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THE LIBRARY OF
Sarah Cooper Hewitt presented in memory of
HER FATHER
Abram S. Hewitt
and her sister
Eleanor Garnier Hewitt
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N gi Book of tl)e ^rti0l0,
American Artist Life,
COMPRISING BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF AMERICAN ARTISTS: PRECEDED BY AN HIS- TORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF ART IN AMERICA.
BY
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.
WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF NOTABLE PICTURES AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS.
NEW YORK:
G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 66i BROADWAY
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW & CO. 1867.
Entered according to Act ot Congress, in the year 1867, hj
G. P. PUTNAM & SON,
In the Clerk's Office of tho District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York.
The New York Printing Compahy,
8i, 83, and 85 Cenire Street^
New York.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
While acknowledging the gratifying reception of this work by the public, the PubHshers improve the opportunity afforded by the issue of a new edition to offer a word of ex- planation. The grouping of many names in chapters, while others head distin6l sketches, grew out of no invidious dis- tin6lion, as has been' unreasonably suggested by one or two sensitive individuals — -neither is the author responsible for that arrangement. It was simply a mechanical necessity— and one, we may add, easy of change when an enlarged edi- tion is called for. When the work was nearly half printed it was found that it would extend to two volumes, unless abridged ; and to economize space the remainder of the "copy" was arranged in three long instead of numerous small chapters. It was, therefore, purely accidental that some art- ists were treated singly and others in groups, and no more a test of their comparative merit than the space devoted to each, which was not proportioned to the rank or reputation of the subje6l, but to the biographical materials afforded. The ab- sence of personal criticism has been complained of by a few readers, who do not appear to have examined the work carefully ; had they done so, it would have been seen that criticism the most emphatic has been applied to American art in the Introdu6lion, while specific fault-finding was avoided as ungracious in a work essentially biographical^ and, to a large extent, relating to living artists. In consequence of the ab- sence of many artists, and of their delay in furnishing the requisite data, omissions and errors of dates and names, as well as deficient lists of paintings, were unavoidable. It is proposed to remedy these defe6ls as soon as sufficient mate-
bOS
Advertisement to tJie Secojid Edition.
rials for a supplementary chapter and a revised edition are obtained ; and we respectfully solicit from artists and colledl- ors such suggestions and facts as will contribute to rectify and complete the work.
Note. — At present we merely note the following Errata : Mr, Darley's wife is the daughter of Warren, not Zerah Colburn (p. 247) ; Robert W. Weir was born in New York (p. 204), and not New Rochelle, as stated by Dunlap ; the original of Crawford's "Babes in the Wood" (p. 313) is in the colle6lion of James Lenox, of New York ; Robert Feke, the earliest colonial native painter of merit, besides the portraits mentioned (p. 47), left five specimens of his skill in half-lengths of himself and his wife, which are in the possession of their descendants, at Provi- dence, Rhode Island ; the name of the French painter Ooutiire is in more than one instance erroneously spelt Coiture, by an oversight of the proof-reader. The interesting biographical fafts sent us by Mr. Healy and others came too late to be used in the first edition ; we shall avail ourselves of them hereafter, as well as of such other personal and professional data as we receive from reliable sources. Want of space and information prevented our giving as full a record as is desirable of several artists to whom we hope to do justice hereafter — especially the brothers Smillie ; James Srnillie, the engraver ; Eichultz, late of Lancaster, Pennsylvania ; Leo. Hill, and several of the water-color painters ; Bailey, the Philadelphia sculptor ; Holberton, the Game painter, of Canandaigua, N. Y., etc. We acknowledge with pleasure catalogues of works by native artists, belonging to W. A. Shephard, of Troy, N. Y., Richard Goodman, of Lenox, Mass., S. H. Kauftnann, of Washington, D. C., Richard B, Hartshorn, and others. When the materials are adequate, we hope to complete our account of the Private Colleclions.
* When, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath, An angel left her place in heaven,
And cross'd the wanderer's sunless path. 'Twas Art ! sweet Art ! new radiance broke Where her light foot flew o'er the ground, And thus with seraph voice she spoke : ' The curse a blessing shall be found.' "
Sprague,
" Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou ivorkest in, that can have worth or continuance. " — Carlyle.
CONTENTS.
PAGB
Introduction "...... 7
Early Portrait Painters : — Watson. — Smybert. — Bembridge. — Pine, and others. — Feke. — Pratt. — Wright. — Charles Wilson Peale. — Dunlap. — Fulton. — Sargent. — ^Jarvis. — Eraser. — Frothingham. — Rembrandt Peale. — Harding.— Newton. — Neagle. — Waldo. — Alexander, and others. — Fisher.— Ames.— Jouet.
— Ingham . . . . 41
Copley 71
Trumbull 82
West » 96
Stuart . . .107
Malbone 121
Vanderlyn . . . . . . 126
Allston 1.36
Sully . 158
Morse 163
Leslie 171
DuRAND 187
W. E. West 197
Weir 203
Chapman 216
Cole ■ 223
Inman . . .233
Greenough 247
Powers 276
Page 295
Elliot . . 300
Crawford 306
Huntington 321
Leutze 333
Brown 346
Palmer . . . . 355
Church 370
Bierstadt 387
Portraiture, Genre, and Historical Painters : — ^Jocelyn. — Oliver Stone. — Agate. — Healy. — Ver Bryck. — Fink. — Flagg. — Jared B. Flagg. — Woodville. —
vi Contents.
Edmonds. — Freeman. — Latilla. — Mount. — Glass. — Catlin. — Kellogg. — Deas. Cheney. — Duggan.-^Rowse. — Ranney. — Matteson. — Lang. — Rossiter. — J. H. Beard. — Rothermel. — Edwin White — Le Clear. — Gray. — Staigg. — Hunt — Lambdin. — Terry. — Vedder. — Hennessy. — Boughton. — C. C. Coleman. — Powell. — Ames. — Wenzler. — Read. — Cranch. — Ehninger. — Hicks. — Eastman Johnson. — Darley. — Phillips. — Carpenter. — Furness. — Hall.— Dana.— Hoppin. —Tiffany.— Whistler.— Wilde.— Bellows.— Blauvelt— Benson.— J. G. Brown. — Walter BroAvn. — J. F. Weir — Noble. — Wood. — Lafarge. — Nast. — Baker. — Thompson. — Guy. — Homer. - Forbes. — Copeland. — Falconer. — Butler. — Gould. — Nehlig. — J. O'B. Inman. — Yewell, — Julian Scott. — Mayer. — Genin. — Bingham. — Audubon. — Tait. — Bispham. — Brackett. — W. H. Beard. — May. —Wight 398
Landscape-painters : — Doughty. — Gignoux. — Kensett. — Whittredge. — Russell Smith.— Casilear.— Hubbard.— W. T. Richards.— T. A. Richards.— Gifford.— Inness. — Cropsey. — Suydam. — Wenzler. — Heade. — McEntee. — W. Hart. — ^J. M. Hart. — Birch. — Salmon. — R. Bonfield. — De Haas. — Dix. — Warren. — Brad- ford. — Haseltine. — Williamson. — Bristol, — Tilton. — Colman. — Shattuck. — Griswold. — Gay. — Mignot. — Hamilton. — Brevoort. — Sontag.— Bellows. — Cole, and others. — Ropes. — Thorndike. — Ruggles. — Moran. — Hotchkiss . . 506
Sculptors : — Foreign Sculptors. — Rush. — Frazee. — Augur. — Hart, — Brown. — Story. — Ball. — Ward.— Ives. — Mills.— Dexter.— Volk.—Mozier. —Randolph Rogers. — Rhinehardt. — R, S, Greenough. — Jackson. — Rimmer.— Thompson. ~ Rogers. — Meade. — Haseltine. — Connolly, and others. — Brackett. — Gould. — Millmore. Female Sculptors : Harriet Hosmer. — Emma Stebbins. — Margaret Foley. — Edmonia Lewis. — Mrs. Freeman. — Anne Whitney. — Clevenger. — Bartholomew. — Akers 57c
Appendix 620
PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT.
A CANDID and comprehensive survey of the Progress of Art in the United States has for some years appeared to be an essential want in our Hterature, and a theme which cannot fail to be emphatically interesting and acceptable, not merely to those more dire6lly conne6led with Art, professionally and as colle6lors, but also to the many thousands of intelligent people who can appreciate and enjoy good pi6lures, although they may not have means to buy them.
In this faith the Publishers have induced Mr. Tuckerman to undertake the laborious yet genial task of colle6ling the leading fa6ls and details conne6led with the Progress of Paint- ing and Sculpture in this country, and the personal, or at least the professional history of our Artists. In this under- taking the author has incorporated, as the groundwork, his own brief Sketch of American Artist-Life, published some twenty years ago, and which was warmly welcomed by judi- cious critics at home and in England. Biographies of the pioneer Artists, and of those whose names and works are most familiar, are given more at length, and with special regard to authentic details of their chara6teristic works.
The limits of a single volume do not permit extended refer- ence to the works of all our younger Artists — and respe6l has been paid to the modest wishes of those who desire to accom- plish something more worthy of record before they are enrolled in our Art-Annals.
PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THIS WORK.
This work is essentially a Biographical History of Ameri- can Art ; the statistics, means, influences, obstacles, needs, and triumphs thereof are stated and discussed ; the past fa6ls, the pre'sent tendencies, and the future prospe6ls of Art among us are also suggested ; but the great feature of the work is its personal revelations. In many instances the author has enjoy- ed intimate relations with the artists he delineates ; and there- fore writes from his own observation and knowledge, which gives both value and vital interest to such memoirs as those of Greenough, Powers, Inman, Crawford, Clevenger, Brown, Leslie, Morse, Church, and many others. The account of Allston is by far the most complete ever written ; in that of Inman and Powers there are extra6ls from letters, and speci- mens of original verse ; numerous fresh and significant anec- dotes enliven the narrative ; — the several departments of Art are fully discussed, as Portraiture, in the chapters on Copley, Stuart, Page, and Elliot ; Landscape, in those devoted to Cole, Durand, Church, etc. ; Miniature, in the sketches of Malbone and Staigg ; Historical, under West, Trumbull, and Leutze ; Pano- ramic, under Vanderlyn ; and Plastic Art, in the memoirs of Greenough, Powers, Crawford, and Palmer. Among the other incidental subje6ls treated in conne6lion with these lives of American Artists, are Western Adventure, in relation to Deas, Bierstadt, Ranney, etc. ; Life in Italy, as experienced by Greenough, Crawford, Allston, etc. ; Enghsh Patronage, as enjoyed by West and Leslie ; Tropical and Ar6lic Excur- sions, associated with the paintings of Church and Bradford ; the contrasted influence of the Dusseldorf, French, and Italian schools ; — and interspersed with these interesting subje6lsj
X Plan and Ptirpose of this Work.
many anecdotes of Artist-Life, for the first time put on record by the author ; as, for instance, the experience of W. E. West, while portraying Lord Byron ; of Morse, while initiating the Ele6lric Telegraph ; of Chapman, in his early excursions about Rome ; of Palmer, in his humble youthful days ; of Clevenger, Akers, and Powers, in their first isolated struggles ; and of Elliot, in his acquisition and profitable use of a "Stuart" accidentally acquired, " whereby hangs a tale." The illustra- tions from travel and books ; the quotations from the best foreign and native art-critics ; the descriptions, dates, and local habitation of interesting works of Art, their chara6ler and history ; the fa6ls of the Real, and the requirements of the Ideal, are among the many themes and associations which give value and variety to the historical details and personal experiences recorded in this work, with fulness, authentic pre- cision, and earnest sympathy.
A recent liberal and judicious little treatise on Art, attrib- uted to. a foreign writer of acknowledged authority, contains the following remarks, which, by a pleasant coincidence, we find amply illustrated in this record and discussion of Ameri- can Artist-Life :
" Not by thinking about it will any one find out beauty ; but a sensibility that is weak may be strengthened, and one that is confused may be cleared and purified. Now, the way to make one's perceptions clear in Art is to consider carefully what Art is in general ; what is its obje6l ; under what con- ditions it works, and what may be expelled from it."
" There are standing controversies in Art, which are per- petually breaking out afresh : they take new forms with every new age, but they are essentially the same always. These violent dogmatic decisions crush and wither the timid likings of plain people, which might have developed into cultivated taste."
"The artist's capital is in himself; it is the gift of nature, and incommunicable. And what is this gift 1 It is the gift of joy. Will it not satisfy the artist that he should be reg-arded as one whom Nature has favored with a more elastic spirit than others } as one who, because he retains his fresh-
Plan and Purpose of this Work. xi
ness when others have lost it in cares and details, becomes a fountain of freshness to the community ? And if there is something sacred in the artist's intrinsic superiority, is there not also something sacred in his fLm6lion ? "*
The Publishers.
* Elementary Principles of Art. A LeSlure. Reprinted from McMillan's Magazine Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1S67.
INTRODUCTION.
ART IN AMERICA,
O one familiar with the Art of Europe, or even with the criticism thereof by eloquent modern writers, there may be little attradlion in the earlier produ6lions of pencil and chisel on this Continent ; yet liberal curiosity and humane sympathies will discover much significant interest in the fa6ls attending the dawn and progress of Art in America. The contrast between the stern exigencies of primitive civilization and the absorbing claims of a nascent polity and social development, with the initiation of what have ever proved the mature elements of culture and character, alone suggests a certain degree of romance and philosophy ; and when these elements gradually assume an historical interest, and prove the germs of a progressive taste and practice, they acquire no inconsiderable, though often indire6l, importance. Although a few portrait- painters have left traces of their vocation among the colonial relics anterior to 1700, such evidences of luxury are too few and ineffe6tive to deserve much notice ; and their rarity may be inferred from the fa6l that the artistic paraphernalia which a Scotchman, fifteen years after that date, possessed at Perth Amboy, N. J., made his studio as great a marvel to the scattered inhabitants as the cabinet of an astrologer. Cotton Mather, in his " Mag- nolia," speaking of the aversion of John Wilson to sit for his portrait, says : " Secretary Rowson introduced the limner " — showing there were limners in Boston in 1667.
The Colony now known as Rhode Island was the scene of our earli- est Art ; thither the benignly enterprising Berkeley had brought Smybert, whose pencil transmits the features of some of New England's fathers in Church and State, and a few of the belles of that day, and whose skill may be estimated by the first composite pi6lure ever executed here — that of his beloved patron and his companions, now in the Yale College Gallery. To
8' Art in America.
him, also, we are indebted for the only authentic portrait of Jonathan Ed- wards ; and it was his copy of a Cardinal by Vandyke, which gave Allston, then a Harvard student, his first ideas and pra6lice in colors. Next, in the heart of Pennsylvania, and in the bosom of a se6t remarkable for its in- difference to the beautiful as a means of refinement and pleasure, appeared Benjamin West, whose story is a household word ; — his boyish sketch of his sleeping brother — his slow encroachments on the prejudices of his neighbors — the interest he excited in Rome, as the pioneer American art- student, who compared the Apollo to a Mohawk warrior ; the royal patron- age he enjoyed in England — his signal ability in choosing subjects and in composition, and his inadequate power of expression — his integrity and kindliness — the encouragement he afforded his countrymen who came to London to become painters — his numerous and elaborate historical works — his serene and prosperous age, and his well-known " Christ Rejected " and " HeaHng the Sick," once so popular and still so endeared — make his benev- olent and venerable figure a genial obje6l in the foreground of our brief Art-history. Anterior to him, and entirely identified with colonial times, is Copley, through whom the brocade, buckles, velvet, powder, and other chara6teristics of an aristocratic and obsolete toilet, are associated with the old-fashioned dignity and formal self-possession of the eminent and the prosperous subjedls of Britain, who were the oracles of society in Pro- vincial America. Like West, he adventured notably in the historical sphere ; and his " Youth Rescued from a Shark," and " Death of Pierson," and of Chatham, are among the memorable engravings of that period.
Patience Wright soon after modelled cleverly in wax and clay, favored by Washington and Franklin ; Bembridge and Eraser were celebrities at the South ; Paul Revere, a mechanical genius of Boston, and among her earliest patriots ; Feke and Pratt had set up their easels here and there ; and Wilson Peale and Colonel Trumbull united the fame of soldiers and artists — the former having earliest delineated the Father of his Country, and the latter the features of our Revolutionary heroes and statesmen — otherwise in many instances now lost to our senses forever. And then came Gilbert Stuart, whose humble birthplace, a small farm-house at Narragansett, near the site of the snuff-mill erected by his father, a shrewd Scotchman, may still be seen. The vigor of his pencil, the strength and charafter of his coloring, his colloquial fame, his numerous invaluable family portraits, which are among the most prized heirlooms in America ; the racy anecdotes, the characteristic originality and force of the man ; his work and his ways, his talk and his partiality to the " pungent grains of titillating dust," once so copiously manufactured by his thrifty sire ; and especially his portrait of Washington, wherein the gentleman and the sage, the hero and the Christian, are so exquisitely combined and impres- sively embodied, — render his memory and his influence as an artist sahent and enduring.
Earle, Fulton, Dunlap, Williams, and Joseph Wright, are among those who simultaneously wrought in the same field ; and coincident therewith
Introdii6lion. 9
the visits of foreign artists, to depict or mould the features of those re- markable men who laid the foundation of our constitutional freedom, gave a fresh impulse and an enlarged sphere to the art previously illustrated by native talent.
Jarvis and Vanderlyn now became known to fame ; the stories of the 'brmer and his eccentricities are among the most amusing of Knicker- bocker reminiscences, and his portrait of " Perry at Lake Erie," authentic as a likeness, was long the admiration of ' hero-worshippers ; while the " Ariadne " of the latter was not only regarded as a miracle of beauty, but gave birth to an engraving from the burin of Durand, which threw the pre- vious labors of Edwin, Lawson, and Anderson, into the shade, and is still one of the most creditable specimens of the art, of native origin. Wilson, the ornithologist, soon after came to give the first impulse to the artistic illustration of Natural History, so nobly followed up by Audubon ; and an exquisite miniature painter, Malbone, while yet a youth, and, like Stuart, a native of Rhode Island, scattered precious gems of delicate portraiture from Massachusetts to South Carohna, and died at the zenith of his fame, by none more lamented than by Washington Allston, the sympathetic companion of his boyhood's rambles at Newport, and of his mature experi- mental studies in art. With the name of this great painter, painting- reached its acme of excellence among us. In genius, chara6ler, life, and feeling, he emulated the Itahan masters, partook of their spirit, and caught the mellow richness of their tints. Around his revered name cluster the most sele6l and gratifying associations of native art ; m each department he exhibited a mastery, as was emphatically acknowledged when a partial exhibition of his pi6lures was made in Boston thirty years ago. From an Alpine landscape, luminous with frosty atmosphere and sky-piercing mountains, to moonbeams flickering on a quiet stream — from grand Scriptural to delicate fairy figures — from rugged and solemn Jewish heads to the most ideal female conceptions — from " Jeremiah " to " Beatrice," and from " Miriam " to " Rosalie," every phase of mellow and transparent — almost magnetic color, graceful contours, deep expression, rich contrast of tints — the mature, satisfying, versatile triumph of pictorial art, as we have known and loved it in the Old World, then and there, justified the name of American Titian bestowed on Allston at Rome ; while the spirit- ual isolation and benignity, the instru6live and almost inspired discourse, the lofty ideal, the religious earnestness, even the lithe frame, large, ex- pressive eyes, and white, flowing locks of Allston, his chara6ler, his life, conversation, presence, and memory, proclaimed the great artist.
Nor, though our country's career in art is so brief, is he — comparatively ripe in years, fame, and achievement — the only highly-gifted and graciously influential native artist whose untimely departure we have been called to mourn. Newton, who alone rivalled Leslie in that delegable sphere of illustrative art for which Sterne, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Pope, and Irving have afforded memorable themes, died with too limited a bequest to the artistic treasures of two countries ; for years, miniature painting remained
10 Art in America.
among us as it was left by Malbone ; Henry Inman, than whom no votary of the pencil in America had more of the true traits of artist-genius, whose few refined and graceful compositions, and portraits of Wordsworth, Chalmers, Macaulay, and others, amply attest his skill and originality, was cut off in the prim.e of his years and his faculties ; Thomas Cole, a landscape painter, as truly alive to the significance of our scenery as a subjedl of art, as is Bryant as one of poetry, and who united graphic pow- ers with poetical feeling, had but just reached his meridian when he passed away. Horatio Greenough left a void not only in the thin rank of our sculptors, but among the foremost of Art's intelligent and eloquent advo- cates and expositors ; not soon will be forgotten his copious ideas, inde- pendent spirit, and genial fellowship ; no American artist has written more effe6lively of the claims and defe6ls of art-culture among us. The remark- able labors of Crawford, his consummate final achievement, his genius, assiduity, success, and early departure, are recent and famihar subjects of eulogy and regret. Deas, Doughty, Bartholomew, Cheney, W. E. West, one of the best delineators of Byron ; Van Bryck, Woodville, Glass, Dug- gan, Suydam, Furness, and other disciples of art, have swelled the obitu- ary, and left cherished memories and trophies. Such are a few of the names and the triumphs which the past affords ; for the most part incom- plete and casual indeed, yet not without precious results and delightful memories ; in some of these men we find the conservators of national fame through authentic portraiture, at a time and in a country when excellence therein was rare ; in others, was manifest a knowledge of art which guided and quickened aspiring students utterly destitute of educational means ; in some, the love of beauty, the moral sensibility and artistic perception glowed, and in all the love and the labors of art raised and propagated its principles and charms, then but imperfe6lly recognized, now so diffused and honored.
A hmited influence, but one not less valuable in the utter absence of artistic trophies, must have been exerted by Blackburn, through the few but highly-finished portraits he executed during a brief visit to the Eastern colonies ; the grace of his female heads and the beauty of the hands are remarkable. We can indeed trace the foreign element in amehorating the method and refining the taste in Art, until several years after the estab- lishment of Independence. The portraits of Pine and Robertson, best known as having delineated Washington and the statesmen of the Revo- lution, the profile miniature likenesses by Sharpless, the Danae of Wert- miiller, who passed several years, and finally died, in Delaware ; the en- thusiasm of the republican sculptor Ceracchi, who modelled the heads of Washington, Hamilton, and other American celebrities, and contemplated a grand historical statuary composition to commemorate the triumph of Liberty, and, at last, was beheaded for conspiring against the first Na- poleon ; the statue by Houdon, and the occasional visits of other and less famed, but comparatively accomplished foreign artists, gradually made the appliances and technicalities of the pursuit more familiar and accessible.
Introdiiflion. 1 1
During the French Revolution, many valuable works of the French, Italian, and Dutch schools found their way to America; within a few years some of the best pi6tures of the Dusseldorf and modern Parisian school have been exhibited here. American travelers in Europe have secured admirable copies of the most renowned works of the old masters, and foreigners or natives in our principal cities have, in several memora- ble instances, made colle6lions, some of English, others of French and German, American, or Italian pictures, so that there is now an opportu- nity for our artists, without going abroad, to become familiar with the finest exemplars of the limner's art. Whatever difference of opinion or taste may exist in regard to the comparative merits of the different schools, their produfts have made apparent to the least critical, the greater thoroughness of equipment and discipline which even moderate success demands of the artist in Europe ; while mediocrity and presump- tion have thus been reproved, true talent has received a new stimulus, the effe6l whereof is obvious in" the greater variety of subje6ls, and the more studious treatment in native art.
New^ York is nobly supplied with Hospitals and Libraries, but she lacks one Institution essential to a great civihzed metropolis, — a permanent free Gallery of Art. There is no safe and eligible place of deposit and exhibi- tion for pidlures and statuary. The many valuable works that formed the City Gallery, and were once gathered in the Park, long mouldered in a cellar ; among them w^ere the masterpieces of Vanderlyn and Cole. A few years ago, an enterprising merchant offered to place a large colle6lion of pi6lures, by the old masters, in any secure edifice, for the benefit of the pubhc ; but neither public munificence nor private enterprise would furnish the requisite shelter for these artistic exotics; and they now repose in the obscurity of lumber-rooms, Mr. J. J. Jarves brought a chronological se- le6lion of " old masters " from Italy, and sought a permanent home for them here in vain. Our native artists, toihng in their scattered ateliers, have no appropriate medium whereby their labors can be known to the public. It is not the custom here, as in Europe, for strangers to visit stu- dios uninvited ; accordingly, our artists, when they have a new pi6lure to dispose of, send it to a fashionable print-shop, and pay an exorbitant commission in case of sale.
The surprise and delight exhibited by the thousands of all degrees, who visited the Pi6ture Gallery of the Metropolitan Fair, has suggested to many, for the first time, and renewed in other minds more emphatically, the need, desirableness, and pradlicability of a permanent and free Gallery' of Art in our cities. The third metropohs of the civihzed world should not longer be without such a benign provision for and promoter of high civilization. Within the last few years the advance of pubHc taste and the increased recognition of art in this country, have been among the most interesting phenomena of the times. A score of eminent and original landscape painters have achieved the highest reputations ; private collec- tions of pictures have become a new social attra6tion ; exhibitions of works
12 Art ill America.
of art have grown lucrative and popular ; buildings expressly for studios have been cre6led ; sales of pictures by auction have produced unprece- dented sums of money ; art-shops are a delegable feature of Broadway ; artist-receptions are favorite reunions of the winter ; and a splendid edi- fice has been completed devoted to the Academy, and owing its erection to public munificence, — while a School of Design is in successful operation at the Cooper Institute. Nor is this all ; at Rome, Paris, Florence, and Dusseldorf, as well as at Chicago, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, there are native ateliers^ schools, or colle<5lions, the fame whereof has raised our national chara6ler and enhanced our intellectual resources as a people. These and many other fa6ls indicate, too plainly to be mistaken, that the time has come to establish permanent and stand- ard galleries of art, on the most liberal scale, in our large cities. Hereto- fore the absence of fire-proof buildings has prevented many Americans of wealth and taste from contributing to such institutions as include the Fine Arts in their objects. Not long since a fire occurred in Boston, whereby several invaluable historical portraits were destroyed, and the risk of such catastrophes deters prudential lovers of artistic treasures from indulging at once their public spirit and private taste, by presenting works of art to such institutions as already exist. No sooner did the New York Historical Society possess a fire-proof edifice than valuable donations began there to accumulate; the Nineveh marbles, the Egyptian museum, the Audubon collections, portraits, statues, and relics, were gratefully confided to this secure and ehgible institution. It was soon found inadequate as to space, and the late President, with some of the more enterprising members, ob- tained a charter from the Legislature for a museum of art and antiquities, to be ere6led in the Central Park, and open to the public, as are similar institutions in Europe. As a nucleus for the statuary department, the casts from Crawford's Roman studio are most appropriate and valua- ble ; they are already stored in the old Arsenal. It has been proposed that a permanent colle6lion of arms and trophies, such as have attrafted such crowds of delighted visitors at the Fair, should constitute another feature.
Already we have the munificent donation of Thomas J. Bryan, of his rare and costly gallery of pictures to the New York Historical Society. It numbers two hundred and fiftj' pictures, and is valued at one hundred thousand dollars. It is no casual gathering of odds and ends, such as may be brought together in any European capital by the mere expenditure of tasteless ambition. During many years of residence abroad, Mr. Bryan colle6led one after another of these interesting works. To him it was a labor of love. At Paris he enjoyed signal advantages ; and there are many exquisite specimens of the early French, Flemish and Italian schools in his gallery, such as are not now to be obtained at any price. As a colledion, it is remarkable for the number of small m.asterpieces — those gems which the amateur loves to hang in library, boudoir and salon^ and contemplate habitually, and with unsated relish. We remember pic-
Introdii6lion. 13
tures of Teniers, Ruysdael, Watteau, Wouvermax, etc., which discover new charms the more they are studied ; add to these the fine exemplars of Itahan masters, and several valuable historical portraits acquired in this country — such as a Washington, by Stuart — and Priestley and Jefferson, by Peale — and it is not easy to estimate the importance of such a colle6lion as the basis of a Metropolitan gallery. We remember when Mr. Bryan first brought his pi6lures to New York, that a call upon him was like visiting a venerable burgomaster of Holland, or a merchant-prince of Florence, in her palmy days. He had colle6ted his treasures in the second story of a private building on Broadway, and seated there, a vigilant and enamored aistode, in an old arm-chair, with his snow-white hair, gazing round the walls covered with mellow tints, dehcious figures, vivid or pi6luresque landscapes — chefs-d'ceuvre of pi6lo- rial art, hallowed and endeared by memorable names, — he seemed to be- long to another sphere, and we to have wandered from Babel to Elysium in thus entering his gallery' from busthng and garish Broadway. And now that he and others have bestowed art-treasures on our city, let u# appreciate the gift by making them the starting-point of an enterprise worthy of a cultivated people in a prosperous Republic, — a permanent and precious shrine and heritage of art, to honor, elevate and refine the pros- perous but perverted instincts of humanity, here and now, and modify the material tendencies of luxury and traffic by the presence of that truth and beauty which, accessible in daily life, are the most conservative of moral agencies, and the most inspiring means of popular culture.
To these auspicious indications of art-study, progress and taste, many others could be added, suggestive of the growing interest of the American public in the subje6l, and the more intelligent enterprise exercised in its behalf. W^e may cite, for instance, the free education, in elementary art, afforded by the benevolent founder of the Cooper Institute, in New York. Under the scientific training of Dr. Rimmer, and the effeftive co-opera- tion of many ladies of the city, poor women acquire skill in wood-engraving 30 as to obtain an honorable subsistence thereby ; others have developed superior capacity in plastic art, and become accompHshed in drawing and designing. The careful anatomical instruction of Dr. Rimmer initiates a thorough system of art-knowledge and pra6lice. Yale College has recently been endowed with an Art-fund, which wnll lead to pi6lorial exhibitions, a permanent gallery, and professional instru6lion. In Hartford, Conne6ticut, is a permanent art-exhibition, at the Wadsworth Gallery ; in Brooklyn, Long Island, an a6live and prosperous art-association, — and in Boston a tasteful and efficient art-club ; while, by the recent a6lion of Congress, each State of the Union has been invited to fill certain niches or spaces in the old House of Representatives, in the Capitol, at Washington, with two statues, one of each of its most distinguished men, civil and military. These and like projects and social arrangements promise a more judicious conservation of works of art, a better method of instruction, desirable practical results, wider sympathy, and somewhat of that national pride
14 Aft ift America.
and love, which, once freely enlisted in the cause of art, secures her pro- gress and prosperity.
The liberality of the citizens of New York has enabled the National Academy of Design to estabhsh a home and nursery of art, wherein the novice may find all needful facilities for study and pra6lice, the adept a secure and eligible exhibition hall for his work, .and the amateur a shrine and haunt for his favorite pursuit.
A characteristic letter of Dr. Franklin to Wilson Peale, dated London, July 4, 1771, prophesies the future prosperity, while it recognizes the a6l- ual precarious tenure of Art in America. " If I were to advise you," says the prudent philosopher, " it should be, by great industry and frugality to secure a competency; for, as your profession reqjiiires good eyes, and cannot so well be followed with spe6lacles, and, therefore, will not proba- bly afford subsistence so long as some other employments, you have a right to claim proportionally large rewards, while you continue able to exercise it to general satisfaftion. The Arts have always traveled w^est- ^ard ; and there is no doubt of their flourishing hereafter on our side of the Atlantic, as the number of wealthy inhabitants shall increase, who may be able and willing suitably to reward them ; since, from several in- stances, it appears that our people are not deficient in genius." Still the discouragements, at this period, were neither few nor small, even in the view of those who now seem to us to have achieved success. " You have come a great way to starve," said West to one of his subsequently eminent countrymen, who told him he had visited London to become an historical painter. " You had better learn to make shoes or dig potatoes," said Trumbull to another young aspirant, " than become a painter in this country." Indeed, the instances of genius to which Frankhn referred were chiefly mechanical and political. In the useful arts, the Americans seemed destined to excel ; in naval architecture, machinery, and states- manship, they had already, and have since continued to win distindlive honors ; the Patent Ofiice rather than Galleries of Art seemed the destined conservatory of national fame ; and it was only by slow degrees that the same alacrity and aptitude became manifest in the sphere of the beautiful which so early gained us prestige and promise in that of the pra6lical.
Isolated and itinerant, the votary of Art, in the latter years of our colo- nial and the first of our national existence, found his pursuit in America as capriciously remunerative as his education therefor was limited and accidental. West, to secure indispensable resources, had to reside abroad; and for many years he was not only the oracle, but, in the best sense, the ■ patron of those of his countrymen who aspired to the fame and the disci- pHne of Art. Peale, Trumbull, Sully, Fulton, Dunlap, Allston, Malbone, Morse, Leshe, and all our early painters, sought and found in him their patient teacher and most efficient friend. Their success, indeed, was long- dependent upon foreign, and especially English recognition. The primal impulse and resources of their career indicate how little encouragement or guidance hfe in America then yielded the student of Art ; and the same
Intro du6lio7i. 15
precarious aids are characleristic of the initiation of those who subse- quently adopted the vocation. Trumbull and Allston found in a copy of Vandyke, Malbone in scene-painting, and Cole in the sight of a traveling limner's apparatus, the first authentic hints of their chosen pursuit. Pat- ronage was also as diverse in the Old World as in the New ; no Royal Society awarded the prize to the young American at home, and, when a student in Rome, he found no national academy such as represents and fosters there the artistic culture of older countries. He looked to individ- uals for support, and the early and later history of American Art honorably identifies commercial success with tasteful liberality. Citizens of wealth or social influence almost invariably extended seasonable aid to the young and gifted in this career ; and in after years they gratefully trace their first success to the sympathy or beneficence of their prosperous countrymen. Cooper gave Greenough his first commission ; Longworth stretched out the right hand of hberal fellowship to Powers and scores of young West- ern artists ; Luman Reed first encouraged Cole and Durand ; the women of Kentucky sent Hart to Italy to model their great statesman, — and Leutze found his earliest encouragement in the personal interest and judicious orders of three American merchants. The artist, like the author, in America, finds his best and most legitimate sphere of work and honor in social rather than official life. It is true the exigencies of political routine or popular favor give rise to commissions. Portraits of municipal and military heroes are annually ordered ; but, with few exceptions, they are as uninspired in execution as they are uninteresting in subje6l. The whole history of what may be termed the conventional nurture of Art in America is as remarkable a contrast to the means thus employed in Europe as it is illustrative of the democratic tendencies of our professional, not less than our pohtical, life.
Local institutions for the encouragement of Art spring up and decline with the same facility as those associations designed for less permanent obje6ls ; yet, in several of our principal cities, there have been colle<5lions of pictures accessible to students and the public ; and with every succeed- ing year the facilities both for education and enjoyment in Art have in- creased. Peale, soon after the Revolutionary War, established his once famous Museum in Philadelphia, of which national portraits were the chief attraftion ; and that city now boasts of one of the most ehgible Art Acade- mies in the country. The Boston Athenaeum early commenced the ac- quisition of works of Art, some of which are invaluable trophies of native genius ; and the Trumbull Gallery at New Haven, Conne6licut, is full of interest ; while in many of the Western cities, annual exhibitions and pri- vate taste indicate the growth of interest in this once ignored and beautiful economy of life. In 1807, an Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in New York, under the auspices of Livingston, Clinton, Hosack, Fulton, Colden, and other prominent citizens, to which the first Napoleon sent casts from the antique and valuable engravings, and of which Colonel Trumbull was the first President. Negle<5l and controversy soon baffled
1 6 Art 171 America.
its usefulness and narrowed its means. Revived in 1816 by the advent of West's pidtures and Vanderlyn's " Ariadne," encouraged by the eloquent addresses of Clinton, Hosack, and Francis, and its practical utihty en- hanced by regular instru<5lion in anatomy, the opposition of cliques, and an unfortunate conflagration which destroyed the best part of its models and drawings in 1828, led to a reconstru6lion, of which the result was the National Academy of Design. Professor Morse, who had originated the earliest social organization of New York Artists, became the first President. The earliest professional art-anatomical le6lurer in New York thus describes the experiment : —
"The organization of the first association in this city, under the name of the 'New York Academy of Fine Arts,' was in i<goi. In i8o8, it re- ceived the act of incorporation under the name of the ' American Academy of Fine Arts,' and Chancellor Livingston was chosen President ; Colonel John Trumbull, Vice-President ; Dewitt Clinton, David Hosack, John R. Murray, Wilham Cutting, and Charles Wilkes, Directors. If we add the names of C. D. Colden, Edward Livingston, and Robert Fulton, we in- clude in this enumeration the leading New-Yorkers who, for years, were liberal in their patronage to promote the undertaking. Through the instrumentahty of the American Minister at the Court of France, Napoleon presented to the institution many valuable busts, antique statues, and rare prints. After several years of trial and neglecl, it was revived in 1816. Certain paintings of West, which for a time were added to its collections through the kindness of Robert Fulton, with the ' Ariadne ' of Vanderlyn, and other results of the easel of that distinguished artist, sustained it for a few years longer from dissolution ; while the several addresses of Clinton, Hosack, and Trumbull, gave it for a season additional popularity. At this particular crisis in the Academy, a measure long contemplated was at- tempted to be carried into effeft, viz., the organization of a School of Instru6lion, with models and leftures ; but the straitened condition of the Academy put a period to all plans cherished to prote^l its duration and increase its usefulness. With the downfall of the American Academy, the National Academy of Design took its rise about 1828. S. F. B. Morse, who has recently become so famous by his invention of the elec- tric telegraph, was elected President ; and the constitutional provisions of this association being far more acceptable to the feelings and views of a large majority of the artists than the old Academy favored, it has proved an eminently successful corporation, and has aided in numerous ways the promotion of its specified objeds, — the Arts of Design. The plan of Ana- tomical Leftures was now carried into effeft, and Morse, and Dr. F. G. King, gave instru6lion to numerous scholars for a succession of years. The devotion given to this institution by Thomas S. Cummings, in the instruftion he imparted to students of art in the hfe and antique school, also proved a source of gratification and improvement." *
•"Old New York."
Intro diL^lion. 17
The Apollo Association, the Sketch Club, and the Art-Union, repre- sented and promoted the Art-interests of the city. The latter institution is chara6leristic of the age ; it exhibits the alliance between luxury and work, society and culture — the fusion of interests and influences so pecu- liar to later civilization. It emphatically marks the era when Art, eman- cipated from the care of Kings and Popes, finds sustenance by alliance with commerce and the people. Originated by a French amateur, the Societe des Aifiis des Arts soon became a popular model. Artists are proverbially inexpert in affairs ; academies are proverbially jealous of their privileges ; and, therefore, the facilities which Art-Unions yield, both to the artists who desire an eligible market for their wares, and for purchasers whose tasteful enthusiasm outruns their means, were at once recognized and adopted. The Art-Union of Berlin was essentially pro- moted by Humboldt ; that of Bremen boasts a fine edifice ; in Prague, Vienna, and Diisseldorf, these institutions for the "purchase of pi6lures, to be disposed of by lot," have been remarkably efficient, both in develop- ing artistic talent and distributing works of merit. In London, a few years ago, the annual subscriptions reached a hundred thousand dollars. The American Art-Union was estabhshed in 1839, and, for ten years, was a most successful medium for the dire6l encouragement of native art; its income reached the sum mentioned as that of the London subscriptions ; it annually distributed from five hundred to more than a thousand works of Art ; it pubhshed a series of popular engravings from American pic- tures, and during several years issued a Bulletin, wherein much valuable criticism, a complete record of the artistic achievement of the country, and a large amount of interesting information as to the Art and Artists, of Europe, were embodied for immediate satisfadtion and future reference. Several American Artists, who have since achieved high and prosperous careers, were first substantially encouraged, and their claims made patent by the seasonable commissions of the Art-Union. After a brief period of eminent service, the institution was broken up, on account of the alleged violation its course offered to the lottery prohibitions of the State law. Perhaps it ceased at a time when its best work had been accomplished, •^.nd when American Art had acquired enough native impulse and self- reliance to flourish without such extraneous support ; but, in the retro- spe6l of our brief artistic annals, the Art-Union marks a period of fresh progress and assured prosperity.
Constant, indeed, though irregular, has been the increase of means, appliances, resources, and recognition, in native Art. From annual me- tropolitan, we have advanced to frequent exhibitions in every part of the land, — those held within a few years at Providence, R. I. ; Albany, Buffalo, Troy, and Utica, N. Y. ; Chicago, 111.; Baltimore, Md. ; Washington, D. C. ; Portland, Me.; Charleston, S. C. ; New Haven, Ct, and elsewhere, having brought together a surprising display of superior achievement in Art, the result of native talent or tasteful purchases of old and new foreign works.
Let us rejoice, also, that American Art has, at last, been recognized as
2
1 8 Art in America.
a fa6l abroad. A permanent group surrounded the " Greek Slave " at the Manchester Exhibition ; Crawford's equestrian statue of Washington was the admiration of Munich ; Leutze's departure from Diisseldorf is regret- ted as the loss of a leading spirit of its famous school ; Allston's pi6lures are among the most cherished in the noble colleftions in England; Story's " Cleopatra," and the landscapes of Church, Cropsey, and others, have won high critical encomiums in London.
At the late Fine Art Exhibitions in Antwerp and Brussels, several landscapes by American painters attra6led much attention. The Ameri- can Minister at Belgium, Mr, Sandford, writes that an artist of Brussels, of much merit and celebrity, declared the works of our artists there exhib- ited to be among the most chara6leristic of the ktnd ever brought to that city, and that admiring crowds were gathered around them at all hours. Hubbard's " Afternoon in Autumn " was especially regarded with appre- ciation, and Rogers's statuette groups, derived from incidents of the war, also attrafled great attention. At the Antwerp exhibition, one of Ken- sett's landscapes occupied the post of honor, and a noted pi6lure-dealer of that city has made a proposal to the artist to paint exclusively for that market, offering large prices as inducements fbr so doing. Pi6lures by GifFord, Hart, and others, were also favorably remarked upon.
" The American colleftion, as a whole, attra6ls attention, and has been very highly praised by the first artists of France," writes an intelligent critic of the Paris Exposition of 1867. "It is hardly possible to visit it without encountering some celebrity, and it is amusing to hear the surprise which is expressed at the progress which America is supposed to have made during the past two or three years — or since they knew there was such a country. Churches 'Niagara' is once more enjoying a career, and the 'Rainy Seasons in the Tropics,' with its double rainbow, has its admirers. The originality of this artist, more than his technical skill with the brush, entitles him to the leading position. The two pictures here exhibited illustrate the force and accuracy of a peculiar mode of observa- tion, and of a manner of composition which is quite free from the consid- eration of schools.
" Every nation thinks that it can paint landscape better than its neighbor ; but it is not every nation that goes about the task in a way pecuhar to itself. No one is likely to mistake an American landscape for the land- scape of any other country. It bears its nationality upon its face smilingly. The poetic repose of Gifford is exquisitely presented in his ' Twilight on Mount Hunter,' one of the finest pi6lures in the colle6tion. Winslow Homer's strongly defined war-sketches are examined with much curiosity, especially the well-known canvas, 'Prisoners to the Front' Hunting- don's ' Republican Court ' is in a good place, and is generally surrounded by a crowd. It is not often that so many pretty women can be seen together as in this graceful imagining of an impossible event. Eastman Johnson exhibits four canvases, all of them too well known to need par- ticular reference. There are not many ^^«r^ pi6lures in the Exposition
Introdu6lion. 19
that excel these. They have the merit, too, of being true and faithful transcripts of American life, or of a phase of it which, as it has now passed away, can only be recalled by the pencil of the artist."
Of private colledions, some of which were kept together but a few years, and others, which are still the source of great and instru6live enjoy- ment to our citizens, may be mentioned those of Gilmore and Walters, of Baltimore ; Meade, Snider, Towne, Carey, Fales, and Harrison, of Philadel- phia; Hosack, Hone, Reed, Leupp, Cozzens, Lenox, Roberts, Stuart, Os- born, Olyphant, Nye, Bryan, Boker, Hunter, Belmont, Aspinwall, Johnston, Blodgett, and others, of New York ; Corcoran, of Washington ; Shoen- berger, of Pittsburgh ; Longworth, of Cincinnati, etc., etc'
"In the history of certain races of mankind it is related," said Bryant, (when the corner-stone of the New York Academy of Design* was laid, 06lober 19th, 1863), "that in the earlier stages of their civilization they led a wandering life, dwelling in tents, migrating from place to place, and pasturing their herds wherever the glitter of cool waters or the verdure of fresh grass attrafted them. As they made one advance after another in the arts of life, and grew numerous from year to year, they began to dwell in fixed habitations, to parcel out the soil by metes and bounds, to gather themselves into villages and to build cities. So it has been with this Academy. For more than a third of a century it had a nomadic existence, pitching its tent, now here and now there, as convenience might dictate, but never possessing a permanent seat. It is at last enabled, through the munificence of the citizens of New York — a munificence worthy of the greatness of our capital and most honorable to the chara<5ler of those who inhabit it — to ere6l a building suitable for its purposes and in some degree commensurate with the greatness of its obje6ls. It no longer leads a pre- carious life ; the generosity of its friends ensures it an existence which will endure as long as this city shall remain the seat of a mighty com- merce. When this institution came into existence I could count the eminent artists of the country on my fingers. Now, what man among us is able to enumerate all the clever men in the United States who have devoted the efforts of their genius to the Fine Arts ? For a taste so widely diffused we must have edifices of ample dimensions and' imposing architedhire, dedicated to that purpose alone, and one such we shall pos- sess hereafter in the Temple of Art whose corner-stone we are this day assembled to lay."
♦The Academy is one of the finest buildings in the city. It consists of three stories and a base- ment. The main front extends along Twenty-third street for eighty feet, and the side front has a depth of one hundrel feet on Fourth avenue. Both faces are of white Westchester county marble banded with North river graywacke stone, except the basement, which is of gray Hastings marble, banded with graywacke, and the third story, which shows a capricious and beautifiil blending of white and gray marble. The external decorations of the building are rich but simple. There is a fine flight of steps on the Twenty- third street front, and a portico, the ornamentation of which is in the highest arid most expensive style of carving and statuar>\ The style is like the famed Ducal palace at Venice
Tlie building and ground cost about two hundred thousand dollars — most of which has been con- tributed by our wealthy citizens, lovers of art. The basement story is for the necessary offices, and the upper .stories for exhibition, le<5ture, and school-room.
20 Art in America.
The increased value of Art, as a commodity, and of its appreciation as an element of luxury, if not of culture, is evinced by the statistics of the Pi6lure trade in the commercial metropolis. Twenty- five years ago and less, what were called the " old masters " occasionally had purchasers among us ; but so few were those who took any interest in, and professed any taste for, works of art, that they formed a very small and exceptional class. A person known as "old Paff" sold more pi6lures than any other dealer ; he was an eccentric man, and his place of business was where the Astor House now stands. Paff, we are told, always had something new in the old line. " Ah, Mr. Reed," said he, to one of the most liberal and discriminating of the early friends of American art, in New York, " der is a gem for you, but I don't think I sell it to you. I "Was cleaning a land- scape I bought at auction, and I cleaned one corner a leetle hard and I thought I saw something underneath, and sure enough, some one has stolen an old master in Italy, and painted a landscape over it to prevent detedlion, and now I have him. I don' t know, but I think it is a Correg- gio. I sell him now for one t'ousan' dollar. But come to-morrow." Well, he came to-morrow, and the pi6lure was all cleaned and varnished, with a nice glass in front. " Ah, Mr. Reed, I can't sell him for one t'ousan' ; it is a fine Vandyke, here is the original engraving of it ; no doubt about it. I must have five t'ousan' dollars for it." Then came old Aaron Levy, whose evening au6lion sales are remembered by a few of our older citizens. These were the predecessors of Leeds & Co. Soon after they commenced the occasional public sale of pi6tures, an eminent merchant of the city re- marked to the senior member of the firm one day, that he had done a very foolish thing, and was ashamed of having thrown away thirty-five dollars for a pi6lure ; the same gentleman, however, died leaving ten thousand dollars' worth of paintings. One of the earliest consignments from Italy, received by Leeds & Co., was a colledlion of pi6lures belonging to the estate of Cardinal Fesch ; he gave a standing order to his faftor, to pur- chase any pi6ture offered for sale at four scudi — expe6ting to find some valuable works in the mass thus collefted, v/hich he had examined, every now and then, by an expert. The experiment was successful ; several rare and precious works were thus obtained ; doubtless, in some instances, they had been stolen. In the spring of 1839, in the old Academy galleries was exhibited one of the finest colle6lions of pi6tures ever brought to this country, known as the "Abraham colle6lion." It was said that the pi6lures were entrusted to him to be cleaned, and were removed here. Among them were a fine Claude and Murillo. The exhibition was stopped by a law process, and the reputed owner incarcerated ; subsequently a com- promise was effe6led. He left in this country an original miniature por- trait of Oliver Cromwell, by Cooper.* The four hundred pidures from the Fesch Gallery were sold by Leeds & Co., eighteen years ago, at the rate of from two to two hundred and fifty dollars each ; one was bought
♦ Annals of the National Academy of Design.
IntrodvMion. 2 1
for six dollars and a half; the purchaser took it, with others, to New Orleans, and among them was one a connoisseur evinced great anxiety to buy, which excited the hopes of the owner ; it proved to be a Correggio — was purchased for three thousand dollars, and taken to England, where a nobleman bought it for two thousand guineas. American Art was then in its infancy ; but Vanderlyn and others had already obtained high prices ; and gradually a taste for foreign modern art sprang up. And this was a great benefit to our artists, as it made pictures better known and more interesting to the people than they had ever been ; thenceforth the sales increased in number and pecuniary results. Leeds & Co., twenty years ago, sold seventy-five thousand dollars' worth of pi6lures annually ; fifteen years ago the amount of their sales was two hundred thousand dol- lars ; ten years since, three hundred and fifty thousand ; and from that time, every year, the demand and supply have constantly expanded. They have sold many American single pictures for five thousand dollars, — one by Bierstadt for seven thousand two hundred dollars. The sale of the Boker colle6lion of Diisseldorf pi6lures, and that of the Hunter colleftion of Italian, are comparatively recent. In December, 1863, they sold the pri- vate collection of Mr. John Wolfe, of New York, for over one hundred and eleven thousand dollars, which was then considered the largest and best sale ever made in this country. Many of their sales range from twenty to sixty thousand dollars ; those made gratuitously for the Artists' Fund Society, for the last seven years, and consisting of pi6lures contributed by the artists for a charity fund for the bereaved famihes of their comrades, have averaged from three to eight thousand dollars. One of the most re- markable of their sales of American pi6lures was held the present year, and consisted of small works (from eight to ten and twelve inches) ; many of them, however, highly finished and chara6leristic : one hundred in num- ber, they brought twenty thousand dollars ; and one, a small head of Elliot painted by himself, eight hundred. These fa6ls might be indefinitely multipHed : it is enough to add that Leeds & Co., after leaving their dingy au6lion room in Nassau street for the Diisseldorf Gallery, have been obliged, by the extent and popularity of this once utterly neglefted branch of business, to open an elegant permanent Art GaUery in the upper part of Broadway, for the exhibition and sale of pi6lures, — which is a favorite place of resort, and the frequent scene of amusing competition between rival purchasers of an " old master," a modern European gem, or the work of a favorite American artist. The " International Art-Institution," in New York, distributes works of the best German artists. For several years two foreign houses in New York have been largely engaged in the importation and sale of modern European piftures ; and some idea of the amount ex- pended for such works maybe inferred from the fa6l that, during the past year, 1866-7, Goupil & Co. disposed of pi6lures by such ardsts as Auchen- bach, Bouguereau, Frere, Fichel, Gerome, Meissonier, Merle, Troyon, Wil- lems, etc., amounting in the aggregate to three hundred thousand dollars.' Within a few years past, American artists, especially painters, have, in
22 Art in America.
many instances, been remunerate'd for their labor far beyond its a6lual mar- ket value, if we take European prices as a standard. One cause of this is the sudden prosperity of an imperfedly educated class, who, with little discrimination,'and as a matter of fashion, devote a portion of their newly acquired riches to the purchase of piftures ; and as our artists have of late established a certain social prestige, friendly influences are not wanting to secure their liberal patronage. In fa6t, the entire relation of Art to the public has changed within the last ten years : its products are a more familiar commodity ; studio-buildings, artist-receptions, au6lion sales of special produ6lions, the influence of the press, constant exhibitions, and the popularity of certain foreign and native painters, to say nothing of the multipHcation of copies, the brisk trade in •' old masters," the increase of travel securing a vast interchange of artistic produfls — these and many other circumstances have greatly increased the mercantile and social impor- tance of Art. Where there is absolute talent and consistent industry, the vocation is no longer precarious ; and among the many contrasts which the enlightenment and prosperity of our country offer to refleflive observ- ation, there is none more striking than that between the early and isolated struggles, and the aftual appreciation and success, of the genuine artist in America.
It is remarkable how many American artists were originally apt in, or dependent upon, mechanical skill. Peale and Powers, Durand and Palmer, Chapman and Kensett, were disciplined for pi6lorial or plastic work by the finer process of workmanship in machinery, watchmaking, carving, or engraving. Another chara6teristic is their versatility of talent. Allston, Leslie, Greenough, Cole, Akers, Story, and many other American artists, are endeared or admired as writers. We find also, in their respe6live traits, something kindred, however inferior, to the special excellences of " old masters," or modern transatlantic artists : Allston was called the American Titian at Rome ; and Page and Gray assimilate to that peerless master of color ; there is a Moreland vein in Mount's happiest concep- tions : somewhat of Hogarth and Wiikie in Darley : Inman at his best has been compared to Lawrence, and Boughton, Hunt, and Staigg to Frere. It was admitted a few years since at Rome, that the best modern copy of the Beatrice came from the pencil of Cephas G. Thompson, and the best re- produ6lion of a Claude sunset from that of George L. Brown. We thus often recognize in the crude efforts of American limners a true vein of tra- ditional art, and feel that, under favorable circumstances, it might have developed into completeness and chara6ler, instead of flitting across the dream of youth, and awaking the sigh of patriotic contemplation at its casual aspe6l and evanescent life.
Another obvious characteristic of our artists, as a body, and viewed in comparison with those of Europe, is the inequality of their productions. Abroad we are accustomed to recognize a different manner, as it is termed, in the works of painters, according to the epoch, from Raphael to Wiikie, Two classes of pictures, two kinds or degrees of style, identify different
Intro dii6lio7i. 25
periods of the artistic career ; but in America the variations of abihty or merit in the results of individual art are unparalleled. We can sometimes hardly reahze that the same hand is responsible for the various works attrib- uted thereto, so wide is the interval between crudity and finish, expres- sion and indifference, between the best and worst pi<?tures : so many are experimental in their work, so few regularly progressive. The imperfedl training, the pressure of necessity, the hurry and bustle of life, the absence of a just and firm critical influence, and a carelessness which scorns pains- taking as a habit, and is only temporarily corre6led by the intervention of some happy moment of inspiration and high encouragement — are among the manifest causes of this remarkable inequality. Incomplete endowment, and " devotion to the immediate," explain these incongruities of artist-life and pra6lice in America. A " knack at catching a hkeness " has often been the whole capital of a popular limner, whose portraits, in many in- stances, are the sole memorials of endeared progenitors in family homes, and, as such, cherished despite the violations of drawing, and absurdities of color, apparent to the least pra6lised eye. In other cases there is a sense of color without knowledge of any other artistic requisite for a painter ; and by virtue of this one faculty or facility, the so-called artist will execute dazzling historical or allegorical ^orks, sometimes on a large scale, and find their exhibition in the rural distrifts amply remunerative. It not seldom happens, also, that a really skilled draughtsman and color- ist, whose best portraits are desei^vedly considered triumphs of skill or taste, \vill, for a certain time, and in certain places, and for special ends, tarn his art into a trade, dash off likenesses cheap and fast, fill his purse, and compromise his fame ; so that those only acquainted with his carefully executed works, upon encountering these im^promptu results of reckless thrift, will gaze incredulously, and perchance indignantly thereon.
What Lord Bacon says of the pursuit of learning is often applicable here to that of art — temporary motives and unworthy compromise often degrad- ing the ideal and dwarfing the result: "Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisi- tive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and de- light ; sometimes, for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them, to a victory of wit and contradiftion, and most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men ; as if there were sought, in know- ledge, a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospe6l ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort of commanding ground, for strife and contention ; or a shop, for profit and ^ sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate."
It is evident that Art in America, as a social and aesthetic element, has formidable obstacles wherewith to contend ; the spirit of trade often de- grades its legitimate claims ; its thrifty, but ungifted votaries thereby
24 Art in America.
achieve a temporary and factitious success, while its conscientious and aspiring devotees often pine in negle6l. The lottery system, under different forms, and the "tricks of trade," still further materialize what should be an artistic standard ; criticism, so called, ranging from indiscriminate abuse to fulsome partiality, rarely yields instructive lessons ; fashion, ignorance, the necessity of subsistence, the absence of settled principles of judgment in the public, and of intelhgent method, scope, and aim in the artist, tend still further to lower and confuse the pursuit. But on the other hand, charity and patriotism, perseverance and progress, self-respe6l and earnest- ness, continually vindicate the character and claims of American artists. Among them are some noble men and refined associates, whose influence and example are singularly benign ; the war for th^ Union had no more disinterested volunteers, and the P^'o Patria inscribed on the pi6lures they contributed to the Sanitary Fair was the watchword of their copdu6l in that perilous time. Very true to their intuitions and special faculty, also, are many of our artists, working on in modest self-reliance, undeterred by vulgar abuse, cold indifference, or the temptation to compromise honest convi6lion and the higher claims of an intelle6lual profession.
Critical observers have a good opportunity to judge of the respeflive merits of the different foreign schools of painting, as far as initiatory dis- cipline is concerned, in comparing the American Hives of the Paris atelier^ the Diisseldorf professor, and the Italian academies ; while the works of our native painters, especially in landscape, who have never been abroad, offer another illustration of what may be called the educational system of Art. Accuracy and facility in drawing are generally conceded to the pupils of French artists, a rare knowledge of elementary principles of painting to those who faithfully improve the advantages of the best German schools ; and a certain bold adherence to nature, and fresh and firm grasp of her reahties, have been recognized as charafteristic of the best untravelled native limners.
It is a trite maxim, that Art, to be at all valuable or significant, must be true ; but there are many kinds and degrees of truth :. the literal truth of the Dutch, the suggestive truth of the English, the truth of sentiment of the Itahan, the technical truth of the French school In Egypt, the monumen- tal solemnity of Art, however enigmatical, is chara6leristic of a bygone civilization, and, therefore, of deep historical interest. In China, the very ugliness and mosaic imitation in Art is negatively eloquent of a stationary civilization. Greece, in her immortal types of beauty ; Etruria, with her graceful, massive, but limited forms and phases of Art ; the Nineveh mar- bles, the mediccval tapestry and carvings, the religious Art of Spain and Italy, the domestic scenes, which, from Gainsborough and Hogarth to Leslie and Wilkie, identify British Art, each and all are true, either to an epoch, a faith, a national taste, or a sentiment of humanity ; and yet how widely separated in merit, in interest, and in beauty ! Here, in America, as we have seen. Art long struggled against the tide of thrift, political excitement, and social ambition. The tranquillity, the individuality, the
IntroduHion. 25
pure and patient self-reliance and unworldliness, which is its native atmos- phere, have been and are alien to the tone and temper of our national life. But, on this very account, is the ministry of Art more needful and pre- cious ; and with all the critical depreciation which stri6l justice may de- mand, we find, in the record and the observation of artist-life in America, its association and its influence, a singular balm and blessing. Consider it, for instance, as manifest in our great commercial centre and metropohs.
Reader, did you ever spring into an omnibus at the head of Wall street, with a resolution to seek a more humanizing element of life than the hard struggle for pecuniary triumphs ? Did you ever come out of a Fifth avenue palace, your eyes wearied by a glare of bright and varied colors, your mind oppressed w^ith a nightmare of upholstery, and your conscience reproachful on account of an hour's idle gossip ? Did you ever w^alk up Broadway, soon after meridian, and look into the ston}-, haggard, or frivo- lous countenances of the throng, listen to the shouts of omnibus-drivers, mark the gaudy silks of bankrupts' wives, and lose yourself the while in a retrospe6live dream of country-life, or a sojourn in an old deserted city of Europe ? A reaction such as this is certain, at times, to occur in the mood of the dweller in the kaleidoscope of New York ; and as it is usually induced by an interval of leisure, w^e deem it a kindly hint to suggest where an antidote may be found for the bane, and how the imagination may be lured, at once, into a new sphere, and the heart refreshed by a less artificial and turbid phase of this mundane existence. Go and see the artists. They are scattered all over the metropolis : sometimes to be found in a lofty attic, at others in a hotel ; here over a shop, there in a back-parlor ; now in the old Dispensary, and again in the new University ; in Studio Building or Academy, isolated or in small groups, they live in their own fashion, ncft a few practising rigid and ingenious economies ; others nightly in elite circles or at sumptuous dinners ; some genially cra- dled in a domestic nest, and others philosophically forlorn in bacheloric solitude. But wherever found, there is a certain atmosphere of content, of independence, and of originality in their domiciles. I confess that the ease, the frankness, the sense of humor and of beauty I often discover in these artistic nooks, puts me quite out of conceit of prescriptive formali- ties. Our systematic and prosaic life ignores, indeed, scenes like these ; but the true artist is essentially the same everywhere — a child of nature, to whom "a thing of beauty is a joy forever; " and, therefore, a visit to the New York studios cannot fail to be suggestive and pleasing, if we only go thither, not in 5. critical, but in a sympathetic mood.
Even where we find no new and remarkable w^ork, there are sketches and figures that excite the most congenial reminiscences. To the traveler, who cherishes Italian memories, there is somewhat of the poetry of life in a " Beggar-Child," who looks as if he had just stepped out from an angle of the Piazza d'Espagna or the shadow of Trajan's Column, so much of the physiognomy and the magnetism of the clime are incarnated in form, com- plexion, attitude, eye, and expression. Equally suggestive are the Pifferini^
26 Art in America.
sure to be found in some studio, two of those pi6luresque figures that swarm in Rome at Christmas-time, and are indissolubly associated with her fetes, ruins, and shrines ; the elder leans against a church-wall, on which the half-obhterated ecclesiastical placard looks marvellously fami- Har ; his peaked and broad-brimmed hat set on his head in a way inimita- ble for its effe6l of shadow and grace, his luxuriant beard, velvet jacket, effeftive attitude, and meditative gaze, are precisely true to fa6t ; at his side nestles a boy, whose long tresses and large, pensive eyes, whose olive cheek and angelic smile remain indelibly stamped on the memory of all recent visitors to the Eternal City. We recognize in this beautiful urchin one of the " things of beauty," which the Enghsh poet, who died in Rome, has told us so truly, " is a joy forever ; " the pilgrim's instrument is at his feet. How come back to the heart, as we gaze, the dreaminess, the calm, the sunny lapse in life's struggle in which it was our privilege to revel, and is now our delight to remember, as the most peaceful and bril- liant episode of our days of foreign travel! These two figures," caught from the passive life of old Rome, typify it completely to the imagination, and touch the key-note of an ended song.
Not the successful and renowned alone reward our visit ; those who love and study art, but fail to achieve greatness therein, have a charm and a lesson for the catholic observer. From the busy limner, whose fresh array of pi6lures indicates that every passing hour brings its task, turn to a dreamer who hves in the past, because he is too ideal to clutch at the present. Yet if ever a man had the true artist-feeling, the genuine sense of beauty and poetic conscience, it is he. I know this from many a collo- quy with him while strolling along the sunny bank of the Arno, and through his acute and sympathetic comments in the Florence galleries. He used to make beautiful impromptu studies from Shakspeare. He has a keen perception of the humor and the sentiment of the poet, and could translate them daintily with pen or crayon. He is one of those artists who should live in Italy : the executive is subordinate in him to the imagi- native. I found him copying a portrait ; it was that of a genuine Itahan woman :
" Heart on her lips and soul within her eyes. Soft as her clime and sunny as her skies."
He was doing it for the love of the thing, wishing to preserve a memorial so chara6teristic. I remembered an old man's head, a Tuscan painter's beard, and other gleanings from that Southern land ; and there were books I knew at a glance came from a stall in the Piazza del Duomo, in Flor- ence. There he sat, intent on the fine outline of the handsome Itahan, contentedly touching her great orbs of jet with light, and tinting her softly-rounded oh ve cheeks to a Fornarina richness : the same reserved, quiet, and genial dreamer as years ago in Italy ; never satisfied with his achievements, full of sensibility to the claims and the triumphs of art, and apparently content to breathe the air made vital by its enchantments.
Introdu6lion. 27
It is ckara^er, as distinguished from vague imitation and inexpressive details, which is the conservative element in pi6lorial art, and conne6ls it with life, history, the affinities of individuals, and the sympathies of the race. Well says an English reviewer : " What we want is what Hogarth gave us — a representation of ourselves." So intimate, however unconsci- ous, is the relation of the artist's chara6ler to his work, that one discrim- inating in moral indications, reads, at a glance, the honest patience of the Fleming in his elaborate fruit-pieces and interiors, the gentleman in Van- dyke's portraits, the lover of aristocracy in Lawrence, the shadow of the Inquisition in Spagnoletto, and the saintliness of a holy mind in Fra Angelico, Applying this test to our American Art, we must feel that its grand deficiency is want of chara6ler; glimpses, prophecies, imperfe6l developments thereof we discover ; but as a general rule, not enough to suggest high independence or refined individualit3^ In truth, our art, like our life, is too subje6l to vicissitude and cosmopolitan influ- ences, too dependent on the market ; most of our artists paint to live, hoping, perhaps, the time may come when they may live to paint. Meantime, let us recognize whatever of truth and feeling redeems cur- rent Art.
Art is a language : followed to its legitimate significance, this definition affords at once a test and a suggestion of its chara6ler and possibihties ; for language is but the medium of ideas, the expression of sentiment — it may be purely imitative, or pregnant with individual meaning — it may breathe confusion or clearness, emotion or formality, the commonplace or the poetic. The first requisite for its use is to have soinething to say, and the next, to say it well. Now, unfortunately, few artists escape the tyranny of conventionalism or the lures of eclefticism ; they drudge too bhndly in the grooves of precedent, or they combine too many foreign to assimilate native elements — hence the monotony, mechanical, uninteresting, in Art. When a painter really expresses what is in him, and not what the public fiat approves, or famous limners have made manifest for ages, he is sure to be attended to if there is a spark of artistic genius or feehng in his nature. Ruskin, in his sweeping way, disapproved of the modern French school, finding only conventional merit and technical skill therein ; modest, pains-taking, ingenuous little Frere sends a picture to the London Exhi- bition— it is only that of a girl hanging up a chaplet ; but it told a story to every heart ; it was full of nature, truth, expression, and, therefore, more ostentatious pictures were neglefted, and every one hngered, and gazed, and admired, and sympathized over that simple conception, by virtue of that " one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin." Our peo- ple do not lack insight, observation, perseverance ; many of our young artists have a vein of perception or feeling which they long to express, and at the outset, they do express it — crudely, perhaps, but sincerely ; it is probably unrecognized ; they hear skilful execution praised, they find mechanical adepts- glorified, and so they turn aside from their own inspira- tion to follow the multitude ; they conform, and seek money, and forget
28 Art m America.
the dreams ot youth ; what was and is naive and original in them is over- laid and baffled.
And yet our atmosphere of Freedom, of material activity, of freshness and prosperity, should animate the manly artist. He has a vantage-ground here unknown in the Old World, and should work confidently therein for the reason given by Agassiz in regard to science — the absence of routine. Academic trammels, prescriptive patronage, the deference excited by great exemplars, do not here subdue the artist's aspirations, or make him de- spair of himself, or bewilder his ideal of excellence. However little our people know about Art, they are eminentl}> teachable. Point out what is admirable or expressive in a picture, and they will perceive, remember, and draw wisdom from it. Let the American artist 4nse above the national drawbacks, the love of gain and the conformity to public opinion — let him use wisely the resources around him, and be true to himself and he can achieve miracles. But so long as he mistakes notoriety for fame, and thinks more of dollars than his artistic conscience, his course must be stationary or retrograde. " To a true man," well says a recent writer, " fame is valu- able precisely as he can solemnly append to it his own signature."
Another disadvantage under which the American artist labors is the absence of a recognized standard, test, and ordeal, such as a prosperous school, well-endowed academy, or even a cosmopolitan gallery of pictures and statues, provides. There may be danger of slavish imitation at Rome and Florence, of local conformity at Diisseldorf, or mere technical progress at Paris ; but in each of these, and most of the other European cities, there are resources in the way of discipline and ideals of specific excellence, which continually guide aright, if they do not stimulate to high eflfort. These ample and accessible means, however hable to abuse, serve, at all events, as landmarks, examples, and precedents ; complacency with me- diocre success, glaring faults of execution, gross errors of taste, are thereby seasonably corre6led where there is the shghtest basis of good sense or the rudiments of genuine capacity.
In the New World, on the contrary, although admirable pictures and statues may be found in the large cities, and an adequate supply of the hterature of Art, they are not as accessible, nor do they find interpreters as readily as in Europe — so that the novice, unless remarkable for moral energy and zeal, is liable to be confirmed in pra6ligal faults or incongruous ideas before observation and study have hinted their existence. Hence, it is not uncommon to find crudity in some element, the effe6l of early disad- vantage, united to great excellence in other qualities ; defective drawing, for instance, with superior color, exa6l imitation of form and texture with false perspeftive — skill in the gradation of tints, with bad management of light and shade ; doubtless such anomahes are common to the votaries of art in all countries, and arise from incomplete endowments ; but they are more frequent and glaring here, because the correctives which acknow- ledged masterpieces supply are not so patent and perpetual; the eye that daily scans a perfect contour in the statue of the wayside, or an exquisite
Introdu6lion. 29
outline and tone in the altar-piece or family portrait always visible, is natu- rally quick to discern any great deviation from truth and nature in personal experiments with pencil and modelling-stick. In a word, the education of Art, partly unconscious and partly the result of earnest attention, derived from the constant presence of the best works, is, in a great measure, want- ing to our young artists. There is a singular identity in their experience : first, the indication of an aptitude and facility in imitating natural or arti- ficial objects, inexplicable on any but intuitive grounds, and exhibited, per- haps, under circumstances totally unsuggestive of Art ; then the encour- agement of friends, an over-estimate of the promise thus foreshadowed, an isolated practice, and, in some cases, marvellous stumbling onward, until some generous patron, lucky hit, or fashionable success, launches the flat- tered, confident, and not incapable, yet altogether uneducated disciple, into a career which, according to the strength or weakness of his character, will be a trade, a trick, a mechanical toil, an unmeaning facility, a patient advancement, or a triumph of genius. Sometimes the appreciation of a single great pi6lure, the word of a true artist, the inspiration of an exalted sentiment, have rescued the would-be artist from years of commonplace industry and mercenary toil, and placed him on the track of noble achieve- ment and conscientious self-devotion.
But we have only to mark the prevalent aims of American life, and analyze the spirit of our times and people, to feel how small the chances are that any such benign intervention will guide to fine issues, whatsoever of lofty and dehcate power lives in the awakening soul prompt to dedicate itself to Art. There is, first of all, pressing upon his senses and belea- guering his mind, the ideas of material success, whereby not only fortune, but wit, is measured in this prosperous land ; then, the fever and hurry bred by commerce, political strife, and social ambition, insensibly encroach upon artistic self-possession ; again, the ease with which notoriety may be gained through the press and personal amenity, and the obtuseness with which it is so often mistaken among us iox glory ; and, finally, the absence of that intelligent and enthusiastic sympathy, prompt to deteft the beautiful, em- phatic in vindicating the true, which encompassed the old painters with a vital atmosphere of encouragement, and animates the best modern artists of Germany and England, by the honors of a munificent patronage and national distinClion. Art springs from, and is modified, as before suggest- ed, by individual character to an unappreciated degree ; and this subtle, yet shaping element, is obviously more exposed to coarse and indurating processes here than in any other civilized land. In Europe we encounter at every step the artistic organization ; here it is exceptional. Where trade and pohtics, material luxury and utilitarian habitudes, overlay finer instinfts — where there is so much struggle, such devotion to the immediate, such faith in enterprise and assertion of selfhood — but small range is allowed for repose, observation, and sympathy ; and thus the refined sense, the delicate feeling, the keen insight, which chara6terize the genuine artist, have little vantage for development. What industry, shrewdness, and per-
30 Art m America.
tinacity can do, many effefl. There are painters of rapid execution and social ta6l that make money; but few who have the "vision and the faculty divine," few who are prompted by disinterested enthusiasm, whose tone of mind, force of chara6ler, natural affinities, draw them inevitably into the sphere of form and color as a native element for their aftivity and happi- ness ; the will is more prominent in the exercise of art here than the imagination and the affe6lions ; the spirit in which most of our artists work is that of trade rather than of poetry or exalted perception ; the con- scientiousness which secures accuracy, the observation which finds truth, the chastened mind and sympathetic feeling whence results har?nony, the ea7'nestness that consecrates work to a deep significance, are rare qualities among us ; but dexterity, confidence, a certain liVnited talent, a peculiar cleverness of manner or aptitude of execution, are the usual warrants for adopting a vocation once held to be justified only by high gifts or vast labor. Where do we behold that intense enjo)'Tnent in the use of color, which bred in the Venetian painters such brilliant triumphs ? Who, in this land of railroads and eleflions, stands apart rapt in solemn visions such as absorbed of old a Durer or an Angelo ? What vigils are kept here over casual effecls of light and shade, whence Rembrandt caught the secret of chiar'oscuro f Who studies reverently a masterpiece — not to imitate its execution, but to catch the spirit in which it was conceived ? How seldom do we find any cognizance of the more delicate phenomena of clouds, foliage, sunshine, and wind, in our walks and talks with those who profess to refledl nature on canvas !
To muse of a fa6l which transpires in the quiet workings of air and vege- tation ; to penetrate, with entranced vision, the true meaning of a human countenance ; to foster a spiritual alliance with humanity and the outward world, so as to wrest their secrets and reproduce their intimate charms as only the inspiration of love and wisdom can — how incongruous do such mental tastes, such ideal tasks, appear in this our practical and busy land ! And yet, it was by a study of character approaching to psycho- logical insight, by a familiarity with nature, such as only patient love in- sures ; a sympathy with human life, as genuine as the afFe<5lion of kindred ; a relation with beauty, as real as consanguinity itself — that enabled Van- dyke and Murillo, Claude and Leonardo, to seize upon and express truth in Art ; having acquired the vocabulary, they vitalized it with sentiment ; and were, as men, possessed of the unity, energy, and susceptibility they embodied as painters.
Art, like everything else here, is in a transition state. A few years ago, uponlfentering the dwelling of a prosperous citizen, even in some isolated distrift or minor town, who boasted the refinements of an educated ances- try, we found a full-length portrait by Copley, stiff, gorgeous, handsome, but official in costume and aspect ; or a vigorous old head by Stuart, full of charafter and magnificent in color ; or one of those sweet, dignified little pastel profiles of Sharpless, wherein the moral dignity of our Revolu- tionary statesmen seems gently incarnated ; now, in addition to these
httrodu6lion. 3 1
quaint relics, a landscape by Doughty, Cole, Kensett, Church, Bierstadt, or Durand, 3. genre piece by Eastman Johnson, a bust by Crawford, Pow- ers, or Palmer, or a group by Rogers, some specimen of the modern continental schools, with a good copy of Raphael, Domenichino, or Guide — indicate a larger sympathy and a more versatile taste. In the cities, this increase of works of art as household ornaments is remarkable ; a European amateur lately purchased in the United States old pi6lures to the value of thirty thousand dollars, to re-transport across the Atlantic ; while many gems are scattered through the sumptuous abodes of wealth and fashion throughout the land, and in each metropolis a rare picture or new piece of native statuary is constantly exhibited, discussed by the press, and admired by the people. European travel, the writings of Art-com- mentators, clubs, and academies, the charming or tragic biographies of artists, le6lures, more discrimination in archite6lure, a love of colle6ling standard engravings, the reciprocal influence in society of artists and ama- teurs, and their friendly cooperation ; these, and such as these, are among the striking means and evidences of progressive intelligence and sympathy among us in regard to Art— her trophies, principles, and votaries.
There are two methods of arriving at the philosophy of this subject : analyzing the endowments, the development of which gives birth to Art, and tracing its external history, or the conditions which have fostered and secured that development. It is evident that from the very origin to the culmination of Sculpture in Greece, and of Painting in Italy, while execu- tive skill was gradually acquired through minute and patient observation and faithful pra6lice, the vital expression which has conserved through ages, and hallowed to universal admiration the great exemplars in both these spheres of culture and creation, was born of sentiment — the love of Beauty and the consecration of Religion ; these linked the produ6l of Art to the popular apprehension and love, — gave it an absolute and pro- found significance, by virtue of which the artist was perpetually inspired. If Byzantine form and color initiated the Italian limner into the elements, Worship kindled those mechanical agents into life ; the Church and the State, the Rulers and the People, Faith and PubHc Spirit, combined to give an impulse and an aim to the old masters, which elicited and defined their original proclivities, and lifted their scope far above mere selfish ambition and personal ends. Those primitive mosaics in the old churches of the Peninsula, which we gaze upon with curious wonder, rudely shaped upon dome and arch— the sacred figure of the Virgin, or the holy symbol of the Cross — though coarsely imitative, were then of vast import. Cimabue at first drew animals and faces at school, and found the shep- herd Giotto's eyes busy with tracing, instead of vigilant of his flock — just as West sketched the slumbering child with a brush made of a cat's hair, and as Powers, in an isolated Western town, moulded wax effigies. Original instin6t was the same ; but, in the former, how soon the tenden- cy or talent, thus spontaneously manifest, became an occasion of sympa- thy and encouragement to princes and citizens, a means of social welfare,
32 A7't in America.
an interest allied to the most exalted aspirations of humanity! Soon, thus warmed and purified, the stiif outline beamed with divine meanings the constrained style grew free, tenderness softened, and humility or love elevated, the countenance of Christ, Madonna, Angel, Saint, or Child, so that it is easy to trace from Cimabue to Perugino, and thence to Raphael, through the long intermediate succession of painters, the growing beauty, grace, and power, which the latter's pencil consummated for all time. How much less dire6t and more complex are the social influences which now environ the artist ! What isolation, vagueness, caprice, and super- ficial motives, a6l upon him in comparison ! The dominant ideas then were few, but concentrated ; analysis had not broken up the freshness and diffused the power of Belief; Civilization - had^ not complicated the interests and diversified the obje6ls of human life ; the soldier, the priest, the statesman, the poet, stood forth with unchallenged individuality ; society had not invaded the mystic unity of nature ; there was room and reason for reverence, enthusiasm, and ideality, in their integrity ; and so it was, that to work in the domain of Art had a recognized grandeur, a per- manent end, an immediate appeal to heart and eye, to mind and national pride, which have infinitely subsided with the triumphs of knowledge, trade, comfort, and even political freedom, by raising the average of mate- rial well-being, and denuding the arrangements and fun6lions of govern- ment and religion of the sentiment and pi(5luresqueness which made them splendid realities to sense and soul, if not to reason and will. According- ly the artist of old strove for complete equipment ; the great painters could model and design as well as draw and color. Giotto designed the exquisite " Campanile : " Michael Angelo left as memorable archite6lural as pi6lorial and sculptured trophies. What the news of a vi6lory is to Paris, or the success of a party election to New York, was the advent of a new work of artistic genius to Florence and Rome. So vehement were the plaudits which attended the unveiling of Cimabue's " Madonna," that the place thenceforth was called Borgo cTAllegri ; and the years of toil which Ghiberti devoted to the bronze gates of the Baptistery gained him forever the title of pubhc benefactor ; illustrious painters were named from their birthplace, so entwined was the triumph of their art with national pride. Fra Angehco prayed before he seized the brush, as one conse- crated to a religious vocation ; Fra Bartolomeo was the friend of Savona- rola, to Lorenzo and Leo X. Art enterprise was among the most im- portant interests of private feeling and public administration. The study of Plato, at the revival of learning, recalled the claims of " the antique " as a means of culture and standard of taste, so that, in Padua, classic knowledge, while it found a shrine in the University, guided the students of Art at the Academy ; cities were as much identified by schools of paint- ing as by the Courts that ruled, the Trades that enriched, or the Wars that signahzed them. Rome, Venice, and Parma gloried in Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, as much as in the princes, warriors, and scholars, who ennobled their annals. How readily arrogant Pope Julius forgave
Introdu6lion. 33
Michael Angelo ! How tenderly Francis I. watched over the infirm Leo- nardo Da Vinci ! The Emperor Charles venerated Titian, and Correggic was one of the few sele6l witnesses to his sovereign's marriage ; while Raphael was the intimate companion of the leaders in church, state, learning, and society, of the Capital of Christendom. These and innume- rable other fa6ls illustrate how, in the palmy days of Italian Art, her most gifted disciples were in the nearest relation to the most effe6live social agencies of their age — those of chara6ler, of position, and of popular feel- ing. In a high sense they were representative men — the expositors of the deepest sentiment of their time, of what was most patriotic and poetical, most holy and most influential ; they gave " a local habitation " to the dreams of faith, a living resemblance to the obje6ls of worship, a visible embodiment to the resignation, the hope, the martyrdom, the saintHness, the ecstasy, the remorse, the sacrifice, the beatitude, the miracle, the repentance, the divine love, which then and there warmed, raised, melted, revived, purified, and consecrated humanity — in its sorrows, aspirations, and " longings after immortality."
Being thus an element and not an accident — a flowering, and not a graft — of human life and economy, we perceive how and why a natural aptitude was cherished, quickened, expanded, raised, and, as it were, in- spired,— the outward circumstances, the living atmosphere, coalescing with the inward purpose and ability, and thus lifting them to a plane of earnest strife towards perfe6lion, concentrating the will by a heartfelt zeal, and fusing individual purpose with universal sympathy. How isolated is the artist of to-day in comparison ! Even in Paris, political prejudices cast out the followers of David from the kindly recognition of the romantic in- novators : and, later still, Ary Scheflfer, and Delaroche, because they would not acknowledge an Imperial usurper, were unsustained by national encouragement. Even the successful English painters subsist on a casual, though noble patronage, in their works as in their lives illustrating the limited range even of a triumphant specialty in Art ; while here in Ameri- ca, despite a few scattered fraternities, more convivial and benevolent than artistic, the painter and the sculptor, for the most part, work apart ; follow, perhaps industriously, a branch of the most liberal of all pursuits in a spirit of meritorious patience, with precarious reward, spasmodic success, and incomplete results.
The effe6t of these adverse influences is, not to extinguish the love or to quell the talent for Art, but to limit the development of both among us.. Indeed, a somewhat remarkable interest in the subje6l prevails ; a piano is found in dwelhngs on the extreme line of civilization ; the mechanical processes, which imitate and preserve features and scenes, are universally aftive ; nowhere is the daguerreotype, photography, wood, steel, and mez- zotint engraving more subservient to popular uses ; singers and instru- mental performers reap golden harvests ; vast quantities of music are sold ; pictorial exhibitions attra6l all classes ; our journals abound with glowing tributes to native genius, which springs up unexpe6ledly in re.-
3
34 Art in America.
mote quarters. Fashion annually extends her capricious hand, in our large cities, to some fortunate limner to whom " everybody sits ; " hun- dreds of painters among us can execute a likeness which no one ever mistakes ; to run the fingers over ivory keys with superficial dexterity, to sketch a little from nature, to own a tolerable landscape or engraving, to read Ruskin and Mrs. Jameson, and buy " old masters "at auction for a song, are among the most common of our social phenomena. The stereo- scope is a familiar drawing-room pastime ; Art-unions and picture-raffles, the eclat of a new or the purchase of an old painting. Art-criticism. Art- clubs, Art-journals, are no longer novelties. But while a superficial ob^ server might infer from these " signs of the times " an auspicious future for Art in America, and while they undoubtedly evince a tendency in the right dire6lion — when we consider that, justly regarded, this great means of culture and sphere of genius is positively degraded by mediocri- ty— that it is sacred to Beauty, Truth, and high significance, moral and intellectual, and, therefore, absolutely demands accuracy, harmony, power, grace, purity, expression, and individuality, as normal attributes ; and re- member how much more these are the exceptions than the rule — to what a complacent level, to what an exclusive mechanical facility and economi- cal spirit, the feeling for, and pra6lice of Art is often reduced among us — these indications of a superficial recognition of its claims must be taken with allowance. The instin6live aptitude, the normal love, exist in abun- dance ; but only occasionally are they intensified into lofty achievement or elevated into a legitimate standard of taste. The caricatures in "Punch," the rude " counterfeit presentment " of a popular statesman, the wooden filigree of an anomalous villa, the coarsely "illustrated" paper, delineating an event or a personage about which the town is occupied ; bank-bill vig- nettes, Ethiopian minstrels, and "the portrait of a gentleman," form the staple Art-language for the masses ; and, in all this, there is little to kin- dle aspiration, to refine the judgment, or to hint the infinite possibilities of Art. We have abundance of assiduous painters, who exhaust a town in a month in dehneations of its leading citizens, fill their purses, and inherit a crop of newspaper puffs ; but give no " local inhabitation or name " to any idea, principle, sentiment, or even rule of Art ; we have abundance of croaking artists, who dally with the pencil and moan over their poverty and negle6led genius ; there is no lack of prodigies of juve- nile talent, who never realize the prophecies that hailed their first at- tempts ; and in every city may be found stationary devotees of the palette, who, partly from indolence, partly from egotism, and not a little from dis- couragement, have settled down into a mannerism in which there is no vitality, and, therefore, no progress.
A single masterpiece of Art may be the produ6l of individual genius self-sustained ; indeed, we have many traditions and authentic histories of achievements wrought out under the most unpropitious circumstances and from the inspired energy born in isolated minds, like the miracles created in monastic solitude, captivity, and the lonely toil of enthusiasts. But
Intro du6lion. 35
when a grand succession of immortal conceptions signalizes an era or a nation, we can always trace the phenomenon to the coincidence of genius with the discipline and the ardor fostered by a dominant public sentiment or accepted faith.
But it is not alone a lack of enlightened public sympathy and extensive accesable resources for self-culture, against which the artist contends in America. The history of Government patronage, thus far, shows a lament- able ignorance and presumption in dealing with Art as a national interest ; only to a limited degree have men acquainted with the subje6l had a poten- tial voice in assigning commissions or regulating decorative work ; con- tra6ls have been secured in this, as in other departments, through local and personal influence, irrespective of capacity ; in more than one instance the higghng spirit of bargain, instead of the generous recognition of just claims, artistic and native, has been disgracefully exhibited ; men in power, wholly unversed in Art, have gratuitously pronounced the most superficial judgments, and aCted upon them to the detriment of the highest interests of the people and of native talent ; no single harmonized plan or principle has governed the adornment or extension of the Capitol, which, therefore, inevitably presents a most incongruous combination of good and bad effefts, commonplace and superior ornaments — archite6lural, statuesque, and pictorial — brought together in a desultory, casual manner ; and the achievements of as many different minds, schools, and degrees of capacity, as there are separate items in the record. Our representatives have mani- fested no perception of what is due either to Art or to her genuine votaries ; the former has been treated without a pardcle of feeling for its unities, its intrinsic significance, and its national claims ; and the latter, like so many pedlers, expe6led to compete with their wares and be favored according to their politics, diplomatic ta6l, local origin, or some other quahty or circum- stance apart from the only test and criterion applicable in the premises — ability to execute a noble, patriotic trust, and produce an indisputable artistic work.
There are, indeed, some exceptions to this programme ; there have been men of taste on Art Committees in Congress, and men of genius have left their sign-manual upon national commissions ; we do not forget what has been worthily accomplished ; but that the dire6lion of public works of Art, the appropriations of public money to this objefl, the distribution, sele6lion, and general administration of this high economy, have been, for the most part, ill-considered, inadequate, arbitrary, and tasteless, are fa6ls proved by the frequent and reasonable protests in the journals, by the cor- respondence of artists employed by the Government, by the visible results at Washington, and, finally, by the Convention held there before the War for the Union, expressly to obtain from Congress the appointment of a Board of Commissioners, to be formed of artists of recognized intelligence and impartiahty, to administer this negleCled and perverted interest. This movement, if wisely consummated, will be a propitious reform. If we turn from Government to private encouragement, we find that the latter inclines
36 Art i?t America. .
chiefly to foreign produ(51;s ; portraits alone are in constant demand from native studios ; men of wealth, observation, and travel, who aim at a col- Ie6lion of fine picftures, are usually devotees of the "old masters," or ad- mirers of the modern schools of England, Germany, and France ; and the most patriotic critic must admit that they often have ample reason for the preference, both as a matter of taste and as a judicious investment
As ornaments to a drawing-room or subje6ls of habitual contemplation, a first-rate copy of Raphael, Claude, or Leonardo, one of Landseer's ani- mal groups, a cattle-scene by Rosa Bonheur, a landscape by Auchenbach, a domestic, historical, or natural study by one of'those pains-taking, fresh, faithful, and feeling limners of Germany, France, or Belgium, specimens of whose skill and genial cleverness attradled so many admirers in New York during successive seasons — being absolutely " things of beauty," and, therefore, " a joy forever," appeal to the purse and eye of the judicious infinitely more than the average crude efforts of native art. On the other hand, the points of excellence in our artists, the things they are capable of doing well and have so done, have not been adequately estimated by their wealthy and tasteful countrymen. The few colledtors who, with indepen- dent and sympathetic taste, have seen and prized native ability in art, have been amply rewarded by securing many admirable landscapes, some few creditable ge7ire or historical pi6lures, really good ideal heads, or effe6live portraits, and exquisite pieces of sculpture, which mark the progress and vindicate the power of art among us. Enough is thus displayed to show that whoever, in the spirit of the best English patrons, will recognize genius, encourage its efforts, watch, with a fostering eye, its emanations, and generously provide for its success, will, in many instances, find a double recompense in the possession of works patiently and earnestly pro- duced, and in the consciousness of doing what the ignorant, the careless, and the prejudiced fail to do for the sensitive and aspiring, but often dis- couraged, and perhaps indignent artist, otherwise doomed to work only for bread, and feed the hope of excellence upon delusive dreams and baffled endeavor. The same causes which limit the patronage of art among us send its worthiest disciples to Rome, Paris, and Diisseldorf, where ample facilities, abundant sympathy, and the "honor" which never attends " a prophet in his own country," await the earnest student. Crawford and Leutze, Powers and Leslie, owe the best part of their acquired skill and their wide renown to means and influences, opportunities and encourage- ments, secured by expatriation to an atmosphere more congenial to Art than that of our externally prosperous, but socially material republic. Reputations are too easily made ; fashion, and the kind of arrangements which bespeak the mart and the stock company — the same machinery, in a word, that works such miracles in political and mercantile enterprise — are resorted to for the promotion of what, in its very nature, demands calm attention, gradual methods, a process and an impulse essentially thought- ful, earnest, and individual. These methods distribute and multiply pic- tures, but they lower the standard and vulgarize the taste ; they induce
Introdu6lion. 37
mediocrity, haste, and profit, rather than high and permanent rewards. That " Art is long " is scarcely proverbial among us ; literature and the liberal professions struggle with a like subservience of ends to means, a popular adaptation destruftive of satisfaClory progress ; such is the ten- dency of that devotion to the immediate which a French philosopher deems a law of repubhcan life. The consequence of this is, that enthusiasm is baffled, the ideal sacrificed, and only an evanescent advantage sought. Hence genuine artists, like Allston, prefer solitude and loyalty to their convi6tions, to fellowship and pubhc organizations ; they become ecle6lic, study a good pi6lure wherever they can find it, cultivate the most gifted and high-toned men and women they can meet, observe nature assiduously, work out the most difficult problems of their art unsustained by sympathy, and keep themselves from conta6l with associations which fail to elevate, cheer, or inspire a career thus forced into singularity.
As we wander through the Vatican, the Louvre, Hampton Court, or the Pitti Palace, it is not merely the trophies of a few great artists' skill we behold — but the dire6lion and triumph thereof as bred from the evolutions of history, the promptings of sympathy, the sentiment of religion, the representative ideas of government and society. Art in the concrete is national and historical — the offspring of many influences, alhed vitally to the convi6lions, the enterprise, the polity, the literature of its nativity. The grave poetry of the Teutonic mind breathes from Handel's oratorios ; the mystic supernaturalism of German philosophy in Beethoven's sym- phonies ; Gallic valor is refle6led from Vernet's canvas ; in the foundries of Munich, the Academy of Rome, the mosaics and bronzes of Pompeii, the dim frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, the dehcate tracery of the Alhambra, the shapes of Etruscan and the designs on Wedgwood ware, the cartoons of Raphael, the massive and muscular figures of Michael Angelo, the relievos of Cellini — in shaft, architrave, overture, outhne — whether classic, Roman, Moorish, Byzantine — in every form, tone, and hue of art sufficiently expressive or beautiful to have survived in human admiration— from a Sphinx half buried in Egyptian sands, to the contour of an infant's head in a Holy Family — there is a significant attestation, not onl}^ to what one artist executed, but to what many men and women be- lieved, desired, regretted, remembered, hoped, or felt. Accordingly the relation of Art to a country, a period, and a community, is no fanciful but an absolute element of its history. And when we contrast the popular tendencies, the national traits, the spirit of our life, institutions, and so- ciety, with those wherein the memorable fruits of chisel and pencil else- where have arisen, we find a diffusive material, a speculative and practical tone, which is infinitely more auspicious to the economy than to the ideal- ity of art, which ignores the profound interest, the universal appreciation, the national pride, the religious interest, and the munificent patronage, whereby art has so trkimphed and prevailed. So many other voices ap- peal, so many other interests divide, so much nearer to modern life is the pursuit of well-being under a political, commercial, and mechanical fr'gime,
38 Art ill America.
that this once-hallowecl avenue, through which the soul of the ages uttered itself and found universal response, has become narrower, sequestered, dear to few, reverenced only by sele6l intelligences, and its vast and beau- tiful possibilities rather a dream, like Tennyson's Palace of Art, than an a6\ual conservation of faculty and love.
There are two essential capabilities which seem to us alone to warrant that life-devotion to art, as a vocation, into which so many clever but un- disciplined minds so confidently rush ; these are a deep sense of the beau- tiful, and mechanical skill — the first being the inspiration and the second the alphabet or language of Art. It is for want of one of these attributes that we have so many medioci'-e artists, than which there is no position more melancholy to the eye of good sense and inteUe6lual re6Litude. The love of beauty is often mistaken for the ability to reproduce it ; and a cer- tain manual aptitude for color and modelhng is thought by the inex- perienced to justify the profession of painting and sculpture. In this country especially, where there are so few standards of judgment or pre- scribed ordeals in Art, a certain facility in drawing, a faculty of imitation rare enough to excite wonder, is hailed as prophetic of future triumph — and in many cases results in disappointment. On the other hand, a natural love of Art exhibits itself under circumstances quite unfavorable ; and the hasty inference is that a child of genius is born ; yet the feehng may bear no proportion to the power, and taste has been perhaps recog- nized as talent.
The habit of exaggerated praise and newspaper puffs — the conceit in- variably attendant upon the exercise of a faculty regarded by the ignorant as next to miraculous — the want of means to form a corre6l self-estimate — all tend to foster and confirm these pra6lical errors. We deem it, there- fore, the first duty of a lover of Art, in this country, to exercise discrimi- nation ; no man with the soul of a true artist is gratified with unmerited applause, or shrinks from a just analysis of his powers, or criticism of his works. We need especially more definite eulogiums, more measured com- mendation— the why and the wherefore of excellence and defe6l to be stated ; not the fulsome exaggeration of the one, nor the mahcious elabora- tion of the other. Let us approach a genuine work of art with love, but with a love that gives insight, which does not bhndly idohze, but intelli- gently appreciates.
For much as Art, in a broad view, is indebted to propitious external influences ; where these are unfavorable, a stern fidehty to one's sphere and intuitions, a brave though lonely crusade for truth, a patient, vigilant study and unwearied discipHne and experiment, constitute the most secure and honorable means of success. Thus, indeed, have all great artists toiled ; half of Raphael's short life was initiatory, and bred the knowledge and skill which subsequently embodied so perfe6lly the sentiment his pic- tures conserve. How little Wilkie owed to teachers ; how persevering the search of Turner for original effe6ls of color ; how must Claude have drunk in the serene hght of sunset ere his pencil gave it expression ;
Intro dii6lio7t. 39
not a master line of Leonardo but grew slowly out of mathematical prac- tice ; not even an effeft of Rembrandt but resulted from a force and feel- ing merged in expression through intent observation and endeavor. There are no artists whose circumstances and environment demand more of this individuality of aim and concentration of labor than our own. And it is because these redeeming qualities are so often wanting that after an advent of eclat^ so many cease to advance, and for years exhibit a station- ary style and a poverty of ideas, never going beyond a certain respeftable grade of execution or rising above a stereotyped tone and manner. The vague encomiums of a friendly journal, the praise of a clique, the ready money their pi6lures bring, the indifference of the public to new refine- ments, and their own unaspiring disposition, thus make Art to them a prison rather than a world, a sphere wherein the limits rather than the progress of their minds are made apparent. Perhaps some of these dis- couraging fa(5ls as to the a6tual condition of art among us, may be ascribed to the prevalent subjects delineated. Few of these appeal to the national mind or average sympathies ; let a bold genius scan our history, note our civilization, examine our life, and he will discover innumerable themes chara6leristic enough to excite the interest of the people. Our colonial, pioneer, and Revolutionary eras, the customs and local peculiarities of the land, are prolific subjects for pictorial art ; let them be seized with a native zest and true insight, and new life will be imparted to the hmner and his achievements. It requires no argument to s.ttra6t the eye and heart to the authentic portraits of our heroes and statesmen, or the effe6tive illus- tration of our history, or delineation of our memorable scenery. Not a hundredth part of the subje6ts at annual exhibitions here are national ; and yet we have some native peculiarities in the events of our civic life, the phases of nature, and the forms of social development — which abound in pi6turesque effe6ts, or that romance of sentiment that hallows an art- memorial to a people's love. The modern English school of painters have won no small degree of their renown by illustrating the domestic and liter- ary charms of their country — her waters and her animals, her harvests and her homes — the phases of life and chara6ter famihar and endeared to her children; and the love of glory — military glory in particular, which is the popular instin6t in France — is refle6ted by the master-pieces of her paint- ers. It is impossible to estimate how far the selection of subje6ts related to the experience, or precious to the hearts of a nation, has made Art loved at last for her own sake, and to what extent the rea6tion of this popular interest upon the artist's will and imagination, has nerved him to fresh triumphs. What we especially need is, to bring Art within the scope of popular associations on the one hand, and, on the other, to have it con- secrated by the highest individuahty of purpose, truth to nature, human sentiment, and patient self-devotion.
AMERICAN ARTIST LIFE,
EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS.
Walson. — Smyhert. — Pine, and others. — Beinbridge. — Feke. — Pratt. — ■ Wright. — Charles Wilson Peale. — Diinlap. — Fulton. — Sargent. — • Jarvis. — Frazer. — Frothingham. — Rembrandt Peale. — Harding. — Newtott. — Neagle. — Waldo. — A lexafider, ajid others. — Fisher, — Ames. — Joicet. — Ingham.
[E earliest professional impulse given to pi6lorial Art in America was derived from two Scotchmen — one of whom is now only remembered by name, his works being tradi- tional; the other is enrolled in Walpole's anecdotes, and endeared by several authentic portraits belonging to old American families. Of the former, John Watson, we chiefly know that he established himself as a portrait-painter at Perth Amboy, N. J., in 171 5, and acquired a handsome competence by his labors. The latter, John Smybert, after an apprenticeship to a coach-painter, and a studious visit of three years to Italy, where he became an accompHshed copyist of the old masters, won the regard of the benign and ingenious Berkeley, who sele6led him as a companion in his humane mission to America.
According to Horace Walpole, John Smybert was born in Edinburgh, about 1684, and served his time as a common house-painter, went to Lon- don and Italy, and, after the failure of Berkeley's beneficent scheme and his return to England, " settled in Boston, in New England, where he suc- ceeded to his wish, and married a woman of considerable fortune, whom he left a widow, with two children, in 1751." "Smybert," says the same authority. " was a silent and modest man, who abhorred_/f;z^j-j-^ in his pro- fession, and was enchanted with a plan which he thought promised tran- quilhty and an honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian climate ; and, in spite of remonstrances, engaged with the Dean, whose zeal had ranged the favor of the court on his side. The king's death dispelled the vision ; but one may conceive how a man devoted to his Art must have been ani- mated when the Dean's enthusiasm and eloquence painted to his imagina- tion a new theatre of prospe6ts. rich, warm, and glowing with scenery
42 American Ai'tist Life.
which no pencil had yet made common." * To this brief outHne of Smy- bert's career may be added the statement of Mr. Verplanck, that, although "he was not an artist of the first rank, the Arts being then at a very low ebb, yet the best portraits we have of the eminent divines of New England and New York, who Hved between 1725 and 175 1, are from his pencil." Several are in the colleftions of New England colleges ; at Harvard Uni- versity, a fine copy of Vandyke's Cardinal Bentivoglio, and a portrait of John Lovell. Two of his portraits, which are in excellent preservation and fair examples of his style, are the likenesses of John Channing and his wife, the grandparents of Dr. W. E. Channing, and in the possession of his family. Another of Smyberf s reputed portraits is in the possession of Hon. R. C. Winthrop, and represents one of the^Bowdoin family. At Worcester, Mass., a portrait of Mrs. Martha, wife of Norton Gurney, is attributed to Smybert ; and those of Cornehus Waldo and his wife. Faith, dated 1750, and of Daniel Waldo and his wife, Rebecca, are certainly from his pencil. A portrait of Bishop Berkeley, said to have been painted during the latter's voyage to America, one of Rev. Joshua Gee and his wife, and a copy of an original likeness of Governor John Endicott from Smybert's pencil, are in the colle6lion of the Massachusetts His- torical Society. A portrait of Daniel Oliver, and one of his Vv^ife, and another of Madam Oliver, nee Belcher, with a group of the three sons of the former, dated 1730 ; also portraits of the Hon. Benjamin Lynde, chief justice of Massachusetts, of Mrs. Lynde, 7iee Brown, and of Hon. B. Lynde, Jr., likewise a chief justice of the Colony, and of his wife, all fine illustrations of Smybert's pencil, are in the possession of Fitch E. Oliver, Esq., of Boston ; who has, besides, four other ancestral portraits of anterior date, probably executed in England. There are numerous portraits in various parts of the country attributed to Smybert, but which it is impos- sible certainly to identify as his, although often the date of their execution and the style justify the conjecture.
He seems to have sympathized with the good Dean in his love of knowledge ; an interesting visit they made to the Narragansett Indians is, perhaps, the first ethnological anecdote in our history. But the most pleasing and precious memorial of their sojourn, as well as the best speci- men of the artist's talent, is the pi6lure of Dean Berkeley and his family, the artist himself being introduced, now in the Gallery at New Haven. It was painted for a gentleman of Boston, of whom it was pur- chased in 1808, by Isaac Lothrop, Esq., and presented to Yale College. " It is nine feet long and six wide, and represents Bishop Berkeley as standing at one end of a table, which is surrounded by his family. He appears to be in deep thought, his eyes slightly raised, one hand resting on a folio volume — his favorite author, Plato — and is dictating to his amanuensis part of the ' Minute Philosopher,' which is said to have been
* Anecdotes of Painting : He is said to have lived on terms of friendship with Allan Ramsay, the author of the " Gentle Shepherd," with whom he corresponded after his settlement in America. His name is written Swiberi, Smiberi, and Smyberi—\ht last is the way he wrote it
Early Portrait Painters. 43
commenced daring his residence at Newport. The figure ot the amanuen- sis, which is an uncommonly fine one, represents James Dalton ; Miss Handcock, and Mrs. Berkeley, with an infant in her arms, are seated on one side of the table, while Mr. James, and a gentleman of Newport named John Mofifatt, stand behind the ladies. The painter has placed himself in the rear, standing by a pillar, with a scroll in his hand."
A letter preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine indicates the continued friendship of the painter and the prelate after the latter returned to Great Britain to become Bishop of Cloyne, wherein he urges his old companion to rejoin him in Ireland ; but Smybert preferred to follow his vocation in America, and we find him prosperously established in Boston in the year 1728. The earhest and best portraits executed in America before the Revolution, of which that of Jonathan Edwards is one of the most valua- ble, were those of Smybert. They were the exemplars of our pioneer limners. Copley, Trumbull, and Allston, caught their first ideas of color and drawing from Smybert's copy of Vandyke ; and although Allston re- marks, " When I saw the original I had to change my notions of per- fection,"— he adds, " I am grateful to Smybert for the instru6lion he, or rather his work, gave me." There are several interesting portraits by unknown artists executed at a very early date ; among them one of Dr. John Clark, dated 1765, and one of Peter Faneuil, and several old New England divines, — in the colleftion of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of conje6lural origin. Others may be seen at Harvard University, at Newport, .R. I., at the South, and in the Middle States ; likenesses by un- known artists of Governor Endicott, the four Mathers, Higginson the younger, and others, are in the Antiquarian Hall at Worcester, Mass. Not a few portraits by celebrated English and continental painters (the best of these and the rarest are by Holbein, Kneller, Lely, Reynolds, Opie, Rae- burn, Rembrandt, and Gainsborough) were brought to this country by the colonial families, for whom they had an ancestral valu€ and interest, and are still possessed and prized by their descendants. In the Winthrop family, for instance, there is a likeness of a distant progenitor, by Holbein ; Mrs. Erving, widow of the late Col. John Erving, and a resident of New- York, has a fine Kneller, Copley, etc.; the portrait of Lord Dartmouth, in the college that bear^ his name, is an endeared specimen of early English Art ; and Leverett Saltonstall, of Ne\vton, Mass., has a portrait by Rem- brandt of Mr. Richard Saltonstall, who came to New England in the Lady Arabella, in 1630, but leaving his sons, returned with his daughters to Eng- land, and then went to Amsterdam, where this pi6lure was painted in 1644.
Col. Byrd, of Westover, Va., was a most accomplished man, and his learning and talents, as well as his wealth, procured him a place in the highest society, and the in.timacy of some of the most distinguished men of his time. Several interesting portraits graced his hospitable mansion, and are now in the possession of his descendants and others.
There is a likeness of Sir Wilfred Lawson, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. One of a progenitor of the Byrd family, by Van Dyke ; it represents a
44 American Artist Life.
lovely boy of twelve years. He had been stolen by gipsies, and is in the costume he wore when his parents discovered him : an old cloak thrown over the shoulders, with the inimitable grace for which Van Dyke was re- markable ; the beautiful face sad and tearful ; the child followed by a dog. It all makes a lovely pi6lure. There is a portrait of Gen. Monk, Duke of Albemarle. There are also portraits of the Duke of Argyle (Jeannie Deans' friend) ; Lord Orrery, son of the Duke of Ormond ; Sir Charles Wager, an English admiral ; Miss Blount, celebrated by Pope ; Mary, Duchess of Montague, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and wife of John, fourth Duke of Montague (it is said the duplicate of this portrait is at Windsor Castle) ; Governor Daniel Parke, with a miniature of Queen Anne, set round with diamonds, given him by the Queen when he brought her the news of the battle of Blenheim ; he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough. There are many family portraits : Mrs. Lucy Parke Byrd and her beautiful daughter, Evelyn Byrd ; the second Col. Byrd and his wife, etc., etc. An amusing anecdote is handed down of an old gentleman who left a splendid diamond ring to Col. 'Byrd, provided his own picture, with his hat on, might hang by the side of dukes and earls. This pi6lure is at Lower Brandon, and the ring is in possession of a lady of the family. *
Portrait-painting received an impulse in the colonies, immediately sub- sequent to the Revolution, from the visits and pi6lures of foreign adepts in the profession. Some of the latter are occasionally encountered in old family mansions or public institutions, and must have served as valuable precedents in the limited Art-sphere of those early times. Wollaston execu^d several portraits in Philadelphia in 1758, and in Maryland the following year ; his portrait of Mrs. Washington was engraved for Sparks' Biography, and is an elaborate, and clever work ; and there was an excel- lent portrait by him of John Randolph's grandmother, at Petersburg, Va. Judge Hopkinson eulogized this artist in verse, f In 1760 we find the name of Taylor, arfd in 1763 Hesselius, an Enghsh painter, was established at Annapolis, Md. He was of the school of Kneller, Peale's earliest teacher ; and most of the portraits in the older dwelhngs of Maryland are from his pencil. There are many portraits of Philadelphians by this artist, several of them of ancestral -interest. Two in the Walton family are dated 1752. Hesselius was an industrious and faithful painter, but respectable rather than superior in Art. Cosmo Alexander passed a year in America; he arrived in 1770 and was Stuart's first instru6lor ; a por- trait of Hon. John Ross by the artist, bearing date more than a century ago, is a favorable specimen of his style. Mr. Ross was the rival, at the Philadelphia bar, of Andrew Hamilton, who defended Zenger in the famous trial in New York, and brother-in-law of George Read, one of the signers of the Declaration. He is represented as sitting in his library with a table near him. This portrait belongs to J. Meredith Read, Esq., of Albany,
* From a letter of Miss Lucy Harrison, great granddaughter of the late Col. Byrd, of Westover. t American Magazine, September, 1758.
Early Portrait Pamters. 45
the accomplished author of the Life of Hudson, who also has two other portraits by Cosmo Alexander and several by Wollaston.
Ramage was one of the first miniature painters ; he was an Irish gentle- man, and executed many small likenesses in Boston in 1771. James Peale appears to have been the earliest native artist in this sphere; Durand made many showy, but not elegant portraits in Virginia, in 1772 ; and a mediocre painter named Matthew Brown was full of business from 1775 to 1785. Duche, Field, and Trenchard are other artistic names on the primitive roll. Thomas Coram was an active hmner in Charleston, S. C, in 1780. Wist- anley, chiefly remembered for the sahent anecdote respecting his copy of Stuart's Washington, was at work in the colonies in 1769. Of native painters of that period, Henry Bembridge, of Philadelphia, is represented by many portraits of a singularly formal aspect ; he had studied under Mengs and Battoni, was liberally educated, and highly esteemed as a gen- tleman. There were many of his portraits in XTharleston, S. C. Blackburn was Smybert's immediate successor, or cotemporary, and, during a brief visit, executed several notable portraits in Boston, Portsmouth, N. H., and other New England towns. There is one in the possession of Mrs. Erving, of New York. Good specimens of Blackburn's style are afforded by the portraits in the possession of Judge Cutts, of Brattleboro', Vt, — Hkenesses of his wife's grandparents. There is something very piquant and charming in the lady's head, and her hands are beautiful ; while her husband's fine, ruddy countenance, lapelled coat, wig, and ruffles, are chara6leristic of his times. There are also two fine portraits by Blackburn in the possession of Dr. Nicol Bering, of Utica, N. Y., one of Miss Mary Sylvester, after- wards Mrs. Thomas Bering, of Boston, Mass., painted in 1754 at New- port, R. I.; and one of Miss Margaret Sylvester, afterwards Mrs. Bavid Cheesbrough, of Newport, R. I., of the same date. These portraits are large, three-quarter size, and are much admired for their artistic merit. They were exhibited several years since at the National Academy, N. Y., at the request of Colonel Trumbull. Mrs. Nichols, a granddaughter of Br. Holyoke, of Salem, has a portrait of Jonathan Simpson, a merchant of Boston, by Blackburn, and Hon. R. C. Winthrop one of a lady belong- ing to the Temple family.
Another Englishman, named Williams, v/as busy about the same time and in the same way in Philadelphia. West is said to have derived con- siderable benefit from the books and conversation of this painter. Ed- ward Savage was engaged on portraits in New York in 1789: one of Washington from his pencil is at Harvard University. Green and Theus were also somewhat known about this period and earlier, and occasionally specimens of their w^orks are still to be seen. A portrait -painter called by the indefinite name of Smith is remembered as probably the first Ameri- can who enjoyed the advantage of studying in Italy, and is also remarka- ble for his longevity. More than one portrait of Washington and a few of his cotemporaries bear the name of Polke, who passed a year or two in America. One of the former was found at Leesburg on the estate of Ar-
46 American Artist Life.
thur Lee, and sent to Washington city during the war, but returned by the government at its close. Some of the portraits have charaderistic merits.
" A few octogenarians in the city of Brotherly Love used to speak, not many years since, of a diminutive family, the head of which manifested the sensitive temperament, if not the highest capabilities, of artistic genius. This was Robert Edge Pine. He brought to America the earliest cast of the Venus de' Medici, which was privately exhibited to the select few — the manners and morals of the Quaker City forbidding its exposure to the common eye. He was considered a superior colorist, and was favorably introduced into society in Philadelphia by his acknowledged sympathy for the American cause, and by a grand projeft such as was afterwards par- tially realized by Trumbull — that of a series of his-torical paintings illiis- trative of the American Revolution, to embrace original portraits of the leaders, both civil and mihtary, in that achievement, including the states- men who were chiefly instrumental in framing the Constitution and organ- izing the Government. He brought a letter of introdu6lion to the father of the late Judge Hopkinson, whose , portrait he executed, and its vivid tints and corre6l resemblance still attest the ability of the painter. He left behind him, in London, creditable portraits of George H., Garrick, and the Duke of Northumberland. In the intervals of his business as a teacher of drawing and a votary of portraiture in general, he colle6led, from time to time, a large number of ' distinguished heads,' although, as in the case of Ceracchi, the epoch and the country were unfavorable to his ambitious project ; of these portraits the heads of General Gates, Charles Carroll, Baron Steuben, and Washington are the best known and most highly prized. Pine remained three weeks at Mount Vernon, and his^ por- trait bequeaths some features with great accuracy ; artists find in it certain merits not discoverable in those of a later date ; it has the permanent interest of a representation from life by a painter of established reputa- tion ; yet its tone is cold and its effe6l unimpressive beside the more bold and glowing pencil of Stuart. It has repose and dignity."* It is in the possession of the Hopkinson family at Philadelphia, and a fac senile of Washington's letter ; it was painted in 1785. A large copy, or more pro- bably the original, was purchased in Montreal, in 1817, by the late Henry Brevoort, and is now in the possession of his son, Carson Brevoort, of Bedford, L. I.
Sharpless, Wertmiiller, St. Memim, Martin, Giillagher, Robertson, Bel- zoni, Roberts, Malcolm, Earle, and other artists visited America immedi- ately after her Independence was established ; and several of them are chiefly memorable for their delineations of Washington and our early statesmen and soldiers.! They exerted a progressive influence upon native Art, just then dawning upon us with the freedom and peace of the new-born Republic ; previous to which era artists were inevitably but a casual and isolated class. " Under the pressure of cares, and struggles,
* Chara<5ler and Portraits of Washington.
t See the author's " Charadler and Portraits of Washington."
Early Portrait Painters. 4y
and urgent anxieties," says Dr. Bethune, " there would be neither time nor desire for the cultivation of these elegant pursuits, which are the luxury of leisure, the decoration of wealth, and the charms of refinement. The Puritans and the Presbyterians together, the most influential, were not favorable to the fine arts, and the Quakers abjured them. Men living in log cabins, and busied all day in field, workshop, or warehouse, and liable to attacks by savage enemies at any moment, were indisposed to seek after or encourage what was not immediately useful. Their hard-earned and precarious gains would not justify the indulgence. There were few, or rather no specimens of artistic skill among them to awaken taste or imitation. It is, therefore, Httle to be wondered at if they did not show an appreciation of Art proportionate to their advance in other moral respects, or that they waited until they had secured a substantial prosperity before they ventured to gratify themselves with the beautiful. The brilliant exam- ples of West and Copley, with some others of inferior note, showed the presence of genius ; but those-artists found abroad the encouragement and instru6lion not attainable at home, thus depriving their country of all share in their fame, except the credit of having given them birth." *
The earliest native colonial painter who had any proper training in Art, appears to have been Robert Feke. His descendants have the artist's portraits of himself and wife ; also that of a little girl painted on panel. Dunlap speaks of a likeness of a Mrs. Welling bearing his signature and dated 1746. During that year he painted several portraits in Philadelphia, considered the best colonial family jDortraits except West's. A gentleman of that city, of highly cultivated taste, whose maternal grandparents were painted by Feke, says of them, that the " drawing and expression are good, and the coloring still fresh and natural ; they are of life size and the full dress of the time."t A portrait of Rev. John Callender, which belonged to Colonel Bull, of Newport, R. I., and was attributed to Smybert — a copy of which, by Miss Stuart, is in the Redwood Library — is believed to be from the pencil of Feke. How, in those primitive days, this painter learned to draw and color so well is a matter of conje6lure. He was a descendant of Henry Feake, who emigrated to Lynn, Mass., in 1630, and a branch of whose family settled at Oyster Bay, L. L, whence, it is said, the future artist came to Rhode Island. The religious controversies of the day seem to have invaded the peace of the household ; the Feakes, as the name was originally written, were Quakers, and one of the younger — tradition says the artist — went over to the Baptists, and was followed to the water's edge, on the occasion of his immersion, by his outraged sire with threats of disinheritance. This anecdote accords with the spirit of those times, whether it really belongs to the painter or to one of his kin- dred ; but another tradition explains his equipment for his vocation, which could scarcely have been attained at that period in the colonies. Robert Feke, whether from disgust at the persecution he suffered for differing
* Home Look of the Picturesque. f J. Francis Fisher, Esq.
48 Ame7ican A^'tist Life.
from his family in religious belief, or to indulge the adventurous temper so native to artistic organizations, left home and was absent several years ; according to a writer in the Historical Magazine, he was taken prisoner and carried into Spain, managed to obtain pencils and colors, and beguiled his captivity by making rude paintings, which he sold upon his release, and, with the proceeds and the fruits of practice and observations abroad, returned home and began his career as a portrait painter, married, and settled at Newport, where, among others, he painted the beautiful wife of Governor Wanton, now in the Redwood Library. He made professional visits to New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, went to Barbadoesfor his health, and died there at the age of forty-four. *
There was a publican's sign in Spruce-street, Philadelphia, a few years since, which used to attra6l the notice of amateur pedestrians on account of its manifest superiority to such insignia in general. It consisted of a cock in a barnyard, and was executed with rare truth and spirit. Those curious enough to inquire of the local antiquarians, learned that it was the work of Matthew Pratt, who acquired of Claypole, a miscellaneous and now forgot- ten painter, the rudiments of his Art, which he long exercised in his native city in any manner that proved lucrative — ranging from decorative to sign- painting ; but at last concentrating his skill and time upon portraiture, wherein he acquired a notable success ; the memorable evidence whereof are the likenesses he made of the prominent members of the Convention which assembled in Philadelphia in 1788 — a composition which originally figured as a sign at the corner of Chestnut and Fourth streets, and for weeks was the nucleus of a gratified crowd who readily identified the por- traits. The long-affianced bride of Benjamin West was a relative of Matthew Pratt's father, and the young painter was her escort to England. Soon after their arrival in London he ''gave her away" at the wedding, which took place at St. Martin's Church in the Strand. Pratt passed four years in England, studied with West, executed portraits of the Duke of Portland, the Duchess of Manchester, and Governor Hamilton, and ex- hibited a Scripture piece and " The London School of Artists." Born in 1734, he returned to his native city in 1768, and died there in 1805. His portraits, though of no high artistic merit, are considered as exhibiting talent and truth, and, like those of Trumbull and Copley, are often the only representations extant of early American leaders in civil and social life. A critic, who seems well acquainted with his pi6tures, describes them as " broad in eflfe6t and loaded with color." He executed between fifty and sixty portraits in New York ; among them a full length of Gover- nor Colden, now in the possession of the New York Historical Society, and several members of the Walton family. The vessel in which Pratt embarked for Jamaica, in 1757, was commanded by the father of the late Bishop Hobart, of New York ; she was captured by a French privateer.
Upon resuming his praftice of Art in Philadelphia, Pratt was intro-
♦ Historical Magazine, 1859-60.
Early Portrait Painters. ^g
duced by Thomas Barton to the best local society. He had been a school- mate of Peale, and assisted him in estabhshing and arranging his museum. It is rather a curious distin6lion for an artist who aimed at the higher branches of his profession, to be remembered as exceUing in one scarcely included in the range of the fine arts, however calculated to educate the masses. Pratt's signs enjoyed a great reputation, and still have a tradi- tional renown ; two especially, a group of drovers and a hunting scene, are often praised by his cotemporaries. " They were," says Neagle, " by far the best signs I ever saw."
There resided, in colonial days, at Bordentown, New Jersey, Patience Wright, who used to model in wax miniature heads, usually in relievo, a rare accompHshment at the time, and one in which she was thought to excel ; some specimens extant indicate considerable imitative tafl. It is natural that with such a taste and talent she should encourage artistic apti- tudes in her children. She taught her son Joseph what she knew, his brother-in-law added his instruction, and West also gave him the benefit of his advice. Wright was born in Bordentown in 1756, and in 1772 the family went to England, where the young artist executed a portrait of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. He w^as sent to Paris and placed under the care of Dr. Frankhn to pursue his studies. Returning to Amer- ica he narrowly escaped with his life from shipwreck. Having embarked at Nantes, the vessel was cast away on the coast of Spain, and Wright reached Boston at last penniless. In the autumn of 1783 he painted at headquarters, Princeton, New Jersey, a three-quarter length portrait of Washington, having previously subje6ted him to a coat of plaster by way of obtaining the dimensions and proportions of his head. His portrait is remarkable for fidelity to details of feature, form, and costume ; and, although inelegant and unflattering, is probably authentic to a remarkable degree, and may be considered a fair specimen of the unideal but con- scientious skill of this early American artist. It is now in the possession of Samuel Powell, Esq., of Philadelphia.*
Employed professionally, before the peace of 1783, in New York and Philadelphia, Wright was appointed by Washington, when the United States Mint was established, draughtsman and die-sinker thereat, and there is every reason to believe that the first coins and medals executed in this country were his handiwork. Besides the portrait he painted of Washington soon after his return, for Mrs. Willing, now in the possession of the Pow^ell family, he executed another for the Count de Solms, and not satisfied with either, or rather desirous of possessing one for himself, he solicited another sitting of the first President, who was too much occupied with public duties and too weary of the irksome process to consent ; the artist, however, was not to be baffled — he attended St. Paul's Church in New York and sketched a miniature profile from life, as his unconscious subje6l sat in his pew. The terrible pestilence which ravaged Philadel-
* For the details respedling tliis portrait, see the author's " Charadler and Portraits of Washing- ton." Wright's portrait of John Jay is in the collecflion of the New York Historical Societj'.
4
50 American Artist Life.
phia in 1793, of whose devastations Brockden Brown left so graphic a pi6lure, numbered among its eminent vi6lims this upright and ingenious artist.
The American portrait painter of this era best known at the time and best remembered now, was Charles Wilson Peale, who was born in Ches- terton, Maryland, in 1741. As the first painter of Washington, his name is identified with the early career of our peerless chief The museum he established in Philadelphia, until recently, kept before the minds of his countrym.en the genial enterprise and the national sympathies for which he was remarkable ; while the talent and worth of his son Rembrandt, who died within a short period at an advanced age, tended to prolong the artis- tic and social consideration so honorably associated with the name. The life of this pioneer in the virgin field of Art in AmeVica, was marked with chara6leristic vicissitudes and experiments. Endowed with remarkable mechanical skill, which he adapted readily to the exigencies of a new coun- try, we find him a clever workman successively in leather, wood, and met- als ; he could make a harness, a clock, or a silver moulding; he knew how to stuff birds for the ornithologist, to extra<5l and repair teeth, and to deliver a popular le6lure ; nor, at the outset of his career, did he fail to exercise with credit and assiduity each and all of these widely different vocations. But the proclivities of Wilson Peale were undoubtedly for Art, and eventually painting became his chief and his favorite occupation. The idea became a pra6lical intuition with him when quite young. He saw the works of Fraser at Norfolk ; on his return home he succeeded in making a portrait which astonished his neighbors and decided him to adopt the artistic profession. He sought instruction in Philadelphia, and derived much benefit from the teachings of a German pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and subsequently from those of Copley at Boston. In 1770 he went to London to study with West, who continued to befriend him long after his funds were exhausted. After a residence of four years in England, Peale returned home and settled, first at AnnapoHs, Maryland, and subsequently at Philadelphia. He commanded a corps of volunteers during the Revo- lutionary War, and took part in two battles — those of Trenton and Ger- mantown. He did not forget the artist in the soldier, but sedulously improved his leisure in camp by sketching from nature, and his rare opportunities to study "the human face divine" by transferring to his portfolio many heads which afterwards he elaborated for his gallery of national portraits. His portrait of Washington as a Virginia Colonel is well known through multiplied copies and engravings, and is highly valued as the first authentic likeness.
" The earliest portraits of Washington are more interesting, perhaps, as memorials than as works of Art ; and we can easily imagine that associa- tions endeared them to his old comrades. The dress — blue coat, scarlet facings, and underclothes — of the first portrait by Peale, and the youthful face, make it suggestive of the early experience of the future commander, when, exchanging the surveyor's implements for the colonel's commis-
Early Portrait Painters. 51
sion, he bivouacked in the wilderness of Ohio, the leader of a motley band of hunters, provincials, and savages, to confront wily Frenchmen, cut for- est roads, and encounter all the perils of Indian ambush, inclement skies, undisciplined followers, famine, and woodland skirmish. It recalls his calm authority and providential escape amid the dismay of Braddock's defeat, and his pleasant sensation at the first whisthng of bullets in the weary march to Fort Necessity. To Charles Wilson Peale we owe this precious nelic of the chieftain's youth. This portrait was executed in 1772, and was, for many years before the war for the Union, at Ariington House. The resolution of Congress by which the subsequent portrait by this artist was ordered was passed before the occupation of Philadelphia. Its pro- gress marks the vicissitudes of the Revolutionary struggle ; commenced in the gloomy winter and half-famished encampment at Valley Forge, in 1778, the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth intervened before its completion. At the last place, Washington suggested that the view from the window of the farm-house opposite to which he was sitting would form a desirable background. Peale adopted the idea, and represented Monmouth Court-House and a party of Hessians under guard marching out of it,* The pifture was finished at Princeton, and Nassau Hall is a prominent obje6l in the background ; but Congress adjourned without making an appropriation, and it remained in the artist's hands. Lafayette desired a copy for the King of France, and Peale executed one in 1779 which was sent to Paris ; but the misfortunes of the royal family occa- sioned its sale, and it became the property of Count de Menou, who brought it again to this country and presented it to the National Institute, where it is now preserved. Chapman made two copies at a thousand dollars each ; and Dr. Craik, one of the earliest and warmest personal friends of Wash- ington, their commissions as officers in the French War having been signed on the same day (1754), declared it a most faithful likeness of him as he appeared in the prime of hfe. f
There is a tradition in the Peale family, honorably represented through several generations, by public spirit and artistic gifts, that intelligence of one of the most important triumphs of the American arms was received by Washington in a despatch he opened while sitting to Wilson Peale for a miniature intended for his wife, who was also present. The scene occur- red one fine summer afternoon ; and there is something attra6live to the fancy in the association of this group quietly occupied in one of the most beautiful of the arts of peace, and in a commemorative a6l destined to
* MS. Letter of Titian R. Peale to George Livennore, Esq.
t Philadelphia, Feb. 4. — His Excellency General Washington set off from this city to join the army in New Jersey. During the course of his short stay, the only relief he has enjoyed from service since he first entered it, he has been honored with every mark of esteem. The Council of this State, being desirous of having his picfture in full length, requested his sitting for that purpose, which he politely complied with, and a striking likeness was taken by Mr. Peale, of this city. The portrait is to be placed in the council chamber. Don Juan Marrailes, the Minister of France, has ordered five copies, four of which, we hear, are to be sent abroad. Penn. Packet, Feb. 11, 1779. Ke painted one in 1776 for John Hancock, and besides that for New Jersey, others for Pennsylva- nia and Maryland.
52 American Artist Life.
gratify conjugal love and a nation's pride, with the progress of a war and the announcement of a victory fraught with that nation's liberty and that leader's eternal renown.
The characteristic traits of Peale's portraits of Washington long at the National Institute and Arhngton House, and the era of our history and of Washington's life they embalm, make them doubly valuable in a series of pidlorial illustrations, each of which, independent of the degree of pro- fessional skill exhibited, is essential to our Washingtonian gallery. Before Trumbull and Stuart had caught from the Hving man his aspe6l in maturity and age — the form knit to athletic proportions by self-denial and a6tivity, and clad in the garb of rank and war, and the countenance open with truth and grave with thought, yet rounded with th^ contour and ruddy with the glow of early manhood — was thus genially delineated by the hand of a comrade, and in the infancy of native art. Of the fourteen portraits by Peale, that exhibiting Washington as a Virginia colonel in the colonial force of Great Britain, is the only entire portrait before the Revolution extant.f One was painted for the college of New Jersey, at Princeton, in 1780, to occupy a frame in which a portrait of George the Third had been destroyed by a cannon ball during the battle at that place on the 3d of January, 1777. It still remains in the possession of the College, and was saved fortunately from the fire which a few years ago consumed Nassau Hall. Peale's last portrait of Washington, executed in 1783, he retained until his death, and two years since, it was sold with the rest of the col- leflion known as the " Peale Gallery," at Philadelphia. There is a pencil sketch also by this artist, framed with the wood of the tree in front of the famous Chew house, around which centred the battle of German- town, f
Peale was a man of liberal sympathies and public spirit ; he not only was an efficient military officer, but served his State worthily in the legisla- ture. He had the prescience rightly to estimate the historical value of native portraiture in the crisis of his country's destiny, and carefully gathered the materials which have since proved so valuable in illustrating the incidents and characters of our brief annals. Although widely dis- persed, the best portraits of Peale are cherished memorials, and some of them are unique. The sight of some mammoth bones suggested to Peale the idea of combining scientific with artistic attra6lions, and for years his thoughts and time were occupied in forming the colle6lion which so admi- rably served its purpose in the early days of the Republic, and gave that impulse to natural history and the fine arts w^hich has since developed in Philadelphia into such noble and prosperous institutions.
For a considerable time antecedent and subsequent to the Revolutionary War, Peale was almost the only portrait painter in America known to fame ; Smybert and Copley had disappeared, and Trumbull and Stuart had
• A miniature, said to have been painted in 1757, at the age of 25, has been engraved for Irving's Washington, t Chara(5ler and Portraits of Washington.
Early Portrait Painters, 53
not yet become familiar names ; here and there an isolated or itinerant portrait painter found work ; but the one universally recognized artist was Peale. He was accordingly sought by sitters from afar ; frequently they cameTrom Canada and the West Indies. There was more versatiHty and aptitude than positive genius in Peale ; he was intuitively mechanical ; he modelled as well as painted, and was equally at home with crayon anri palette, in elaborate oil and delicate miniature portraits. It is a curious illustration of the man and the times, that, according to one of his biogra- phers, "he sawed his own ivory for his miniatures, moulded the glasses, and made the shagreen cases." His conscientious and intelligent labors in the cause of Art merit the grateful remembrance he enjoys. " His hke- nesses," says his son Rembrandt, who has written his life, " were strong, but never flattered ; his execution spirited and natural. The last years of his life he luxuriated in the enjoyment of a country life, near German- town, with hanging gardens, grotto and fountain, and a hospitable table for all his friends. His last painting was a full length portrait of himself, painted at the age of eighty-three. He died in his eighty-fifth year, in 1826."
The most interesting and valuable trophies of his career are now gathered in Independence Hall, Philadelphia ; and, however deficient in the more brilhant qualities of artistic genius, have the charm of fidelity, and often are the sole authentic likenesses of the eminent men delineated. In this respe6t, they form a unique municipal collection — "within the sacred hall, where, in committee of the whole, the Declaration of Inde- pendence was passed and signed, and, from the yard, proclaimed to the world." Among these portraits, by Peale, are those of General and Mrs. Washington, John Hancock, Robert Morris, Generals Greene, Gates, Ham- ilton, Reed, Steuben, Lincoln, Rochambeau ; Dr. Frankhn, Peyton Ran- dolph, Volney, Jefferson, Laurens, Bartram, Chastellux, Gallatin, Rush, Dick- inson, Witherspoon, Pickering, DeKalb, Bishop White, Carroll, and Lord Steding — one hundred and seventeen in all, including most of the celeb- rities, native and foreign, associated with American history and society, during the last of the preceding and the earlier part of the present century. Peale's portrait of George Clymer is in the Philadelphia Academy, his own portrait, by West, in the Bryan colle(5lion of the N. Y. Historical Society, which also includes Peale's family group of Major Ramsay, the historian, and the old dog Argus.
Portraits by C. W. Peale, of Governor McKean and his son, belong to D. Pratt McKean, Esq., Philadelphia, and of Washington, painted at Valley Forge. There is an interesting portrait of Franklin by him, painted a few days before his death, the result of a single sitting. " I accompanied my father," writes Rembrandt Peale, " to engage him for another. We found him sitting up in his bedroom, in much pain, with the sad convi6tion that he should never leave it. Yet the resigned expression of his venerable countenance, and his noble, patriarchal head, from which flowed ample locks of gray hair on his shoulders, impressed me with unspeak-
54 American, Artist Life.
able reverence." At the sale of the Peale Museum, this portrait was bought by and is now in the colle6lion of Joseph Harrison, Esq., of Philadelphia, who also owns Peale's last portrait of Washington, painted in 1783.
Rev. William Hazlitt came to America soon after the RevolutTonary War, with a son, the future essayist, then seven or eight years old, a daughter, and an older son, John, who was a portrait painter ; he exe- cuted likenesses in Hingham, Mass. ; among them, those of Gen. Benja- min Lincoln, Rev. Ebenezer Gay, D.D., Col. Nathan Rice, Dr. Joshua Barker, and others. T^ Earle painted portraits in Conne6licut in 1775, and in Charleston, S. C, in 1792 ; his full length portraits of Dr. Dwight and his wife are in Copley's manner, with black shadows ; this painter was among the Governor's militia guard, marched to Can-rbridge and Lexington, made drawings of the scenery in both places, and outlined, perhaps, the first historical compositions in America ; they were engraved by his com- rade in arms, Doolittle. Earle studied with West, and returned to America in 1786 — painted many portraits in New York and more in Conne6licut ; according to Dunlap, he had " facility of handling," and caught likenesses well. He painted Mrs. Alexander Hamilton in 1787 ; Earle being in diffi- culty and imprisoned for debt. General Hamilton induced his wife and other ladies to sit to him in prison, and thereby secured his release. He was the father of Augustus Earle, known as " the wandering artist," who pra6lised his vocation in New York in 1818 ; a fellow-student with Leshe and Morse, who used to relate many curious anecdotes of his roving dis- position.
Two Americans, whose names are identified with the early history of Art in this country, were born twenty years after Peale ; and both are now chiefly remembered by claims to public gratitude quite diverse from, those of the vocation to which they were more or less devoted. I refer to Robert Fulton and William Dunlap. So exclusively associated is the former with the grand triumph of a vast mechanical experiment, that few are aware that he ever loved and labored in the sphere of the Fine Arts ; while the latter's assiduity in colle6ling the fa6ls of dramatic and artist life in America, antecedent to and cotemporaneous with his own, has merged his reputation as a painter with that as annalist.
WilUam Dunlap was born at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1766. He prepared an elaborate sketch of his life, which abounds in curious adventure and versatile enterprise. He was but seventeen years of age when he began to execute portraits ; and relates, with much naivete, his experience when Washington gave him a sitting at the house of Van Home, of New Jersey, in the summer of '83. The result was what might be expe6led from a novice ; but the incident was memorable. Dunlap went to London and studied with West ; his success as an artist was not remarkable ; he returned to New York and joined his father in business, and consoled himself abroad and at home by wanderings and social expe- riences of which the record is amusing. Having failed in trade, he alter- nated through a long life between the studio, the stage, and the library, as
Early Portrait Painters. 55
a resource : in other words, he painted, managed a theatre, and wrote books : for quite a period, however, Dunlap steadily pursued Art ; he exe- cuted a series of pi6lures on subje6ls indicated by West, which were exhibited ; he took an a6live part in estabhshing the New York Academy of Fine Arts, and his portraits are numerous. He wrote several plays : a Life of Brockden Brown, one of Cooke ; a History of New Netherlands, and one of the American Theatre. In old age and reduced circumstances, encouraged by his kind physician, Dr. Francis, he compiled the Historj'- of the Arts of Design in the United States, wherein are crudely put together many fa6ls of curious interest and biographical value — often from the pens of artists then living — fa6ls which otherwise must have been soon forgotten ; and the faithful colle6lion of which was a genial service ren- dered by a venerable artist and annalist to the cause and the country he loved.
He died in New York, September 28, 1839. Dunlap's personal interest in and association with the Fine Arts, rather than his achievements there- in, identify him with their origin and growth am.ong us. He was a worthy and industrious man, with strong prejudices, and a tenacious memory. During his latter years, when suffering from straitened circumstances and illness, he was warmly befriended by some of our leading citizens. One who knew him well, speaks of him as "the acrimonious Dunlap," yet credits him with " patient research," * and traces his influence and effi- ciency in the social promotion of local history and artistic enterprise and biography — at a period when but few bestowed any thought or sympathy on such objects.
Robert Fulton left Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1765, to pra6lise as a draughtsman in Philadelphia, having been ini- tiated therein by a schoolfellow. Of Irish descent and in narrow cir- cumstances, his temperament and his position urged him to exertion ; and whatever his artist-skill might have been in the estimation of critical taste, it sufficed in a few years to win him a sum adequate to the purchase of a farm, whereon he comfortably established his widowed mother. Removing to New York, he was known and encouraged there in 1785 as a miniature painter; but soon became absorbed in mechanical inventions, and went abroad to study and submit his economical theories to savans and governments. His patience and genius in these enterprises is a familiar story — alike honorable to his chara6ler and his country ; and the successful application of steam to navigation was the crowning achieve- ment to a life of rare vicissitude, experiment, and energy. He never, however, forgot the love of his youth ; his leisure was appropriated abroad and at home to the promotion and pra6lice of Art. He sketched pic- turesque figures by the way-side in his travels on the Continent, and occa- sionally executed the portrait of a friend ; his intervals of waiting for recognition as a mechanician — whether in regard to submarine ordnance
* Old New York.
56 American Artist Life.
or improvements in canal navigation, submitted to government agents in Paris, were devoted to executing the first panorama exhibited in that city — a branch of art then original, and which has since proved of wide utility and. interest. He wrote from London urging the citizens of Philadelphia to secure West's pictures as the nucleus of a national gallery ; and when unsuccessful, bought the Opheha and Lear at the Royal Academy sale, and bequeathed them to the New York association of artists ; he spent five thousand dollars upon engravings of West's illustrations of Bar- low's heavy epic, and gave the interest thus obtained in the copyright to the author's widow — the original studies being among the curious and cherished trophies of his long and amiable relations with the venerable pioneer artist of America. In these and various ways Fulton proved an early and efficient friend to, as well as votary of. Art. Of his own pi6lures few exist ; a print from one of them representing Louis XIV. in prison with his family, indicates no inconsiderable skill and grace of composition and execution. His portraits are very rare ; there is one in Philadelphia, of Mr. Plumstead's sister, in the possession of the family, which is probably a fair specimen. " Fulton," says Dr. Francis, " was emphatically a man of the people, ambitious, indeed, but above all sordid designs ; he pur- sued ideas more than money. Science was more captivating to him than pecuniary gains ; and the promotion of the arts, useful and refined, more absorbing than the accumulation of the miser's treasures. I shall never forget the night of February 24, 181 5, on which he died. I. had been with him at his residence a short time before, to arrange some papers relative to Chancellor Livingston and the floating dock ere6led at Brook- lyn. Business despatched, he entered upon the chara6ler of West, and the piftures of Lear and Ophelia, which he had deposited in the American Academy."
There are three portraits in the possession of the Massachusetts Histo- rical Society, by Colonel Henry Sargent — of Rev, John Clark, General B. Lincoln, and Jeremy Belknap, D.D. ; and they recall an instance of dal- liance with, rather than devotion to, Art, chara6leristic of her early devel- opment among us. Although Colonel Sargent never lost his fondness for painting or entirely rehnquished its practice, other tastes and occupations, and, for many years, uncertain health, rendered the pursuit with him, occa- sional ; while his best eiforts indicate a culture and talent which, under more favorable circumstances, would have gained him a high and wide reputation.
He was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1770 ; his father, an emi- nent merchant, resided at Newburyport, and the son was educated at Dum- mer Academy, until the departure of the British troops from Boston ena- bled his father to remove to that city, in whose excellent schools the future artist's early studies were completed. He was intended for a merchant, and entered first the counting-house of Thomas Perkins and subsequently that of his father. No indication of an aptitude for or love of Art had, as is usual, appeared ; and his first interest in the subject was inspired by some chalk sketches by his brother's, on the walls of their chamber ; he imitated and ex-
Early Portrait Painters, 57
celled them ; and when a painter was at work on one of his father's ships, took advantage of the man's absence, to try his hand at a sea nymph with the paint-pot and pound brush. Thenceforth he was constantly drawing, and his father supphedhim with more ehgible means of gratifying his taste. He copied Copley's Shark picture, and Trumbull, when in Boston in 1790, praised the work. He went to London in 1793, and profited by the kindly counsels of West and Copley ; on returning to Boston and finding little encouragement in his chosen pursuit, he accepted a commission in the army raised in 1799, and was placed under the immediate direction of General Hamilton. The taste for military life then acquired, divided his attention with love of Art ; he was commissioned by successive governors of his native State. "I well remember," says Dunlap, "the finest body of light infantry I ever saw, going through their evolutions in the mall and on the Common, under the command of Captain Sargent." He was also distinguished in pohtical and social life. His most elaborate picture is the " Landing of the Pilgrims'; " it cost many years' labor, was exhibited and almost ruined by careless rolling'ion fresh, unseasoned pine ; the sap rotted the pi6lure and it fell to pieces in unrolling. His next large picture was " Christ entering Jerusalem," and it was quite popular ; an- other called " The Dinner Party " was remarkable for its light and shade. " Christ Crucified " is in the possession of the original Roman Catholic Society in Boston. His " Dinner and Tea Party " — beautiful and fin- ished pictures, originally belonged to Mr. D. L. Brow^n, of that city ; his full length of Peter Faneuil hangs in the famous hall of that name ; the " Tailor's News " and " Starved Apothecary " are from the same pencil. The portraits of Jarvis are widely scattered and singularly unequal in merit. They may be found in old Southern manor-houses and Eastern municipal halls. Inman, who was several years his pupil, gives us a good idea of the rapid and careless manner in which Jarvis despatched w'ork when in pecuniary stress or a gainful humor — dashing off five or six heads a day, and leaving them for his protegk to finish up, and add draperies and accessories. Sometimes, however, he was more painstaking and elaborate. He painted many of our naval heroes of the War of 1812. Among his famous sitters were Bishop Moore, of New York, John Randolph, of Vir- ginia, DeWitt Clinton, Halleck, and Commodore Perry. His portraits of Perry, Hull, McDonough, Bainbridge and Swift and General Brow^n, are in the City Hall, N. Y.; those of John Randolph, Rev. Dr. Stanford, Daniel Tompkins, Christopher Colles, Egbert Benson, and Robert Morris, are in the colle6lion of the N. Y. Historical Society. A portrait of the Hon. Stephen Van Renssellaer, father of the present patroon, at the manor-house, is a good exemplar of his manner. James M. Falconer, Esq., of New York, the accomplished treasurer of the Artists' Fund Society, has a water- colored portrait by Jarvis — one of those mentioned by Dunlap, as painted in Broadway, near the old City Hall — also a portrait of much merit, by Bass Otis, of Jarvis ; — they having for a time worked together in a kind of partnership. Some qualities in this work are very fine, and met the ap-
$S American Artist Life.
proval of the artist's friends ; it is on panel, cut down rather closely to the life-size head. His delineations of morbid anatomy, illustrative of the cholera, were highly praised by the Faculty. Many of his heads are painted with a characteristic vigor and individuality which, under more favorable circumstances, would have given him a higher and more perma- nent rank.
A native of South Shields on the Tyne, and a nephew of the celebrated Wesley, John Wesley Jarvis took the lead in portraiture for several years on this side of the water — when the art of painting was in a transition and comparatively ignoble state among us. Born in ly'So, at the age of five years he was sent to his father, who had emigrated to America, and was then in Philadelphia. The boy was soon left to himself, his parent being a mariner by profession ; but the lad's disposition and talent were such as make friends. Dr. Rush took an interest in him ; Stuart did not consider his promise remarkable, and therefore discouraged his artistic ambition ; but Edwin, an employe of that gifted painter, taught the young novice to draw ; Martin, in New York, was more kindly than capable as a teacher ; and Gallagher, another artist, gave him hints and help. One of his earliest attempts was a likeness of Hogg, a well-known comedian of the day ; and, ere long, the youth v/as deemed more clever than Buddington. Malbone's success andfriendhness inspired Jarvis to pra6lise njiniature painting ; and he invented a machine for drawing profiles on glass ; he also executed them in black and gold-leaf; and, associated with Joseph Wood, in Park row, at one time earned, upon an average, a hundred dollars daily — charging five for each gilded silhouette. Profiting by the instructions of Malbone, Wood became a successful artist in this department ; his like- ness of Paulding has been lately engraved and prefixed to that pioneer author's life, by his son.
Those artistic comrades and partners were gay fellows ; Wood played the violin and flute, and Jarvis was an inimitable raconteur, and fond of pra6lical jokes ; but they were of the Bohemian order — not aspiring in their social relations, unwise but witty, often industrious, but always er- ratic ; both, says Dunlap, " made mysterious marriages." We next find Jarvis established in Broadway, and rapidly painting profiles on Bristol board at five dollars each, " very like and pretty," according to the preva- lent standard of taste ; he also had frequent and more profitable orders for works in oil and on ivory. He turned his attention with much zeal to anatomical studies ; and borrowed from Dr. Francis the then novel trea- tises of Gall and Spurzheim, which, said the painter, "make our art a science ; " he was struck with the want of individuality of most engraved heads, and recognized a chara6ler in the contour and minute diversities thereof in nature, which he now felt had been neglected in portraiture. To obtain a precise knowledge in this regard, Jarvis began to model care- fully from life. There is a curious specimen of these experiments in the colle6lion of the N. Y. Historical Society : a plaster cast from Jarvis' model of Tom Paine's cranium and features — the extraordinary proboscis
Early Portrait Paijiters. 59
identifying it to everyone who has ever formed an idea from description of the author of " Common Sense."
Among the numerous eccentricities of Jarvis was a dogmatical pride ; he rehshed an opinion antagonistic to the multitude ; and to this habitude of mind we must attribute his perverse denial of great merit to Stuart, though it may have originated in that artist's want of recognition of his own youthful aspirations. One of his favorite books was the Life of Moreland, whom he deemed a character akin to his own. For many years, Jarvis annually made a professional tour to the South ; his abilities were in constant requisition ; vagabondage was intuitive ; anecdote his fo7'te ; by turns extravagant and laborious, dramatic and domestic ; almost desti- tute of what the phrenologists call the organ of order ; social by instinct, convivial by temperament, capable of vigorous artistic efFe6ls, yet imprudent and reckless, with hosts of acquaintances, keen observation, inexpressible humor, violent prejudices, and genial fellowship — the traditional man, as known through still current anecdotes 'and the personal reminiscences of his intimates, is far more of a chara6ler than a painter ; his words are more vital than his pi6lures, his personal qualities more salient than his professional ; for the idea we form of Jarvis assimilates him to several memorable chara6lers, familiar to all who affe6l the oddities of human na- ture ; he reminds us sometimes of Abernethy and sometimes of Theodore Hook, now of Fuseli and again of Jerrold ; his love of notoriety, his fan- tasy in costume, his remarkable conversational talents and imitative skill, his fund of amusing stories, his independent habits, costly dinners, and improvised suppers, and the variety of chara6lers with which he came in conta6l, are still vividly remembered ; and have, in a manner, caused the artist to disappear in the boon-companion. His way of life favored this predominance of social over professional interest. In summer, his studio in New York was the favorite haunt of the wits ; and, in winter, he was the welcome guest on isolated plantations or in the cities of the South ; and was ever meeting with curious adventures, and adding to his stock of facetious or dramatic narratives. His rooms are described as chaotic in the juxtaposition of artistic implements and domestic utensils — palettes in all conditions, decanters, dresses, a cradle, an easel, musical glasses, books, lay figures — inextricable confusion, sometimes pifturesque, but rarely com- fortable ; yet, amid these paraphernalia of art and economy, the richest " feast of reason and flow of soul " would often be realized — canvas-backs eaten with a one-pronged fork, and rare wines drunk without the aid of a cork-screw, and from glasses of all shapes. Out of doors, the painter was recognized at one time by his " long coat, trimmed with fur " ; at another, by the companionship of two enormous dogs ; now by the dandyism, and now by the slovenliness of his attire. It was said, with some truth, that story-telHng had been fatal to Jarvis ; doubtless, his extravagance was stimulated by his social habits. Matthews dramatized many of his i?n- promptu descriptions. T\i^ finale of such a life is easily anticipated ; ne- gle6t, excitement, improvidence, never can produce the results of method,
6o Americaii Artist Life.
self-control, and foresight ; but, withal, Jarvis, as his friendly biographer boasts, was no hypocrite or sycophant ; his comic powers and " tales of a traveller," with his labors as an artist, are among the curious social phe- nomena of a period when conviviahty was more sanctioned by fashion ; and the deeper insight and more generalized experience of a scientific era had not yet quite dissipated the popular fallacy that .genius is inevitably allied to recklessness, and, in pursuit of art and hterature, a valid excuse for despising the wholesome disciphne of social conformity.
Of the stage improvisations caught from Jarvis, by Dunlap, Hackett, and Matthews, two are remembered by veteran habUues of the theatre, — " Mon- sieur Mallet" and a "Trip to Niagara," — both indebted to the painter for the incident and chara6lers. His biographer describes his "last visit" to Jarvis in a manner which would have afforded pathetic and pi<5luresque hints to Hogarth or Dickens. He that was wont " to set the table in a roar " was a mere wreck of his former self, his tongue paralyzed, his memory weakened, his strong constitution broken down ; separated from his wife, who kept the children, and therefore alone ; surrounded by unfinished portraits, bottles, and brushes, and vitality only prolonged by stimulants. The habits and tone, not less than the professional career of Jarvis, illus- trate a class and a period in our Art history ; facility of execution and social talents may be called the capital of such painters ; occasionally, in a happy mood, and, in an hour of high resolve, doing justice to their talent and ideal as limners — but unable to sustain " the height of that great argu- ment ;" and therefore, never, in life or art, attaining the consistent dig- nity and gracious progress of an Allston or a Malbone. One significant difference in the two orders of men is, that the latter sought and wooed the best female society, thereby refining and elevating their sentiments ; while the former found social position almost exclusively with their own sex, and hence had no, restraint on those convivial tendencies which so often mar their fortunes and their fame. Anecdotes of his professional evasion of Bishop Moore's religious appeals to him, while sitting for his portrait, and of his ruse to excite Perry's anger, in order to give spirit to the likeness, with many similar illustrations of his humorous taft, Jarvis used to relate with singular relish and effect. He was a ludicrous imitator of Hsping and stuttering readers. " Dr. Syntax," says Dr. Francis, " never sought after the picturesque with more avidity than did Jarvis after the scenes of many-colored life ; his stories, particularly those conne6ted with his Southern tours, abounded in motley scenes. His humor won admira- tion ; but he deserves to be remembered also for his corporeal intrepidity and reckless indifference to consequences : he became familiar with the terrific scenes of yellow fever and cholera. He seemed to have had a singular desire to become personally acquainted with their details ; and a death-bed scene, with all its appalling circumstances, in a disorder of a formidable chara6ler, was sought after by him with the solicitude of the inquirer after fresh news." The manner in which his own decease is re- corded in the annals of the National Academy is a suggestive commentary
Early Portrait Painters. 6i
on his career : " He was not a member of the Academy ; he was, how- ever, one of the best portrait-painters of the day,— eccentric, witty, con- vivial ; and his society much sought by the social. He died in extreme poverty, under the roof of his sister, Mrs. Childs."
At the South, Charleston, South Carolina, has been prominent in en- couragement to art ; as in Virginia, many ancestral portraits, some of English origin, and others by Copley, adorn the older family mansions, Malbone's miniatures are among the cherished heir-looms. At the commencement of the present century, this accomplished artist, with Fra- ser and Allston, was professionally occupied and socially honored in the State which enjoys the high distin6lion of being the native place of the latter. Charles Fraser was also born at Charleston, May 20, 1782; and died there on the fifth of October, i860. He began to dehneate the scen- ery around his native city when a mere lad. Destined by his family for the legal profession, he commenced his studies therefor at the age of six- teen ; after three years of exclusive devotion to law, he resumed pra6lice with the pencil, but had no longer the same confidence in his abilities, and, therefore, again became a law-student ; and, in 1807, was admitted to the bar. With a wise providence, rare in the artistic fraternity, he succeeded, by assiduous attention to his professional business, in acquiring sufficient to live with economy after eleven years of work ; and, thereupon, felt at liberty to follow the pursuit so dear to his taste, wherein the example and friendship of Malbone had confirmed him. Like this accomplished and endeared artist-friend, Fraser gave his attention chiefly to miniature, and attained therein a rare degree of eminence. When Lafayette visited the United States in 1825, his portrait was painted by Fraser. Besides numer- ous works in this department, he executed pi6tures in historical, genre, and scenic art ; and, to add to the versatility of his talents, he excelled in literature ; many admirable public addresses, numerous graceful and high- toned poems, and contributions to periodicals attest his culture, reflection, and fancy. Throughout his native State the evidences of his artistic taste and assiduity are scattered ; and it has been said that there is no distin- guished native thereof, who has lived within the last fifty or sixty years, whose " counterfeit presentment " was not painted by Fraser. Indeed, the best proof of his industry and skill was afibrded his fellow-citizens in 1857, when an exhibition of his collected works was opened at Charleston ; among them were miniatures .or oil portraits of the Rutledges, the Pink- neys, the Pettigrus, the Hugers, Haynes, Lowndses, Pringles, and other well-known Carolina families ; — no less than three hundred and thirteen miniatures, and one hundred and thirty-nine landscapes and compositions.
James Frothingham was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1786, and followed his father's trade, — that of a builder of chaise-bodies, — in painting which he experimented with color, then in drawing, and finally attempted chalk likenesses with a success which encouraged him to try oil painting, which he did in a very crude and ingenious fashion, having to work out his ideas without any famiharity with estabhshed processes. His first
62 American Artist Life.
accidental encounter with a portrait-painter put him on the right track A son of General Whiting, who had studied with Stuart, instru6ted him how to prepare, modify, and apply colors, so that he commenced at the age of twenty a professional career, carried a specimen of his work to Stuart, who advised him to stick to coach-building, but subsequently praised his work, and at last declared, " there is no man in Boston, but myself, can paint so good a head." In Salem and New York, Frothingham was em- ployed ; he made admirable copies of Stuart's Washington, and some of his portraits in color and chara6ler are excellent ;. but so precarious were his gains that he often repeated his great instructor's advice, and in an economical point of view thought he had better have stuck to his first vocation ; he continued, however, says Dunlap, "pointing heads with great truth, freedom, and excellence, but not with that undeviating employment which popular painters of far inferior talent often find."
Rembrandt Peale was born on the 22d of February, 1787, in Buck's county, Pennsylvania, and died in Philadelphia, October 3, i86o. He could draw^ remarkably well for a child, at the age of eight ; he executed many portraits, when a young man, at Charleston, South Carolina ; became a pupil of West, in London, and was long occupied in Paris making like- nesses of European celebrities for his father's museum. Two of his more elaborate works were exhibited many years ago, and attrafted much atten- tion, " The Roman Daughter," and the " Court of Death." The latter was a very large work, and very successful as an exhibition pi6lure. It was suggested by a passage in the Poem on Death, by Bishop Porteus ; it was tw-enty-four feet by thirteen, and contained twenty-three figures. During the remainder of his long life, Peale occupied himself with por- trait-painting. His portraits of Denon and Houdon are in the Philadel- phia Academy of Fine Arts ; that of Dr. Houghton, of Dublin, in the col- lection of A. M. Cozzens, of New York ; those of Rammohun Roy, Joseph Dennie, Jefferson, and Priestly, in the possession of the New York His- torical Society.
Rembrandt Peale, when quite young, became the companion of his father's artistic labors. In compliment to the latter, Washington isat for a likeness to the novice of eighteen, who says the honor agitated more than it inspired him, and he soHcited his father's intercession and countenance on the memorable occasion. Of the precise value of his original sketch it is difficult to form an accurate opinion ; but the mature result of his efforts to produce a portrait of Washington has attained a high and per- manent fame. He availed himself of the best remembered traits, and always woiked with Houdon's bust before him. This celebrated picture is the favorite portrait of a large number of amateurs. It is more dark and mellowed in tint, more elaborately worked up, and, in some respedls, more effe6liveiy arranged, than any of its predecessors. Enclosed in an oval of well-imitated stone fretwork, vigorous in execution, rich in color, the brow, eyes, and mouth, full of ehara6ler — altogether it is a striking and impressive delineation. That it was thus originally regarded we may
Early Portrait Pamteis. 6"^
infer from the unanimous resolution of the United States Senate, in 1832^ appropriating two thousand dollars for its purchase, and from the numer- ous copies of the original, in military costume, belonging to the artist, which were ordered. Rembrandt Peale was long the only living artist who ever saw Washington. In the pamphlet v/hich he issued to authen- ticate the work, we find the cordial testimony to its fidelity and other mer- its of Lawrence Lewis, the eldest nephew of Washington ; of the late ven- erable John Vaughan, of Bishop White, Rufus King, Charles Carroll, Edward Livingston, General Smith, Dr. James Thatcher, and Judge Cranch. Chief Justice Marshall says of it : " It is more Washington himself than any portrait I have ever seen ;" and Judge Peters explains his approval by declaring, " I judge from its effeft on my heart." *
On the first of April, 1866, a genuine representative of the Western artist died in Boston ; and his career may be regarded as the conne6ting link between the early and the present generation of American portrait painters. Born in a little mountain village of Franklin county, Massachu- setts, called Conway, in 1792, he knew all the privations and struggles of rustic indigence ; but blest with an excellent mother, he learned self-reli- ance, and was a cheerful "hired boy" as soon as he was old enough to work. The family emigrated to Western New York when Chester Harding was fourteen ; he became an itinerant vender and agent, and thus traversed the country in a wagon, enjoying new glimpses of life, until he fell in love with a rural beauty, turned chairmaker, and went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which place he reached on a raft, having arrived at the Alleghany river on foot. " All our valuables," he says, " consisted of one bed and a chest of clothing and some cooking utensils, so that we had httle labor in getting settled down." Here he went to work as a sign-painter, and thus gained a livelihood for a twelvemonth, when the advent of an artist completely changed his destiny. Fascinated by the vocation, he watched the progress of his own and his wife's portraits, and then tried to imitate the process. Upon partially succeeding, in a very crude manner, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the pursuit ; painted a hundred likenesses in six months, at tweifty-five dollars each ; went to Philadelphia, and profited by the obser- vation and criticism there afforded ; and finally became prosperously estab- hshed in his new and improvised vocation, at St. Louis. In 1823, Harding was the fashion in Boston ; even Stuart was neglected, and used to ask sarcastically, " How goes the Harding fever ? " He went to London and began to study ; was kindly treated by Leslie and Lawrence, made good likenesses of the Dukes of Sussex, Hamilton, and Norfolk, and of Alison the historian, and Rogers the poet. On his return, he continued, with more or less assiduity and success, the career begun under such discour- agements. His portraits of Daniel Webster and other celebrities are much esteemed ; his last work was an excellent hkeness of General Sher- man, which he painted in St. Louis, the scene of his earhest good fortune ;
* Charactdler and Portraits of Washington.
64 American Artist Life.
and, in the spring, passing through Boston, on his annual sporting excur- sion to Cape Cod, he was taken ill, and died, at the age of seventy-three, in the city where his original reputation first dawned. " I feel," he says, " that I owe more to it than to any other place ; more of my professional life has been spent in this city than anywhere else ; and it is around it that my most grateful recolleftions cluster." Harding was very tall, broad- shouldered and athletic ; in build and aspe6l a ifine, manly specimen of his race ; he was an ardent disciple of Isaac Walton, and a favorite compan- ion of genial sportsmen ; unaffected, kindly, simple, frank, and social, his personal qualities greatly promoted his artistic success. His numerous portraits, widely scattered over the country, are, in many instances, highly valued, because they adequately suggest the expression and appearance of the departed to loving survivors ; yet incorreftness in drawing often ren- ders them valueless as works of Art, and no one was more keenly aware of their deficiencies than the artist himself ; independent and unpretend- ing, it was the true native flavor of the man and cleverness of the painter, rather than adequate discipline, that won him both affection and success.
From several tributes to his memory which were ehcited by his death, we cull the following : " It was impossible to see him without both admir- ing and hking him ; he had, in his heart as well as in his manners, that quality which wins affe6lion at the same time it inspires respe6l ; and his constant regard for the rights and feelings of others was his shield against any invasion of his own. A duke who met him in a drawing-room, a country lad who was his companion in a fishing-excursion, would find that his manhood was broad enough for both. He visited England twice, and there was hardly a place in the United States where he was not known. His conversation was rich in recolle6lions of eminent men of all kinds in both hemispheres, while it was absolutely untainted by self-assertion, and self-conceit. At one time we heard of him as painting Daniel Webster at Washington, and soon after that he had started off to the wilds of the West to paint Daniel Boone. The massiveness and vigor of his body, his noble presence, and the mingled rusticity and courtliness of his manners, gave intimations of the stern and rough nursing of his earlier years, and kept the remembrance of the scenes and hardships through which he had made his way to the intimacy with the most distinguished men in his middle and later life.
" His children had often urged him to put upon record, at least for their use, some memorial of his early experiences. He gratified their wishes, so far as to write, under the apt title of ' My Egotistography,' a too brief, but most lively, humorous, and thoroughly frank sketch of what he regarded as most likely to interest them in his fortunes and doings. His manu- script, with a few modest additions by one of his daughters, has been put into print. It is not published ; we wish it were, for it has a most rehsh- ing flavor for appreciative readers, and carries with it an admirable moral. We have had the privilege of reading a borrowed copy, and have vastly enjoyed the perusal. The straits and buifetings of boyhood, met and
Early Po) trait Painters. 65
turned to account by real Yankee pluck ; the shifts and schemes for get- ting a living ; the wanderings and struggles of a premature manhood, and, as it would seem, the almost blundering upon the destined career for his genius, are related with a quaint directness and candor. His journals and letters during his two visits abroad, showing the Yankee backwoods-boy as the diner-out with nobles, the inmate of the castles of the great, and the painter of the Dukes of Sussex and Hamilton, are models of that kind of writing, and incidentally afford illustrations of his own noble and engag- ing charafter."
Gilbert Stuart Newton painted many American portraits in London. His parents left Boston for HaHfax, N. S., when that city was evacuated by the British ; and he was born in the latter place, September 2, 1795 ; but brought back to Boston after his father's death, in 1803, and resided in Charlestown until his uncle, Gilbert Stuart, was estabhshed in Boston, when his nephew became his pupil ; later in life they seem to have been ahenated. Newton paid a brief visit to Italy, and then joined Leslie in Paris ; they went together to London in 18 17. He began as an artist with great promise, had a good eye for color, doubtless, in part, owing to his early familiarity with Stuart's style ; he also had genius, humor, and pathos ; his " Dull Lecture," formerly belonging to Phihp Hone, is a good illustration of the former quality, — " The Vicar of Wakefield restoring Olivia," of the latter. Leslie's companionship was a great advantage to. him ; he inclined to and excelled in scenes from Gil Bias and Moliere. He was not a devoted student ; and the labor required for effe6live genre pi(ft:ures was distasteful to him, although he will be remembered by a few choice efforts of this kind. He therefore took to portraiture ; one of his best cabinet Hkenesses is that of Washington Irving, who said to him, on seeing him at work on the picture of " The Poet reading his Verses to the impatient Gallant," " Now you are on the right road !" For several years, a mental disorder blighted and isolated the life of Newton, the best idea of whose chara6ler, tastes, and career, can be gathered from his friend Leshe's autobiography. There is a portrait of John Adams, by him, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Stuart Newton was more of a man of society than any of our artists ; his social intercourse with leading people in England, with the fastidiousness of his artistic habits, and the state of his health, limited his work.
Contemporary with Harding were several portrait painters who attained a local and sometimes an extensive popularity, and some of their works are valuable exemplars of this department of Art. John Neagle, the son-in- law of Sully, was born in Boston, while his parents, who were Philadel- phians, were on a visit to that city, November 4, 1799. His father was of Irish descent, and his mother a native of New Jersey. His first im- pulse toward, or, at least, pra6tice of. Art, seems to have been aw^akened by his schoolfellow, Petticolas, subsequently a miniature painter at Richmond, Va., and whose original small likeness of Washington is in the colle6lion of J. Taylor Johnston, of New York. He had a quarter's instruftion in
5
66 American Artist Life.
drawing from Pietro Amora ; and probably from his enjoyment of vivid colors, like several embryo painters mentioned in this work, when obliged to become a tradesman's apprentice, sele6led coach-painting as an employment. His master studied with a hmner, with a view to the ornamental part of his business, and young Neagle was frequently em- ployed to carry palette, colors, and brushes, from factory to ateher ; in this way, he soon grew familiar with the processes and materials of Art, and encouraged by Wilson, Peale and Sully, in 1818, began pra6lice in Phila- delphia. Thence he went to Lexington, Ky., and experienced much priva- tion and discouragement, until the fortunate accidental sitter appeared ; and his fame, after a successful sojourn at New Orleans, grew rapidly, until we find him married, and busy in his old home, in -^ 820, Six years after, the full-length, stalwart and vigorous figure of Patrick Lyon, the black- smith, at his forge, gained him wdde reputation, Dunlap gives an animated description of the circumstances attending this produ6lion and the original charader it represents. This pi6lure is in the possession of the Boston Athenaeum. His portrait of Mrs. Wood as Amina, in BelHni's opera of La Sounambula, is in the Philadelphia Academy, as is that of Matthew Carey ; his portrait of Henry Clay belongs to the Union League Club of that city. His portrait of Washington hangs in Independence Hall, over the doorway. The frame which encloses this picture was made in the great procession which passed along the streets of Philadelphia on the centennial celebration of Washington's birthday, February, 22, 1832. Neagle was a great admirer of Stuart, and some of his portraits have a strength and vividness akin to that master. Among his subje6ls are Dr. Chapman, Commodore Barron, and Rev. Mr. Palmer. Some years before his death he became paralyzed, and left an unfinished portrait of Judge Stroud, undertaken after his attack. In his prime he was a remarkably genial companion, and devoted to a6live life. For eight years he w^as president of the Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia.
Samuel Waldo was a native of Windham, in Connecticut ; he died after fifty-three years' devotion to his profession, in New York, Feb- ruary 16, 1 86 1, at the age of 78. He studied portrait painting with an indiff"erent artist at Hartford; with fifteen dollars received from a British commodore for his portrait, he commenced business, and the hospitable encouragement of a gentleman at Litchfield started him on a prosperous career in his native State ; befriended at Charleston, S. C, by Mr. Rutledge, he had ample occupation there, and was enabled to embark for London in 1806, where he was kindly received by West, Copley, and Fulton, and painted many Hken esses at five guineas each. On his return to America, he landed in New York in January, 1809, with two guineas in his pocket, but soon made friends by his integrity and courteous manners, and was adequately employed. Among his portraits are those of Mayors Willet, Radclifife, and Allen, and Gen. McComb, in the City Hall, N. Y., and of Peter Remsen, in the posses- sion of the N. Y. Historical Society. Many of Waldo's portraits, that re-
Early Portrait Painters. 6j
mained in his studio, were sold within two years, at au6lion ; and some of them are now encountered at bookstalls and curiosity-shops. S. P. Avery bought, at the sale, a charming female head, superior in color ; and among the portraits thus disposed of, were those of Jeffer- son Davis and ex-Mayor Harper. He is remembered now as the part- ner of WiUiam Jewett, who was born in East Haddam, Ct, February 14, 1795, and worked on a farm until he was apprenticed to a coachmaker in New London. Having an " eye for colors," he managed to evade his in- dentures, and made his way to New York in a coasting vessel. Having been employed by Waldo to grind paints, that gentleman now received him into his family ; and when he had studied three years, he assisted his bene- fadlor, and eventually became the sharer of his work and profits ; so that the portraits of Waldo and Jewett were joint produ6lions, it being a puzzle to the uninitiated to assign to either painter his share of a portrait. Some of the male heads from this double hand are very good ; the likenesses were often successful, and for many years the artists were fully occupied in New York. Meantime, in Boston, Francis Alexander was a favorite portrait painter. Born in Windham county, Ct, in February, 1800, his first earnings were forty dollars for schoolkeeping, at the age of eighteen ; when oif duty, on account of a slight indisposition, he was struck with the beautiful colors of some fish he had caught, and attempted to reproduce them in water-color. This " study from nature " revealed his artistic pro- cHvities ; and, encouraged by his mother, he continued to experiment with pencil and brush until, as he naively said, his fame " spread half a mile." Not without much opposition and despite scanty means, he went to New York, and studied with Alexander Robertson, a Scotch artist. Colonel Trumbull lent him the .heads to copy ; he received a commission to paint a family at Providence, R. I., and going thence to Boston, soon became a favorite portrait painter. In 1833, in conjun6lion with Harding, Fisher, and Doughty, he exhibited many of his pi6lures in Boston, having two years before visited Italy, where he has resided for many years past. With less strength but more refinement than Harding, Alvan Fisher had a pleasant career in Boston and its vicinity. He was a native of Needham, Norfolk county, Ct., and studied with Penniman, an ornamental painter ; the mechanical aptitude there acquired was long a hindrance to the future artist ; as such he commenced pra6lice in 1824, at first as a landscape and afterwards as a portrait painter, visiting Europe in 1825, and studying chiefly in Paris. He produced many satisfa6lory and graceful Hkenesses ; that of the lamented Spurzheim, taken partly from recolledlion, immedi- ately after his death in Boston, was highly valued. He died at his resi- dence, at Dedham, Mass., February 14, 1863.
In the early chapters of Leslie's delightful Recolle£liofis, lately published, frequent mention is made of a brother artist and countryman, Charles B. King, who, with Moore and Allston, lived in London under the same roof with the young painter. This estimable man was a native of Newport
6S American Artist Life.
and passed his summers there and his winters in Washington. Few liv- ing American artists, looked back upon the dawn of Art in America, and recalled so many of her earliest votaries. Mr. King showed his love for his native town by the donation of a sum to the public school fund, the interest of which is devoted to musical instruction, and by the gift of numerous paintings and several thousand dollars to the Redwood Library. During a period of forty years his studio at the Capital was filled with the portraits of the political and other celebrities of the day, — not remarkable for artistic superiority, but often curious and valuable as likenesses, especially the In- dian portraits. His industry and simple habits enabled him to acquire a handsome competence, and his amiable and exemplary character won him many friends. He died at Washington, Distrid of -^Columbia, March i8, 1862, at the age of seventy-six.
Ezra Ames, a coach-painter of Albany, turned his attention to portrait- ure, and gained distinction in 1812 by exhibiting his likeness of Governor George Clinton at the Pennsylvania Academy ; during several years he executed portraits of the western members of the legislature, and these, with other specimens of his imitative skill, are widely scattered in New York State, many being in Albany, where his son has long followed the vocation of a miniature painter. In the Capitol are his portraits of Gov- ernor Clinton and Herman Bleecker, and his copy of Washington is in the State Library. William Wilson, an Englishman, painted portraits about 1 840-5 with a felicitous coloring ; his heads of Porter, the editor, ahd of Rich- ards, the proprietor, of the Spirit of the Times, and others, were much esteemed. John T. Peale executed some portraits of decided merit. C. E. Weir, brother of the professor, painted many truthful cabinet heads, and a careful and minute composition portrait by him was noted at one ot the early Art-Union exhibitions. De Veaux, of South Carolina, made creditable portraits.
Matthew Jouet, a humorous, tasteful man, was the best portrait painter, for many years, "west of the mountains"'; he was a native of Fayette county, Kentucky, and educated for the bar ; he was a favorite pupil of Stuart's, in Boston, in 181 7 ; and practised his art successfully in his native State, at New Orleans, Natchez, and other places in the southwest ; and died at the age of forty-three, at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1826. Edward Petticolas was a pupil of Sully, and his father taught the latter's wife music, by way of equivalent. The family settled in Richmond in 1805. Petti- colas visited Europe three times, and was considered an accomplished portrait painter when at last established in Richmond. " His st)-le was chaste, his coloring clear, but his manner somewhat timid." An original miniature of Washington by him is in the gallery of S. Taylor Johnston, of New York.
Many American and several foreign artists of this period, and before and subsequently, have executed portraits more or less creditable, in oil portraiture, miniature, crayon, composition and copying ; of the for-
Early Portrait Painters, 69
mer, some having enjoyed at certain times and places quite a successful career, and others are still more or less professionally occupied ; but there are so few salient points or such limited interest in their works, that an extended notice would ajfford but a repetition of the average artistic expe- rience and achievement ; although in several instances their piftures have a distin6live value and merit*
With the increase of wealth, population, and taste for Art, portrait-paint- ing has so enlarged its bounds and multiplied its proficients that it would be a hopeless task even to enumerate those who have pursued it in the United States, with success, during the last twenty years ; several foreign artists have reaped a harvest in this field, and scattered their " counterfeit presentments " broadcast over the republic. Nor have our own portrait- painters failed to win European commissions and fame. One of the last of the old generation of portrait-painters was C. C. Ingham, whose pic- tures are remarkable for a high degree of finish, and an exquisite refine- ment, not always compatible with strength and nature, but often illustra- tive of the most tasteful patience. His " Flower Girl," " Day Dream," and " Portrait of a Child " in the colle6lion of Jonathan Sturgis, Esq., are good exemplars of his style and manner. The following account of this artist appeared soon after his death in a leading journal of New York, and gives a just view of his*career and character :
"He was born in Dubhn in 1796, and came to this country with his father's family at the age of twenty-one, after having studied his profession four years in his native city, and produced works which won a premium from the Dublin Academy, and gave him a popular reputation and employ- ment. He exhibited his ' Death of Cleopatra,' a work which had created a sensation in Europe, in the Gallery of the old Academy of Fine Arts, in Barclay street, at their first exhibition. It attrafted great attention, and at once led to extensive employment. From that day to his last illness, he continued with wonderful industry to work at his easel, rarely losing a day, or even an hour of sunlight. He was one of the founders of the pres- ent National Academy of Design, having, at the time of the revolution in the old Academy, arrayed himself in the ranks of the malcontents. Of the original members of the National Academy he was the last survivor but three — Cummings, Durand, and Morse. He was for many years the vice-president, and until recently an a6live and useful member.
" YW% forte was female portraiture ; and although he worked slowly and tired his sitters with numerous sittings, a vast number of his pi6lures of the reigning beauties of other days adorn the walls of New York mansions. His style of painting was peculiar, and from the excessive patience and industry necessary to its success, was seldom imitated. He elaborated his flesh to the verge of hardness, touching and retouching his larger por- traits, until the pi6lure presented all the delicacy and finish of the finest miniature on ivory.
* For some interesting facfls, regarding the painters of Boston before the Revolution, vide a pam- phlet by W. H. Whitmore, Esq., of that city.
70 American Artist Life.
" This elaboration was probably done more in a feeling for mechanical finish, than to realize any quality which he saw in his sitters. But his pi(ftures have satisfied pubhc appreciation, and he has fully shared the popularity of the distinguished American portrait painters who lived in his day. He bore an unimpeachable chara<5ler, and was much beloved, and will be long regretted by his friends and fellow-artists.''
COPLEY.
|ORTRAITS appeal to the love of order as well as of beauty. They are useful and attraftive not only as conne6led with the affe6lions, or as meritorious works of art, but as S3^m- bols of departed races and ages. All admit the moral charm which invests an ancient estate ; and the inaftivity of the sentiment of veneration among us, has been not irrationally ascribed to the comparative absence of those revered obje6ls which, from earliest childhood, habituate the mind to dwell upon its relations with what has gone before, and its consequent responsibihty to the future. That whole- some conservatism by which the feelings are rendered consistent and strong, from the influence of attachment to principles, is justly regarded as the most desirable safeguard against reckless fanaticism, both in politics and religion. Human beings are so much the creatures of sympathy, and the memory depends so greatly upon the imagination, that conservative influ- ences are intimately aUied with material objects. Even the seared con- science of Lady Macbeth was touched by the resegiblance of the sleeping Duncan to her father ; and when Jeannie Deans visited the Duke of Argyle, she wore her country's plaid, knowing " his honor would warm to the tar- tan." In this respe6l the fine arts ena6l an important part. One of Haz- litt's most suggestive essays is that on " A Portrait by Vandyke ; " and we have but to remember the psychological and historical as well as artistic interest which Titian, Velasquez, and Reynolds gave to this branch of art, to realize its possible significance. The archite6lure of castles and palaces, the statues of local divinities, the designs of escutcheons and sepulchral monuments, address the feelings both of love and pride which bind gene- rations of men together. Still nearer to the heart are family portraits. It is not the invention of romantic fiction which so often describes its heroes as musing in their youth, in some quiet gallery, over the lineaments of a noble ancestry. " Look on this pi6lure, and on this," is an admonition more widely suggestive than it was to Hamlet's mother. " A portrait," says Hervey, " is a mournful thing, the shadow of a joy ; " but it may be impressive, affe6ting, and invaluable, when brightened by a feeling of per- sonal devotion or hallowed by retrospe6tive sentiment.
Copley's portraits are among the few significant Art-memorials of the past
/-^
American Artist Life.
encountered in this country ; and, as they are characteristic to a high degree, possess the interest which is ever attached to such rehcs. It has been said that the possession of one of these ancestral portraits is an American's best title of nobility. He was the only native painter of real skill which the New World could boast prior to the Revolution ; and seems to have followed his art with signal pride and assiduit}'. The heads of leading families, especially those of New England, sat to him ; and the prices he commanded, and the fame he achieved, were quite remarkable for the period. At many an old family dwelhng in. Massachusetts, in the commercial cities of most of the Eastern States, and occasionally at the South, are encountered portraits by Copley ; and not unfrequently ou> living painters are called upon to copy them: encrusted as they often are with the dust of a centur}', when cleaned and varnished, the features and dress come out with a vividness and strength indicative of a master's hand. Among the good specimens of his skill and style are the portraits of the Rev. John Ogilvie, in Trinity Church Vestry, New York; Ralph and Mrt. Izard playing chess, now in Charleston, S. C, — painted in Italy ; that of General Brattle, at Boston, in the uniform of a British officer ; Dr. Miles Cooper, as President of Columbia College, N. Y. ; Rev. James Cooper, D.D., and Rev. James Allen, the poet, belonging to the Massachusetts Historical Society; Judge Jared Ingersoll, in the possession of Charles Ingersoll, Philadelphia ; Rev. Mr. Fayerweather, of Narragansett, in his Oxford robes ; a portrait belonging to WilHam Thomas, Esq., of Baltimore ; Mrs. Hoo- per, in the colle6lion of James Lenox, of New York ; a fine likeness of a gentleman, in the possession of Mrs. A. Woodruff, of Perth Amboy, N.J. ; one of a lady as St. Cecilia playing on the harp, belonging to Mrs, N. Apple- ton, Boston ; of Dr. Joseph Green, the property of Dr. Joshua Green, of Groton, Mass. ; one o&John Adams, belonging to the City of Boston, and another in Harvard Hall, Cambridge ; of Governor and Mrs. Shirley, in the possession of Mrs. E. S. Erving, of New York ; of Judge and Mrs. Langdon, in the possession of Madame Eustis, of. Roxbury ; two portraits of the Misses Plumpstead, of Philadelphia ; of Sylvester Gardiner, belong- .ing to W. H. Gardener, of