WeUrotsityLibiail 39002030219696 A SEA TRAGEDY COLLECTION OF MR. RALPH CUDNEY, CHICAGO, ILL. Canvas, 15% inches high, 13 inches wide. ALBERT PINKHAM RYDER BY Frederic Fairchild Sherman New York PRIVATELY PRINTED MCMXX Copyright, 1920, by Frederic Fairchild Sherman PREFATORY NOTE In writing this monograph on Albert Pinkham Ryder I have borrowed freely from what others have written about him and have included very much of all that the artist pubhshed during his hfetime— both poetry and prose — as well as extracts from several of his very rare letters to friends. Many of the latter have very kindly assisted me in various ways and it is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to his sister*in4aw Mrs. E. N. Ryder, Mr. Thomas B. Clarke, Mr. Walter Fearon, Mr. Al* bert Groll, Mr. N. E. Montross, Mr. Alexander ShiL= ling and others for many courtesies, and for help with* out which no such a presentment of Ryder's person* ality could have been made. Miss Nellie A. Rider of Providence, R. I., I have to thank for the genealogy and for the reminiscences of his grandparents, and to Mr. Eliot Clark I owe the very able synopsis of the artist's methods and his technic. The estimate of Ryder's personality and of the character and importance of his work which is pre* sented in this httle volume is, however, my own. CONTENTS Part One. Life and Personality .... u Part Two. Estimate of His Poetry ... 29 Part Three. His Opinions about Painting. Description of His Methods and His Technic .... 33 Part Four. A Resume of Some of His Important Works and an At* tempt to Elucidate their Meanings 45 Part Five. Estimate ofthe Artist and His Art 59 Pictures Painted by Albert Pinkham Ryder 65 Bibliography 75 Paintings exhibited by Albert Pinkham Ryder The National Academy of Design 76 The Society of American Artists 76 The Metropohtan Museum Memorial Exhibition jj ILLUSTRATIONS A Sea Tragedy Frontispiece The Temple of the Mind Page i 2 Dancing Dryads "12 Pegasus " 12 Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens . . "16 Resurrection "18 Forest of Arden "18 Jonah . ; " 2 2 Ophelia "'24 Moonlight on the Sea "26 Landscape "26 The Flying Dutchman " 3 o Moonlight " 3 2 Moonlight at Sea " 3 2 With Sloping Mast and Dipping Prow . "34 The Smugglers "34 The Race Track " 38 Passing Song "40 Macbeth "40 Constance "42 Christ Appearing to Mary .... "42 Arab Camp "46 Landscape with Sheep "48 The Sheepfold "48 The Dead Bird "5° The Barnyard "5° The Spirit of Autumn 54 The Spirit of Spring "54 Smugglers' Landing Place .... "5^ The Elegy " 56 The Wreck "58 Homeward Bound 62 Misty Moonlight "62 8 ALBERT PINKHAM RYDER PART ONE LBERT PINKHAM RYDER, the youngest of the four sons of Elizabeth Cobb and Alexander Gage Ryder, of Yarmouth, Mass., was born in New Bedford, March 19, 1847 in a D^£> °^ house on Mill Street, near Acushnet Avenue, opposite the home of Albert Bierstadt. New Bedford was the home of Ryder's mother, and his father, born in Yarmouth April 6th, 1815, must have settled there after 1839, ^or *n ^^ Year n*s brother Preserved Milton Ryder was born in Yarmouth, the birthplace also of the older brothers, William Davis (1836) and Edward ^(1837). The Ryders (or Riders, as the name is more usually spelt by the Cape Cod branch ofthe family) were all Yarmouth people. The ancestral line begins with Samuel Rider (born in 1638 or 1639, ^cc^ *n ^79)' and is as follows: Samuel1; John'; Ebenezer8; John1; Reuben"; Benjamin6; Alexander 7 ; Albert 8 . Benjamin Rider, Albert's grandfather, was a carpenter who built several ofthe old houses in Yarmouth, including, probably, his own home, the old Rider house on Main Street. Both he and Albert's grandmother, Betsy Hawes Rider, were very rehgious people belonging to a branch of the Methodist faith whose -women dressed after the man* 11 ner ofthe Quakers. At New Bedford his father was for some time boarding officer at the Custom House and a dealer in fuel beside. The family moved to New- York in 1867 or 68. There Ryder's mother died June 19, 1892, and his father on the same day of 1900. His brothers Edward N. and Preserved Milton were both at one time or another seafaring men; the former was in 1865 an Ensign on the U. S. Gunboat "Young Rover" . The other brother William Davis married a Miss Jones of New York and was engaged with his father*in*law in the restaurant business for many years at the corner of Broadway and Howard Street under the firm name of Jones and Ryder. Later he became the proprietor of the Hotel Albert on Elev* enth Street. As a boy Albert Ryder attended the Middle Street Grammar School in New Bedford, from which he graduated, and where he was familiarly known as "Pinkie", a nickname which his intimate friends curiously continued to use to the end of his hfe. As a child of four he would sometimes be found lying on his stomach on the floor, oblivious to everything except his picture book. Later as a httle lad he seemed not to care much for drawing, wishing always to ex* periment with colors. He had early found his way into a studio on William Street in New Bedford, where an artist named Sherman, as his sister*in*law believes, taught him to mix his colors and somewhat of how to use them. This was while the painter was still in his teens and he has left us the following 12 THE TEMPLE OF THE MIND MUSEUM OF ART, BUFFALO, NEW YORK Panel. 17?4 inches high, 16 inches wide. Signed lower right, Ryder. DANCING DRYADS COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN GELLATLY, NEW YORK Canvas. 9 inches high, 7 inches wide, Signed lower right, A. Ryder. PEGASUS ARRIVING MUSEUM OF ART, WORCESTER, MASS. Panel..- 12 inches high, 11$£ inches wide. Inscribed on back, "Pegasus. painted by Albert P. Ryder for Charles DeKay, 1885." 1 '' m ' ^K^l ^HilBBJI'^ei'v^^fc^flB HbsglElPjfjjH record of his sensations and experiences when he first undertook painting with oils : "When my father placed a box of colors and brushes in my hands, and I stood before my easel ¦with its square of stretched canvas, I realized that I had in my possession the wherewith to create a masterpiece that would hve throughout the coming ages. The great masters had no more. I at once proceeded to study the works of the great to discover how best to achieve immortal* ity with a square of canvas and a box of colors." "Nature is a teacher who never deceives. When I grew weary with the futile struggle to imitate the canvases ofthe past, I went out into the fields, determined to serve nature as faith* fully as I had served art. In my desire to be ac* curate I became lost in a maze of detail. Try as I would, my colors were not those of nature. My leaves were infinitely below the standard of a leaf, my finest strokes were coarse and crude. The old scene presented itself one day before my eyes framed in an opening between two trees. It stood out like a painted canvas — the deep blue of a midday sky — a solitary tree, brilliant with the green of early summer, a foundation of brown earth and gnarled roots. There was no detail to vex the eye. Three solid masses of form and color — sky, foliage and earth — the whole bathed in an atmosphere of golden luminosity; 13 I threw my brushes aside ; they were too small for the work in hand. I squeezed out big chunks of pure, moist color and taking my palette knife, I laid on blue, green, white and brown in great sweeping strokes. As I worked I saw that it was good and clean and strong. I saw nature springing into life upon my dead canvas. It was better than nature, for it was vibrating with the thrill of a new creation. Exultantly I painted until the sun sank below the horizon." After the family went to New York, and the artist was in his early twenties, he really first began his serious study of art as a pupil of William E. Marshall, himself a pupil of Couture and a painter and engraver of portraits, from whom, if he secured anything at all beyond certain tricks of technic, it was certainly no th* ing more nor less than a liking for warm tonahty of color. In January of 1871 he entered the school ofthe National Academy and studied for a time in the An* tique class. He must have soon sensed the futihty of following the teachings of others if he was to con* tinue to cultivate his individual taste in art, just as earlier still he had realized the futihty of imitating the canvases ofthe past, and however much we know he sacrificed by never mastering a sound technic, we may congratulate ourselves at least upon the fact that by so doing he preserved his personal predilection for imaginative and spiritual expression. Blakelock, Abbott H. Thayer, Tryon, Wyant and 14 Homer Martin were all represented in the annual ex* hibition of the National Academy in 1873 when Ryder's first picture was accepted and hung. This painting, called Clearing Away, was probably one of the not very distinguished early landscapes wherein one finds httle if any promise of che original char* aeter and exceptional beauty of his later work. He was a pretty regular contributor to the Academy until 1888 and some of his best canvases were ex* hibited there, among them the Ophelia and the Christ Appearing to Mary. In 1902 he was made an associ* ate of the Academy and Academician in 1906, his portrait for the society being painted by J. Alden Weir. Soon after the Society of American Artists was or* ganized in 1877 Ryder was invited to become a mem* ber and he sent something to every exhibition but that of '85, from the first held in 1878 to that of 1887. Among these pictures were as many as five of his moonlights and marines and such canvases as the Curfew Hour, now in the Metropohtan Museum, and the Eastern Scene. As one will readily surmise from this record of his activity practically all of his best work was produced during the short period of twenty*five years from '73 to '98. That part of it which was not actually completed at the latter date was probably at least then under way, from which we may reasonably con* elude that his active hfe as an artist ended surely within a very few years thereafter. Thenceforward 15 he seems to have done nothing more than try to finish satisfactorily to himself the finer things already begun of -which several, including The Tempest and The Lorelei, remained in his studio at the time of his death. It is characteristic ofthe man that he should have pre* ferred, lacking adequate ideas for new pictures of a corresponding individuality, to expend his energies upon the effort to make surpassingly beautiful somes thing -which he had already started and which he knew to be original, rather than to turn his hand to the manufacture of numerous replicas ofthe kind of things he had already found a market for. Such work would probably have met a ready sale and made it possible to live in ease if he had so desired, but it could have added no lustre to his fame and -would have given httle or no satisfaction to himself. During the period of Ryder's activity he -was vari* ously compared -with Jules Dupre, Blakelock and^^. Gedney Bunce, — more especially with Blakelock. To say that the criticism aimed at his work was not altogether unwarranted is not to say that it was en* tirely merited or entirely just. It was probably as near to being right as contemporary criticism ever is. It -was said of him that he -was "as far removed as may be from realism in his use of nature, and hke Blakelock has a noble quality of color, while in the quality of imagination he far exceeds him, having a greater grasp ofthe unexpected. " The late Ripley Hitchcock wrote in The Art Review that "with Ryder, color is the chief end, but in an uncertain way the artist aims to 16 SIEGFRIED AND THE RHINE MAIDENS COLLECTION OF LADY VAN HORNE_ MONTREAL, CANADA Canvas. 19% inches high, 20y2 inches wide. Signed lower right, A. P. Ryder.. Exhibited at Society American Artists, 1902. invest his color with significance" and u lthe method of his expression appeals to the eye rather than to the heart, like the works of artists who use color frankly for color's sake." The most important consideration of his work which I find in the reviews ofthe time is this from The Art Amateur of July 1884 : "As to Messrs. Ryder and Blakelock, who seem to fancy that art is enough and that nature has no place in the stu* dio, they will have to learn that if art is the end ofthe painter's effort, nature is the material of his study and no such complete divorce as Mr. Ryder especially shows can lead to a permanent position. The groove is too narrow, even if deep, and too commonplace — it lacks originality utterly. Blakelock is wider in his range but equally astray in his direction. There is no such thing possible as painting marines without know* ing how to paint the sea, nor landscape without know* ledge ofthe facts of nature. If art rises above the ac* tuality of nature, it rarely goes contrary to it, and any painter who conceives differently must justify his work by exceptional power and great imagination, which neither Mr. Ryder nor Mr. Blakelock shows. They have strong one sided feeling for color, but little for nature, and none for quahties equally as important in art as that which they seek. They have the redeem* ing element of true poetical feeling and sincerity, but their art is a mistake and a needless sacrifice of quahties better than those they attain'.' Had the writer divined the real depths of Ryder's imaginings, and sensed ac* curately his exceptional powers of expression, instead x7 of simply becoming critically conscious of such quali* ties through contact with works he had either not the time or the ability to appreciate fully, he would prob* ably have been the first to put into words the final esti* mate ofthe painter. Daniel Cottier, the well known dealer, may be said to have been the first to discover the pecuhar charm and value of his art, and probably did more than any* one else to find a market for it and to enable the artist to earn the modest sum that sufficed for his needs. He introduced his pictures to Sir William Van Home, who became a real friend of Ryder's, and placed ex* amples of his work in private collections in cities as widely separated as Portland, Oregon, and Edin* burgh, Scotland. Of his studio, the later one in Fifteenth Street, perhaps the most accurate as well as realistic descrip* tion is that penned by a writer in the New York Press as long ago as December, 1906, who says : "Two thirds of the room was full, packed solid with things that had never been moved since they were set there years before, chairs, tables, trunks, packing boxes, picture frames, vast piles of old magazines and newspapers. Overhead long streamers of paper from the ceiling swayed in the air. All around the edge ofthe conglomeration sat dishes on the floor, tea cups with saucers over them, covered bowls, 18 RESURRECTION COLLECTION OF MR. N. E. MONTROSS, NEW YORK Canvas. \iy% inches high, 14^ inches wide. THE FOREST OF, ARDEN COLLECTION OF DR. A. T. SANDEN, NEW YORK Canvas. 19 inches high, 15 inches wide. Signed lower right, Rydei crocks, tin pails, oil cans, milk bottles, boxes of apples and packages of cereals." "In one corner a pile of empty cereal pack* ages mounted to the ceiling. In another a stately tall chair staggered under its accumulated load. A black wedding chest rich with carving was almost undiscoverable under the odds and ends that burdened it. A splendid Greek head stands on the top board with a foot bath on one side and a box of hay on the other. Against an exquisite piece of portrait sculpture, the work of a master hand, a friendly package of rice. The confusion was unimaginable, incredible." Something to smile or weep over, this studio, but it suited an artist who lived with the simplicity of the prophets, and however bizarre and eccentric, it pro* vided all the comfort he required or even cared about. The outsider might see his studio as the abode of dirt and disorder where nothing was ever dusted or cleaned, but Ryder himself, the poet and dreamer, had a very different idea of it as may be gathered from the following description which he wrote in 190$: "I have two windows in my workshop that look out upon an old garden whose great trees thrust their green*laden branches over the case* ment sills, filtering a network of hght and shad* ow on the bare boards of my floor. Beyond the low rooftops of neighboring houses sweeps the eternal firmament with its everchanging pano* J9 rama of mystery and beauty. I would not ex* change these two windows for a palace with less a vision than this old garden with its whis* pering leafage — nature's tender gift to the least of her httle ones." He felt that sumptuous studios were for business men rather than for artists, and chose an ordinary attic room of an old dwelling house in a forgotten cor* ner ofthe city for his 'workshop' as he called it, — a place where he might be left alone to dream and paint and poetize. Here he spent most of his days, cooking manyofhis own meals and sleeping on a rough pallet. Few found their way to the place. Those -who did often found him in overalls with a pair of old leather or carpet slippers on his stockingless feet, but were met by a timid and yet mildly cordial reception, for his courtesy was genuine and extended as graciously as though he were living in a palace. At those rare times when he invaded the purlieus of the wealthy, however, and was to be seen in the upper Fifth Avenue section, he went abroad habitus ally in a silk hat and attire which, if not elaborate, at least was always correct. His was never a presence to be ignored in any place or company and wherever one might meet him, or however brief the meeting might be, his powerful personahty seldom failed to make a definite impression. There was an old*time air of refinement about his speech and manner, as rare as it was welcome in a world too busy to bother with 20 pohteness, and few who came under the spell of its influence underestimated or ever forgot its pecuhar charm. Marsden Hartley, who knew him in his later years, says : "I have spent some ofthe rarer and lovelier moments of my experience with this gentlest and sweetest of other* world citizens; I have felt with ever*living delight the excessive loveliness of his glance and of his smile and heard that music of some far*away world which was his laughter." Though he hved the hfe of a recluse and saw but few people, he was, nevertheless, exceptionally well informed, with interests wide, and varied enough to include pretty much everything firom the art of the early Italians down to the latest sensational mur* der trial. On every hve topic of importance he had ideas which were occasionally expressed with un* usual force and illuminating lucidity. As a conver* sationalist, in anything save the lighter vein of easy wit and commonplace, he was always sure of his audience whether it were an ignorant workman or a group ofthe most cultured of connoisseurs. His own opinion of an artist's needs, which he found sufficient certainly for himself, was summed up as follows : "The artist needs but a roof, a crust of bread and his easel, and all the rest God gives him in abundance. He must hve to paint and not paint 21 to hve. He cannot he a good fellow; he is rarely a wealthy man, and upon the potboiler is in* scribed the epitaph of his art." 1 'The artist should not sacrifice his ideals to a landlord and a costly studio. A rain*tight roof, frugal living, a box of colors and God's sunlight through clear windows keep the soul attuned and the body vigorous for one's daily work. The artist should once and forever emancipate him* self from the bondage of appearance and the un* pardonable sin of expending on ignoble aims the precious ointment that should serve only to nourish the lamp burning before the tabernacle of his muse." He once told his sister*in*law, Mrs. E. N. Ryder, that "a true artist never paints for money" and added, "Enough to live on is all I care for." So much has been circulated about his dislike of so* ciety and his abject poverty that it is but justice to the memory of the man that his sincere friendship for those whom he knew and trusted, his gratitude for even the smallest kindness, and the genuineness and simplicity of his hospitality should not be forgotten. Early in his career he gave a blacksmith, who did him a small favor, one of his best canvases, and for years afterward one might see it in the smithy's dingy shop. Such an act must seem quixotic to many, but Ryder probably felt that his work was honored in having a place upon the honest toiler's wall. 22 JONAH COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN GELLATLY, NEW YORK Canvas. 27J4 inches high, 34% inches wide. Signed lower left, A. P. Ryder. A friend chanced upon him once in a Fifth Avenue gallery gravely expounding the beauties ofthe paint* ings on exhibition to a httle girl of twelve years or so with the same unconscious dignity that he would have employed in the company ofthe most exacting critics. This child was probably Mrs. Fitzpatrick's niece or Mr. Harold Bromhead's daughter Elsie, whom he had met in 1901 and for whom he had a very tender and beautiful regard. He called her a "httle angel of a girl" and "httle Elsie sweetheart" and sel* dom failed to remember her in writing to her father in after years. In April 1885 he -wrote to Mr. Thomas B. Clarke, in reply to a letter expressing the latter's admiration of his work : "Many thanks for all those nice sentiments. "I find myself so childish in a way; I am so upset with a httle appreciation that I can hardly be quiet to acknowledge the source. "Everybody is very nice I must say : but you have such a happy confidence and courage that it counts tremendously in nerving a man and trying out his endeavors. "I was saying to Mr. Inglis only the other day that you were one ofthe few who have the pas* sion of a collector ; that of course brings its own joy. But I also wish you the honor that belongs to one who has made such an impression on the art impulse ofthe country. 23 "I think you can hardly realize how much it means. For a long time I have observed a marked change in the attitude not only of the press but also of collectors toward the possibili* ties of something being done here amongst us : to you much of the credit belongs : and I am so happy to be identified with your mission, and that, with the two chief efforts of my ambition. I can not but feel some way that in both the Temple (The Temple ofthe Mind) and the Reli* gious picture (Christ Appearing to Mary) I have gone a httle higher up on the mountain and can see other peaks showing along the horizon ; and although there are conditions that make per* haps what I cannot do again, in your selections, yet I know you will wish as I hope, to keep the banner forward and in other things justify your faith and appreciation." He lacked much ofthe most rudimentary knowl* edge of hfe and had a childlike faith in the honesty and kindness of everyone. He would give away a treasured canvas to please a friend and would just as readily share his last dollar or his meagre meal with a hungry beggar. His friend, Horatio W^alker, once when visiting him asked Ryder if he had any money, to which the painter rephed that " there was some on a paper in his cupboard," where upon some rummaging around therein he produced a check, months old, re* ceived in payment for one of his pictures. It was a 24 OPHELIA COLLECTION OF MR. FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN, NEW YORK Panel. 16 inches high, 11% inches. wide. Exhibited at the National Academy, 1887. check in four fi gures, but it seems that he had no notion ofthe wisdom ofthe process of cashing it. With Mr. Walker's help he managed to realize upon this check, but with some others he had also tucked away he -was not so fortunate. Some time after this occurrence he told Albert Groll that W^alker was not only a great artist but a great financier as well, an obvious error, but a pertinent commentary upon his ingrained in* ability to estimate correctly the significance of even the simplest experience if it involved material rather than spiritual values. His avoidance of people was not at all because of any inherent antipathy or of mere taciturnity. It re* suited from a firm conviction that meeting others un* fitted him for work. But though he avoided meeting people whenever he could without giving offence, and never frequented crowded studios or attended bohemian parties, he was never rude, and delighted in the conversation of his friends. Charles Melville Dewey, one of his artist friends, tells many stories of his shyness and says that, though Ryder frequently called at his studio, he would always telephone in advance to make sure that no one else was there ; while Mr. Albert Groll, another friend, says that whenever he would broach the matter of bringing some friend with him to meet Ryder, the artist would tell him to come himself, that he was always welcome, but not to bring anyone else. It was in the later Fifteenth Street studio that he made friends with his neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Fitzs 25 patrick who watched over him as long as they res mained in the city, caring for him when he was ill and seeing always that he was properly fed. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had come to know Ryder in her art stu* dent days, and the painter became interested in her studies to the extent of giving her occasional criticisms. He did not drink; his recreation was found in the pubhc parks, where he would sometimes be seen walking on pleasant days, or seated in some secluded place, obhvious of passers by, and perhaps composing either verse or picture. He had a habit, also, of go* ihg out at dusk and taking long walks in the coun* try, across the river in New Jersey, from which he often would not return until dawn. At such times he would sleep all the morning. Mr. Shilling says Ryder once told him that it was on these lonely strolls at night that he 'soaked in the moonlight' which later appeared in his pictures. He occasionally visited his sister*in*lawin Falmouth for two or three weeks at a time and when there spent most of his time sketching. She writes that he would often get up in the middle of the night and go to the shore to paint the moon* hght effects on the water. He was passionately fond of music and of poetry, and it was through his love of the former that ro* mance once entered into his life in connection with a woman. Having moved into a real studio at the sug* gestion of a friend, and after being quite miserable in the midst of its unaccustomed comfort for a number of days, he heard the playing of a violin next door. 26 MOONLIGHT ON THE SEA COLLECTION OF LADY VAN HORNE, MONTREAL, CANADA Panel. 11% inches high, 15% inches wide. Signed lower right, A. P. Ryder. Exhibited at Society American Artists, 1884. LANDSCAPE COLLECTION OF MISS MARIAN Y. BLOODGOOD, NEW YORK Canvas. 10 inches high, 14 inches wide. Signed lower center, Ryder. The player, it seems, was a woman ; and it is said that one day, -without previous introduction, he called upon her and asked her to marry him. Wliether she refused or accepted him is not known but some friends of his heard of his impetuous action, and one of them, Daniel Cottier, carried him off on a trip to Europe. This was probably the hurried visit made in the summer of 1893 when he saw something of England, Italy, Spain and Holland. They were accompanied by Olin V/arner, the sculptor, and his companions were much entertained with the meagre impression made upon Ryder by the old masters, and his almost complete insensibility to the charm of all modern European art. He disliked hurry and travel in con* sequence, and it must have been a great relief to get home again to the quiet of his own room. The unfortunate results of vaccination in his youth he never outlived. The vaccine poisoned him, pre* venting his pursuing his studies beyond the grammar school, and weakened his eyes in such a way as to in* terfere at times with his painting. As late as 1901 he wrote to his friend, Mr. Harold "W. Bromhead, say* ing; "My eyes started on a rampage directly after I had -written you, and with me it is a particularly dan* gerous matter; as if I do not indulge them there is a great possibility of little ulcers coming on the eye itself." It is, therefore, not strange that he should have been always an intermittent worker, and that when he came to have customers for his canvases he sometimes kept them waiting months, or even years 27 for a picture. Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder is re* ported to have waited twenty years for one, and Ryder once said that another patron told him he had left instructions that his funeral procession was to stop at his place to obtain a painting, and added, ' 'I told him it couldn't go out even then unless 'twas done." The last important canvas he completed stood in his studio practically finished for at least ten years. The artist undoubtedly keenly realized and honestly re* gretted the disappointment that his delays occasioned his patrons for he wrote much to them in explanation and justification, quoting in one case these lines from Browning : " Oh, the httle more, and how much it is! And the httle less; and what worlds away ! " To another he wrote the following : ' 'Have you ever seen an inch worm crawl up a leaf or twig, and there clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something to reach something? That's like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have a footing." It is this something beyond the actual, which he sometimes succeeded in finding and incorporating into his creations, that makes them indescribably beautiful and magical in a sense that does not correspond at all with the romanticism of modern painting in any of its manifestations from the emotion of Monticelli to the sensitiveness of Wliistler. 28 In 191 5 Ryder was dangerously ill and had to be taken to St. Vincent's Hospital. There he spent sev* eral months in slow recovery, and when able to go out again was persuaded by the Fitzpatricks to come to them atElmhurst, Long Island, where they had taken a house some time previously. Here he spent the last years of his hfe in the seclusion he so greatly desired, and it was in their house that he died March 28, 1917, in his seventysfirst year. In appearance he was a great rugged, bearded figure with something ofthe look, we may suggest, of one of the early apostles. His features were unusually and nobly symmetrical and he wore always an expression of kindliness and peace. His friend Mr. Dewey, who was made the administrator of his modest estate, says that ' 'in death he looked like some one ofthe old paint* ings of Christ." PART Two IF Ryder had not been a painter he might have been a poet or a philosopher. As it was he wrote considerable verse, a certain portion of which is pure poetry. Most of his verses were made to accompany pictures he painted or to celebrate certain friendships which he highly valued. The occasional lines that ac* quaint us with the reahty of his poetic gift are almost as lovely as they are rare, as for instance those which accompany his painting ofthe Dancing Dryads: — " In the morning ashen*hued, Came nymphs dancing through the wood." 29 Another single line so nicely lyrical that it almost sings itself is : — " The cloud soft moulded to the cape." He was, however, no more master of the technic of verse than ofthe technic of painting, and conse* quently most of his best stanzas are remarkable rather for the thought than for the manner of expres* sion. Hear, for instance, these lines, for his Toilers of the Sea, which so vividly suggest the rhythmical movement of the fishing craft homeward bound, and sailing with the sure sense of freedom which we sense in his "shifting skies": " With the shifting skies, Over the billowing foam, The hardy fisher flies To his island home." For the Jeanne d'Arc he composed a much longer piece, the last four lines of which are possibly the finest bit of real poetry he ever wrote. Here the expression is more nearly worthy ofthe thought, and the idea it* self is entirely made up of that beauty which is truth; " WTio knows what God knows? His hand he never shows, Yet miracles with less are wrought Even with a thought." The stanza almost equals one of Emerson's or of Emily Dickinson's in its incisive and illuminating statement of a large fact. 30 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN GELLATLY, NEW YORK Canvas. 1454 inches high, 1754 inches wide. This Jeanne d'Arc poem; The Wind, which ap* peared long ago in the Century Magazinearticleon the painter; one presented to Mr. N. E. Montross, from which the single line quoted above was taken; and some "Lines inspired by a Gale at Yarmouth Port, Mass." and privately printed, are the most preten* tious of his flights of song. The latter, while unsatis* factory in its entirety, contains much that is lovely, like his apostrophe: — " Grandest and most eloquent daughters Of fertile Mother Earth." and the passage: — " How strong, How beautiful, How wonderful ye are. Yet ye talk only in whispers, Uttering sighs continually Like melancholy lovers." To use an Irishism, Ryder's best poetry was never* theless really his prose. It is found in paragraphs like that describing his studio, and the following, that were sent to a young couple, newly married, both of whom he greatly loved, together with a note saying they were "appropriate to the devotion of each to the other." "They hved the hfe of angels; for they wor* shipped each other as angels; and from their coming steps and their going steps, arose the fra* 31 grance of flowers and they respired the aroma of their odors." ' 'Each sought to forestall the other in little acts of tenderness, and with intuitiveness of inspira* tion, which is love, they penetrated the wishes ofthe inner soul and delighted by the wonder of their perceptions." "In love morning succeeds morning, one day another day, varied only by increasing love, increasing tenderness." "Her steps were too pure to touch the dust; he lifted her in and out of conveyances and over ob* jects that destroy the grace and harmony of woman's movements; and each day she seemed lighter because he grew stronger, breathing and living in this thin exquisite atmosphere of the affections." It is the description of a relationship which one might term too beautiful to be true, and probably is no nearer the reahty it idealizes, than his description of his studio was a true picture of the actual con* fusion and squalor of that sorry place. The fact is that Ryder habitually overlooked all the minutiae ofintol* erable and unpleasant fact, for vistas of imagined love* liness that have no existence whatever, except in the miracles of exceptional circumstance and the minds of poets. 32 MOONLIGHT COLLECTION OF MR. BURTON MANSFIELD, NEW HAVEN, CONN. Panel. 11J4 inches high, 12^6 inches wide. Signed lower right, Ryder. MOONLIGHT AT SEA NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, D. C. Panel. 16 inches high, 1754 inches wide. part three OF the abihties of any artist the estimate of other craftsmen in the same medium is always inter* esting. Marsden Hartley, whose enthusiasm leads him into claiming for Ryder precedence over all American painters in almost everything except mas* tery of his medium, is at least right in thinking that "he had in him that finer kind of reverence for the element of beauty which finds all things somehow lovely." He was not, however, as Mr. Hartley con* tends, either the 'first' or the 'foremost of our designs ers', nor was he the 'first of all creators of tragic landscape' . Practically all ofthe tragedy one will find in Ryder's landscape is involved in other additional and extraneous matter which is entirely foreign to landscape proper, and the tragedy they add is cers tainly neither so poignant nor so moving as that which one finds in far greater compositions such as Fuller's Quadroon. In the actual and exact sense in which Homer Martin was a creator of tragic landscape, in canvases like the Westchester Hills and the Ontario Sand Dunes, Ryder never created anything ofthe kind. As a master of arabesque and a creator of pattern he succeeded in imbuing his compositions with beaus ties that are evident enough to need no elucidation, and he was enough of a master of design to employ it to ads vantage in certain compositions in which it is the para* 33 mount element of interest. Of his drawing Ryder him* self said, in speaking of one of his pictures, "Perhaps you wouldn't say it had much drawing, but I think it has what you might call an air of drawing." It was a fine distinction but it was exact. He seldom drew well, seldom bothered about drawing, but his pictures have generally an air of drawing which suffices to make them seem well drawn. Wrien he chose to he, however, he was a very sensitive draughtsman, and several of his paintings of horses, sheep and other animals, as well as domestic fowls and birds, are fine enough to prove that he possessed an unerring instinct for the very lines of truth and the ability to use it to advantage in his work. Nowhere else in sculpture or painting will one find anything more tragically beautiful or more poignantly pathetic than his picture of a dead canary. It is a more touching elegy upon a dead song*bird than one may hope to find in music or in poetry and it is a matchless piece of drawing as well. The Landscape with Sheep a fellow craftsman once hesitated to purchase because it seemed to him that the sheep were drawn better than Ryder could have drawn them. His temperament translated every theme he used into a personal expression of his mood or emotion, and yet his landscapes and other pictures are always true enough to hfe and to nature, and present a suffi* cient semblance of reahty to interpret his intention. His world, however, is a world of his own making, wherein nature is only the basic fact out of which is 34 MOONLIGHT COLLECTION OF MR. BURTON MANSFIELD, NEW HAVEN, CONN. Panel, II54 inches high, 125-6 inches wide. Signed lower right, Ryder. MOONLIGHT AT SEA NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, D. C. Panel. 16 inches high, 1754 inches wide. evolved the wonder, the mystery and the witchery of an earth as far removed from this as Heaven is from Hell. His art is not to be correctly estimated by any of the ordinary tests that apply well enough to academic work, nor is it the product of any school or formula, for it is individual in a sense and to a degree that is hardly true of any other painter. It must be judged by its effects, as it moves us, and by one's reaction to its pecuhar enchantment and appeal. Any literal or pro* saic weighing of its worth is useless because the greater element in it, the spiritual portion, escapes evaluation in the process. One may with reasonable accuracy determine the relative value of design, of drawing or of color in an artist's work by estabhshed and acs cepted standards, but the quality ofthe imagination that pervades the best of Ryder's painting is to be appraised in no other way than by recording the measure of one's response to its inexplicable beauty. In an age of sordid realism, he created visions that vied with the finest fabrics of man's imagination. His work has been compared with that of Delacroix, Mons ticelli, Blake, Wriistler, Fuller and Blakelock. It is akin to them all in having certain points of contact and resemblance, which nevertheless in no way involve Ryder's very individual quality. Blake was a cons summate master of linear design, for which Ryder also had a fine instinct that enabled him to inform sevs eral of his canvases with an elemental rhythm; other pictures have so nice a balance that anything less would have made them merely geometric. Wliists 35 ler he approached only as they both found inters est in the poetry of life rather than in the prose, ^^ith George Fuller and with Blakelock he had much in common. The former generally specialized, like Rys der, in the expression of emotion, and both softened or entirely obscured the prosaic details ofthe corns positions they created. Blakelock, with as httle cons cern for whatever is literal and exact in landscape, and with a corresponding sensitiveness toandmastery of enchanting color, instilled into the sombre mystery of his finest works a magic of imagination quite as vivid and as rare as that which lights with splens dor the shado-wy depths of many of the best of Ryder's paintings. There are inescapable analogies between the painting of Ryder and the poetry of Poe and Coleridge . The thought of all three vibrated with a vivid perception of inevitable and impending trags edy, and was forever fixed upon possibilities of exs perience, mysterious and heroic, which they were precluded from ever realizing except in the realm of imagination. Ryder had certain definite opinions about painting which will help us in various ways to realize his inten* tions, to appreciate his accomplishment and to better understand his art. He summed them up in the follow* ing paragraphs : "The artist should fear to become the slave of detail. He should strive to express his thought and not the surface of it. Wliat avails a storm cloud accurate in form and color if the storm is not therein? A daub of white will serve as a robe to Miranda if one feels the shrinking timidity of the young maiden as the heavens pour down upon her their vials of wrath." "It is the first vision that counts. The artist has only to remain true to his dream and it will possess his work in such a manner that it will resemble the work of no other man — for no two visions are alike, and those who reach the heights have all toiled up the steep mountains by a different route. To each has been revealed a different panorama." "Imitation is not inspiration, and inspiration only can give birth to a work of art. The leasT: of a man's original emanation is better than the best of a borrowed thought. In pure perfection of technique, coloring and composition, the art that has already been achieved may be imitated, but never surpassed. Modern art must strike out from the old and assert its individual right to hve through Twentieth Century impressionism and interpretation . The new is not revealed to those whose eyes are fastened in worship upon the old. The artist of today must work with his face turned toward the dawn, steadfastly believing that his dream will come true before the setting ofthe sun." "The canvas I began ten years ago I shall pers haps complete today or tomorrow. It has been 37 ripening under the sunlight of the years that come and go. It is not that a canvas should be worked at. It is a wise artist who knows when to cry 'halt' in his composition, but it should be pondered over in his heart and worked out with prayer and fasting." "Art is long. The artist must buckle himself -with infinite patience. His ears must be deaf to the clamor of his insistent friends who would quicken his pace. His eyes must see naught but the vision beyond. He must await the season of fruitage -without haste, without worldly ambis tions, without vexation of spirit. An inspira* tion is no more than a seed that must be planted and nourished. It gives growth as it grows to the artist, only as he watches and waits with his highest effort." Ryder's color and the way in which he used it is a calculable quantity in the genesis of his paintings just as truly as are either his conceptions or the designs in which they are embodied. One may estimate quite accurately its actual value in relation to the total effect produced by every picture he painted, though of course it cannot be mathematically stated. ^Vhether the picture is thoroughly synthetic in its subtle har* monization of delicate shades and values, or whether it be simply a masterly piece of design, as is sometimes the case, the color itself, though in the former instance entirely neutral in effect, and in the latter seemingly 38 PASSING SONG COLLECTION OF MRS. MARJORY MORTEN, NEW YORK Panel. 8*4 inches high, 4% inches wide. MACBETH COLLECTION OF MR. DUNCAN C. PHILLIPS, WASHINGTON, D. C. Canvas on panel. 10 inches high, 10 inches wide. as negligible as that of a silhouette, is always an appre* ciable equation adding interest or meaning to the corns position. His color simply as color embroiders his ims aginations with rhymes as perfect as the rhythm of his line, and though a less important contribution to the poetry of his product than the design, in the sense that, one may say, rhyme is not a necessary part of poetry in that some ofthe noblest is written in blank verse, it is yet a means of informing it with an added loveliness. However, he had no such facility for cors relating numerous colors in the elaboration of an ats tractive composition as the Venetians had, or Montis celli, or any ofthe other painters we think of as great colorists, and yet in a very hmited and special sense he was a colorist of no httle ability . He improvised upon the few notes that constituted his palette withextraors dinary taste and feeling, and few have succeeded as he did in elaborating the theme of a single color in a syms phony of such loveliness as is produced by some of his canvases in the key of blue, of green or of brown. In these pictures one encounters a fulness of expresss ion quite extraordinary considering the fact that it is realized, through a manipulation of various shades and values, with the use of practically a single color. That this method of painting was his habit is uns questionably the indication of a limitation. The few subjects like The Flying Dutchman and The Story ofthe Cross, in which color is used more freely, must be appraised simply as the exceptions that prove the fact. 39 His finest paintings are evolved from his imagina* tion, assisted, however, by vivid memories of certain actual aspects of nature necessary to whatever meass ure of illusion is required to make them not alone intelligible but superlatively intriguing in their sens sitive expression. They express, moreover, some of the finer nuances of feeling and richer experiences of emotion that are rarely met with in modern art. He never used a model and yet practically every detail of the pose of his figures was studied from nature. He relied wholly upon a habit of minute observation and an excellent memory, and as a result his canvases are never literal transcripts of nature or of life but pics tures that transcend reality in a sort of spiritual beauty glorifying the very truth of nature. Few of his corns positions were ever arranged in his mind before they were begun. They grew out of his feeling as he labored at his easel, until finally they satisfied him as expressing, at least, so far as he was capable of making them express, the idea or the emotion of which they were the visible embodiment. Ryder's processes were very mysterious; probably no man can explain accurately his system of paints ing. The pictures which we see on the surface are the result of much under painting, which was not done simply to attain pigment quality. It was often the result of laborious effort to achieve an effect, and although the composition is finally very simple, it is the very endeavor to attain this simphcity that 40 caused him to make innumerable changes as he pros ceeded with the picture. He was not methodical nor direct in painting, and never seemed to be in the least concerned about the durability of his pigments or his pictures. He first visuahzed his composition on the canvas or panel with a warm transparent wash, producing the larger masses oflight and dark contrast. Over this the pigment was applied -with a full, free and impetuous brush . He now evidently proceeded by painting over this before the paint was thoroughly dry, ignoring the resulting lack of material unity between the first and later painting. The underpaint was locked in before properly hardened and dried; consequently when the underpainting and the overpainting exs panded or contracted unequally, the uneven tension manifested itself in cracks, and most of Ryder's pics tures have suffered in this way. This cracking was accelerated by the over use of varnish, oil and other drying media, the effect of which was to cause the outer paint to dry and harden while the unexposed under pigment was still soft. He -worked principally in two schemes of color, of one the dominant hue is warm, similar to the siens na's, the other a neutral blue*green like neutralized prussian blue. To create the cooler scheme more paint is employed and therefore the pigment is aps phed more heavily. This is very apparent in the many "moonlight" pictures. After unity of design was realized in the underpainting, transparent color 41 was used as a glaze. As the warmer colors such as burnt sienna are more transparent than the cooler ones, this glaze was applied more freely in the pictures conceived in these hues. The glaze was used not only for subtle modulations of tone but to get deeper transparency and richer quals ity . In several pictures this transparent painting was also employed to add new elements or objects in the design. Obviously in such instances the method has norelation to the underpainting, the form added being, as it were an afterthought. An example of this curis ous procedure is to be seen in the Moonlight at Sea, in the Evans Collection at Washington, in which the flying sail is a mere wash and was not at all a part of the first conception, that is, the original picture. Many of Ryder's pictures painted in neutral blues green or "moonhght" colors have become dark and colorless, for he often superimposed dark over dark, and the paint has lost its original rich color and value for lack oflight hues underneath. This is apparent in the large Macbeth and the Witches owned by Dr. Sanden. V/here white is introduced in the composite color with the more direct brushing thus required, the res suit is heavy and labored, which explains why Ryder is at his best in subjects that do not necessitate reahstic rendering, and the form is vague. He seldom, if ever, painted the full sunlight, preferring the twilight, the shadows and the night. He never really did know how to paint in the acs 42 COUSTANCE COLLECTION OF LADY VAN HORNE, MONTREAL, CANADA Canvas. 28 inches high, 35 inches wide. CHRIST APPEARING- TO MARY COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN GELLATLY, NEW YORK Canvas: 1454 inches high, 17J4 inches wide. Signed lower left, Ryder. Exhibited at the National Academy, 1888. cepted sense. He used poor pigments and destructive vehicles and as a result much of his old age was given up to conscientiously restoring the paintings of his youth, while others have been rescued from threats ened ruin by professional restorers. His art, subjective and imaginative, was concerned chiefly in realizing his vision and in painting an enduring idea, unhappily regardless of an enduring picture. Mr. Guarino once asked Ryder if the cracking of his pictures ever both* ered him and received the following reply; "Wrien a thing has the elements of beauty from the beginning it cannot be destroyed. Take for instance Greek sculpture— the Venus de Milo I might say — ages and men have ravaged it, its arms and nose have been broken off, but it still remains a thing of beauty be* cause beauty was a part of it from the beginning." The statement might be thought a piece of monu* mental conceit except for the man, from whom it was no more than a casual but characteristically thoughtful remark. It was not that he ever slighted his work, for he labored over his smallest panel longer probably than most artists over a huge canvas, and no one could ever prevail upon him to hurry the com* pletion of even the least of his works. He had a faculty for handling pure color, and for enhancing its value by judicious glazing or enameling until it acs quired a jewel*like brilliancy, but he was quite un* mindful of the methods whereby he finished his pictures, being always absorbed in the integrity ofhis compositions as expressing forcibly and fully his ideas. . _ 43 He was always a conscientious worker and at the height of his career in the nineties and early "nine* teen hundreds" was always complaining of lack of time, though he labored both day and night over his pictures. To his friend, Mr. Harold W. Bromhead, of the English branch of the Cottier firm, he wrote, on August 2nd, 1 901, "I have been so closely occupied here (the Fifteenth Street studio) and so desperate for time. Fortunately I have fine energy just now and will be able to work nights if necessary;" and on March 2nd, 1903, "Although things have not mate* rialized yet it is not because I have held the honor lightly (Mr. Bromhead had planned an article on his work), but more because I have. There have been accidents, etc., and a fault, I sometimes think, the smallest thing I do it as if my hfe depended on it; and then the great shadow, always ofthe impossible and unobtainable." Mr. Bromhead tells me that it was quite pathetic to see his anxiety to finish things, for he often got no nearer in spite of desperate efforts, and adds, "It -was the strange self* paralysis of genius, identical with that of Matthew Maris," with whose works some of Ryder's have, indeed, a certain affin* ity. With every picture he painted he labored for the fulfilment of his hopes and dreams; and often, de* tecting some flaw in a canvas long after it had left his studio, he would get it back and try to persuade it, like a refractory child, into a more engaging loveliness. So slowly and so carefully did he paint, indeed, that ' his entire product, the labor of a long hfetime, for 44 he hved his threescore years and ten, would not fill a medium sized gallery. His fame rests entirely upon his quality and it is questionable if a greater reputa* tion has ever been earned with a more modest display of work. A careful inquiry extending over a number of years has resulted in the discovery of only about one hundred and fifty pictures. PART FOUR THE ideas of which Ryder's pictures are the visi* ble expression need httle elucidation, and yet I cannot forbear the feeling that it is distinctly worth while to translate them into words so far as I may. If I succeed at all in so doing, I think some, at least, may be enabled to appreciate more fully their meaning and this may suffice to excuse the endeavor. Practically all ofthe pictures which remained in his studio at the time ofhis death were unfinished and very few of them are of any particular interest or impor* tance. His later works were mostly of a pecuhar wash* ed*out gray tonality that corresponds with nothing produced in his best period, emphasizing his weak* nesses as a craftsman rather than his greatness as an artist. Ofthe more ambitious of them, The Lorelei and The Tempest are in no way worth consideration in any estimate ofhis work. Of one ofhis earlier works I have as yet been unable to find any trace, which is all the more regrettable as I cannot but beheve that it would be hkely to enhance our opinion ofhis 45 ability. The picture to which I refer is the Nourma* hal exhibited at the Society of American Artists in 1880. As it is not described in any ofthe newspaper notices of the exhibition one can only imagine its appearance, but the conclusion seems safe that when the canvas reappears, as it probably will some day, it will be found to belong with his few masterpieces. The last large canvas that Ryder finished, The Racetrack, which he originally called The Reverse, is curiously one ofthe very hmited number in which there appears anything unnecessary to the expression of the idea. The huge reptile, writhing along cons spicuously evident in the foreground, in no way adds to the tragic interest ofthe picture and measurs ably interferes with the immediate realization of its significance. According to Mr. Walter Fearon it was the late Benjamin Altaian who suggested the subject to Ryder, and the artist therefore took the canvas to Mr. Altaian when he completed it some years later, only to find that in the meantime Mr. Alts man had ceased to purchase American paintings. It finally became the property of Dr. A. T. Sanden, one of the artist's closest friends, who is the present owner. It is, so far as I know, one of only three or four of Ryder's pictures of which there is any authens tic record in his own words. Of it he wrote : "As to how I came to paint 'The Race Track' —it was rather an inspirational matter. At this time my brother was the proprietor ofthe Hotel 46 ARAB CAMP COLLECTION OF MR. FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN, NEW YORK Canvas, 28 inches high, 24 inches wide. Albert and I frequently used to get my meals there and got acquainted with many ofthe -waits ers. I got acquainted with one, but I cannotrecall his name, who was unusually intelligent and a proficient waiter and I sometimes used to chat with him. This was about the time the Dwyer brothers had their phenomenal success with their stable of race horses, as they won about all the important events throughout the country for over three or four years. "In one of my talks with this waiter he men* tioned this fact and that this was an easy way to make money. I, of course , told him that I did not consider it so, as there was always 'many a slip between the cup and the lip', and advised him to be careful. Not long after this, in the month of May, the Brooklyn Handicap was run, and the Dwyer brothers had entered their celebrated horse, Hanover to win the race . The day before the race I dropped into my brother's hotel and had a httle chat with this waiter, and he told me that he had saved up $500 and that he had placed every penny of it on Hanover winning this race. The next day the race was run, and as racegoers will probably remember, Hanover camein third. I was immediately reminded that my friend the waiter had lost all his money. That dwelt on my mind, as for some reason it impressed me very much, so much so that I went around to my brother's hotel for breakfast the next morning, 47 and was shocked to find my waiter friend had shot himself the evening before. This fact form* ed a cloud over my mind that I could not throw off, and 'The Race Track' is the result." The Arab Camp, which I had the recent good for* tune to discover, is one of the most beautiful of the to* nal pictures he painted in what -we may term the key of a single color and surely in it, if anywhere, one will find proof that he was a great colorist in the lim* ited sense I have already indicated. In contradis* tinction to his general habit the composition is static, but in its elaboration there is to a supreme degree all ofthe inevitable poetry of Ryder's great imagination. The magic ofhis touch is apparent even in its farthest depths, and over all there is a glamour of truly Oriental splendour. Quality, which is a characteristic rather of small than large canvases, is conspicuously notice* able here and has much to do with the impressive grandeur ofthe scene. The Sheepfold, one ofthe most satisfying ofhis smaller canvases, is one ofthe works that went from his studio to Scotland and has happily found its way back again to his native land. In it the quality and the intensity of the hght impregnating the pervading darkness approximates closely the actual effect ofthe moonht night, recreating in a magical way the vibra* ting mystery that constitutes its essential charm. The huddled group of sheep instinctively drawn together by the dusk, and the lighted window ofthe farmhouse 48 LANDSCAPE WITH SHEEP COLLECTION OF MR. FREDERIC FAIRCHILD SHERMAN, NEW YORK Panel. 7% inches high, 9% inches wide. Signed .lower right, Ryder. THE SHEEPFOLD MUSEUM OF THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK Canvas. 8% inches high, lO^mches wide. Signed. nearby, with its suggestion ofthe family gathered therein, lend the picture a definite human interest and a meaning that brings its beauty home to all. Ofhis rehgious subjects, The Resurrection has little or nothing in common with any ofthe innumerable early pictures ofthe scene and yet it surpasses most, if not all of them, in an elevated mysticism unusual even among the masterpieces of rehgious art. He has painted the Christ as a suspended spirit, visible in human form and clothed in the cerements of the grave, the very color ofthe flesh intensifying the im* pression of one newly risen from the dead. The old masters pictured a living Presence, the measurable weight of which is supported by feet set firmly upon the earth. Ryder has succeeded in giving more con* viction, at least from a modern view*point, to the spiritual import of the incident. The Jonah, which has no real counterpart in the art of any time or place, is a picture that belongs -with the greatest of those that have been inspired by Scripture. It is a tremendous tour de force in which the emotion ofthe subject transfigures the representation and pervades the picture with a sense of the immanent miracle. The composition is, indeed, in the grand manner, and the sense in which it is deliberately constructed to ex* press the idea is perfectly evident. To say that the wonder ofthe incident emerges from the canvas is to admit its equahty with the greatest of rehgious rep* resentations in pictorial art. Ryder wrote to Thomas B. Clarke in April, 1885, while he was working 49 on the Jonah, saying, "Many thanks for your kind remembrance ofthe Temple ofthe Mind. So sorry not to have seen you. . .1 am in ecstasies over my Jonah; such a lovely turmoil ofboiling water and everything . . . Ifl get the scheme of color that haunts me I think you will be delighted with it." He probably did just that, and we may assume that Mr. Clarke was delighted, for it hung for several years in his great collection of American paintings, which, at one time or another, included almost all ofthe canvases that are now con* sidered the masterpieces of nineteenth century Amer* rican painting. The Story ofthe Cross is another Bib* heal picture I would include among his important works. It is one ofthe few ofhis canvases in which color is noticeably present and it is one of his loveliest conceptions. The scene resembles more the composi* tions familiar to students of Italian painting in the Renaissance, and yet the picture itself is a very individual and charmingly sympathetic representa* tion from which one gathers a new understanding of the poetry of the Gospels. The Christ appearing to Mary is also very rich in color and full of sensible suggestion of a very tender emotion. The finest of his many marines is perhaps the small canvas in Mr. Cudney's possession called A Sea Tragedy; the most beautiful, The Flying Dutchman, owned by Mr. Gellatly. The former is the greater picture, I should say, inasmuch as it is less involved and more truly and eloquently expressive. It has an appearance of rare simphcity and impresses one 5o THE DEAD BIRD COLLECTION OF MR. N. E. MONTROSS, NEW YORK ,,' Panel. 4% inches high, 9% inches wide. THE BARNYARD COLLECTION OF MR. A. H. COSDEN, SOUTHOLD, LONG ISLAND, N. Y. Canvas, 1154 inches high, 12 inches wide. Si V - ;,' {' ' PjffllS| : Sgk, Ibp ¦ '.V- V « . '» '~ V « ''V 3?."A -V V. *,. "-. ':*'V,,MI3 - s ;*^^"'";-=