries of shapes; the pre-eminent stimulus to realis- ing a cubic existence is line — therefore I make the production of interesting line relations the first business in my painting. Colour I use simply to reinforce the solidity and special po- sition of forms predetermined by line/' "I believe the importance of drawing, of line, cannot be overestimated, because of its above- mentioned control of the idea of form, and I believe that no loveliness of colour can com- pensate for deficiency in this respect. While considering colour of secondary constructive importance, I realise, nevertheless, its value in heightening the intensity of volume, and am, to a certain extent, in accordance with all those developments which, emanating from Cezanne, tend to accentuate its functioning power." '*I believe that particular attention to consist- ency in method is bad, and for this reason em- ploy any means that may accentuate or lessen the emotive power of the integral parts of my work." "In conclusion I wish to say that I make no distinctions as to the value of subject-matter. I believe that the representation of objective 298 AMERICAN PICTURES forms and the presentation of abstract ideas of form to be of equal artistic value." William Zorach's word picture of "Spring'' as it appeals to him in nature is represented in his painting "Spring" (Fig. 226). He says: "It is the inner spirit of things that I seek to express, the essential relation of forms and colours to universal things. Each form and colour has a spiritual significance to me, and I try to combine those forms and colours within my space to express that inner feeling which something in nature or life has given me." "The moment I place one line or colour upon canvas, that moment I feel the need of other lines and colours to express inner rhythm. I am organising a new world in which each form and colour exists and lives only in so far as it has a meaning in relation to every other form and colour in that space." "In the spring one feels the freshness of young growing things, the ascending stream of life, the expanding of leaves and trees, the spirit and passions in the lives and volumes of rolling hills. All these are wonderful forms that act and react upon each other like sounds from a violin. I see the young child and its mother, I see the flowers, the birds, the young calf born in the field, I see the young calf pranc- ing and feel the wild blood rushing through Fig. 227 — Dance Interpretation. - Ray. AND THEIR PAINTERS 299 my veins. Then again, it is the strangeness of mountains, their bigness and solemness and depth, their height, and the strange Hght upon them. I go into a farm house; the people sit silently around a room, a girl picks foolish tunes from a zither, the feeble-minded grand- father wanders from window to window ask- ing for the sun. And in all these things there is a bigger meaning, a certain great" relation to the mountains and to the primary signifi- cance of life. One feels the relation of the forms of birds, flowers, animals, trees, of everything that grows and breathes to each other and to the earth and sky." "This I get from the world about me, and this I seek to give back again through my pic- tures." We look at "Dance Interpretation — Inven- tion'' (Fig. 227), by Man Ray, and then read the explanation of its meaning. Mr. Ray says: "Throughout time painting has alternately been put to the service of the church, the state, arms, individual patronage, nature apprecia- tion, scientific phenomena, anecdote and deco- ration.'' "But all the marvellous works that have been painted, whatever the source of inspiration, 300 AMERICAN PICTURES still live for us because of absolute qualities they possess in common." ''The creative force and the expressiveness of painting reside materially in the colour and the texture of pigment, in the possibilities of form invention and organisation, and in the flat . plane on which these elements are brought to ''The artist is concerned solely with linking these absolute qualities directly to his wit, im- agination and experience, without the go-be- tween of a 'subject.' Working on a single plane as the instantaneously visualising factor, he realises his mind motives and physical sensa- tions in a permanent and universal language of colour, texture and form organisation. He uncovers the pure plane of expression that has so long been hidden by the glazings of nature imitation, anecdote and the other popular sub- jects." "Accordingly the artist's work is to be meas- ured by the vitality, the invention and the defi- niteness and conviction of purpose within its own medium." In "Adolescence" (Fig. 228), by S. Macdon- ald-Wright, is illustrated the underlying prin- ciple in Mr. Wright's paintings. He says : "I strive to divest my art of all anecdote and illustration, and to purify it to the point where AND THEIR PAINTERS 301 the emotions of the spectator will be wholly aesthetic, as when listening to good music." ''Since plastic form is the basis of enduring art, and since the creation of intense form is impossible without colour, I first determined, by years of colour experimentation, the rela- tive spatial relation of the entire colour gamut. By placing pure colours on recognisable forms (that is, by placing advancing colour on ob- jects, and retreating colours on retreating ob- jects), I found that such colours destroyed the sense of reality, and were in turn destroyed by the illusive contour. Thus, I came to the conclusion that colour, in order to function significantly, must be used as an abstract medium. Otherwise the picture appeared to me merely as a slight, lyrical decoration.'' ''Having always been more profoundly moved by pure rhythmic form (as in music) than by associative processes (such as poetry calls up), I cast aside as nugatory all natural representation in my art. However, I still ad- hered to the fundamental laws of composition (placements and displacements of mass as in the human body in movement), and created my pictures by means of colour- form which, by its organisation in three dimensions, re- sulted in rhythm." "Later, recognising that painting may extend 302 AMERICAN PICTURES itself onto time, as well as being a simultane- ous presentation, I saw the necessity for a for- mal climax which, through being ever in mind as the final point of consummation, would serve as a point from which the eye would make ex- cursions into the ordered complexities of the picture's rhythm. Simultaneously my inspira- tion to create came from a visualisation of ab- stract forces interpreted, through colour juxta- positions, into terms of the visual. In them was always a goal of finality which perfectly accorded with my felt need in picture construc- tion.'' "By the above one can see that I strive to make my art bear the same relation to painting that polyphony bears to music. Illustrative music is a thing of the past: it has become ab- stract and purely aesthetic, dependent for its effect upon rhythm and form. Painting cer- tainly need not lag behind music." Morgan Russell, in "Cosmic Synchromy" (Fig. 229), has given clearly the keynote of his art. Mr. Russell says: "My first synchromies represented a per- sonal manner of visualising by colour rhythms ; hence my treatment of light by multiple rain- bow-like colour-waves which, expanding into larger undulations, form the general composi- tion." Fig. 228 — Adolescence, Wright. AND THEIR PAINTERS 303 ''In my next step I was concerned with the elimination of the natural object and with the retention of colour rhythms. An example of this period is the Cosmic Synchromy. The principal idea in this canvas is a spiral plunge into space, excited and quickened by appropri- ate colour contrasts." "In my latest development I have sought a 'form' which, though necessarily archaic, would be fundamental and permit a steady evo- lution, in order to build something at once Dionysian and architectural in shape and colour." ''Furthermore I have been striving for a greater intensity of pictorial aspect. In the Middle Ages cathedral organs were louder than the sounds then heard in life; and men were made to feel the order in nature through the dominating ordered notes of the organ. But to-day the chaotic sounds and lights in our daily experience are intenser than those in art. Therefore art must be raised to the higher intensity if it is to dominate life and give us a sense of order." "Much has been said concerning the role of intellect in painting. Common sense teaches that the mind's analytic and synthetic powers, like vigorous draughts of fresh air, kill the feeble and invigourate the strong. The strong 304 AMERICAN PICTURES assimilate the suggestions of reason to their creative reactions : the feeble superimpose rea- son on their pictures, thus petrifying their work and robbing it of any organic unity. This unity is a necessity to all great art and results only from a creative vision handling the whole surface with supple control." "I infuse my own vitality into my work by means of my sense of relations and adjust- ments. The difference between a picture pro- duced by precise formulas and one which is the result of senesihilite, is the difference be- tween a mechanical invention and a living or- ganism." 'While there will probably always be illus- trative pictures, it cannot be denied that this century may see the flowering of a new art of forms and colours alone. Personally, I be- lieve the non-illustrative painting is the purest manner of aesthetic expression, and that, pro- vided the basic demands of great composition are adhered to, the emotional effect will be even more intense than if there was present the obstacle of representation. Colour is form ; and in my attainment of abstract form I use those colours which optically correspond to the spatial extension of the forms desired." INDEX Abbey, Edwin Austin, so, 151, i5S Alexander, John W., 91. i49. 164- 169, 178 Angelo, Michael, 25, 105, 159, 222 Beal, Gifford, 228, 231-233 Bealtx, Cecilia, 203-206 Beckwith, Carroll, 113, 114 Bellows, George, 228-229 Benson, Frank W., 171. 181, 182- 184, 226 Benton, Thomas H., 292, 296-298 Bernstein, Theresa, 270, 278-279 BiERSTADT, Albert, 37. 46 BiTTiNGER, Charles F., 270, 274-275 Blakelock, Ralph Albert, 121-123 Blashfield, Edwin H., 150-151 Blum, Robert Frederick, 164, 169- 170 BoHM, Max, 220, 221-222 Boldini, Giovanni, 87-88 Boronda, Lester, 270, 275-276 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 30, 64, 75, 76, 84, 92, 158, 164 Brooklyn, Institute of Arts and Sciences, 66, 80, 86, 89, 90, 117 Brown, Roy, 234, 240 Brush, George DeForest, 105, 106-107 Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, 147, 174. 179, 192 BuNCE, William Gedney, 56, 62-63 Burroughs, Bryson, 250, 254-257 Carlsen, Emil, 32, 134-135 Carlson, Charles F., 188, 199-200 Cassatt, Mary, 203, 209-212, 230 Chase, William Merritt, i 13-120, 158, 172, 198, 208-209, 236, 245, 261, 272 Chicago, Art Institute, 32, 52, 54, 57, 95, 112, 114, 143, 202, 228 Church, Frederick E., 39, 40-41 Cincinnati Museum, 102, 103, 168, 170, 196, 200 Cole, Thomas, 38-41 Coleman, Charles Caryl, 71, 77-78 CoNGDON, Thomas R., 280, 282-284 Copley, John Singleton, 21, 26-28 CousE, E, Irving, 250, 251-254 Cox, Kenyon, hi, 117-118 Crane, Bruce, 132, 137-138 Daingerfield, Elliott, 122, 132, 136-137 Davey, Randall, 280, 289-290 Davies, Arthur B., 220-221 Davis, Charles H., 139-145, 146 Dearth, Henry Golden, 260, 261, 262 DeCamp, Joseph, 171, 180 Dessar, Louis Paul, 234, 238 Detroit, Museltm of Art, 108, 109, 119, 123, 186, 235 Dewey, Charles Melville, 121, 130-131 Dewing, Thomas W., 71, 178-180 Dougherty, Paul, 242, 247-248 Doughty, Thomas, 39, 41 Duveneck, Frank, 99, 102-104, 179 Eyre, Elizabeth, 280, 285-286 Fort Worth, Texas, Public Li- brary, 32, 34, 49, 189, 194, 248 Foster, Ben, 132, 134 Fry, John Hemming, 280, 284-285 Frieseke, Frederick Carl, 220, 222-224 Fuller, George, 71-73 Gainsborough, Thomas, 26, 174 Garber, Daniel, 234, 239 Genth, Lillian, 213, 215-216 Groll, Albert L., 213-214 Harrison, Birge, 188, 197-198 Harrison, Thomas Alexander, 105-106 Hassam, Childe, 171-177 Hawthorne, Charles W., 203, 206- 209 306 INDEX Henri, Robert, 236, 260, 263-266, 294 Hill, Thomas, 39. 46-47 Homer, Winslow, 64-70, 247 Hopkins, James R., 234, 237-238 HovENDEN, Thomas, 99-100 Hudson River School, 39, 55 Hunt, William Morris, 39, 43-46 Indianapolis, John Herron Insti- tute, 114, 115, 124, 160, 191, 196 Inness, George, 48-55, 56, 61, 129 Inness, George, Jr., 132, 133 Johnson, Eastman, 71, 73-74 Keith, William, 56-59 Koopman, Augustus, 242, 248-249 Kroll, Albert Leon, 213, 218-219 La Farge, John, 79-86 Lathrop, William R., 132, 136 Leigh, William R., 250-251 Leutze, Emanuel, 39, 41-42, 73 Lever, Harley, 242, 243-244 Lie, Jonas, 213, 216-218 LuKs, George, 228, 229-230 Macbeth Gallery, New York City 62, 8s, 128, 129. 133, 134. 135. 142, 182, 184, 187. 199. 214, 221, 224, 226, 238 MacCameron, Robert, 220, 225- 226 McLean, Jean, 228, 233 Marin, John, 292, 294-296 Marr, Carl, 105, 109-111 Martin, Homer D., 56, 59-60 Melchers, Gari, 105, 107-109 Metcalf, Willard L., 171, 181, 186- 187 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 28, " 29, 39, 41, 42, 51, 59. 62, 68, 72, 97, loi, 103, 104, 105, no, 113, 118, 120, 137, 141. 154. 155. 163, 165, 167, 177, 182, 205, 207, 210, 220, 226, 235, 238, 239. 257. 260, 262, 281 Miller, Richard E., 220, 224-225 Millet, Frank Davis, 99, 101-102 Millet, Jean-Franqois, 43-46, 220 Milwaukee, Layton Art Gallery, 54, 6s, no Minneapolis, Institute of Art, 109, 144, 189 Mora, F. Luis, 220, 226-227 MoRAN, Thomas, 39, 47 MosLER, Henry, 99, loo-ioi Murphy, J. Francis, 21, 128-129 Muskegon, Michigan, Gallery of Fine Arts, 91, 120 New Orleans, Delgado Museum OF Art, 198, 249, 264 New York City (see Metropolitan Museum of Art) Norton, Clara Mamre, 260, 269 NouRSE, Elizabeth, 228, 230-231 Ochtman, Leonard, 188, 194-19S, 245 Parrish, Maxfield, 250, 257-259 Peale, Charles Wilson, 21, 28-29 Pearson, Joseph T., Jr., 270-272 Pennell, Joseph, 90, 280 Peterson, Jane, 270, 276-278 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Acad- emy OF Fine Arts, 25, 37, 116, 205, 270 Philadelphia, Wilstach Gallery, 96 Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 35. 68, 94. 153. 174. 184, 197 Ranger, Henry W., 139, 145-149 Ray, Man, 292, 299-300 Redfield, Edward W., 188, 191-194 Reid, Robert, 171, 181, 185-186 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 23, 26, 176 Robinson, Theodore, 105 Rochester, Memorial Art Gal- lery, 32, 215, 216, 225 Rosen, Charles, 188, 198-199 Rouland, Orlando, 280, 287-289 Russell, Morgan, 292, 302-304 Ryder, Albert P., 79, 86-87 Ryder, Chauncy, 188, 200-202 St. Louis, City Art Museum, 50, 73. 82, 128, 133 Sacramento, California, Crocker Art Gallery, 46 San Francisco, Institute of Art, 58, 59 Sargent, John Singer, 113, 157-163 Schofield, W. Elmer, 188, 19S-197 Seyffert, Leopold, 260, 267-269 Simmons, Edward E., 171, 181, 187 Sloan, John, 280, 281-282 INDEX 307 Snedecor Gallery, New York City, 51. 68, 250 Snell, Henry B., 242-243 Speicher, Eugene, 234, 239-240 Spencer, Robert, 234-236 Stuart, Gilbert, 30-36 Sully, Thomas, 30, 36-37 Symons, Gardner, 188, 189-190 Syracuse, Museum of Fine Arts, 128, 141, 14s. 177. 206, 233 Tack, Augustus Vincent, 270, 272- 273 Tanner, Henry O., 105, 111-112 Tarbell, Edmund C., 171, i8r, 182, 184-185, 226, 269 Texas (see Fort Worth) Thayer, Albert H., 99, 104 Toledo, Museum of Art, 121, 126, 149, 178, 197 Trumbull, John, 21, 28-29, 39 Tryon, D wight William, 121, 123- 127, 171 Turner, Helen M., 260, 262-265 Twachtman, John H., 171, 172, 181- 182 Ultra Modern Art, 292-304 Van Lear, Alexander, 132, 135-136 Vedder, Elihu, 71, 74-77 VoLK, Douglas, 150, 155-156 Walker, Horatio, 132, 133-134 Walter, Martha, 260, 266-267 Washington, D. C., Corcoran Gal- lery OF Art, 40, 48, 173, 196, 197, 289 Washington, D. C, National Gal- lery, 244 Waugh, Frederick J., 242, 245-247 Way, Thomas A., 96 West, Benjamin, 22, 26 Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 60, 88-98, 280 Weir, J. Alden, 171, 177-178, 272 Wiggins, Carleton, 121, 125^130 Wiles, Irving R., 260-261 Williams, Frederick Ballard, 213, 214-215 Worcester, Art Museum, 26, 33, 45. 67, 125 Wright, McDonald S., 292, 300-302 Wyant, Alexander, 56, 59-62 Yates, Cullen, 242, 244-245 ZoRACH, William, 292, 298-299 ■SY THE SAME &$UTHOR WHAT PICTURES TO SEE IN EUROPE IN ONE SUMMER "Knowledge, fine selective power and rigid self-control are the warrant of this guide to the traveller. The stay-at-home, too, does well to read and re-read this authoritative study against the day of his own adven- turing." — Washington Evening Star. Profusely illustrated. i2mo. Cloth. $1-35 net WHAT SCULPTURE TO SEE IN EUROPE A concise guide to the best sculpture in Europe. 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