,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,mrs4 ,augustus ,saint-,gaudens4 ,,homer ,,saint-,,gaudens4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent4 ,,american ,,masters ,,of ,,painting ,,being ,,brief ,,appreciations ,,of ,,some ,,american ,,painters ,,illustrated ,,with ,,examples ,,of ,,their ,,work ,,by ,,charles ,h4 ,,caffin ,illustration ,,garden ,,city ,,new ,,york ,,doubleday1 ,,page ,,company #aiac ,,copyright1 #aija1 #aijb1 ,,by ,,the ,,sun ,,printing ,,and ,,publishing ,,co4 ,,copyright1 #aijb1 ,,by ,,doubleday1 ,,page ,,company4 ,,publishers' ,,note ,thanks are especially due to ,colonel ,frank ,j4 ,hecker and ,mr4 ,charles ,l4 ,freer of ,detroit2 to ,mr4 ,george ,a4 ,hearn1 ,mrs4 ,augustus ,saint-,gaudens1 ,mr4 ,samuel ,untermeyer1 ,mr4 ,william ,t4 ,evans1 ,mr4 ,daniel ,guggenheim1 ,mr4 ,louis ,marshall1 ,miss ,henrietta ,e4 ,failing1 ,mr4 ,whitelaw ,reid1 ,mr4 ,james ,w4 ,ellsworth1 ,mr4 ,j4 ,j4 ,albright1 ,mr4 ,n4 ,e4 ,montross1 the ,carnegie ,institute1 and the ,boston ,museum of ,fine ,arts1--whose assistance has made possible the inclusion of the reproductions in this illustrated edition4 ,published by the courtesy of ,the ,new ,york ,sun4 ,,contents ,,page ,i4 ,george ,inness #c ,,ii4 ,john ,la ,farge #ai ,,iii4 ,james ,a4 ,mc,neill ,whistler #cg ,,iv4 ,john ,singer ,sargent #ee ,v4 ,winslow ,homer #ga ,,vi4 ,edwin ,a4 ,abbey #hc ,,vii4 ,george ,fuller #aja ,,viii4 ,homer ,d4 ,martin #aae ,,ix4 ,george de ,forest ,brush #abi ,x4 ,alexander ,h4 ,wyant #adc ,,xi4 ,dwight ,w4 ,tryon #aee ,,xii4 ,horatio ,walker #aga ,,xiii4 ,gilbert ,stuart #ahe ,,list ,,of ,,illustrations ,,facing ,,page ,,homer ,,saint-,,gaudens4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent ,frontispiece ,,the ,,berkshire ,,hills4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness #d ,,sunshine ,,and ,,clouds4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness #e ,,midsummer4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness #ad ,,athens4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge #bb ,decorative painting in the ,walker ,art ,gallery1 ,bowdoin ,college4 ,,altar ,,piece4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge #bc ,church of the ,ascension1 ,new ,york4 ,,the ,,angel ,,of ,,the ,,sun4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge #cb ,decoration in the ,church of the ,paulist ,fathers1 ,new ,york4 ,,portrait ,,of ,,the ,,artist',s ,,mother4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler #db ,,the ,,music ,,room4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler #dc ,,nocturne--,,bognor4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler #df ,,the ,,balcony4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler #dg ,,carmencita4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent #ef ,,portrait ,,of ,,mr4 ,,marquand4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent #eg ,,the ,,lookout--8,,all',s ,,well40 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer #gb ,,the ,,west ,,wind4 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer #gc ,,the ,,maine ,,coast4 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer #gh ,,the ,,penance ,,of ,,eleanor1 ,,duchess ,,of ,,gloucester4 ,,by ,,edwin ,a4 ,,abbey #hf ,,pavane4 ,,by ,,edwin ,a4 ,,abbey #hg ,painted in #ahie to occupy a special place in the room where it now is4 ,,the ,,simple ,,gatherer4 ,,by ,,george ,,fuller #ajf ,,westchester ,,hills4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin #abj ,,the ,,sun ,,worshippers4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin #aba ,,old ,,church ,,in ,,normandy4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin #abd ,,the ,,sculptor ,,and ,,the ,,king4 ,,by ,,george ,,de ,,forest ,,brush #acf ,,mother ,,and ,,child4 ,,by ,,george ,,de ,,forest ,,brush #acg ,,the ,,mohawk ,,valley4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant #adf ,,the ,,connecticut ,,valley4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant #adg ,,moonlight ,,and ,,frost4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant #aej ,,spring ,,blossoms4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon #afj ,,early ,,spring1 ,,new ,,england4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon #afa ,,evening--,,autumn4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon #aff ,a ,,sty4 ,,by ,,horatio ,,walker #agd ,,ploughing ,,in ,,acadia4 ,,by ,,horatio ,,walker #age ,i ,,george ,,inness ,in the record of ,american art three names stand out distinctly as those of innovators3 ,whistler1 ,la ,farge1 and ,george ,inness4 ,while ,whistler's influence has been felt throughout the whole art world1 and ,la ,farge 7to quote from the ,report of the ,international ,jury of the ,exhibition of #ahhi7 8has created in all its details an art unknown before10 ,inness was a pathfinder1 only within the domain of ,american art1 and was led by instinct into ways already trodden by the great men of other countries4 ,but this does not make him less an innovator4 ,nor does the fact that he was certainly influenced by 8the men of #ahcj10 when he came to know their works4 ,the point is that throughout his life his evolution was from within4 ,his father1 a retired ,new ,york grocer1 would have had him enter business1 and even opened a small store for him in ,newark1 ,n4,j41 whither the family had moved from ,newburg4 ,but the son's mind was set on art4 ,like ,durand1 ,kensett1 and ,casilear1 he was apprenticed for a short time to an engraver1 and subsequently studied painting for a little while with ,regis ,gignoux1 a pupil of ,delaroche4 ,for the rest he was self-taught4 ,his contemporary1 ,frederick ,e4 ,church1 younger than himself by a year1 was seeking instruction from ,thomas ,cole1 the founder of the 8,hudson ,river ,school10 whose grand topographical landscapes the pupil was to follow in his studies of the ,andes1 of ,niagara1 and of other impressive regions4 ,the young ,inness1 meanwhile1 was independently studying the individual forms of nature4 ,that he should be insensible to the influence of ,cole was out of the question1 and so late as #ahfe1 when he was forty years old1 and had returned from his first visit to ,europe deeply impressed with the work of the ,barbizon painters1 we can detect in at least two pictures1 8,delaware ,valley0 and the large 8,peace and ,plenty0 of the ,metropolitan ,museum1 that fondness for grandeur of distance and extent so characteristic of ,cole4 ,but we can also detect the expression of a fuller intimacy with the scene than ,cole could give4 ,inness's own penetrating study of natural phenomena1 indorsed for himself1 no doubt1 by the corresponding aim of the ,barbizon painters to reach the inwardness of the landscape1 had enabled him more thoroughly to comprehend the vastness2 to collate ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,george ,a4 ,hearn1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,berkshire ,,hills4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,william ,t4 ,evans1 ,esq4 ,,sunshine ,,and ,,clouds4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness4 the details and render them subordinate to a single powerful impression4 ,the conception and progress of each of those pictures is from the general to the particular1 and not contrariwise1 as in the topographical landscape2 and this contrary has impressed upon them a distinct personal feeling2 the realization in each case of a mood of nature1 powerfully felt4 ,but in alluding to the topographical character of ,cole's landscapes1 ,i am very far from wishing to belittle the essential greatness of that painter4 ,while his means of expression were comparatively inadequate1 while he may even have mistaken the true province of landscape painting1 his conception of nature was unquestionably an exalted one1 and likely to be acceptable to a spirit so eagerly aspiring as ,inness's4 ,moreover--and this is often overlooked--it was the natural result of the time and environment4 ,to a young people1 with its growing consciousness of free and independent nationality1 surrounded by the vastness of nature as yet scarcely altered by man1 what could have been more attractive than this sense of nature's grandeur8 ,in their attitude toward the nature around them they may have been nearer to the truth than we give them credit for4 ,we must not forget that our estimate of the functions of landscape painting comes to us from ,holland1 a country of limited horizons1 through ,france1 whose soil is highly cultivated and studded with the charming intimacy of rural life4 ,finding this paysage intime true to nature and intrinsically lovely1 while the so-called classic landscape was grandiloquently superficial1 we have assumed that the former is the true and only satisfactory representative of pictorial landscape4 ,perhaps too rashly2 for even as painting has been able to compass the solemnities of religion1 so a painter may arise who will join to technical ability sufficient force of mind to compass the solemnities of nature4 ,meanwhile1 we should at least remember that ,cole drew his inspiration from ,american scenery1 which the modern painter is studying through spectacles borrowed from ,france and ,holland4 ,where ,inness showed himself superior to the ,american painters of his early life was in the comprehensive control which he exercised over his view of nature2 a control assisted by his close study of nature's forms1 and of their relative significances4 ,he was1 in fact1 the father of the naturalistic movement in ,american landscape2 for it seems clear that he fully realized the trend of his studies before he had found them indorsed by the ,barbizon painters4 ,and this separate and independent offshoot of the naturalistic movement1 appearing almost simultaneously in the ,new ,world1 is a very curious and interesting problem4 ,in the case of the ,barbizon painters the logic of the movement can be readily traced3 in the general dissatisfaction with classicism2 in the immediate influence of ,constable and the tradition of the ,dutch2 and1 finally1 in a sort of compromise between the realism of ,courbet and the poetic rage of the ,romanticists4 ,but that1 unprompted by outside suggestion1 a yearning for nature study and for a poetic interpretation of landscape should have arisen at about the same time in a young man on the banks of the ,american ,hudson1 points to that wider logic which thinkers have detected in the evolution of man--that the identical phases of evolution may appear sporadically1 independent of transmitted causes1 the individual man or nation having reached a period of personal development at which the next step becomes inevitable4 ,inness was of religious temperament2 highly imaginative and at the same time questioning1 argumentative1 as befitted his ,scotch origin4 ,applying these qualities to his art1 he was unremitting in the investigation of truth1 while regarding nature in a spirit of elevated poetry4 ,for he seems to have had always an alert consciousness of the simultaneous claims of the spirit and of the senses4 ,he found an interdependence between the two4 ,external beauty was the expression of an inward beauty of spirit4 ,in this way landscape painting to some orders of mind becomes veritably a form of religious painting4 ,it would seem to have been so to ,inness1 as1 in his way1 it was to ,corot4 ,it was with the latter of all the ,barbizon painters that ,inness appears to have had most sympathy1 though he was appreciative also of ,rousseau and ,daubigny4 ,a man may be gauged to some extent by the company he chooses1 and ,inness's predilection for these three may afford additional evidence of his own personal feeling toward his art4 ,toward ,rousseau he was attracted1 no doubt1 by the master's magnificent sincerity1 the tireless analysis that resulted in such a comprehension of nature's forms1 within which he1 too1 felt the existence of a spirituality that led him in time to nature-worship1 into a sort of vague pantheism4 ,this spiritual 8underlay0 in ,rousseau's work must have been very fascinating to ,inness1 while its concentrated intensity would strike a sympathetic chord in his own ardent temperament4 ,not1 however1 so as to lead him in the direction of ,rousseau's sternness4 ,his sympathies were more akin to the tender spirituality of ,corot4 ,he missed in the latter's work the mastery of tangible form and found his range of colour narrow1 but was charmed with the exquisite serenity1 childlike freshness of soul1 and perpetually gracious bonhommie of ,corot's manner1--all qualities that one associates with the classic style1 and that make the introduction of nymphs into his naturalistic landscapes seem altogether reasonable4 ,and in this predilection for ,corot there is interest1 since we are accustomed to hear ,inness called 8an impetuous and passionate painter40 ,yet in his work there is very little of stress and storm4 ,we remember him most affectionately1 and seem to find him most characteristically represented in works of such benign repose as 8,winter ,morning1 ,montclair10 8,the ,wood ,gatherers10 8,the ,clouded ,sun10 and 8,summer ,silence40 ,i do not forget that many of his earlier pictures could be described as passionate2 but their turbulence of emotion is seldom associated with any disturbance in nature4 ,the turbulence is in the manner of feeling and painting rather than in the subject1 in the interpretation1 for example1 of a flaming sunset sky over an earth sinking peacefully to slumber4 ,the passion is in the painter himself2 and1 as he matured1 ardour yielded to intensity1 to the white heat of concentrated energy4 ,the progress of his art was steadily in the direction of serenity1 that highest quality of calm which is the flux of passion4 ,here again becomes evident the essentially religious character of his art and its point of contact with the religiosity of ,rousseau and ,corot2 ,rousseau's attained through suffering1 ,corot's preserving to the end the nave1 painless faith of the child4 ,inness would be drawn to one by sympathy1 to the other by wonder and love4 ,whence1 then1 his admiration of ,daubigny8 ,the latter had little intensity and less spirituality2 an easy man1 the lockers of whose houseboat contained good creature comforts4 ,he makes you realize the smile of the earth1 and limits his poetry to the quiet comfortableness of the inhabited and cultivated banks of his beloved rivers4 ,partly it was the perennial boyishness of ,daubigny's heart that1 no doubt1 captivated ,inness4 ,his own soul was quick and eager to the end1 undimmed or worsted up to close on seventy years1 and its sweet freshness was a triumph over the debilitating effects of frail health1 unremitting toil1 and protracted struggle4 ,so the genial1 simple lovableness of ,daubigny's character may well have brought him encouragement and refreshment4 ,but we may suspect another link of fascination4 ,while ,rousseau and ,corot were painters of nature1 ,daubigny was the painter of the country1 of the landscape in its intimate relation to the life of man4 ,it is not that he introduces figures1 for he seldom does1 yet the spirit of mankind broods over almost all his landscapes2 and the normal progress of all of us in our love of nature is apt to be from wonderland to the land of intimate affection4 ,a child will be attracted by a gorgeous sunset1 and we most of us begin by admiring nature's grandeur1 nor are disinclined to lose ourselves in her infinity4 ,but later comes the more seeing eye1 which finds infinite suggestion in little things and a suggestion1 also1 of infinity1 if the mind craves for it4 ,and then comes1 too1 a craving to be personally something in the midst of this infinity1 to attach one's self to one's surroundings and share in the common life2 so more and more we grow to value those aspects of nature which recall our intimate relation to her1 and the simple landscape of the countryside is found to be most companionable4 ,as soon as his circumstances permitted1 ,inness established himself in a country home at ,montclair1 ,n4,j41 and thenceforth the simple charms of his surroundings afford him all the inspiration that he needs4 ,to us as well as to himself this is the most beautiful period of his art1 representing the maturity both of his method and ideal4 ,years of study and experiment have given his hand assurance and facility4 ,it obeys the brain implicitly and with a readiness that does not put any drag upon the full1 free play of the imagination4 ,its ideography is entirely personal1 the brush work having been refined until in the most succinct and pregnant way it expresses precisely its author's point of view4 ,so personal is it that one may with equal certainty deduce the point of view from the method or trace back the method to the point of view4 ,ampleness and simplicity are the characteristics of each4 ,the ampleness1 however1 is no longer of space but of significance2 the vision1 instead of being long-sighted1 has become more penetrating and embracing2 the artist is more thoroughly possessed of his subject4 ,so1 too1 the simplicity involves no meagreness of thought1 but a thought fully realized and clarified of everything that might detract from or confuse its meaning1 having also a large suggestiveness1 an expression of the artist's imagination which invites the exercise of ours4 ,at least such is the character of the brush work in his best pictures1 for there are others in which the expanses of slightly broken colour1 enlivened only by a few accents1 are inclined to be a little uninteresting2 succinct1 in fact1 without being also pregnant of meaning4 ,if1 however1 they seem to be slight and sketchy1 it is not because they were done without heart or care1 but because ,inness was constantly experimenting in the direction of more complete synthesis1 wherein form for its own sake is less and less insisted on1 and the great motive aimed at is the character of the scene1 and the spirituality which it embodies--a motive1 in fact1 of interpretive impressionism4 ,in view of ,inness's impressionistic tendency that is a curious statement which has been credited to him1 8,while pre-,raphaelism is like a measure worm trying to compass the infinite circumference1 impressionism is the sloth enveloped in its own eternal dulness40 ,if the remark was really made by him1 it proves that he could be intolerant of others without trying to understand their motives4 ,both movements are naturalistic1 and for that reason alone1 if for no other1 ,inness might have tried to understand them2 pre-,raphaelism1 moreover1 added to its devotion to the truth of form a profound spirituality1 with which quality1 at least1 he should have felt some sympathy4 ,its motive1 moreover1 was in a measure humble4 ,it certainly never tried to 8compass the infinite circumference02 on the contrary1 it limited itself to fragments and exaggerated their importance1 pictorially speaking1 in the general scheme4 ,even more misjudged is the application of a sloth to the analytical refinement and indefatigable study of the most eminent impressionists4 ,it could not have been their search for the fugitive effects in nature or for the precise character of some phase of nature at a certain time that annoyed ,inness1 perhaps hardly the secondary place that they sometimes give to form4 ,more likely it was their choice of a subject without due reference to the accepted conventions of pictorial composition and1 ,i suspect1 still more to their disregard of that other pictorial convention1 tone4 ,i am using the word 8tone0 to express the prevalence of some one colour in a picture to which all other hues are subordinated1 and not in that other use of the word which involves the setting of all objects1 lights1 and colours in a picture in due relation to one another1 within an enveloppe of atmosphere4 ,we have become inclined to regard 8tonality0 as a fetich1 forgetting that it is after all only one of many admirable pictorial conventions1 which1 like other pictorial conventions1 has no absolutely true counterpart in nature4 ,no one can affirm conclusively that any one convention has a prescriptive superiority over all others4 ,it is a matter to be adjusted by the temperament of the individual4 ,in the neighbourhood of the ,hudson we have days when the atmosphere is extraordinarily brilliant and the light clear white4 ,i cannot recall any adequate expression of this in ,inness's pictures4 ,he was drawn rather to early mornings1 to evenings1 to quiet afternoons1 or the golden glow of summer and autumn1 when the atmosphere is caressing4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,james ,w4 ,ellsworth1 ,esq4 ,,midsummer4 ,,by ,,george ,,inness4 ,such moods1 perhaps1 contributed to him more suggestion of spirituality and were more in harmony with the mysticism of his mind4 ,not only had he the faculty of seizing the character of a scene and of portraying it in terms of eloquent suggestiveness1 but he gave it the impress of his own fine way of seeing it4 ,we remember the effect produced by viewing a large number of his pictures together1 as at the ,clarke and ,evans's sales4 ,what a remarkable distinction pervaded the group6 ,not only was the manner that of a master1 but of one whose accomplished technique was at the services of a high order of mind1 evidencing1 if one may say so1 the gentleman's way of approaching the mistress of his heart4 ,his sentiment in no instance that ,i can recall sinks into sentimentality4 ,it grew out of a devotion to nature which was deep enough to merge the personal feeling in an intense and active sensibility to the impression of the scene itself4 ,so that1 without any posture of mind or even1 perhaps1 any set purpose1 he is poetical4 ,had his medium been words1 he would have been nearer to ,wordsworth than to ,tennyson2 satisfied to interpret nature rather than to use her for the setting of some thought of his own4 ,in this way he was much nearer to ,rousseau and ,daubigny than to ,corot4 ,,ii ,,john ,,la ,,farge ,john ,la ,farge has given us two avenues of approach to his personality as an artist3 one through his pictures1 drawings1 and decorations1 the other through his writings4 ,in the drama of his artistic doings the writings serve as the chorus1 which from its platform in front of the actual stage interpolates a commentary on the main action1 in language always illuminative1 though sometimes of rather complex meaning4 ,for it reflects1 in fact1 the complexity of its author's personality1 his life-long habit of contemplation and the wide horizon over which his study has roamed1 embracing many objects of desire inside and outside his art1 to none of which he can tolerate a short cut1 but the interdependence of which and the relative interest of the paths thereto1 even the inevitable oppositions and compromises1 he has always realized and valued4 ,as ,paul ,bourget happily says1 ,la ,farge's 8least words betray the seeker of a kind like ,fromentin1 who thinks out his sensations--a rare1 a very rare power40 ,he was a student of art long before he entered upon it as a profession4 ,it attracted him first as a form of culture1 the practice coming later2 quite an inversion of the usual progress of the art student1 who gets manual facility and then culture--sometimes4 ,nor did art in his early days present the only form of culture4 ,he received a classical training of the thorough sort that promotes an intimacy with classic thought and expression4 ,his father's house in ,washington ,square1 well stocked with books and pictures1 was the rendezvous of cultivated people1 many of them migrs of the ,french ,revolution or refugees from ,st4 ,domingo4 ,when he visited ,europe in #ahef he stayed in ,paris at the home of his relatives1 the ,st4 ,victors1 where lived his bedridden great-uncle1 author of many works1 historical1 critical1 and artistic1 who had known friends and foes of the ,french ,revolution1 had been an migr in ,russia and still retained his interest in all things1 even to the theatres4 ,paul de ,st4 ,victor1 writer and critic1 was ,la ,farge's cousin1 and many remarkable and gifted people came to the house1--,russians1 members of the ,institute1 priests1 art critics1 and literary men1 among them ,charles ,blanc and ,thophile ,gautier4 ,la ,farge had been taught to draw in a precise1 old-fashioned way by his grandfather1 ,binsse de ,st4 ,victor1 a miniature painter of some talent1 and during his visit to ,europe he was advised by his father to study painting under some master1 partly as an accomplishment1 partly as an escape from a desultory interest in many things4 ,he1 therefore1 entered the studio of ,couture1 who1 however1 recommended him to postpone painting and to study and copy the drawings of the old masters in the ,louvre4 8,with quite a comprehension of my inevitable failure10 he says1 8,i made drawings from ,correggio1 ,leonardo1 and others2 but my greatest fascination was ,rembrandt in his etchings40 ,later he followed the drawings of the old masters in ,munich and ,dresden1 giving up an invitation to accompany ,paul de ,st4 ,victor and ,charles ,blanc in a tour of northern ,italy4 8,i have never known10 he writes1 8whether ,i did well or ill1 for ,i cannot tell what the effect upon me might have been of the inevitable impression of the great ,italian paintings1 seen in their own light and their native place40 ,he means at that period of his development1 for he saw them later4 ,next he made a short stay in ,england and became acquainted with the works of the pre-,raphaelites1 who did not seem disconnected from the charm of ,sir ,joshua and ,gainsborough1 or from the glories of ,turner1 8which yet offended by its contradiction of the urbanity and sincerity of the great masters whom ,i cared for most40 ,but the willingness of the pre-,raphaelites to meet many great problems of colour attracted him and confirmed him in the direction of his own study of colour4 ,however1 the most important ,european developments of that time seemed to him to be represented by ,rousseau1 ,corot1 ,millet1 and ,delacroix4 ,on his return to ,new ,york he entered a lawyer's office1 for1 as he says1 8no one has struggled more against his destiny than ,i2 nor did ,i for many years acquiesce in being a painter1 though ,i learned the methods and studied the problems of my art4 ,i had hoped to find some other mode of life1 some other way of satisfying the desire for a contemplation of truth1 unbiassed1 free1 and detached40 ,his friendship with ,william ,hunt may have decided him in his career1 or his marriage in #ahfj1 which established him in ,newport1 ,r4,i4 ,this brief summary represents quite a remarkable method of evolution for an artist2 one that could not be adopted with impunity by many young men1 its very leisureliness offering temptations1 of which the least evil result might be dilettanteism4 ,but ,la ,farge was freed from the danger by the possession of moral and mental stamina1 the breadth of his sympathies even demanding this gradual development4 ,nor was it unaccompanied with strenuousness of interest in ,illustration3 ,copyright1 #ahih1 by ,john ,la ,farge4 ,,athens4 ,decorative painting in the ,walker ,art ,gallery1 ,bowdoin ,college4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge4 ,illustration3 ,john ,la ,farge4 ,,altar ,,piece--,church of the ,ascension1 ,new ,york4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge4 the various phases of culture1 of which art began by being one and grew to be the most absorbing4 ,it was significant that this dreamer should be attracted especially by the nature students among the living painters4 ,that was indicative of the depth and sincerity of his contemplations4 ,but it is still more significant that from the start he should have commenced a critical study of the problems of colour2 this proved the independence of his sincerity4 ,another point of great significance1 as affecting his subsequent career1 is that1 although he afterward made a close study of anatomy1 in his apprentice days he seems to have drawn from drawings rather than from the living model1 studying1 in fact1 the abstract made by others instead of the concrete directly studied by himself4 ,thus the habit of his mind was directed toward the generalization and significance of the figure rather than to its anatomical facts4 ,this made him very early an enthusiastic admirer of ,japanese art1 and has proved at once the strength and weakness of his subsequent treatment of the figure4 ,it is frequently asserted that his drawing is not always correct1 and from the point of view of the schools he would probably himself plead guilty to the charge4 ,but those who insist upon the point do not perhaps quite comprehend his motive1 which is less the actual structure of the form than the inherent significance of the figure4 ,let us grant at once that the two motives are not antagonistic1 that ,millet's 8,sower10 for example1 is as structurally correct as it is full of significance4 ,but that is to put ,la ,farge to the test of one of the greatest masters of drawing1 by comparison with whom very few can stand4 ,by far the greatest number of draughtsmen1 while approaching him in correctness1 will be far behind him in expression4 ,on the other hand1 in the case of ,la ,farge1 the significance of a pose or gesture1 the vital expression of a figure1 is generally admirable4 ,i have in mind1 for example1 his drawing of ,bishop ,hatto1 pursued by rats4 ,the distance from the thigh to the toes would appear to be exaggerated2 but how wonderfully the long drawn out1 tense arc of the figure stimulates the imagination to a realization of the agony of the crisis4 ,there is another point4 ,the figure1 as it is1 so exactly contributes to the decorative balance of the picture4 ,it may be that the instinct of the decorator determined the length of limb1 and perhaps also1 not at all improbably1 the influence of the ,japanese4 ,it would not be difficult1 for instance1 to find in ,outamaro's lovely prints of women just such an elongation to accentuate the svelte grace with which he wishes to invest them4 ,i make this suggestion with more confidence1 because one can trace in the composition of this picture more than a little of the ,japanese arrangement of full and empty spaces2 that irregular form of composition which secures a balance by oppositions rather than by repetition of similarities4 ,it is1 indeed1 the method of the nature student1 as true of ,velasquez and ,rembrandt as of the ,japanese4 ,not that ,la ,farge with his choice appreciation of the old masters could be insensible to the influence of the ,italians4 ,his great altarpiece of the ,ascension in the ,church of the ,ascension in ,new ,york is reminiscent in its structure of ,raphael's 8,disput40 ,the space is very similar in shape1 and filled with a broad band of figures across the base1 a central figure in the upper space1 and flanking arcs of angels4 ,again the mural paintings of 8,music0 and the 8,drama0 in the music room of ,mr4 ,whitelaw ,reid's ,new ,york house were evidently suggested by the pastoral scenes of the ,venetian painters4 ,the latter1 however1 were themselves1 no doubt1 suggested by the desire to emancipate painting from the rigidity of preconceived formulas of composition1 and it is just this attempt to discover a compromise between the natural and the conventional which is so marked a characteristic of ,la ,farge's treatment of mural painting4 ,it may have been an early feeling after this that at least helped to draw him toward ,rembrandt1 especially toward his religious subjects4 ,i find more than a little of the latter's influence in the mural paintings in the churches of ,st4 ,thomas and of the ,incarnation in ,new ,york1 particularly in the solemn1 serious naturalism of the grouping2 in the humble devotion with which the spirit of the occasion has been comprehended1 and in the significance of gesture and expression1 but especially of gesture1 through which this spirit has been embodied4 ,a boy's freshness of faith1 dignified by a man's realization of its import--a quality very rare at any period1 and quite likely to be overlooked in this one4 ,it is the outcome of a religious temperament--a thing very different from the religious habit--born of a capacity to feel deeply the significance of things1 and by instinct and culture fitted to see the beauty inherent in the significance1 whether it be the significance of the spiritual or of the material life or of the subtle analogy between the two4 ,when the painter can comprehend this and set it down on the threshold of every-day experience1 in such a way as to make it intimate without being commonplace1 its human meaning neither lessening1 nor lost in1 the splendour of its expression1 we may reasonably call him great4 ,and no one denies to ,la ,farge a splendour of expression4 ,he is that rara avis among artists1 who not only sees the world as a pageant of coloured light1 but has found means to express his visions4 ,his inherited instinct for colour has been assiduously cultivated by observation and scientific study1 the researches of ,professor ,root of ,columbia ,university having been enthusiastically followed and adapted by him to his practical requirements4 ,when circumstances brought to him the opportunity of executing windows1 immediately came into play his extensive memories1 his dreams of possibilities1 and1 equally1 his independence of conventionalized methods4 ,finding that he could not reach adequate results in the material available1 and realizing the weakness of existing methods1 he experimented until he discovered the adaptabilities of opaline glass1 which has a suggestion of complementary colours1 8a mysterious quality of showing a golden yellow1 associated with violet1 a pink flush on a ground of green40 ,moreover1 by the infinite variety of modulations1 which its making admits1 it allows a degree of light and shade in each piece of glass1 which not only gives modelling1 but increases the depth of tone1 sufficient at places to make the darker parts melt softly into the harsh lead-line4 ,this invention by ,john ,la ,farge of the applicability of opaline glass to the making of coloured windows has put a wide range of means in the hands of the artist1 not only in the general richness and equally possible delicacy of effect1 but in the increased subtlety attainable through complementary effects and effects of opposition2 the material including all kinds of variety in the texture1 quality1 thickness1 and even pattern of the glass1 and also almost every variation of density and transparence4 ,it is a palette of extraordinary range1 perilously serviceable in the hands of an ambitious person of meagre knowledge and feeling1 quite susceptive of commonplace exploitation in those of the ordinary designer4 ,but in the hands of a true artist1 who thinks in colour1 and has a store of gathered observations backed with scientific assurance1 it permits the fullest scope to his imagination1 and the opportunity of realizing the most diverse and complex schemes of colour1 allowing him to reproduce much of the mystery that time has wrought into the medival stained glass1 and to add to the latter's chantlike simplicity of colour and structure the complicated harmonies of modern music4 ,it is an art1 indeed1 that brings the decorator within measurable distance of the musical composer4 ,the new intent of this glass and the subsequent developments which have made of it a new fabric were so much the outcome of ,la ,farge's personal need of expression that it is not surprising he has reached results superior to those of others who employ the same medium4 ,a reason which also contributes to his superiority is that his conception from the start formulates itself in colour1 whereas the genesis of most windows would appear to be in the lineal design1 clothed in colour afterward4 ,in other words1 like every true craftsman1 ,la ,farge thinks in his material4 ,the effect of this has been1 at least1 twofold4 ,in the first place1 there has always been a reciprocity of influence between his imagination and his material2 while he has been big enough to anticipate the possibilities1 he has been big enough also to accept the limitations of the medium4 ,in the second place1--and this really follows from the former1--he has preserved an independence in the character of the design1 neither attempting to reproduce that of the old cathedral windows1 nor dipping1 except occasionally1 into that universal cook-book of the average designer1 the ornament of the ,renaissance4 ,with a larger sense of fitness he found1 if anywhere1 a prototype for his motives in ,eastern art1 not only in the mosaics of ,byzantium1 but in the jewelled inlays1 lacquers1 textiles1 and cloisonn of ,japan4 ,particularly is this true of the windows of pure decoration which he has executed for private houses and again of those superb windows in the west end of ,trinity ,church in ,boston4 ,in these a cultivated taste will be disposed to feel that the splendour and mystery of the fabric are most abundantly manifested4 ,it is pure decoration of the most subtle and resplendent kind4 ,on the other hand1 as soon as the figure is introduced1 particularly when the figure must subserve a religious sentiment1 a compromise has to be effected between the abstract decoration and the concrete form1 between the conventional and the naturalistic4 ,and the inevitable antagonism between the two has become more difficult to reconcile in these days1 both for the artist and for ourselves who enjoy his work1 because we are no longer satisfied with the simple abstractions of the human form1 which sufficed for the childlike faith and narrower experience of ancient peoples4 ,in all his figure windows1 therefore1 it is most interesting to study how he has eschewed the pictorial motive1 which unfortunately the immature taste of the public so persistently demands1 and to which1 either on compulsion or because he knows no better1 the average designer inclines4 ,la ,farge1 on the contrary1 while frankly admitting the claims or the necessity of naturalistic treatment1 endeavours1 as far as possible1 to find some modern form of abstraction for the figure1 and to offset it with a freer abstraction or conventionalization in the rest of his composition2 so that while the significance of the figure1 its form and sentiment1 is not swamped1 there yet survives the impression that the window is not a picture in glass1 but an elevated decoration of transparent and translucent mosaic1 inlaid in a cloisonn of ornamental lead-lines4 ,in a brief appreciation of this artist's work it is natural to dwell upon him in his capacity of a master decorator1 for the whole trend of his activities1 at first1 perhaps1 unconsciously1 later with a purpose continually strengthened and expanded1 has been in this direction4 ,and he has proved himself a master not only within the restricted field of ,american art1 but in comparison with the master decorators of ,europe4 ,i have spoken of ,la ,farge's writings being a commentary upon his artistic acts4 ,often it is in a man's lighter moments that he makes clear to us the workings of his mind1 and ,la ,farge has done so in the journal which he wrote during a vacation in the ,south ,sea ,islands4 ,it is the spontaneous utterance of a scholar1 at once a dreamer and an analyst2 of an artist1 also1 who sees pictures everywhere2 and its word-painting and many-faceted allusiveness to all kinds of memories1 derived from art and life and literature1 render these impressions of new scenes1 which still retain some flavour of the antique world1 unique in their exquisite beauty and suggestiveness4 ,let me quote one passage3 8,from the intricate tangle of green we saw the amethyst sea and the white line of sounding surf1 cutting through the sloping pillars of the cocoanuts that made a mall along the shore2 and over on the other side of the narrow harbour the great high green wall of the mountain1 warm in the sun1 its fringe of cocoanut groves and the few huts hidden within it softened below by the haze blown up from the breakers4 ,all made a picture not too large to be taken in at a glance40 ,nor yet too distant4 ,the harbour1 observe1 is narrow and bounded by a high green wall of mountain4 ,the picture was not shaping itself to him as it might have done to the eyes of a pure landscapist1 but in a comparatively flat pattern1 as of a wall or window decoration4 ,he sees it with the instinct of a decorator and with his own personal predilections2 for he dwells upon the combination of green and blue1 which any student of his work may feel to have particular fascination for him4 ,he notes in one part the tangle of green1 its suggestive subtlety of pattern and tone2 in another1 where the huts are half hidden1 the welcome spot of density2 again1 ,illustration3 ,copyright by ,john ,la ,farge4 ,,the ,,angel ,,of ,,the ,,sun4 ,decoration in the ,church of the ,paulist ,fathers1 ,new ,york4 ,,by ,,john ,,la ,,farge4 the value of mystery in the haze2 and finally he correlates the beauties of contrasted forms and spaces and the varying brilliance and softness of the coloured light4 ,as ,i said1 it is a decorator's vision1 and the same in their different degrees of sketchiness is revealed in the water-colour drawings made at the same time4 ,they are so many notes and records of a mind perpetually intent on decorative problems4 ,recently he wrote a short but exceedingly suggestive appreciation of ,puvis de ,chavannes1 suggestive most of all because of its conscious and unconscious implication of his own experience and desires with those of a brother master in decoration4 ,in their moral and mental elevation there is much affinity between the two men3 ,puvis1 a ,burgundian by birth1 by education a ,lyonnais1 simultaneously1 therefore1 romantic and logical2 ,la ,farge1 of ,french descent with romantic and adventurous associations1 yet influenced by the vital practicalness of ,american environment4 ,both have sought to reconcile their respect for tradition with their interest in the living present2 and to recognize the limitations imposed both by their medium and by their own individual personality1 disciplining themselves to accept the inevitable and to carry their personal development to its farthest possibility4 ,its manifestations in each case are widely different3 the robust ,puvis detaching himself more and more from the material and tending to an extreme of spiritual refinement2 the frailer physique of ,la ,farge reaching out farther and farther toward the interpretation of spirit by means of material splendour4 ,the differences were personal and local2 but in the quality of their minds and their attitude toward art there is an unquestionable affinity between these two preminent master decorators4 ,if ,i read ,la ,farge's art aright1 it is the product of a wide and penetrating vision1 simplified by selection2 the theme is then comprehended in its vital significance1 and all the force of his imagination is assembled to embroider it with a web of elaborate orchestration4 ,,iii ,,james ,a4 ,mc,n,e,i,l,l ,,whistler ,we are already far enough away from the middle of the last century to gain a fair perspective of it4 ,in matters of belief and feeling1 it was a period of little faith and less initiative4 ,men moved forward with their faces turned backward1--in the religious world1 seeking ideals in medivalism2 in art1 also1 borrowing their motives from the past4 ,it was a time of rediscovery1 of revivals2 less of new birth or growth than of new assimilations4 ,velasquez1 for example1 was found to exist2 so1 also1 ,rembrandt2 and ,caucasian civilization became conscious of an ,oriental art from farther round the globe than the ,levant or even ,india4 ,japan was discovered4 ,today these three names represent potent influences in art4 ,a few years ago their significance was not appreciated beyond the studios2 still a few years farther back1 and scarcely even there4 ,it was ,whistler's discernment that early recognized their worth2 his genius that utilized the significance so uniquely4 ,how he did it is characteristic of himself1 but equally of the modernity of which he is so consummate a representative4 ,and what of this modernity8 ,intrinsically it is not a new thing1 though taking on some special colour from its particular time of reappearance1 being indeed a culture of manners rather than of convictions4 ,it is analytical1 for it is part of1 or compelled by1 the contemporary scientific movement2 it is intolerant of restraint1 except such as it chooses for itself2 is callous when not personally interested1 and finds its interest in subtleties2 its faith is self-found and felt to be honoured by the discovery2 in scope not so much broad and embracing as diffused and discriminating2 for depth1 it substitutes a carefulness about many things1 and for sincerity a nice tactfulness4 ,it is polished1 dainty in taste and manners1 seeking the essence of life in its most varified appeal to the senses1 even sometimes in abnormal depravity4 ,it is1 in fact1 the very antithesis of brawn and muscle1 of hard and wholesome thinking1 of the bourgeoisie and ,philistinism1 through which a comfortable world is provided for modernity to bask in1 either as a rarely delicate exotic or a upas tree4 ,while ,whistler as a man1 in his attitude toward the world1 has been the ,beau ,brummel of this nineteenth-century modernity1 he has kept his art in a beautiful isolation1 selecting for it only the choicest contributions of the spirit of the age and impressing upon them the fine distinction of his unique personality4 ,thus1 while some of his contemporaries in the search for new sensations pushed their analysis into the gutter1 his work has been invariably fragrant and pure4 ,he has been a consistent apostle of beauty1 of the sane and normal type of it4 ,i do not mean beauty as it is commonly understood1 for he has had his very personal ideas and his own modes of reaching them2 but that the source in which he has always looked for them has been sane and normal2 so that1 amid the craving for new sensations and for new forms of expression1 by which1 like others1 he has been affected1 and with a taste also for notoriety and for shocking the vulgar1 he has never in his art deviated from the sweet and wholesome4 ,nor has he lived without a strong faith4 ,he has believed in himself without reservation1 and just as absolutely in his art as he has formulated it4 ,there is one god1 and ,whistler is its prophet2 a creed narrow and intolerant1 but abundantly justified1 if you accept his god1 which1 again1 is ,whistler--the spiritual ego within him to which all his life he has tried to give an adequate expression4 ,for his faith at root is a very simple one3 the love of beauty and the expression of it2 only beauty with him is one of essence and significance1 quite removed from any literary allusiveness1 and as far as possible expressed by means which are solely the products of brush or etching needle1 sensation and method approximating as much as may be to the exclusively abstract ones of music4 ,he cannot escape the concrete altogether and must often use as vehicles of expression things to which the dictionary assigns terms1 and to which the association of memory and ideas has given a verbal significance4 ,but even in using these he feels such significance extraneous1 and subordinates it as far as possible to the special sthetic significance of the pictorial art4 ,it is the meaning that these things have for the artist's peculiar vision that he tries to keep free from other allusion--abstract4 ,it is not the object before him for the time being that is worth his consideration1 but the enjoyment of the purely sthetic impression of it aroused in his own mind1 of which he seeks to express the essence in his picture4 ,it is a theory of art all but too subtle for human nature's daily food2 in a world in which we are continually confusing cause and effect1 the object with the subject1 the source of our enjoyment with the enjoyment itself2 a theory quite intolerable when exploited by a mediocre painter1 or by a facile painter of mediocre mind2 only1 perhaps1 so acceptable in ,whistler's case1 because it is essentially a product of his own unique originality4 ,it was his craving for abstract expression as well as for abstract sensation that led to his symphonies2 and the storm of abuse and ridicule which they aroused gave him1 no doubt1 a keener relish for such studies4 ,it would be too much to say that any of them were done deliberately to mystify the public2 but that he found a sly relish in the mystification is most probable1 and one may believe that some of these1 to him only experiments in the record of impressions1 were exhibited with the ,satanic purpose of infuriating a public1 so enamoured of the 8finished picture40 ,today1 however1 these studies are applauded1 and ,whistler is probably as contemptuous of the undiscriminating approval as of the indiscriminate abuse4 ,for really their vogue is as open to suspicion as would be a vogue of ,bach4 ,in their lack of any graspable theme and in their delicately elaborated orchestration of tone they can be appreciated1 priced1 that is to say1 at their proper worth1 only by those whose sense of colour is very cultivated2 nor even1 perhaps1 by all of them1 for these impressions are so personal to their author that they must always mean more and otherwise to him than to others4 ,the vogue1 therefore1 may well make him sad1 and sadness with ,whistler takes the form of contempt4 ,it is the distortion of his character or the bias to its flaws produced by opposition4 ,conviction has stiffened into arrogance1 individuality become deflected toward an attitude of pose4 ,these blemishes are absent from his work1 which is always serene and lovable2 they are merely incidental to the man and should not enter into an appreciation of his art1 except that he has himself forced a recognition of them even upon his admirers4 ,it is this aspect of him which ,boldini has thrust upon the world in his well-known portrait4 ,i have always resented it1 for it is founded only on partial fact1 suppressing the better facts and smacking too much of ,boldini himself and of the pruriency of suggestion1 with which he has invested so many portraits4 ,the ,whistler that we see in this picture1 sitting sideways on a chair1 his elbow on the back of it and his long fingers thrust through the snaky black hair1 represents the last word in modernity2 thrilling with nervous vibration1 keyed to snapping intensity2 a creation of brilliant egoism1 quivering on the edge of insanity2 the quintessence of refined callousness and subtlety4 ,how much truer to the man and the artist is ,rajon's portrait2 nimbly impressionable1 clever and elegant1 the lurking devil in ,illustration3 ,from the ,luxembourg ,gallery4 ,,portrait ,,of ,,the ,,artist',s ,,mother4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,colonel ,frank ,j4 ,hecker4 ,,the ,,music ,,room4 ,,by ,,james ,a4 ,,mcneill ,,whistler4 the eye and touch of cynicism on the lip not enough to disguise an underlying sweetness and freshness of mind4 ,the other1 in its half-truth1 is a travesty2 this one1 very expressive of the mingled qualities of this remarkable man4 ,for none but a man of peculiar sweetness of mind could have conceived that masterpiece in the ,luxembourg1 8,the ,portrait of ,my ,mother40 ,garbed in black1 as you will remember1 she sits in profile1 with her feet upon a footstool and her hands laid peacefully and elegantly on her lap2 the lawn and lace of her cap delicately silhouetted against the gray wall4 ,she gazes with tranquil intensity beyond the limit of our comprehension along the vista of memories1 leading back through maternity to a beautiful youth4 ,nor is there any cynicism in 8,the ,white ,girl10 that symphony in white1 rejected at the ,salon of #ahfc1 when the artist was twenty-nine years old1 but conspicuous in the ,salon des ,refuss4 ,the girl stands mysteriously aloof from all contact with1 or suggestion of1 the world1 her dark eyes staring with a troubled1 wistful look1 as if she had been surprised in her maiden meditation and were apprehensive of something she cannot fathom1 and is too reliant upon herself to wholly fear4 ,the picture is no brilliant epitome of shallowness1 but an almost reverential conception1 in exquisitely idealized degree1 of the poetry of maidenhood1 maturing normally4 ,in both these pictures1 which come as near as anything which ,whistler has done to the generally accepted idea of a subject1 it is the significance1 in the one case of motherhood1 in the other of maidenhood1 that he has dwelt upon1 and in both with the fullest reliance upon the sthetic suggestion to the sense1 respectively1 of black and gray1 and of white1 elaborated to an extreme of subtlety4 ,it would be impossible1 ,i mean1 that the colour schemes1 for example1 could be reversed2 each is so intentionally and conclusively the language fitted to the idea1 that one might as well try to put the words of ,juliet into the mouth of ,volumnia4 ,in pictures like 8,the ,music ,room10 there is a further step toward abstraction4 ,so far as it represents the interior of a room with walls of ivory-white set off with dainty rose-sprigged curtains1 in which a lady in black riding-habit stands by a marble mantelpiece1 while a child in white frock sits a little farther back reading1 it is a genre picture of that sort that ,alfred ,stevens painted1 done not for any particular significance in the figures1 but for the opportunity which it yields of a delicate scheme of colour and exquisite adjustment of values1 and for the pure enjoyment of representing the sthetic significance of these qualities4 ,but it is at once more subtle and more daring than ,stevens could have wrought4 ,it involves a problem1 the very difficulty of which no doubt keyed the artist to enthusiasm1 to keep the child in white behind the figure in black1 and to make the latter a distinguished ornament in the picture1 while still preserving its pliant relation to its light surroundings--a problem not improbably suggested1 in part at least1 by one of ,outamaro's prints1 at any rate in its ,caucasian transposition worthy to be compared with the work of the ,japanese master4 ,nor is it only a problem in skill4 ,jet is beautiful in tone and texture1 and so is ivory1 and the combination of the two1 set off with delicate accents of rose1 creates a beauty of its own4 8,variations in ,flesh and ,green--,the ,balcony0 may be selected as a still further advance toward abstract sensation and expression4 ,these girls in kimonas1 standing1 sitting1 and reclining on the edge of a river with a glimpse of factory chimneys across the water1 mean nothing in a 8subject0 sense1 and lack even the reasonableness of the figures in the previous picture4 ,they are parts of a fantasy1 pure and simple1 to which they contribute impersonally2 an artist's dream of atmosphere and colour1 which you will enjoy or not1 according as you can enter into the abstract intention of the artist4 ,reaching the essence of beauty to a degree still less alloyed is such a picture as 8,bognor--,nocturne03 blue smooth water with shadowy shapes of trawlers gliding like dusky phantoms1 and of figures standing in the shallow surf2 blue sky and atmosphere1 penetrated with silvery luminousness4 ,it is a scene of exquisite refreshment to the spirit1 mysteriously etherealized1 the artist being so absorbed with the spiritual presence of the summer night that his own soul echoes its very heart-beats4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,charles ,l4 ,freer1 ,esq4 ,,nocturemdash2,,bognor ,by ,james ,a4 ,mc,neill ,whistler4 ,once again1 then1 in all these pictures1 it is the essence or innermost significance of the theme that ,whistler treats2 itself a quality so immaterial that he shrinks from expressing even matter in too distinct or tangible a form1 enveloping it in a shrouded light1 representing it as a concord of coloured masses with a preference for delicate monotony of hues and soft accentuations1 seeking by all means to spiritualize the material4 ,and this without loss of stateliness2 he has learned the dignity of the great line from ,velasquez1 and from him1 too1 the magisterial use of blacks and grays4 ,nor with the wild irrelevance of the visionary2 there are piquancy and virility in all his pictures1 not of lively colour and rampageous brush work1 but attained through subtle surprises of detail and decorative originality--qualities gleaned from the ,japanese4 ,again1 in the trancelike intensity of ,rossetti's figures1 he may have found a quality akin to his own spirituality of sentiment1 just as his love of light and of delicate discrimination of values links his art to that of the impressionists4 ,and out of these various influences1 his own personality1 irresistibly original1 at once fanciful and penetrating1 serene and nervous1 permeated with the quintessence of sensuous refinement1 he has fashioned for himself a language 8faithful to the colouring of his own spirit10 in the strictest sense original and stamped with style--a style that is simple1 earnest1 grand4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,charles ,l4 ,feer1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,balcony4 ,by ,james ,a4 ,mc,neill ,whistler4 ,and even closer precision of personal expression appears in ,whistler's etchings4 ,for to one who seeks to render1 not the facts1 but his sense of the facts1 etching offers greater freedom than painting4 ,it is the art of all others which permits an artist to be recognized by what he omits1 the one in which the means employed may be most pregnant of suggestion and in closest accord with the personal idiosyncrasy of the man4 ,to ,whistler1 therefore1 with his intense individuality1 his discerning search for the significance of beauty and his instinct for simplicity and economy of means which will yet yield a full complexity of meaning1 etching early became a cherished form of expression4 ,in the 8,little ,french ,series0 7#aheh71 the 8,thames ,series0 7#ahga71 the 8,first ,venice ,series0 7#ahhj71 and the 8,second ,venice ,series0 7#ahhg71 as well as in other plates etched in ,france1 ,holland1 and ,belgium1 he has proved himself the greatest master of the needle since ,rembrandt4 ,indeed1 the eminent painter-etcher and connoisseur1 ,sir ,francis ,seymour ,haden1 is credited with the assertion that1 if he had to dispose of either his ,rembrandts or his ,whistlers1 it would be the former that he would relinquish4 ,there is a great difference1 even in the point of view1 between the ,dutch master and his modern rival4 ,both approached their subject1 if one may say so1 in a reverential way2 but the former with an absorption in the scene and a desire to reproduce it faithfully4 ,whistler1 on the other hand1 with more aloofness of feeling1 selecting the mood or phase of it on which he chooses to dwell that he may inform it with his own personal sense of significance4 ,the ,rembrandt print--to borrow ,de ,quincey's distinction--is rather a triumph of knowledge2 the ,whistler a triumph of power4 ,while the method of both represents the highest degree of pregnant succinctness1 ,rembrandt drew the landscape while ,whistler transposes from it4 ,the visible means1 in his later etchings1 become less and less1 their significance continually fuller2 and in his study of phases of nature he has carried the interpretation of light and atmosphere beyond the limits of ,rembrandt4 ,in the 8,thames ,series10 which has perpetuated the since vanished characteristics of the old river side1 he came nearest to the ,dutch etcher1 recording the scenes with a comprehension of detail as complete as that of ,rembrandt's 8,mill40 ,seeking always the significance of his subject1 he seems to have felt that here the significance lay in the curious1 dilapidated medley of details2 that even a weather-worn timber and the very nails in it contributed their share to the impression1 so that1 while he must needs select and omit1 the problem was one of how much to avoid omitting4 ,on the other hand1 in his later prints1 the problem is reversed4 ,following his own personal evolution toward more complete abstraction1 both in sense and expression1 it is how little he may put in and yet express the full significance4 ,whistler's art1 in brief1 is logically related1 alike to realism1 to the poetry of the men of #ahcj1 and to the motives of the impressionists1 and represents the wider influence of his times in its keen analysis of phenomena and the independently personal bias he has given to it2 in the search for new sensations of the most subtle kind and in a tendency at times to exalt good manners1 that is to say style1 above the qualities of intrinsic merit4 ,his art has been too much a product of himself1 notwithstanding that it reflects in spiritualized form the higher tendencies of his age1 for him to have been the founder of a school or to have influenced followers directly4 ,yet1 indirectly1 his influence has been weighty4 ,alike by his example and by his pungent utterances he has been instrumental1 more than others1 in giving a quietus to mediocrity in art1 both to the bathos of the literary picture and to the banality of merely imitative painting4 ,mediocrity still lingers and must linger as long as commonplace minds devote themselves to painting2 but its prestige has been so successfully impaired that now we regard a taste for it on the part of a collector of pictures as an infantile disease1 like the measles1 incidental to an early career of appreciation1 though not necessarily fatal to more matured connoisseurship4 ,whether we shall ever reach that degree of cultivation which will need no further stimulus to enjoyment in a picture than such abstract suggestion to the imagination as music affords1 time alone will show4 ,meanwhile1 as we are able to conceive of a picture now1 it has its genesis in the concrete1 from which even ,whistler has not tried to emancipate himself entirely4 ,there is a beautiful humanity in most of his work1 the humanity of human nature or the human relation of the landscape to ourselves2 and if he is able sometimes to enchant us without any apparent human significance1 it is because he is ,whistler--a genius4 ,,iv ,,john ,,singer ,,sargent ,a summary of ,john ,s4 ,sargent's position as an artist must recall the exhibition of his work shown at ,copley ,hall1 ,boston1 in #ahii4 ,there were exhibited some fifty portraits and seventy-five sketches and studies1 while hard by in the ,museum hung his large subject picture1 8,el ,jaleo10 and in the library could be seen his mural decorations4 ,it was an impressive showing1 both in amount and quality1 for an artist then little over forty years of age4 ,but ,sargent has been a favoured child of the ,muses1 and early reached a maturity for which others have to labour long and in the face of disappointments4 ,he1 however1 had never anything to unlearn4 ,from the first he came under the influence of taste and style1 the qualities which to this day most distinguish his work4 ,the son of a ,massachusetts gentleman who had retired from the practice of medicine in ,philadelphia1 he was born in ,florence1 and there spent his youth4 ,the home life was penetrated with refinement2 a good classical and modern education came in due course1 and all around him were the dignity and beauty of ,florence1 its tender beauty of atmosphere and colour and the noble memorials of its galleries and streets4 ,perhaps no city in the world has so distinctive a spirit1 at once stimulating to the intellect and refining to the senses4 ,those of us who have felt it only after years of buffeting in a grosser atmosphere can but guess what it means to have come under its influence from childhood1 during the impressionable period of youth up to eighteen4 ,and not as a mere resident of the place1 from the force of habit purblind to its charm1 but quickened by parents who themselves were products of another kind of civilization1 keen to appreciate1 to absorb1 and to live in its spirit2 possessed1 also1 of the ,american temperament so alert and sensitive to impressions1 while removed from the dulling influence of our exceeding practicalness4 ,when the young ,sargent knocked at the studio of ,carolus-,duran in the ,boulevard ,montparnasse with a portfolio of studies under his arm1 drawings from ,titian1 ,tintoretto1 and ,veronese1 he was no smart young student1 full of up-to-date ideas4 ,very modest he is described as being1 of quiet1 reflective disposition1 pleased that his drawings won the approval of the master and the ,illustration3 ,,carmencita4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent4 ,illustration3 ,from the ,metropolitan ,museum of ,art4 ,,portrait ,,of ,,mr4 ,,marquand4 ,,by ,,john ,s4 ,,sargent4 enthusiasm of the students1 and eager to set himself to learn4 ,with a facility that was partly a natural gift1 partly the result of a steady acceptance of the problems presented1 he proceeded to absorb the master2 his breadth of picturesque style and refined pictorial sense1 his sound and scientific method1 not devoid of certain tricks of illusion and his piquant and persuasive modernity--the sum total of an art that was a modern ,frenchman's paraphrase of one of the biggest of the old masters1 ,velasquez4 ,at twenty-three he painted a portrait of ,carolus1 which shows he had absorbed his master so thoroughly as to be unconscious of the incidentals of his method and to have grasped only the essentials with such complete assimilation1 that what he produces is already his own4 ,later1 he himself visited ,madrid and came under the direct spell of ,velasquez4 ,the grand line he had learned while still a boy1 and from ,carolus the seeing of colour as coloured light1 the modelling in planes1 the mysteries of sharp and vanishing outlines1 appearing and reappearing under the natural action of light1 realism of observation at once brilliant and refined1 large and penetrating2 and all these qualities he found united in the subtly grandiose canvases of the great ,spaniard4 ,finally1 from all these influences1 he has fashioned a method very much his own4 ,and how shall one describe this method8 ,it reveals the alertness and versatility of the ,american temperament4 ,nothing escapes his observation1 up to a certain point at least2 he is never tired of fresh experiment2 never repeats his compositions and schemes of colour1 nor shows perfunctoriness or weariness of brush4 ,in all his work there is a vivid meaningfulness2 in his portraits1 especially1 an amazing suggestion of actuality4 ,on the other hand1 his virtuosity is largely ,french1 reaching a perfection of assurance that the quick-witted ,american is1 for the most part1 in too great a hurry to acquire2 a patient perfection1 not reliant upon mere impression or force of temperament4 ,in its abounding resourcefulness there is a mingling of audacity and conscientiousness2 a facility so complete that the acts of perception and of execution seem identical1 and an honesty that does not shrink from admitting that such and such a point was unattainable by him1 or that to have attained it would have disturbed the balance of the whole4 ,and yet this virtuosity1 though it is ,french in character1 is free of the ,french manner1 as indeed of any mannerism4 ,for example1 his ,english men and women1 his ,english children especially1 belong distinctly to ,english life4 ,though he may portray them in terms of ,parisian technique1 he never confuses the idioms1 being far too keenly alive to the subtle differences of race4 ,this skill of hand is at the service of a brilliant pictorial sense4 ,like a true painter1 he sees a picture in everything he studies4 ,perhaps it would be truer to say that he sees the picture1 the one which for the time being has taken possession of his imagination and to which he is willing to sacrifice even truth1 or at least some portion of truth1 rather than to permit the integrity of his mental picture to be impaired4 ,this pictorial sense is one of the sources of the greatness and of the less than greatness in his work4 ,it gives to each of his canvases a distinct sthetic charm2 grandiose1 for example1 in the portrait of 8,lady ,elcho1 ,mrs4 ,arden1 and ,mrs4 ,tennant10 ravishingly elegant in the 8,mrs4 ,meyer and ,children10 delicately quaint in the 8,beatrix10 and so on through a range of motives1 each variously characterized by grandeur of line1 suppleness of arrangement1 and fascinating surprise of detail2 used with extraordinary originality1 but always conformable to an instinctive sense of balance and rhythm4 ,and then1 too1 how tactful is the selection of pose1 costume1 and accessories6 ,with what taste he creates environment for his conception of the subject6 ,it is1 however1 in regard to the conception of his subject that ,sargent challenges criticism4 ,how far does he render the character of the sitter8 ,to say that his characterization is slap-dash and superficial is1 surely1 going too far4 ,it was confuted by that exhibition of fifty portraits1 which represented at least fifty distinct persons4 ,nor with that panorama of his art in one's memory can one admit that he has no real sympathy with his sitters4 ,very possibly1 however1 it is not a personal sympathy1 and for two reasons4 ,he is a picture maker before he is a portraitist1 and in portraiture has less interest in the individual than in the type which he or she represents4 ,this latter particular is symptomatic1 partly of the artist himself and partly of his times4 ,he is not of the world in which he plays so conspicuous a part1 but preserves an aloofness from it and studies it with the collectedness of an onlooker interested in the moving show and in its general trends of motive1 but with an individual sympathy only occasionally elicited1 as when he paints ,georg ,henschel1 like himself1 a musician4 ,again it is an affectation of the class from which most of his sitters1 especially the ladies1 are drawn to exhibit the studied unconviction so deliciously represented in ,anthony ,hope's 8,dolly ,dialogues40 ,the elegant shallowness of so many of his portraits is true enough in a general way1 and very likely in the individual case4 ,there is another type1 embodying the thinking-for-herself and the greater latitude of action of the modern woman4 ,they are1 to a certain extent1 the product of an age of nerves1 and in his portraits of them there is perceptible an equivalent restlessness of manner1 a highly strung intention1 almost a stringiness of nervous expression4 ,again1 ,i can recall in the ,boston exhibition two portraits of ladies whose esprit was of a kind that quiet folks would consider fast4 ,their cases also had been keenly diagnosed and met with the skill of an artist who did not care to extenuate1 nor on the other hand had fallen under personal subjection to the physical attractiveness1 but set down what he saw and surrounded it with the elegant atmosphere that was its salvation in real life4 ,it is here that he compares to such advantage with a painter like ,boldini4 ,sargent has instinctive refinement4 ,it would be quite impossible for him to have any feelings toward his subjects other than those of a true gentleman2 and1 though he may represent in a lady a full flavour of the modern spirit1 he never allows the modernity to exceed the limits of good taste4 ,for the same reason ,sargent's pictures1 though many of them have a restlessness of their own1 seem quiet alongside ,boldini's4 ,the latter makes a motive of nervous tenuosity1 and his pictures1 if seen frequently1 become wiry in suggestion1 and defeat their own purpose of being vibrative2 but ,sargent's1 controlled by a fine sobriety of feeling1 another phase of his unfailing taste and tact1 retain their suppleness4 ,their actuality is all the more convincing because it is not the motive1 but an incident4 ,yet1 even so1 this actuality is of a very different quality from that reached by the old masters4 ,i have in mind an inevitable comparison1 suggested by his portrait of ,mr4 ,marquand in the ,metropolitan ,museum with one by ,titian on the same wall and with a ,franz ,hals1 a ,velasquez1 and a ,rembrandt in an adjoining gallery4 ,in all these latter there is a gravity of feeling that is not alone due to the subduing effects of time2 while ,sargent's portrait1 even apart from the sleek fatness of the brush work which age will mature1 is the product of a habit of mind altogether different4 ,it lacks the intimacy of the 8,wife0 of ,franz ,hals1 the penetrating depth of the 8,doge ,grimani10 the quiet assurance of ,velasquez's 8,don ,carlos10 and the intense sympathy of the ,rembrandt1 though the last two are only moderate examples of the masters4 ,instead1 it reveals a certain assertiveness in its assurance1 an intensity of nervous force rather than of intellectual or sympathetic effort1 a brilliant epitome rather than a profound study4 ,it has not the permanence of feeling1 either in its characterization or method2 that suggestion of perennial1 stable truth1 which1 so far as we can judge from the past1 would insure it a place among the great old masters of the future4 ,among the masters we may feel certain that ,sargent will be reckoned as having been one of the most conspicuous figures of his age2 but his vogue will rise and dwindle according to the amount of interest felt for the time being in the age which he represented2 it will scarcely have that inevitableness of conviction1 which1 when once recognized1 must abide4 ,if this forecast is correct1 the reason is that ,sargent1 though raised above his time1 scarcely reveals in his portraits elevation of mind2 he has the clear eye of the philosopher without his depth and breadth of vision2 he has possessed himself of his age1 and the age has taken possession of him4 ,he swims on its sea with strokes of magnificent assurance1 but with a vision bounded by the little surface waves around him2 he has not sat above upon the cliffs1 quietly pondering its wider and grander movements4 ,so the intimacy revealed in the great majority of ,sargent's portraits is of that degree and quality which passes for intimacy in the polite society of to-day--a conformability to certain types of manner and feeling1 with interesting little accents of individuality1 that shall distinguish without too keenly differentiating2 traits of style rather than of personality4 ,sometimes there is even less than this4 ,the subject would seem to have got upon the artist's nerves1 interfering with the usual poise of his study1 so that he seems to have allowed himself to be sidetracked on to some loopline of the temperament4 ,occasionally he touches a deeper level of intimacy1 as in the portraits of ,henschel1 ,mr4 ,penrose1 and ,mr4 ,marquand1 and oftentimes in children's portraits1 notably in that of ,homer ,st4 ,gaudens4 ,but for the most part1 ,i believe1 it is not the personality of the sitter that attracts us so much as that of the artist1 which he has seized upon the occasion to present to us2 a personality of inexhaustible facets and of a variety of expression that1 for the time being at least1 creates an illusion of being all-sufficient4 ,what a contrast he presents to ,whistler1 with whom he shares the honour of being among the very few distinctly notable painters of the present day6 ,sargent with his grip upon the actual1 ,whistler in his search for the supersensitive significance1 are the direct antipodes in motive4 ,each started with a justifiable consciousness of superiority to the average taste of his times2 but while ,whistler1 on one side of his character a man of the world1 has in his art withdrawn himself into a secluded region of poetry1 ,sargent1 almost a recluse1 has delighted his imagination with the seemings and shows of things and with their material significance4 ,is the reason for this merely that success claimed him early and that he has not been able to extricate himself from the golden entanglement1 or that deeper one1 noticeable in many artists1 that their artistic personality is the direct antithesis of that personality by which they are commonly known to the world8 ,otherwise1 this man with his gift of seeing pictures1 with his power of a brush that seems loaded with light rather than with pigment1 with his smiting force or tender suggestiveness of expression--what might he not have done had he followed the bent of his mind1 a mind stored with culture1 serene and reflective8 ,something1 doubtless1 less dazzling than his portraits1 but more poetical1 more mysteriously suggestive1 more distinctly creative4 ,as it is1 some little studies of ,venice1 such as 8,venetian ,bead ,stringers10 come nearer probably to the true spirit of ,sargent2 to that exquisiteness of fancy which he developed more completely in the study of children lighting lanterns in a garden1 8,carnation ,lily1 ,lily ,rose40 ,the refined originality of this embroidery of light and shadow1 the lights so brilliant1 the shadows penetrated with mystery1 the affectionate tenderness with which the children and flowers are represented1 the lovely imaginativeness of the whole conception1 bespoke qualities which have appeared only partially in the portraits1 and are altogether of a rarer significance than their vivid actuality4 ,this picture is perhaps even more acceptable than his elaborate decorations in the ,boston ,public ,library1 because it represents more unreservedly an artist's vision and one of such delicate apprehensiveness4 ,the decorations involve a more laboured1 conscious effort to produce something noble1 and the literary allusion encroaches somewhat upon the sthetic4 ,yet to enjoy them we are not bound to thread our way through the maze of mythological suggestion4 ,the panels are full of dignity and beauty1 considered purely as decoration2 finely rhythmical in the frieze1 stern with tensity of form and deliberate harshness of colour in the lunette1 a labyrinth of tapestried ornament in the soffit of the arch4 ,their significance1 both as decoration and allusion1 is progressive1 passing from the serene simplicity and tempered realism of the prophets1 through the mingling of human tragedy and symbolism in the misery of the apostate ,jews1 up to the bewilderment of beauty and horror in the representation of the tangle of false faiths4 ,moreover1 this graduation of motive bears a very skilfully adjusted relation to the architectural function of the several spaces embellished4 ,unfortunately the room itself has very little architectural reasonableness1 and is unworthy of the decorations1 which will not establish their full dignity of effect until the remaining spaces are filled4 ,so it is scarcely fair to compare them with ,puvis de ,chavannes's in the same building1 which involve a completed scheme1 for which1 too1 the architects made due provision4 ,further1 the motives of the two artists are so radically different3 ,puvis1 content to shadow forth a vague conception in abstract terms2 ,sargent1 seeking to embody the facts of men's mental and moral life in their direct and actual significance4 ,it was a more daring problem1 and one that perhaps is more closely knitted to the feeling of our times4 ,the solution is a most notable attempt to bring the intellectual faculties into harmonious accord with the sthetic4 ,it is along the line of these decorations and of 8,carnation ,lily1 ,lily ,rose0 that one believes the true ,sargent may be discerned4 ,in them he is giving utterance to himself2 in his portraits responding with a certain hauteur to the allurements of his day4 ,v ,,winslow ,,homer ,in the ,american section at the recent ,paris ,exposition1 no painter made a more distinct mark than ,winslow ,homer4 ,the foreign critics seemed to be conscious of a fresh note in his pictures3 one not traceable to ,european influences1 still less suggestive of ,parisian technique2 a note of unmistakable force and independence4 ,could it be considered representatively ,american8 ,almost for the first time this question appeared to be asked with a real interest in the answer4 ,foreigners had long been acquainted with painters from ,america1 who came over in increasing numbers1 and showed a remarkable faculty of quickly assimilating the teaching and influences of ,europe4 ,but were there any distinctively ,american painters8 ,those students who remained in ,europe1 though many of them were individual and forceful men1 merged themselves more or less completely in their new environment4 ,what1 then1 became of those who returned to ,america8 ,presumably they carried back with them the ,europeanisms they had acquired4 ,so far as could be judged from the showing made by ,american painters at previous expositions1 they were but reflecting the influences of ,paris or of ,german and ,english painting4 ,was there1 in fact1 as distinguished from art in ,america1 any ,american art8 ,and with a languid interest in a matter so far detached from their personal knowledge1 the foreigners had answered the question for themselves1 negatively4 ,however1 the ,exposition of #aijj contained an ,american section which revealed a great deal of motive and character that could not be lightly dismissed as but a reflex of ,europe4 ,it might have been made even more representative of the difference which the ,american environment is steadily impressing upon the work of ,americans who live and paint at home2 but notwithstanding its shortcomings in this respect1 the exhibition undoubtedly gave evidence that such difference already existed4 ,the evidence was largely of the circumstantial kind1 to be gathered not from any patent fact so much as from a collating of various hints of motive and character1 and from a comparison of them with those exhibited in the pictures of other countries4 ,then one gradually became conscious of more sobriety1 earnestness1 and simplicity2 in fact1 of a more obvious conviction1 in the ,american work ,illustration3 ,from the ,museum of ,fine ,arts1 ,boston4 ,,the ,,lookout--8,,all',s ,,well40 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,samuel ,untermeyer1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,west ,,wind4 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer4 than in that of the ,french section as a whole4 ,the ,americans did not seem to be painting in obedience to some vogue1 still less with the purpose of creating one2 they were not thrashing around for motives which should electrify1 by shock or thrill1 and prove a brief sensation2 nor1 on the other hand1 did they seem to be bent upon exhibiting the particular advantages of this or that method of technique4 ,their work for the most part was unassuming and straightforward1 penetrated with realism and often tempered with poetic feeling2 not less suggestive of the true painterlike way of conceiving the subject because it was executed with so little desire to exploit the mere painterlike facility of brush work1 and yet showing a sound and advanced acquisition in technique4 ,indeed1 it was in this particular that the ,american work showed superior to that of ,norway1 with the fresh1 vigorous spirit of which it otherwise had so much in common4 ,these qualities of earnest force1 of directly independent vision and strong1 straightforward treatment1 so conspicuous in ,homer's pictures1 drew the foreign critics to a conclusion that this virile personality might be really representative of ,american art4 ,and so it is in the sense that it embodies the qualities and point of view for which all our most individual painters are striving1 though its power and depth place him above any direct comparison with other painters1 unless it be with ,homer ,martin4 ,like the latter1 his art has grown out of and into the circumstances of his environment1 the most reasonable and fertile way of growth both in plant life and in the life of man4 ,as a boy at ,cambridge1 ,mass41 he led the true boy's life1 interested in animals1 fond of fishing1 observant also of the character and forms of nature1 early recording his impressions on paper in a long series of methodically careful drawings4 ,so1 from the start1 he learned to feel things and to see things for himself1 and to express them as they affected him4 ,the accident of an advertisement in a local paper landed him in a lithographer's workshop1 where for two years his habits of methodical application were confirmed1 leaving him at the end no less earnest and enthusiastic as a student1 but determined that henceforth he would bow the neck to no one4 ,after a brief sojourn in a ,boston studio1 during which he contributed drawings to ,harper and ,brothers1 he came up to ,new ,york1 refusing an offer to enter the art department of those publishers1 but accepting an appointment at the outbreak of the war to represent them at the front4 ,meanwhile1 he had been attending the night school of the ,national ,academy1 and taking lessons in painting from ,frederic ,rondel1 a ,frenchman1 then in considerable repute as a painter4 ,his contributions to ,harper's ,weekly1 though somewhat tamely precise in drawing1 gave with much spirit the character as well as the episodes of camp life4 ,subsequently1 on his own behalf1 he paid two more visits to the ,army of the ,potomac1 during which he put in practice what he had learned of painting1 finally producing 8,prisoners from the ,front40 ,this picture1 shown at the exhibition of the ,national ,academy in #ahfd1 made a profound impression4 ,popular excitement was at fever heat1 so the picture fitted the hour2 but it would not have enlisted such an enthusiastic reception if it had not approximated in intensity to the pitch of the people's feeling4 ,it has1 in fact1 the elements of a great picture1 quite apart from its association with the circumstances of the time3 a subject admirably adapted to pictorial representation1 explaining itself at once1 offering abundant opportunity for characterization1 and in its treatment free from any triviality4 ,on the contrary1 the painter has felt beyond the limits of the episode itself the profound significance of the struggle in which this was but an eddy1 and in the generalization of his theme has imparted to it the character of a type4 ,it is at this point that the true artist parts company with the mere practitioner1 however accomplished4 ,his work is more than of local and temporary interest2 it has a savour1 at least1 of the universal1 which keeps its significance from perishing4 ,the savour need not necessarily be serious2 it may be1 as in ,watteau's case1 a distillation of the elegance of life2 but with ,homer its seriousness was inevitable1 his temperament seeming to require a ground-bass of motive1 grand and solemn4 ,so when he occupies himself with character pictures1 drawn from country life1 they are comparatively trivial4 ,he cannot1 like ,millet or ,israels1 discover the fundamental note of humanity beneath the individual4 ,that note may be solemn enough1 but it is not big enough in a forceful way to awake his imagination4 ,his pictures of this genre are shrewdly studied and reasonably good in characterization2 but1 being detached from any background of big intention1 their interest is merely local1 and they are not done with that ease and style which might secure them technical distinction4 ,but while waiting for the fountain of his motive to be again moved1 how commendable it is that he did not set to work to repeat his success of the 8,prisoners from the ,front10 as a smaller man would have been tempted to do6 ,at length1 however1 he finds again the fundamental motive which he needs1 this time in the inspiration of the ocean4 ,off and on for many years he has led the life of a recluse on a spit of land near ,scarboro1 ,maine1 whose brown rocks piled in diagonal strata have from time immemorial withstood the onset of the ,atlantic combers2 an atom of impregnable stability in presence of vastness1 solitude1 and the perpetual flux of elemental forces4 ,grounded on his own stalwart individuality1 he has kept himself aloof from the truck and scrimage of conventional life and filled his soul with the vastness of nature4 ,how instances of this isolation from the world multiply in the story of art3 ,watteau retreating into the impenetrability of his own soul2 ,delacroix and ,puvis de ,chavannes into their barred studios2 ,rousseau1 ,millet1 and the rest of their brotherhood into the recesses of the forest4 ,such isolation seems to be the road to greatness2 partly1 perhaps1 because the man himself must have the elements of greatness in him to wish to do without the constant reinforcement of the world1 where men and women prop their shoulders together and make believe that they are standing independently4 ,henceforth1 then1 the ocean supplies the ground-bass of motive in ,homer's art1 and the magnitude of its influence begins to inform his work4 ,deepening in significance1 it becomes simpler in expression1 and the simplicity is revealed in a fuller synthesis of manner2 it grows in comprehension1 in force and directness1 gaining breadth and freedom of execution1 greater purity and subtlety of colour4 ,but he does not at once realize the full significance of the ocean itself4 ,for a time he sees only its secondary significance in relation to the life of the fisherfolk1 to whom it is1 at once1 the means of existence and a perpetual threat of danger4 ,he paints such grandly dramatic pictures as 8,the ,life ,line10 8,eight ,bells10 8,danger10 8,all's ,well10 8,undertow10 8,watching the ,tempest10 and 8,perils of the ,sea02 a series of dramas to which the ocean is the background4 ,how original they are3 the subject seen so individually and carving itself out in the artist's imagination with such incisive force6 ,moreover1 what wholesome breadth in his sympathy6 ,he does not1 like ,cottet1 the eminent painter of the fisherfolk of ,brittany1 picture the lives of his people as darkened by the pall of an irremediable fatality4 ,he paints them as strong men and women1 fronting with strength the vicissitudes of their existence2 a point of view entirely akin to his own strong force of character4 ,for here one reaches the tap root of his ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,george ,a4 ,hearn1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,maine ,,coast4 ,,by ,,winslow ,,homer4 power4 ,it is character3 a personal strength2 not of the complex kind that diffuses itself over many issues1 but self-centred and direct4 ,it is the actuality of things which perpetually seizes his imagination and on which he concentrates for the time being all his energy4 ,and1 surely1 it is because this is so essentially the quality of present ,american civilization that he is preminently the most representative of ,american painters4 ,he is a product of his time1 has sucked nourishment from it1 and translated its nobler quality into terms of art4 ,but it is in his marines that he seems to reach the ripest maturity of his genius2 and most completely1 perhaps1 in the 8,maine ,coast40 ,the human import of the ocean has spoken home to him at last1 in its least local significance4 ,this picture involves a drama2 but the players are the elements2 the text1 of universal language2 the theme1 as old as time4 ,with the enlargement of purpose has come a corresponding grandeur of style2 they realize1 as no other marines with which ,i am acquainted1 the majesty1 isolation1 immensity1 ponderous movement and mystery of the ocean1 8boundless1 endless1 and sublime-- ,the image of ,eternity--the throne ,of the ,invisible40 --,they seem to be the spontaneous utterance of a soul full to overflowing with the magnitude of its thoughts4 ,a word must be said of ,homer's skill in water colours4 ,they have the quality of improvisation2 snatches of impression1 flung upon the paper in the ardour of the moment2 tuneful bits of movement and colour1 gladsome as the light and quick with the spirit of the occasion2 and1 being so close to their author's intention1 they have a vigour and directness all his own4 ,,vi ,,edwin ,a4 ,,abbey ,it was but yesterday1 though in this country that is a long time ago1 that ,american painters with the zeal of the neophyte were declaiming against the story-telling picture4 ,of course1 we know that the objection was well taken in regard to a large class of pictures1 wherein the story was the 8thing10 the way of telling it merely incidental and generally banal4 ,but1 like many other good principles pushed to excess1 it resulted in a bathos as complete as that from which it would have saved us4 ,countless canvases have been painted1 which possess no human interest and very little artistic justification2 the barren issue of a mere negation4 ,slowly there is coming a reaction1 and we are beginning to realize that a painter is none the less an artist for having something to say1 may even ultimately depend for his ranking as an artist upon the quality of what he has to say1 provided always that he says it in true painter fashion1 with reliance1 in fact1 upon the vocabulary of his own particular art4 ,among those who have never allowed themselves to be troubled by the art-for-art's-sake grain of truth in a bushel of chaff is ,edwin ,a4 ,abbey4 ,as an artist he must largely stand or fall upon his merit as a teller of stories4 ,have his stories been intrinsically interesting8 ,is his way of telling them artistic8 ,that he has won his way from a stool at the drawing table of ,harper and ,brothers to a seat in the ,royal ,academy will not of itself convince a great many people1 who are of the opinion that the story-telling picture is just what attracts the ,english and is the bane of their ,academy4 ,so1 to reach an acceptable estimate of ,abbey's rank as an artist1 we must confine ourselves strictly to the character of his work1 both in pen and ink and in paint4 ,it was in #ahga1 when he was nineteen years old1 that he passed from his student days at the ,pennsylvania ,academy of the ,fine ,arts into the employment of the ,harpers1 becoming one of the firm's band of illustrators1 including1 among others1 ,charles ,s4 ,reinhart1 ,howard ,pyle1 ,joseph ,pennel1 and ,alfred ,parsons1 who helped to draw attention in ,europe to the superiority of the chief ,american illustrated monthlies4 ,in #ahgh came his first great opportunity1 when he was commissioned to illustrate some of the poems of ,herrick1 and1 in search of material1 visited ,england1 where1 except for a few short visits to this country1 he has remained ever since4 ,he betook himself to ,stratford-on-,avon and ,bidford1 and later to ,broadway1 in ,worcestershire4 ,probably every true artist has within him a little world of his own1 an island in the ocean of the world around him1 a little spot of fact1 on which flourish the trees and flowers and personages of his imagination4 ,he is happy if circumstances permit him to work in it1 and still more happy if his world of fancy has some correspondence to the actual world about him4 ,such was ,abbey's happiness in having his footsteps directed through rural ,england4 ,on the other hand1 it could have been no accident that put it in his way to illustrate an old-time poem4 ,the whole tenor of his subsequent work1 since he has been at liberty to choose his own subjects1 proves that the bias of his temperament is toward the past3 to the days of picturesque costume1 to a period remote enough to justify his fancy in selecting what it would1 and ignoring what it would not4 ,nor do ,i overlook the fact that ,abbey from the first has shown an ability to create from within himself an environment for his conceptions4 ,yet1 even so1 he could not have lighted on a place more fertilizing to such a temperament than the ,english scenes among which he has moved1 with their old-time associations and simple rural loveliness4 ,broadway1 for instance1 is on the old post road that runs from ,london1 through ,oxford1 on to ,worcester and the west2 within easy reach of ,stratford and ,kenilworth2 its nearest station1 ,evesham1 an old market town where ,simon de ,montfort1 who first stood up for ,englishmen against the ,norman conquerors and for the rights of the common people1 was slain in battle4 ,as you near the village the pleasant vale of ,evesham narrows into a horseshoe of hills1 gentle slopes of verdure intersected with hedges1 and rimmed with coppices and woods4 ,millet's house is at the entrance2 a little farther on1 the village green2 and a little farther still a fine old gabled inn1 where ,cromwell1 says the story1 slept after his victory at ,worcester4 ,the broad street1 continually mounting1 passes between gabled farmhouses1 buried in ivy1 and cottages whose windows are bright with pot geraniums and little gardens filled with the flowers and herbs that ,ophelia crooned of2 past doorways that bear the date of that first ,james1 8the most learned fool in ,christendom02 past the remantled farmstead where ,mary ,anderson in her present rle of wife and mother would fain forget that she has been a star2 till it winds up in a thin line of white between the green and ,illustration3 ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,carnegie ,institute4 ,,the ,,penance ,,of ,,eleanor1 ,,duchess ,,of ,,gloucester4 ,,by ,,edwin ,a4 ,,abbey4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,whitelaw ,reid1 ,esq4 ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,whitelaw ,reid4 ,,pavane4 ,,by ,,edwin ,a4 ,,abbey4 7,painted in #ahie to occupy a special place in the room where it now is47 brown1 and vanishes at the top of the hill1 where beyond the mounds and hollows of a ,roman encampment there is only the knowledge of a modern world4 ,but you have scarce seen ,broadway until you have penetrated into some of the cottage and kitchen interiors1 with their wide-open hearths1 smoke-stained timbered ceilings1 from which hang hams and flitches of bacon and strings of onions2 or passed to the backs of some of the houses and explored the dairies and quaint inglenooks of architecture1 the trim vegetable gardens1 the apple orchards and the barnyards1 in close companionship with which is always the vivid green of the pleasant hills4 ,and it was in such places that ,abbey gathered material for his illustrations to 8,selections from the ,hesperides0 and 8,noble ,numbers0 of ,robert ,herrick2 to the 8,old ,songs0 and 8,she ,stoops to ,conquer02 a spot wherein there must have been so much akin to his own moods of imagination4 ,what wonder that his drawings have the fragrance of apple blossom and new-mown hay1 the sweet musicalness of rippling brooks1 the delicate atmosphere of the quiet life1 and the savour of the old-time spirit6 ,within the limits of their particular intention1 ,i doubt if any drawings are more perfect4 ,nor do ,i forget those drawings of the country by ,alfred ,parsons1 made about the same time and around the same spots2 drawings which show such apprehension of the subtle qualities of rural beauty1 such an eye for lovely fragments1 such a sensitive artistry in picturing them4 ,but the difference in the work of these two close friends throws a clear light on the special quality of ,abbey's mind4 ,parsons pictured what he saw1 interpreting the bit of nature in daintiest terms of art2 while ,abbey has the power of calling up a picture in his imagination4 ,yet in these drawings1 at least1 there is not an act of pure imagination2 for the text of the poem or play supplies the idea4 ,his skill is shown in the vivid recreation of the borrowed theme2 in a delicate tact of choice1 in his way of representing it and of illuminating it with a few choice details1 and in his manner of setting the figures and objects in an atmosphere of their own4 ,and ,i am not thinking now of that technical accomplishment which surrounds the figures with an envelope of lighted air1 but of that more poetical gift which enables him to recreate the impression of the old-time feeling4 ,as he says himself1 a picture of bygone manners should be treated as an artist of its own period might have treated it4 ,it is undoubtedly ,abbey's faculty of borrowing the habit of mind as well as of manners of the past that gives a special distinction to these drawings4 ,but the recognition of this should not obscure the larger faculty of which this is only a phase1 of being able to illuminate the text2 to illustrate it in the true sense1 for the term has fallen into discredit4 ,this is partly the fault of publishers who are apt to insist on the most literal interpretation of the text1 instead of allowing the artist to reinform the essence of the text with the spirit of his independent art2 and partly1 no doubt1 to the inability of many draughtsmen to do more than baldly literalize4 ,thus we have a perpetual crop of so-called illustrations1 either crowded with detail or almost flippantly negligent of anything but a certain loose bravura of line and spacing1 clever1 if you like1 but tediously similar in general character4 8,she rose to greet him0--can you not predicate with tolerable accuracy how such and such a one among many illustrators would represent the incident8 ,in ,abbey's case you could not4 ,the phrase would formulate in his mind a picture2 complete1 daintily suggestive1 full of the charming quality of unexpectedness4 ,but it is when an illustration tries to enforce the text by picturing some incident of prime importance in the story1 with its play of passion1 perhaps1 and diverse possibility of appeal to different minds1 that the effort of the ordinary illustrator is so hopelessly jejune4 ,such subjects are only partially acceptable when one like ,abbey essays them4 ,indeed1 many of us may have felt that where1 as in ,shakespeare1 the scene is one of very full significance1 affecting the sensibility of different thoughtful readers as diversely as the same passage of music will affect its auditors differently1 one's intelligence and power of appreciation can hardly be satisfied with any one man's crystallizing of such fluidity and diversity of appeal into a fixed presentment4 ,abbey's illustrations to ,shakespeare1 though ,i know they are considered one of his greatest triumphs1 have seemed to me to mark the beginning of less perfection4 ,again1 ,i am not speaking of the craftsmanship1 but of the spirit that animates the artist4 ,so long as he confines himself to fragments from the scenes and to subordinate persons1 or to those whose character is very simple and direct1 his old charm remains2 but when he attempts a complex character1 as that of ,portia1 he necessarily cannot please all comers2 and when he essays to build up scenes1 the old spontaneity of imagination seems to dwindle4 ,it is as if the foliage of a tree were beginning to lose its freshness and twinkle of artless movement2 as if by degrees the leaves were losing sap and falling2 and the naked boughs1 the bare construction of the tree1 were gradually being revealed4 ,and in ,abbey's case it seems to be a process that has been going on more and more as he passed to the use of paint and to the building up of important mise en scnes1 such as 8,hamlet10 8,richard1 ,duke of ,gloucester1 and the ,lady ,anne10 or 8,the ,penance of ,eleanor1 ,duchess of ,gloucester40 ,his passage to paint was but a question of time2 not only because to all artists it seems to offer the largest scope1 but because1 as a draughtsman1 he has always had the feeling of a colourist4 ,he has avoided hardness of contours1 softening them with light and atmosphere1 and merging the figures in the ensemble4 ,the latter are not merely set against a background1 they are always in and part of the picture4 ,further1 he sees them as masses4 ,you will scarcely find in his drawings authority of line1 or fascination in the direction and quality of the line as line2 instead1 an infinity of little lines1 not without feeling1 doubtless1 but without a separateness of sthetic value4 ,it is in the mass that they count2 so that a woman's gown will not afford a sweep of movement1 but a delightful tissue of lights and shadows4 ,and when he proceeds to colour it is again the mass that captivates him--masses1 especially of black1 of crimson and white4 ,but with this very marked love for colour1 he is not a colourist in the sense of weaving harmonies of colour4 ,his pictures are still a balancing of masses rather than an effect of orchestration2 and in the voluminous draperies that he introduces1 while there is much influence of the amplitude of ,venetian painting1 there is little of its love of light or bigness of architectonic use of colour4 ,in his treatment of coloured masses he is nearer to the manner of ,holbein or ,van ,eyck4 ,he does not seem to have an antecedent realization of the structure of his colour scheme1 but builds it bit by bit1 and the units more or less retain their separateness4 ,yet1 while there is a lack of breadth in the picture as a whole1 the parts are broadly treated1 and often with a fine freedom of stroke4 ,in his earlier paintings1 such as the 8,pavane10 belonging to ,mr4 ,whitelaw ,reid1 he was still drawing with his brush1 but in his later ones the manner has become a painter's4 ,but no less natural than this progress of his technical evolution has been that of his mental one4 ,in the course of this how could he well escape the ,shakespeare cycle2 not only because he had begun by interpreting old ,english poems and plays1 and it was only a question of time as to when he would feel the influence of the poet-dramatist1 but also because his imagination is of the dramatic kind4 ,he would have made an ideal stage manager of the highest type4 ,as ,i have said1 it is less by any originality of conception that his imagination is distinguished than by an aptitude for grasping the thought of another1 reclothing it with actuality1 setting it in its appropriate environment1 and making it breathe again with the spirit of its time4 ,but such a gift1 on the stage at least1 is rarely1 if ever1 accompanied by personal histrionic ability4 ,it is a gift1 of selecting1 assembling1 and combining1 rather than of absorption of self in a given line of motive4 ,the stage manager gives the appearance of life to a scene1 the actor makes it live1 and ,i wonder whether it be not true that in these ,shakespearian canvases of ,abbey's and in his mural decorations of the ,holy ,grail in the ,boston ,public ,library there is a marshalling of the scene without the dramatic force4 ,do they carry us away and fill us with the emotion that we should receive in presence of the play well acted on the stage or in the reading of the legend intelligently8 ,we find ourselves1 ,i believe1 rather studying the parts of those elaborate productions1 the accuracy and beauty of detail1 admiring the manipulative ability that has collected and cordinated1 and waiting1 meanwhile1 for the drama to begin4 ,and if this is true1 may it not be the result of choosing for pictorial representation a subject of such complex emotions as the player's scene in 8,hamlet10 or one of such almost inexplicable subtlety as ,richard's love advances to ,anne as she follows in the funeral procession of her dead husband1 or even one of comparatively directer significance as that of 8,the ,penance of ,eleanor08 ,in his last picture1 the 8,trial of ,queen ,katherine10 he has not attempted to portray the climax of the scene1 but the first pathetic pleading of the 8most poor woman40 ,surely he did well to seize for representation this intermediate movement in the scene4 ,he has gained thereby our human sympathy for a subject which might easily have been too complicated with highly strung emotions to be immediately intelligible4 ,and it is one of the merits of this picture that its appeal is not only impressive but immediate4 ,he has exhibited a tactful modesty1 and ,i use the word with a thought of its real meaning1 which is something choicer than moderation4 ,he might have attempted a more heroic note1 pitched it to the extreme possibility of the scene4 ,but he avoids a tour de force2 and draws us as much by persuasion as by strength2 by the strength1 in fact1 of what he holds in reserve4 ,for the peculiar qualities of his strength are quietness and depth4 ,one may find it in 8,the ,jongleur10 where coming from the castle gate1 flanked on each side by a sheltering range of roof1 cheerless outside1 but suggesting cheer within1 across the waste of snow the man in motley's solitary figure is seen1 wincing as he faces the cold and touching a strain on his mandolin to keep up his spirits4 ,it is a beautiful picture1 full of significant suggestion1 not only of the immediate incident1 but of the pathos of the life which lives to amuse others and of the emptiness of the world for one whose spirit is apart from it4 ,it is a picture that compares in spontaneousness of expression with the earlier drawings1 and has the fuller import of a maturer mind4 ,surely it is along lines such as this of purer imagination that ,abbey will find his truest self4 ,to his decorations at the ,boston ,public ,library much of what one has said of the ,shakespeare paintings is applicable4 ,they are not dramatic2 their impressiveness is of a quiet and tempered sort4 ,as one becomes familiar with these pictures1 their power to make one feel the reasonableness and the beauty of the old thought2 to feel it1 too1 not as something entirely strange1 but as of present interest1 grows and grows upon one4 ,the intellect that has conceived them is not of the kind that leaps to an inspired result4 ,its quality is choiceness and delicacy of imaginativeness that wins us by persuasion4 ,in these pictures1 as generally in his others1 it is the women that he introduces who are the most captivating features of the conception4 ,how beautiful they are6 ,the alluring purity of expression1 for example1 in the faces of the ,virtues is irresistible4 ,their heads1 fragrantly pure1 sway like a row of lilies in a gentle wind4 ,their motionless bodies are arrayed in costumes of delicate richness1 each one of which is differently exquisite2 the expression is mostly signified by movement of the hands and head2 along the line there is a simultaneous act of unveiling1 diversified by separate traits of modesty4 ,perhaps the most captivating of all the figures is that of the one who holds the young knight's left hand4 ,she draws back and yields at the same moment1 with a gesture in which there is a most subtle mingling of confidence and hesitation4 ,the touch of man is so new to her1 yet who may doubt this youth8 ,one of the gems of the whole series is the representation of ,blanchefleur1 sitting in her dove-gray wedding gown2 rose-wreathed and holding roses in her lap2 gazing before her with a look of surrender1 so infinitely spiritual4 ,in her as in the ,virtues the painter has made purity adorable2 neither ascetic nor ecstatic1 not at variance with the humanity of womanhood1 but represented as its choicest flowering4 ,again1 in his rendering of the angels he helps us to realize that they are creatures of the imagination2 especially in the last picture1 where their form is vague and they are felt rather as presences4 ,and to this detachment from mere humanity spiritualized corresponds the expression of their faces2 the rapt adoration of beings raised above the stir of human passion1 in an atmosphere of calm where passivity is action4 ,however1 judged as a series of decorations1 following around the frieze of a room1 these pictures are less satisfactory4 ,they count as units1 rather than in progression4 ,one fails to find a rhythmic continuity or periodic emphasis of movement and colour1 they vary conspicuously in size and colour and in character of composition and motive1 and make their impression separately1 instead of being in consecutive accord4 ,but if from a decorative standpoint these canvases are open to adverse criticism1 let it not divert attention from their essential merit4 ,such big and serious effort is none too usual in painting--the opportunity for it1 one must add in fairness1 too infrequently occurs--so that1 when one meets it1 one's heart goes out in appreciative acknowledgment4 ,within the scope of ,abbey's primary intention of commemorating a great theme in a series of noble pictures and of reinvesting old truth with present force1 he has achieved a triumph that will win the admiration of all to whom seriously imaginative work appeals4 ,,vii ,,george ,,fuller ,when ,fortune is apportioning qualities to the artistic temperament1 she does not always include character4 ,i mean that unflinching rectitude of purpose which at once answers 8,adsum60 to the call of duty1 and is not of the kind that says1 8#8,i go1 sir1' and went not40 ,sacrifice to the call of art is by comparison a slenderer quality4 ,it is not so difficult to suffer for the sake of an ideal1 especially when a man is young1 or even when he is old1 if he keeps his heart young within him1 a faculty which is often rather an incident of the artistic temperament than a matter of personal effort4 ,but sacrifice to the call of duty1 a duty outside of the art ideals1 represents a much higher quality1 demanding the exercise of personal force and the maintenance of a quite unusual endurance2 the quality1 in fact1 which one sums up as character4 ,this is one clew to the reading of ,george ,fuller's life as an artist2 that1 at the call of what seemed to him to be his duty1 he gave up the single-aimed pursuit of the treasure where his heart lay2 disregarded1 as the world would say1 the chances of a lifetime for the dull monotony of a life of arduous routine1 and yet1 despite the sacrifice1 more probably because of it1 found his ideal after all4 ,but there is another clew4 ,fuller's ideal and his craving after artistic expression were bone of his bone1 flesh of his flesh1 an integral1 inseparable part of himself4 ,they did not need stimulating any more than a healthy appetite1 were so normally a part of him as to preserve their natural functions under any circumstances of life4 ,this is not the way in which artistic proclivities always reveal themselves4 ,in some cases the art instinct is not dissimilar to a taste in waistcoats2 double-breasted to-day1 to-morrow1 single2 sprigged1 plain1 coloured1 sober1 to meet the occasions of the moment2 put off as easily as put on2 a habit rather than an instinct4 ,this is the trivial1 masquerading side of art1 so detestable in a solid world of facts2 a conscienceless sniffing of the air for change of fashion1 that reminds one of the jackdaw with a few peacock feathers in his tail1 strutting around and trying to deceive us into recognizing his superiority to fowls of ordinary degree4 ,i doubt if the true artist ever humbled himself to proclaim his worth1 and nothing more proclaims his worth than his beautiful humility4 ,it was so1 ,i am sure we may believe1 in ,fuller's case4 ,he was not even conscious of his power in the way that smaller men of less character are3 only conscious of something that he longed to do and would do in time1 if life were spared1 notwithstanding the claims upon his attention of other and more mundane matters4 ,the beauty of such a process of evolution is all from within3 natural1 like the bursting of the honeysuckle into fragrance and blossom over waste1 dry places2 not to be judged by what it might have been in other soil and climate1 but fulfilling its special function of beauty through the inherent mystery of its own independent force4 ,the product of good ,new ,england stock1 ,george ,fuller was born at ,deerfield1 ,mass41 in #ahbb1 his father being a farmer and his mother the daughter of a lawyer4 ,at thirteen years he was taken to ,boston and put first into a grocery and later into a shoe store1 but only for a short time1 soon returning to the home farm and resuming his studies at the country school4 ,already he had displayed a taste and aptitude for drawing4 ,when fifteen1 he joined an expedition to ,illinois that was engaged in making surveys for the first railway in the state1 and then again1 after two years1 returned to school at ,deerfield4 ,it soon became evident that the youth had more leanings toward art than business1 and he was allowed to accompany his half-brother ,augustus1 a deaf mute who painted miniatures1 in a ramble through the smaller towns of ,new ,york ,state1 executing portraits at fifteen dollars apiece4 ,how much of simple romance there was in these beginnings3 the early influence of the hill life1 for ,deerfield is a village among the hills2 the wider freedom on the western prairies2 and the roaming from place to place with paint box and wallet1 light of heart and heel6 ,all these influences tended toward independence1 self-reliance1 and wholesomeness of mind1 to the natural and firm upbuilding of the individuality in himself1 before he came in contact with influences directly artistic4 ,he was fortunate1 also1 in his early friendship with artists of so fine a quality of mind and beautiful personal character as the sculptors ,henry ,kirke ,brown and ,thomas ,ball4 ,the former1 eight years his senior1 invited him to his studio in ,albany1 where he studied drawing for nine months1 until ,brown and his wife went to ,europe4 ,then he spent the winters of #ahdb and #ahdc in ,boston1 returning to ,deerfield each summer4 ,in the latter year1 having been elected a member of the ,boston ,artists' ,association1 he wrote to ,brown1 who was then in ,rome1 8,i have concluded to see nature for myself1 through the eye of no one else1 and put my trust in ,god1 awaiting the result40 ,it is just such simple-souled1 reliant men who can possess their souls with patience and reach their end by waiting4 ,in these early days at ,boston1 during part of which he shared a studio with ,thomas ,ball1 he was painting portraits2 but in #ahdf1 the year after his mother's death1 he sold his first imaginative picture1 8,a ,nun at ,confession10 to a patron in ,pittsfield1 ,mass41 for six dollars6 ,in the following year he moved to ,new ,york at the solicitation of his friend ,brown1 who had returned home1 eager to devote the experience he had gained abroad to the representation of ,american subjects in ,america4 ,during the ten years which followed of study and work in ,new ,york1 varied with visits to ,philadelphia and the ,south1 it is not difficult to trace the effect of ,brown's influence upon his earnest friend4 ,one result of it was to prepare the latter for his own visit to ,europe2 to open his understanding beforehand to the wonders that he was to see1 and at the same time to habituate him to an attitude of study1 which would enable him to receive the technical lessons of the various schools and their stimulus to the imagination without being lost in the wealth of impressions or unduly influenced by any one of them4 ,the opportunity to visit ,europe came in #ahei1 when1 at an interval of only a few months1 both his elder brother and father died1 so that the duty of caring for the farm and for those left dependent upon it fell to him4 ,but before settling down he made a tour of five months1 visiting ,london1--where he met ,rossetti and ,holman ,hunt1--,paris1 and the chief cities of ,italy1 ,germany1 ,belgium1 and ,holland2 making sketches in the galleries1 and finding especial delight in ,titian1 ,tintoretto1 ,veronese1 ,rubens1 ,velasquez1 ,rembrandt1 ,correggio1 and ,murillo1 apparently with a particular admiration for the colourists4 ,an infinite pathos1 we may feel1 gathers over this visit1 affording1 as it did1 a view of the ,promised ,land to a pilgrim whose steps were so peremptorily recalled to the hard routine of the far-off hill farm2 a first meeting with the lady of his imagination in her full glory at the moment when he found himself compelled to forego entire allegiance2 a brief vision of the ideal before setting his hand to the prosaic reality of life4 ,yet1 perhaps1 to feel this is to misread the nobility of ,fuller's character4 ,to him1 we may believe1 there was a fuller1 more rounded comprehension of beauty in life1 manifested simply in the living of it well with hands and back and brain as well as with the subtler forces of the imagination2 that in this big organic beauty1 the beauty of art might be a fly wheel1 but still ,illustration3 ,copyright1 #ahii1 by ,curtis ,cameron4 ,,the ,,simple ,,gatherer4 ,,by ,,george ,,fuller4 was only a part of the beautiful whole4 ,so what seems to us such a tremendous sacrifice1 to him may have been assuaged by the satisfaction of having the method in which his life should be lived so clearly set before him2 and in this reading of his mind one pays1 perhaps1 the most honourable tribute to his character4 ,for fifteen years no picture by him was seen at the exhibitions1 and only a few intimate friends knew that he still painted in the intervals of farm labour2 at first in one of the rooms of his home1 and later in an old carriage house1 converted into a studio4 ,his subjects were elaborations of the sketches made in ,europe1 small landscapes1 and portraits of his children1 relatives1 and friends2 often never finished1 sometimes destroyed because they did not reach what he desired4 ,meanwhile his work on the farm was successful2 many improvements were carried out1 and tobacco culture was introduced with good results1 until the fall of prices in #ahge4 ,this forced him into bankruptcy and restored him to art4 ,during the ensuing winter he finished twelve canvases1 which were exhibited at ,boston1 meeting with hearty praise and a ready sale4 ,in #ahgh appeared at the exhibition of the ,national ,academy 8,by the ,wayside0 and 8,the ,turkey ,pasture in ,kentucky10 followed in succeeding years by 8,the ,romany ,girl10 8,and ,she was a ,witch10 8,the ,quadroon10 and 8,winifred ,dysart40 ,being elected a member of the ,society of ,american ,artists1 he sent to its exhibitions 8,evening--,lorette1 ,canada10 8,priscilla ,fauntleroy10 and 8,nydia40 ,among his other works1 exclusive of numerous portraits1 especially of ladies and children1 were 8,psyche10 8,the ,bird ,catcher10 8,girl and ,calf10 8,fedalma10 and 8,arethusa10 the last named being his single example of the nude4 ,but this rich aftermath of creative work was all too short1 lasting only eight years1 for ,george ,fuller died after a brief illness in ,march1 #ahhd4 ,he was buried at ,deerfield1 and a few weeks later a memorial exhibition was held in ,boston comprising #age paintings3 an almost complete rsum of what existed of his art work1 produced through forty years4 ,two years later the house of ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 published a sumptuous memorial volume1 containing appreciations by ,w4 ,d4 ,howells1 ,frank ,d4 ,millet1 ,thomas ,ball1 ,w4 ,j4 ,stillman1 and ,j4 ,j4 ,enneking2 a sonnet by ,whittier1 and engravings by ,closson1 ,kruell1 and ,cole4 ,it is useless to speculate upon what might have been if ,fuller's productivity had not been interrupted by those fifteen years upon the farm2 but when he emerged from them it was with a style of painting very different from his early one4 ,that had been hard in outline1 minute and careful in finish2 now it was immersed in atmosphere1 tenderly elusive1 quietly luminous1 a revery of colour1 reticently harmonious4 ,it was no longer the work of an observation intent upon the outer world1 but the outpouring of his innermost spirit1 mellowed1 chastened1 become contemplative by time4 ,one may believe that the outer world had become more and more identified with the necessities of his life1 from which he sought a refuge within himself in his own dreams of spiritual beauty4 ,for the names of his pictures count as little as the subjects4 ,in all his best1 notably in the 8,winifred ,dysart10 8,nydia10 8,the ,quadroon10 and in 8,the ,romany ,girl10 especially that example of the latter owned by ,j4 ,j4 ,enneking1 he is not concerned with portraying the individual but a type1 and in giving to it especially a significance of spirit1 investing it in each case with phases of what he had learned to realize as the spiritual quality of rarest1 subtlest beauty4 ,how could the essential fragrance and indefinable loveliness of maiden innocence as it appealed to the matured sympathies of his advanced years be expressed otherwise than he had felt it1--veiled in the romance of shadowed light1 a thing too rarely delicate for sharp1 decisive handling8 ,and yet beneath this tender suggestiveness of method1 what strong brush work is discernible6 ,not clever1 truly1 or facile and masterful2 rather plodding1 ay1 tentative1 as of compressed emotion striving patiently for expression4 ,one has seen a dreamy1 tender treatment of the female form1 which had no such staunch underlying structure to support it1 work which attracts by what we hastily style subtlety1 and later find to be but an exquisite veneer to an unstable conception2 the artistic affectation of men whose coarseness of character belies the exquisiteness1 and1 as one studies their pictures longer1 leaves us unconvinced of their sincerity4 ,but in the purity of ,fuller's conceptions the man himself and his deliberate1 habitual conviction are embodied4 ,it is a remarkable feature of ,fuller's development that whereas in age he belonged to the earlier generation of ,american painters1 he should have emerged from his fifteen years' retreat and unaided communing with himself more truly modern in feeling than the younger men who were then returning from ,paris4 ,by very different ways he had reached an ideal not dissimilar to ,whistler's2 not1 to be sure1 expressed with the latter's inimitable1 because so personal1 finesse1 but alike in its devotion to the abstract and in realization of the correspondence between painting and music1 and not so unlike in its method of expression1 so reticent and mysterious4 ,fuller also anticipated the motives of the still younger man1 such as ,le ,sidaner and ,duhem1 to whom the inherent spirituality of the landscape or figure is the absorbing search1 which they seek to embody in terms as intangible as possible4 ,wrapt from all contact with the distractions of the art world1 he had with the prescience of sincerity put forth his hand toward the most interesting phase of the latest movements4 ,i mean the search for the significance of things1 as of higher and more abiding value than the things themselves4 ,fuller's life was a romance of more than usual human import1 characterized by a singular unity of purpose4 ,he is not to be considered1 on the one hand as a man1 and on the other as an artist1 with qualities1 as is not unusual1 respectively dissimilar and conflicting4 ,his art was of himself1 truly an ingredient1 nourished1 disciplined1 chastened1 always sweetly wholesome1 modest and noble1 like his life4 ,he lived the latter well1 and in this high ideal of manhood realized the ideal of his art4 ,,viii ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin ,homer ,d4 ,martin has been called the first of ,american impressionists--doubtless not with reference to his manner of painting1 but to the way in which he formulated his conception of the landscape4 ,he was not concerned so much with its obvious phenomena as with the impression that it aroused in his own imagination4 ,the distinction is a very general one4 ,everywhere there are those to whom the obvious appeals with undisturbed frankness2 they have an instinct for facts1 and for confronting them singly and directly2 always1 too1 there are others to whom the facts are but a basis of suggestion4 ,a lamppost on the sidewalk implies another one beyond1 still others farther on1 and on and on2 and1 by inference1 the endless footsteps in both directions1 passing and repassing4 ,martin's earliest study1 as a young man at ,albany1 was with ,william ,hart1 a literalist of very engaging qualities4 ,hart was faithful to the forms of nature1 as every true landscapist is1 and dwelt upon the details of the scene with a lingering appreciation that did not1 however1 prevent him from cordinating them into a very charming ensemble4 ,but his joy in the latter was of the obvious kind1 such as any intelligent lover of the country shares2 a joy in the pleasantness of generous pastures1 dotted with cattle1 and pervaded with a quiet prosperity2 in the smiling sunshine and grateful shade1 in cosey woodland retreats1 that a man might seek in order to bury himself in the attractions of a book4 ,always it was the domestic happiness of the country side that won him1 much1 indeed1 as it won ,daubigny2 for such choice of subject is not a consequence of a painter's particular way of painting1 but of his temperament4 ,the much or little of suggestion that he receives from the landscape1 the quality of personal feeling that he puts into his pictures1 depend upon his character as a man2 and the loyalty with which he follows his own true bias determines very largely the value of his work4 ,certainly this is a truism1 and yet how often it is ignored2 painters and amateurs establishing1 each for himself1 some particular basis of appreciation4 ,for example1 to look for poetic quality in a landscape picture has become with many an axiom of standard1 and they find its expression chiefly in the manner of tone4 ,so they have no eyes for one of ,monet's naturalistic studies2 its subtle fidelity to a phase of nature does not interest them4 ,he has found the truth of nature to be enough for his own enjoyment1 and as he has striven to make nature speak direct through his picture without any promptings to sentiment on his own part1 they miss the suggestion of some special sentiment such as another painter will enforce1 and find ,monet unintelligible2 much the same1 presumably1 as nature itself would be to them a sealed book4 ,the text to them is unsuggestive2 they need a commentator4 ,and how scarce good commentators are6 ,the vogue of poetic landscape has called into activity many whose sentiment is merest sentimentality2 minor poets of the brush with a pretty knack of tone and tenderness that passes for poeticalness4 ,it is necessary to clear the air of any such mild pretence of poetry before venturing to speak of ,homer ,martin as essentially the most poetic of all ,american landscape painters4 ,it has been said that there is a ,homeric quality in his landscapes4 ,clearly this is no attempt to place him in relation to other painters1 as we regard ,homer among other poets2 but is a reference to the big significance of his work1 to those elemental qualities which we habitually associate with the poetry of ,homer4 ,the bigness of ,martin was principally that of a big intellect4 ,it had its inner shrine1 where he kept to himself the sacredness of his deepest artistic inspiration2 an outer court1 wherein he mingled with other men of intellect1 and its sunny entrance steps1 where1 beyond the shadow of what was to him most real1 he could prove himself to be 8a fellow of infinite jest10 a brilliant raconteur1 one that all who knew him loved4 ,and the love for ,martin one finds to have been greatest among those who knew him best1 and were most aware of the deeper qualities that underlay his wit and jollity4 ,there is1 indeed1 a rare attractiveness in this combination of depth and brilliant surface4 ,it is so easy to take life seriously or hilariously1 if one is formed that way2 but to be big with seriousness in season1 and big with sportiveness betimes1 is the quality of an extra large-souled man4 ,of a man1 indeed2 for the quality is essentially a masculine one1 and rare even among men1 particularly in art1 so large a portion of which is feminine in significance4 ,i suppose most of us feel this in comparing1 for example1 ,tennyson with ,browning2 and1 consciously or unconsciously1 have had a feeling of it in the presence of many pictures1 even by acknowledged masters4 ,not improbably it is the latent reason of so much indifference toward pictures in this country by persons otherwise cultivated4 ,our past history1 as well as the immediate present1 has demanded qualities essentially masculine1 and so many people instinctively suspect the superabundance of the feminine in painting1 or have regarded it merely as a pastime on the part of the painter1 and as suitable chiefly for decorating the walls of a drawing-room4 ,the one class has ignored the claims of painting2 the other committed itself unreservedly to that kind of picture1 which is least of all the product of intellect1 or likely to make any demand upon the intelligence4 ,they have found it difficult to take a painter and his work seriously1 or would be1 perhaps1 surprised to find that such an attitude toward art could ever be expected of them4 ,they would find incomprehensible the suggestion that a man may be found who puts into a picture as much mind and force of mind as another man puts into the upbuilding of a great business2 that the qualities of mind expended in each case may be similar in degree1 and not altogether different in kind2 power to forecast the issue1 and to labour strenuously for it1 with a capacity for organization1 for selecting1 rejecting1 and cordinating2 a gift of distinguishing between essentials and non-essentials1 and of converting sources of weakness into strength1 so that the issue becomes in each case a monument to the intellect of its creator4 ,and when one finds1 as with ,martin1 that these big qualities of mind have been directed to the expression of what is grand in nature1 least transitory1 most fundamental1 one begins to have that respect for his art which must precede all true appreciation1 and to discover that it has a close relation to what is noble and most endearing in life--a deep1 abiding reality4 ,during his lifetime comparatively few appreciated the significance of his work1 but it is of the kind that time is justifying4 ,a very characteristic example is the 8,westchester ,hills10 because it is at once so powerful and so free from any of the small and perfectly legitimate devices to attract attention2 a picture that in its sobriety of mellow browns and whites 7for such1 very broadly speaking1 is its colour scheme7 makes no bid for popularity2 in a gallery might escape the notice of a careless visitor1 and grows upon one's comprehension only gradually4 ,in the gathering gloom of twilight we are confronted with a country road crossed by a thread of water and bounded on the right by a rough stone wall4 ,the road winds away from us1 skirting the ridge of hill1 which slumbers like some vast recumbent beast against the expanse of fading sky4 ,the dim foreground and shadowed mass ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,daniel ,guggenheim1 ,esq4 ,,westchester ,,hills4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,louis ,marshall1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,sun ,,worshippers4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin4 are grandly modelled2 strength1 solidity1 and bulk1 contrasted with the tremulous throbbing of the light4 ,this contrast of rude1 tawny ground with the vibration of a white sky recalls a favourite theme of the ,french painter ,pointelin2 but one feels that a comparison of his pictures with the 8,westchester ,hills0 is all in favour of the latter4 ,both painters have felt the solemn loneliness of nature folding her strength in sleep1 the mystery of darkening and of the lingering spirituality above2 but ,martin is the grander draughtsman of the two1 suggesting with far more convincingness the solid structure of the earth4 ,so we are made to realize that the phenomenon is not merely one that he has noted or that we might note1 but one that through countless ages has manifested itself as part of the order of the universe4 ,its significance is elemental4 ,we may attribute this to the better drawing1 or1 with far more justice1 to the superiority of intellect1 that could embrace this larger conception and find the means to express it4 ,and in studying the means let us not overlook the essential grandeur of the colour2 not of the brave or passionate kind1 but sober with a concentration of subtle meaning1 that discovers infinite expression in the minutest variations of the homely browns and yellows1 which in the shadow yield nothing but their strength and quietude4 ,and1 then1 what a wonder of suggestion in the sky6 ,it is not only lighted1 but quivering with light2 an elastic fluid that extends as far as one's imagination can travel1 in height1 and breadth1 and depth4 ,these limitless skies are a characteristic of ,martin's pictures4 ,he does not seem to have been attracted so much by cloud forms or to have been given1 as it were1 to building castles in the air2 but his imagination loves to free itself in the far stretches of ether1 the circumambient medium through which the waves of light travel4 ,his skies are brushed in with firm assurance2 it is a pleasure to peer into the canvas and study the sweep and exultation of the strokes1 and then to step back until distance blends them into a unity of ranging grandeur4 ,and just as ,corot said of himself1 that he was 8like a lark pulsing forth its songs amid the gray clouds10 and his skies have the vibrative quality of violin music1 so there is music in these skies of ,martin's1 only it is that of the organ and the diapason stop4 ,true1 the note is not always so full and sonorous2 as1 for example1 in the 8,view on the ,seine0 in the ,metropolitan ,museum1 where the splendid blue and white have a more silvery resonance1 which1 however1 is less suggestive of songfulness than of the sweep of music travelling on and on4 ,indeed1 in all his skies1 there is less of local significance than of the suggestion that the ether is a tidal ocean connecting the fragment of circumstance with infinity4 ,this landscape also shows that his imagination was not wedded to the solemn4 ,it is brisk with the joie de vivre1 and yet not in a merely sprightly way4 ,in the line of poplars on the right of the picture1 each spiring up into the sky1 there is the sense of springing aspiration4 ,again1 in that beautiful 8,adirondack ,scenery10 with its waves of brilliant foliage rolling between the brow1 on which we feel ourselves standing1 and the distant cliffs of mountains1 what exuberance of spiritual joy6 ,spiritual1 indeed1 for the picture was painted far away in the ,west1 indoors1 and under the affliction of failing health4 ,but who would guess it from the picture8 ,martin had so possessed himself of the sweetness and majesty of the ,adirondacks1 that he could give out from himself1 drawing upon the treasures of his memory4 ,it was his swan song1 and how characteristic of the essential nobility of the man1 that it breathes such ample serenity1 such a boundless sense of beauty1 pure1 spacious1 and enduring6 ,he never dwelt upon his troubles1 as smaller men do2 and this last picture is a grand assertion of the supremacy of mind over matter1--a poet's triumphant proof that his dream of beauty was strong within him to the last4 ,martin's work1 like that of other great men1 was uneven in quality4 ,but if it lacks at times perfect intelligibility of construction or of form1 it was not from want of knowledge or ability to draw1 as is abundantly proved by the superlative excellence of these very qualities in his finest pictures4 ,he had made countless studies1 drawn with the greatest care1 revealing a thorough feeling for and comprehension of form4 ,at times1 he may have found a difficulty in translating his knowledge into paint4 ,his use of the brush1 used as he needed to use it to express what he had in mind1 had been necessarily self-acquired1 and often it was rather the subtlety of the effect he desired to express than any fractiousness of the brush1 which caused him to fumble1 though1 in the majority of his work1 never sufficiently to distress us or to divert attention from the message that his picture conveys4 ,for always1 in his best pictures1 there is this distinction of a message2 not a mere friendly interchange of views between the painter and his friend1 or simple1 easy platitude regarding nature's beauty1 but a deep1 strong1 personal assertion of some specific truth of beauty1 fundamentally and enduringly true4 ,it is the sort of message that appeals to the depth and ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,samuel ,untermeyer1 ,esq4 ,,old ,,church ,,in ,,normandy4 ,,by ,,homer ,d4 ,,martin4 earnestness in ourselves2 and with a comprehensiveness that permits each of us to draw from it what particularly satisfies himself1--qualities that are the unfailing distinction of the great works of imagination4 ,some of his pictures1 in which we shall find these qualities conspicuous1 are 8,normandy ,church0 and 8,normandy ,farm10 painted during the years that he lived at ,villerville and ,honfleur1 8,the ,sun ,worshippers10 8,autumn on the ,susquehanna10 8,sand ,dunes1 ,lake ,ontario10 and 8,headwaters of the ,hudson40 ,individual preferences count for very little2 but ,i cannot resist the pleasure of recording a particular fondness for the 8,normandy ,church0 and 8,sand ,dunes40 ,in the former it will be remembered how the roof and tower of the church1 embrowned with centuries softened by moss and lichen1 stand like an embodiment of stability against the quiet movement of fleecy clouds that cross the blue sky1 like a token of faith and protection to the little cottage on the left4 ,it is an idyl of the permanence of hope and consolation in a simple faith4 ,then what a full-lunged inspiration of rest and vastness does one draw from the 8,sand ,dunes06 ,it is not the vastness of distance1 for the evening sky is wrapping with greenish gray the sand hillocks1 which are separated from us only by a belt of warm green-brown grass and a strip of golden-brown scrub4 ,but it is the character of the scene that is vast in suggestion4 ,we do not feel the sky to be a quilt of softness1 but an abyss of tenderness1 assuaging the desolation of the spot1--a desolation that has the feeling of primeval loneliness4 ,for1 at the risk of repetition1 ,i would dwell once more upon the elemental quality that characterizes all the best work of ,homer ,martin4 ,not only is his theme elevated and serious1 clothed moreover in pictorial language of corresponding significance1 but it shuns the trivial and transitory and attaches itself to what is basic in nature's beauty and perennially true4 ,in his masterpieces there is the evidence of a great mind1 for the time being unreservedly consecrated to great ends1 and expressing itself in an imagery of grandeur and enduring suggestiveness4 ,to recognize these qualities is to rank him highest of all the poet-painters of ,american landscape4 ,,ix ,,george ,,de ,,forest ,,brush ,to many a young student1 regretfully turning his back on the few bright years of study in ,paris1 has come the question1 8,what must ,i do to be saved80 ,hoping all things1 believing all things of his single determination to succeed1 he feels within him a capacity2 but how shall he apply it8 ,i fancy there are two classes of such aspirants3 those who look around them for suggestion1 and those who look within4 ,among the latter seems to have belonged ,george de ,forest ,brush4 ,knowing him in the light of his later work1 we may feel it one of the anomalies of art that his master in ,paris should have been ,grme4 ,yet looking back over our own lives1 we realize that it was the element of character1 the presence or lack of it in those with whom we came in close contact1 that determined their influence upon us4 ,and this quality of character was strong in ,grme1--of all the more value to ,brush because it was of a kind in many respects so dissimilar to his own4 ,he is something of a rebel1--,i use the word in its most respectable sense--intellectually independent1 prone to dissatisfaction with things as they are1 unconventional1 perhaps a little impractical and visionary1 as rebels are apt to be1--qualities1 all of them1 that are facets of character4 ,grme1 however1 a conservative1 addicted to rote and rule1 with his scholarly devotion to semi-classicalism or1 as some more severely style it1 pseudo-classicalism2 a cold precisionist1 who would render the death of a ,csar as accurately and dispassionately as a surgeon dissects a corpus--such a character would be a wholesome make-weight to a young romantic mind4 ,it would emphasize especially the need of knowledge and mastery of facts1 encouraging the formation of a stable basis on which romance1 if it were minded to push its head into the clouds1 might at least have sure foundation for its feet4 ,certainly1 one accomplishment that ,brush brought back from ,paris was a feeling for form1 and another was a faculty of seizing upon the reality of things and of keeping close to facts4 ,no doubt it is as a painter of ideas that he is significant2 but do not let us overlook the point that all his work1 especially the earlier examples1 shows an appreciation of the actual4 ,how much of this he owes to the influence of ,grme it would be hard to estimate2 but even if this realization of the mental and artistic value of the actual is an element in his own character1 the contact with this master must have done much to give it fibre4 ,for the sense of actuality is communicable1 while ideas are not only personal to their author1 but inalienable4 ,and how distressingly elusive1 tame1 and profitless in pictures are ideas unbased on actuality--the landscape1 for example1 that makes for sentiment without support of drawing and construction4 ,in pictures of the human figure an inspired control of colour may fill us with enthusiasm1 but cannot wholly stifle our regret if the drawing is inadequate2 for the beauty of nature is the beauty of its forms and of the coloured raiment that clothes the forms without disguising them1 while in the world of spiritual ideas the beauty depends upon their association with or analogy to the world of matter4 ,so let us recognize the value of the master's influence upon ,brush4 ,there was much that he had to unlearn as he pursued his own evolution1 notably the sleek1 hard1 and dispassionate method of ,grme's painting4 ,but his brush work every painter of distinguished character must acquire gradually for himself1 just as a writer1 if he is an honest craftsman1 will discover his own fashion of words1 adjusting his method of expression to what he is trying to express2 the main thing1 both for painter and writer1 being to have something to say3 something which is a part of the man's self and convictions4 ,the method will grow to it4 ,leaving ,grme's studio1 ,brush1 like other students1 stood at the dividing ways4 ,he might have cast his eye around him1 noted what seemed to be the tendencies of the day in art1 the 8latest style10 as the fashion-makers call it1 and set to work to reproduce in ,new ,york the impressions aroused in ,paris4 ,then1 in time1 he would have been among those who excuse their own lack of initiative with the lament that in our city there is no 8art atmosphere40 ,in the sense they seem to mean it1 the absence is not an unmitigated evil1 for what is this 8art atmosphere10 when you search it closely8 ,a little1 perhaps1 like ,scotland1 as characterized by a ,scotchman1 8,the most beautiful country in the world to live out of40 ,so it is well to know there are places where the art atmosphere abounds1 that one may visit for a time with pleasure and profit2 yet it is remarkable how the great painters1 the men of force and character1 whose minds push them on continually1 live either outside of it or within it behind closed doors4 ,the smallness inseparable from an art atmosphere1 the mutual admiration and amiable reciprocity of patting of backs1 or worse1 the 8,bully1 my boy60 to his face1 and the 8,how he's missed it60 behind his back2 the petty rivalries of little cliques that clutter of themselves across a caf table1 setting up little standards and gaining brief conspicuousness by repeating one another's efforts--this is not the sort of atmosphere that strong painters need to breathe4 ,they would be stifled in it4 ,they need1 like ,delacroix or ,puvis de ,chavannes1 the ample privacy of their own inner life1 or1 like the ,barbizon men1 the large seclusion of nature4 ,for such an atmosphere a painter of ,brush's calibre would have no use4 ,he returned to this country2 not to city life1 but to the wide freedom of the western territories1 and found inspiration for his imagination among the ,indians4 ,i know nothing of what impelled him2 whether it were a survival of a boy's enthusiasm for the story of his country1 or a suggestion received from the archological associations of ,grme's studio1 or some happy chance of idea1 seized upon and followed out2 but the significant point is that1 though fresh from ,paris1 or1 shall we say8 because of it1 he found motives that attracted him in ,america4 ,the older men had found them too1 but many of the younger generation1 returning from ,europe1 were proclaiming1 and many do so still1 that the conditions of ,america are unfavourable to pictorial motives4 ,may it not be that the barrenness is in themselves8 ,i am not speaking of the landscape painters1 but the figure men4 ,one of their laments is the lack of picturesque costumes4 ,this same word 8picturesqueness0 has been the bane of painting for two hundred years1 implying the necessity of certain formulated qualities in a landscape or figure1 rendering it suitable for the purposes of a picture4 ,owing to this obsession1 ,corot was fifty years old and had paid three visits to ,italy before he1 poet though he was1 could feel the suggestion of loveliness in the scenery of his native country4 ,so one must not be too hard on others who are deaf to the calling of their environment4 ,but let us give no quarter to picturesqueness4 ,it is a discredited1 discreditable evasion of the facts4 ,the true painter sees pictures all around him or evokes them from his imagination2 the world of matter or of spirit continually presents itself to him in pictorial fashion2 it is only a journeyman who hunts for picturesque jobs4 ,it may be said that possibly it was just this picturesque quality in the ,indians that attracted ,brush4 ,i cannot say2 but had he penetrated no further than the unusualness of their costumes and habits1 as is the case with others1 so far as ,i know1 who have painted them1 there were nothing to be said4 ,but he has penetrated into the life and thought of the ,indian1 and1 more than that1 has re-created in his pictures something of the primeval world2 its vast isolation1 silence1 mystery4 ,he has found in these modern redmen a clue to their past and has created a series of picture-poems which have the lyric melody of ,longfellow's 8,hiawatha10 an equal individuality and appeal to the imagination and a greater virility4 ,let me instance 8,silence ,broken0--a little glimpse of river1 banked with dense foliage1 out of which a goose has burst above an ,indian in his canoe4 ,it is a small picture1 representing a contracted spot1 but it needs very little imagination to make one feel that this fragment of seclusion is part of an immensity of solitariness4 ,the man1 kneeling as he plies the paddle1 looks up in no wise startled1 but with a grand composure that seems a part of the elemental suggestion of the scene4 ,it is a work of powerful imagination1 projecting itself upon the solemn spaciousness and mystery of the past4 ,recall1 too1 another small canvas of big significance1 8,mourning her ,brave40 ,standing by her dead in the snow1 high up on a mountain ledge1 the woman utters her dirge to a leaden sky4 ,what emptiness and desolation of world without and spirit within6 ,a breath of the ceaseless mystery of sorrow throbbing out of the void of time6 ,then a tenderer feeling pervades 8,the ,sculptor and the ,king40 ,stroke by stroke the sculptor has compelled the marble to respond to his thought1 or wooed it1 for he has a gentle1 dreamy face2 a youth only dimly conscious of his desires1 and he waits for the king's verdict1 tremulously eager1 and withal so glad in his heart at what his hands have found the skill to do2 a poetic embodiment not only of the primitive man's yearning after expression1 but of the springtime of every artist's soul4 ,then note the king1 standing with folded arms1 wrapping his doubt of the desirability of such things and1 yet1 his wonder and admiration of them in the convenient impenetrability of silence4 ,there is a touch of humour in this figure1 as of the critic non-plussed and unwilling to commit himself1 but much more of serious reference to the early dawnings of a comprehension of the beautiful1 as 8a thing to be desired to make one wise40 ,those ,indian subjects are of a high order of imaginative work4 ,they have a great power of suggestion1 stirring directly and forcibly one's own imagination2 and they are informed with an elevation of thought1 a deeply penetrating earnestness ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,miss ,henrietta ,e4 ,failing4 ,,the ,,sculptor ,,and ,,the ,,king4 ,,by ,,george ,,de ,,forest ,,brush4 ,illustration3 ,from the ,museum of ,fine ,arts1 ,boston4 ,copyright1 #ahig1 by ,foster ,brothers4 ,,mother ,,and ,,child4 ,,by ,,george ,,de ,,forest ,,brush4 and a largeness of conception that has been able to grasp the big significances and to feel them in their relation to perennial truth4 ,for they not only suggest the life and environment of the early redman1 picturing both with a fulness of comprehension that brings them vividly to our consciousness1 but they involve allusions to our own experience4 ,there are periods of sorrow when the world seems very empty and desolate to-day2 there still are yearnings after higher things1 the flutterings of doubt and hope that precede the beginning of growth of something better2 and still a grandeur in the solitude of nature and maybe in that of a man's own communings with himself4 ,we may or may not have experienced those things1 but1 at least1 we have an intuition of their possibility2 and if a picture can recall the past and show it as part of the eternal relation of spirit and matter1 we are justified in honouring its author4 ,so these pictures of ,brush's seem to me great1 notwithstanding a certain smallness--,i will not call it pettiness--in their execution4 ,as ,i recall the 8,mourning her ,brave10 it has considerable breadth of method1 and1 no doubt1 others of the ,indian series show increase of manual accomplishment4 ,but the painting in 8,silence ,broken10 still influenced by ,grme's1 is hard and shiny2 and the drawing in 8,the ,sculptor and the ,king0 has a quality of timorous and laboured exactness4 ,it is not in consequence of style1 but despite it1 that they are impressive4 ,with the artist's personal development has come maturity of craftsmanship4 ,his latest series of 8,mother and ,child0 are marked by fluency of composition both in the lines and masses and in the colour schemes4 ,but with the ripening of his powers has scarcely followed increase of individuality4 ,he has freed himself from the hard1 evenly lighted1 rather tight character of ,grme's manner only to yield himself to the fascination of the old ,italian style4 ,it is a little surprising that one whose imagination is so individual should have failed to discover a really personal language of expression4 ,it would seem as if the lack of facility was beyond his power to remedy1 and that1 feeling the need of broadening his method1 and conscious that breadth with him would mean chiefly a larger kind of precision1 he had found in the example of some of the ,italian masters just that union of qualities4 ,then1 too1 if he were searching for precedents it is to the dignity and quietude of the ,florentines that such a temperament as his would turn4 ,and in these later pictures one is conscious of these qualities4 ,they have an air of noble sweetness1 serenity1 and high and earnest purpose1 creating1 wherever they appear1 an atmosphere of their own1 pure and elevating as that of the upper air4 ,yet1 as creative work1 ,i think many will rank them lower than the promise of his early days4 ,their motive is a borrowed one--borrowed with their technique4 ,true1 it is one of beautiful human significance1 but its representation1 especially to one who is a husband and a father1 makes a comparatively small demand upon the imaginative faculties4 ,so that1 if we feel the evidence of these faculties in painting to be the rare and superlative thing1 the artist's persistence upon a somewhat lower plane of endeavour must seem regretful4 ,it is rather a merging of the artistic prepossession in the human4 ,and ,i wonder whether this may not be the explanation4 ,in early manhood1 while the impulse was from within1 he sought the objective for it in the world outside1 characteristically choosing those scenes which would least interfere with the seclusion of his own mind4 ,in later years he has found the seclusion in his own home1 yielding to the natural tendency1 as the years grow upon one1 to feel the world to be less and less1 and those closest to one more and more4 ,and1 it must be remembered1 the conditions of the world were never quite to his liking1 while his home is what he has made it and would have it4 ,yet this1 after all1 represents the evolution of a man rather than of the artist--a yielding to circumstances1 inclinations1 conveniences1 rather than a following of one's star4 ,i write these words with hesitation1 as it may be my own fault that ,i do not detect in these later works as much evidence of elevated imagination as in the ,indian studies4 ,if so1 ,i would plead in extenuation my enthusiasm for those earlier pictures4 ,x ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant ,there is a species of ivy in ,england--,i do not know if it exists in this country--that grows over old stone walls and towers4 ,it is treelike in character and size4 ,probably it was never planted deliberately against the masonry1 but reached its habitat by one of those romances of nature's accidents4 ,finding the support that its young life needed1 it clung and mounted2 gradually1 however1 gaining independent strength until in the maturity of its growth it has its own boughs1 so hardy that a man may climb by them1 and puts forth bunchy masses of leaves and berries that disguise the original support in a luxuriance of independent growth4 ,such is often the story of an artist's development1 and is that of ,wyant's4 ,in the small town of ,defiance1 in ,ohio1 where he lived1 there was little to suggest to the boy what pictures meant1 and yet he had the picture-making faculty in himself3 the observant eye and desire to translate into line the forms of things4 ,he drew incessantly3 the forms of stones1 of banks1 and tree roots1 their stems and branches1 and made studies of the leaves1 separately and minutely1 as well as in masses4 ,i like to think of him as a child lying full length before the kitchen fire with a bit of burnt wood taken from it1 drawing on the floor2 and fancy that in that soft1 suggestive medium of charcoal1 and on the rough surface of his improvised panel1 he may have got his first dim consciousness of the meaning of synthesis in landscape2 the securing of character and tone1 and the fascination of working in masses rather than in outline4 ,when he was old enough to be set to a trade1 he was apprenticed to a harness maker1 working in his leisure hours at sign painting4 ,but all roads lead to ,rome1 and a youth might derive much skill in form1 as well as breadth of manner1 in this humble department of the fine arts4 ,somewhere about the fifties he found himself in ,cincinnati1 even then an oasis in the desert of western indifference to1 or ignorance of1 art4 ,it was here1 in a private collection1 that he first discovered what painted pictures were like1 and1 with a rare instinct for one so young1 it was ,inness's work that captured his imagination4 ,a youth1 passionate and eager as ,wyant was1 must have his god or goddess2 a being infinitely above him1 yet1 perhaps1 of infinite condescension1 who will listen to his devotion4 ,some of us may have offered our heart and future to ladies nearly old enough to be our mothers2 ,wyant's divinity was of the other sex1 an ,apollo at whose oracle he would inquire4 ,he found the means to come to ,new ,york and lay his sketches before the master1 and never forgot the kindly criticism which bid him be of good courage and persevere4 ,he was now about twenty years old1 and nearly ten more years were to elapse before his own independent growth was to establish itself4 ,meanwhile its direction had been assured by the influence of ,inness2 its manner of growth was to be partly affected by the ,norwegian painter1 ,hans ,gude1 who had graduated from ,dsseldorf and was at this time working in ,carlsruhe4 ,he had been the pupil of ,achenbach1 who1 as ,muther says1 had 8taught him to approach the phenomena of nature boldly and realistically1 and not to be afraid of a rich and soft scale of colour40 ,he had felt the influence1 also1 of ,schirmer1 whose fondness for the so-called ,italian landscape had guided him to the 8acquisition of a certain large harmony and sense for style in the structure of his pictures40 ,such was ,gude1 to whom ,wyant went for instruction4 ,he spoke in after years of the kindness with which he had been received as almost one of the household by the painter and his good frau1 and one may imagine that the student took much profit from the master's emphasizing of form and construction1 and also from the reposeful dignity1 academic though it was1 of his compositions4 ,but when the older man passed from the teaching of principles to that of methods1 and urged his pupil to imitate his particular manner of presenting the truths1 ,wyant's independence rebelled4 ,he had learned what could properly be taught1 and recognizing that for the rest he must depend upon himself1 returned to ,new ,york4 ,face to face with the problem of making a living1 and hoping to gain useful experience1 he joined a government exploring expedition to the ,west4 ,but the party suffered terrible hardships1 to which ,wyant's physique succumbed4 ,he was put upon the train to return ,east1 and might have stopped at his mother's home to be nursed and cared for4 ,and much he needed tending1 for he was helpless1 stricken with paralysis2 but the mind in his poor body was still active2 he argued that to be taken off at a far western station was to become stranded1 to lose all touch with the painter's life1 on which his determination was still fixed4 ,so he let himself be carried past his home and reached ,new ,york4 ,no words can add to the pathetic heroism of this decision4 ,but in our admiration of the delicate poetry which belongs ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,george ,a4 ,hearn1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,mohawk ,,valley4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,samuel ,untermeyer1 ,esq4 ,,the ,,connecticut ,,valley4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant4 to the work of ,wyant that we know best1 let us not lose sight of the force of will-power that was involved in the making of it4 8,yes1 he had been in hell60 exclaims ,carlyle of ,dante2 and while suffering may not be the only road to highest effort1 it is one of them1 and the man who passes along it like a man1 even if he cannot tread it1 but must be carried1 as in ,wyant's case1 is very apt to produce something more than ordinarily appealing to the hearts of other men4 ,while ,wyant recovered the use of his body1 though obliged ever after to paint with his left hand1 he was never really free from some bodily discomfort2 and ,i wonder whether this may not have had some influence upon his notable preference for depicting nature at the hush and restfulness of twilight4 ,to one whose days were1 more or less1 days of weariness1 constantly sensible of the afflictions of the body1 with what a benediction the evening would come1 full of spiritual refreshment6 ,out of the cool cisterns of the night his spirit would drink repose4 ,for many years he made his summer home in the ,adirondacks2 then1 fearing that he was getting too much into a groove in his way of seeing nature1 he transferred his study to the ,catskills4 ,the move is characteristic of his alert sensitiveness to nature's impressions4 ,his temperament was like an olian harp1 delicately attuned to nature's breath1 responsive to its faintest sigh2 but he dreaded lest the melody might become too uniform1 too much a merely passive expression4 ,there was a similar mingling of purpose and of surrender in his relations with his fellows4 ,to a few friends1 among them always ,inness1 he gave a welcome1 and no little of his time and means in constant acts of kindness to those who needed help2 but from social or official functions he kept1 as far as possible1 clear4 ,he had so much that in his heart he longed to do1 had begun his life's work comparatively so late1 and knew the years left to do it in were few4 ,it was only by unremitting application that he could realize his ideal4 ,this concentration of endeavour affected his ideal1 limiting the range of moods of nature that he strove to represent4 ,such versatility as ,inness's and that painter's alacrity of impression to constantly differing phases of nature were impossible to his temperament and circumstances4 ,drawn by both to isolate himself1 he heard in the silence of his own heart the still small voice of nature1 listened for it always1 and strove to woo it4 ,the echo of it is felt1 ,i think1 in all his landscapes4 ,we may recall some of his large woodland pictures1 in which sturdy trees are gripping the rocks with their roots4 ,strength and stability and the evidences of time confront us1 just as they would in the forest itself2 but like cathedral architecture when music is pulsing through it1 they are for the moment secondary to the spiritual impression of the voice4 ,wyant heard it in the movement of the tree-tops1 and in the stir of weeds and ferns that nestled in the hollows1 and it whispered to him of peace1 a quiescence that stirs the soul to gentle activity1 gladsome by turns or subdued in the alternate sun and shadow1 that inexhaustible mystery of nature's peace that passeth man's understanding4 ,we have all felt it and know how far it is from our everyday lives1 and we look to word-poets and to poet-painters to create an illusion of it4 ,surely no ,american painter has done this more irresistibly than ,wyant4 ,nor is there wanting to the peace of his pictures at times a more solemn suggestion4 ,while so many of his twilights breathe simply the ineffable loveliness of quiet1 others are astir with persuasion to spiritual reflection1 with the gentle admonition to sadness that itself is purifying1 or with deeper1 fuller suggestion of the infinite mystery of nature's recurring sleep that swallows up the littleness of man in its immensity4 ,i remember1 too1 a little picture of darkened earth and rather turbulent dark sky in which a large boulder alone glistens in the fading light--a rock of illumination and strength in the surrounding uncertainty of gathering night4 ,brimming over with the suggestion of an elevated melancholy sustained by faith1 and painted with an extraordinary earnestness of simple and direct conviction1 it seems like a symbol of ,wyant's own art life4 ,but almost everything that he painted is expressive of some phase1 at least1 of himself4 ,his work is more than ordinarily personal2 perhaps1 for the reason already mentioned1 that he so deliberately concentrated his motives4 ,and the quality of his poetry was lyrical4 ,i have seen it called idyllic1 but that is to miss its higher and deeper qualities4 ,the idyl1 ,tennyson notwithstanding1 is too much identified with the little pastoral poem1 that breathes the simple gladsomeness of the meadows2 but a more serious strain is interwoven with the gentleness and lovableness of ,wyant's muse4 ,he was passionately fond of music and1 before his illness1 could play the violin1 not learnedly1 but with true feeling4 ,and the music of his painting is that of the violin2 tenderly vibrating1 searching home to one's heart1 by turns lightsome1 melancholy1 caressing1 impetuous1 but with a tenderness in all4 ,he did not play on many colours1 but reaches a subtlety of tone1 often as bewildering as it is soothing4 ,the bewilderment will be aroused as much by his shadowed foregrounds as ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,george ,a4 ,hearn1 ,esq4 ,,moonlight ,,and ,,frost4 ,,by ,,alexander ,h4 ,,wyant4 by the faintly luminous sky4 ,they defy analysis and are triumphs of impressionism4 ,impressionism of the true kind1 ,i mean1 pregnant with suggestion and divested of aught that would clog its directness2 exhibiting1 not knowledge1 but the fruit of knowledge1 and especially its tact of omission4 ,to the careless and commonplace eye his landscapes have 8nothing to them02 approached with a little understanding they mean so much1 and the measure of their meaning is the technical knowledge involved4 ,if there were any doubt of this1 it could be disposed of by an examination of his earlier work1 in which he lets one into the secret of his love of form and construction4 ,admirably sure and full of character is the drawing of the ground and its features1 bit by bit receiving its due share of individuality2 so also with the trees and their anatomy of trunk and branches1 and with the structure of the sky4 ,everything has been studied1 so that later out of the abundance of his technical skill he could be significantly spontaneous4 ,yet increase of facility did not lessen the self-exacting conscientiousness of his work4 ,some of his most impressionistic pictures were the result of trying to reach a fuller exactness of expression2 when1 finding confusion growing1 he would seize another canvas and return to the simplicity of his original thought and let it form itself4 ,few painters are better represented in their extant works4 ,the fumbled canvas1 or the one that1 however sketchily1 did not attain to his intention1 never left the studio1 and after his death1 ,mrs4 ,wyant1 with a fine regard for his memory and with honour to herself1 destroyed them4 ,so the real ,wyants--for ,i am told there are sham ones on the market--are invariably worthy4 ,so truly did he retain the spirit of the student that it was not until a little before his death that he allowed himself to feel that he had mastered the grammar of his technique4 ,then1 with the consciousness of his end before him1 he would exclaim1 8,had ,i but five years more in which to paint1 even one year1 ,i think ,i could do the thing that ,i long to40 ,brave1 modest soul6 ,what he might then have done we shall never know2 but what he did do we know to be very good4 ,for another nature poet of our race1 of like simplicity and singleness of love for nature1 of as choice and elevated a spirit1 and as lyrical in expression1 we must go back to ,wordsworth1 who also in his communings with nature found her message-- 8,of truth1 of grandeur1 beauty1 love1 and hope1 ,and melancholy fear subdued by faith1 ,of blessed consolations in distress1 ,of moral strength and intellectual power1 ,of joy in widest commonalty spread40 ,,xi ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon ,if we wished to introduce a foreigner to what is most distinctively ,american in our painting1 we should show him1 ,i think1 the work of some of our marine and landscape painters4 ,he would be least likely in these to detect the influence of ,europe4 ,the point of view he would recognize1 no doubt1 as the one common to all nature students since the ,dutchmen of the seventeenth century2 but in regard to the technique he could not attribute its character to the influence of this or the other master abroad1 for our landscape painters1 like most other true students of nature1 have found1 each for himself1 their own necessary and inevitable language of expression4 ,necessary because it originated in their own peculiar need1 and inevitable because it grew out of the particular character of the portion of nature that they studied4 ,and in most cases it is some phase of the ,american landscape that has engaged the ,american painter1 which accounts in no slight degree for the individuality of his work4 ,for do we pay enough heed to the essential differences that nature presents in different localities8 ,at the moment ,i am not thinking of the variations in construction1 forms1 and configuration1 as1 for example1 between the aspects of mountains and of simple pastoral regions1 nor even of the separateness of impress set upon the landscape by man in the character of his buildings or of his farming occupations1 but of that more subtle difference produced by varying kinds of atmosphere4 ,the great landscape painters1 we may have noticed1 all belong to northern countries1 who have lived1 comparatively speaking1 within the same degrees of latitude2 and yet the landscapes of ,holland1 ,france1 ,scotland1 ,england1 ,norway1 and ,america can never be mistaken for one another4 ,apart from local conditions of man's handiwork1 each varies in the local quality of its atmosphere--its degree of clarity or humidity1 of briskness or caressingness4 ,in a country vast as ours1 there must needs be diversity in different parts1 so there cannot be any one character of landscape distinctively ,american2 but1 in their faithful rendering of the local character1 all may be distinguishable from those of other countries4 ,and this expression on the countenance of nature is not unlike that on the face of a man or woman2 the painter may suggest it perfunctorily1 or he may render it with a completeness of sympathy and understanding1 products of alert sensibility and interested acquaintanceship4 ,it is the evidence of these qualities that gives enduring charm to ,tryon's landscapes4 ,no one who knows his work will need to be told that he is a ,new ,englander4 ,his landscapes show an intimacy of knowledge of that locality1 and an affectionate sympathy with its particular phases of expression1 that could only result from the painter having grown up in that part1 the boy's associations gradually maturing into the man's convictions4 ,his home was in ,hartford1 ,conn41 where he was born in #ahdi4 ,he entered upon life as a stationer's assistant1 and pursued the occupation until he had accumulated sufficient means to visit ,paris1 all the while spending his leisure time in studying from nature and in discovering for himself how to represent his ideas in paint4 ,there is evidence in this of sanity as well as earnestness1 of a fine poise of character1 qualities later to appear in his landscapes4 ,above all1 there is the perfectly natural process of a painter's evolution2 ,i mean1 the antecedent love of nature1 the clear apprehension of the kind of nature that he aimed to paint1 the love of it and the knowledge preceding the final acquisition of technique2 meanwhile1 the gradual upbuilding of personal character by the discipline of postponing his ideals4 ,so1 when he reached ,paris1 it was not as a raw1 enthusiastic student whose subsequent career spun suspended upon a mere cobweb of his fancy4 ,he had married1 and took his wife with him1 establishing a little home and having clear plans in view1 being1 in fact1 a man4 ,he painted under ,harpignies and ,daubigny1 an excellent combination of influences1 mutually complementary3 the one so sound and methodical1 if a little prosaic2 the other so captivating in the perennial boyishness of his mind1 so lovable a student of the simple loveliness of rural scenes4 ,what a happy antidote was ,daubigny to the excessive earnestness of a typical ,new ,england character2 how persuasively suggestive must his landscapes have been to one whose heart was implanted in the austerer charms of his ,new ,england home4 ,the influence of his two masters served on the one hand to send the roots of his growth farther down and to stiffen the trunk1 and on the other to encourage a more abundant leafage and the added fragrance of blossom4 ,from both1 also1 he must have gained a store of technical principles2 but of direct influence in his manner of painting there is no trace4 ,his own special problem was one different from theirs1 and he had to find his own way of solving it4 ,even in one of his earliest landscapes painted about #ahha1 after his return from ,paris1 from studies made abroad1 there is a decisively individual note4 ,it is a scene of ploughing1 owned by ,mr4 ,montross--a stretch of dark rich soil1 with man and horses pushing the furrow toward a clear1 cool horizon4 ,there is a larger feeling than ,daubigny would have portrayed2 a sterner one1 if you will1 certainly one more bracing in its suggestion of vigorous earth and breezy sky1 and more distinctly inspired than ,harpignies could have made it1 with the sentiment of the soil and sky in their relation to the life of man4 ,still1 the motive of the picture is so far a borrowed one that1 although it has the feeling of a ,new ,england scene1 it has not its local characteristics of atmosphere or of soil colour1 lacking the more sensitive quality of the one1 and the tenderer hues of the other4 ,while1 then1 this picture is without the subtle qualities that mark the later ones1 it has a clear1 strong note of vigorous earnestness1 strongly felt and strongly realized4 ,indeed1 it seems entirely characteristic of the strength of purpose and sturdy qualities which are the foundation of ,tryon's equipment1 both as a man and a painter4 ,he seems to have grown up with the smell of the soil in his nostrils as ,millet did1 though without the latter's saddened associations2 to have been nourished with the brisk ,new ,england air1 and to have gathered muscle over its ploughed and grassy uplands4 ,the keen stimulus of nature went through and through him early and has stayed with him1 so that his art partakes of its strength4 ,in his pictures1 one finds1 ,i think1 a stronger foundation than only that of good drawing and construction2 an earnest1 wholesome delight in the strength of nature as being something in which he himself shares2 which1 indeed1 has so grown into his mind and life that its expression in his work is but a matter of course4 ,it is a part of his most serious convictions1 so that his rendering of it is convincing4 ,put into words1 the distinction may seem a little fine drawn2 but ,i feel sure that our experience of pictures gives it substance4 ,how often1 for example1 in the work of the ,french classicists we may see illustrations of human vigour1 on which good drawing and construction have been expended1 and yet their suggestion of vigour is only an affectation2 a quality aimed at by the painter1 but not vitalized by strong1 earnest convictions of his own4 ,what a protestation of strength there is in ,salvator ,rosa's landscapes1 and how little real convincingness6 ,and1 coming to the landscapes of our own time1 it would be easy to quote examples of strong drawing and construction from which1 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,charles ,l4 ,freer1 ,esq4 ,,spring ,,blossoms4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon4 ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,charles ,l4 ,freer1 ,esq4 ,,early ,,spring1 ,,new ,,england4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon4 however1 the spirit of strength is lacking4 ,they are the work of men who mean strongly1 but are not themselves strong men4 ,so surely does personal character1 or lack of it1 show in a painter's work1 not the mere robustiousness of personal force1 but the settled1 earnest1 habitual convictions that are the elements of character4 ,and quite as evident to our experience in pictures is the distinction between the real and the false in refinement4 ,mere subtlety of brush work1 while it may create for a while an illusion of refinement1 will not satisfy us in the long run4 ,many of ,tryon's landscapes reach a pitch of delicate suggestion in the rendering of soft air1 caressing atmosphere1 and shrouded light that is unsurpassed by any painter in this country2 for the impression is much deeper than that of an entrancing skill in the management of the pigments4 ,the spirit of the landscape stole into his heart when a boy1 and has abided with him in his manhood2 he is so much a child of ,new ,england1 sweetened by its tenderer influences as well as nurtured on its hardihood1 that1 sharing its strength and refinement1 he gives expression to himself when he reproduces these qualities in his pictures4 ,hence1 in both directions1 their complete convincingness4 ,a fact1 too1 which helps to justify this appreciation is that his pictures show an interest in so many moods of the landscape1 and the degree of force or of subtlety with which he renders each is regulated by the demand of the occasion4 ,you cannot divide the past twenty years of his productiveness into special periods of style2 any attempt to do so will bring you up against the insurmountable objection of finding that two canvases of very different feeling and manner of painting are dated the same year4 ,development1 necessarily1 there has been in style2 increased acquisition of facility and the power to render more penetratingly the mood of nature he is studying4 ,but evolution of motive you will scarcely find4 ,that from the first has been realistic2 in the sense that the landscape1 as it appears to him to be1 affords primarily sufficient incentive to his study4 ,in the presence of nature he makes studies1 intent for the time being solely on recording what he sees2 later1 in his ,new ,york studio1 the poetic suggestion of these studies will come to him1 and he composes a picture4 ,but the process is from realism to poetry1 and not contrariwise1 as one suspects to be the case in the poetical landscapes of some painters4 ,tryon's way is not unlike a man's regard for a good mother4 ,in the days of his habitual intercourse with her1 it is her dignity and sweetness that grow into his life1 the changes of expression in her face and voice that win upon his devotion1 her beautiful reasonableness that is accepted as quite a natural thing4 ,it is only when the son's life is drawn apart from the habit of her presence that the sentiment of a mother's love is realized4 ,so ,tryon's withdrawals to city life allow the poetry of nature to steal in upon his imagination2 when he resumes his face-to-face communing with it1 the life habit of absorbed regard comes back to him4 ,the result of this is that the sentiment of his pictures grows out of the actual1 and represents the soul of a fact4 ,one finds one's self admiring the extraordinary truth of the visual impression1 and then often surprised that material so homely should yield such abundance of poetic suggestion2 forgetting1 for the moment1 that poetry is not an element of nature1 but a quality of the painter's mind1 representing the degree of sincerity and elevation of purpose with which he has approached his subject4 ,tryon's poetry comes of the associations garnered through a life of affectionate intimacy with the country of his birth4 ,it is as true and spontaneous as filial love4 ,his technical skill has secured the respect and admiration of his fellow-painters4 ,they assign him that final title of approval1 8a painter's painter20 meaning that only those who know by practical experience the difficulties and trials of technique can properly appreciate his ability and resourcefulness1 and certainly not implying1 as is sometimes the case when this expression is used1 that the admirable qualities in the picture are primarily and solely technical ones4 ,attempting in non-painter language to summarize the spirit of his method1 one may1 perhaps1 reduce it to the equivalent elements in his own character--poise and sympathetic penetration4 ,the balanced effect of his landscapes is very notable3 a harmony of colour in which there is no jar1 a similar equipoise in the details introduced1 a delicate adjustment of strength and tenderness and of sentiment to facts2 an ensemble of uninterrupted unity4 ,in the matter of sympathetic penetration--a rather clumsy expression for which ,i can find no happy alternative--his method is even more remarkable4 ,i allude to the affectionate studiousness with which he analyzes the significant constituents of the landscape1 and to the degree in which his eye penetrates the secret of the envelope of atmosphere1 of that particular quality of atmosphere characteristic of ,new ,england4 ,i would cite the 8,early ,spring1 ,new ,england10 not as an example of one of his most beautiful landscapes1 but as a triumph of technical resource1 to which was awarded the gold medal in #ahih at the ,carnegie exhibition in ,pittsburg4 ,the foreground is a pasture with a brook winding through it1 and several leafless trees which spread their delicate network of branches against a clear1 open sky that reddens slightly near the horizon4 ,beyond is cultivated land1 partly covered with the brilliant green of young vegetation1 and partly red1 upturned soil1 with a team ploughing4 ,farther back are gently rising hills4 ,the front of the picture is painted with remarkably delicate detail1 and in the distant parts there is a similar suggestion conveyed of the worthiness of the scene to be minutely studied4 ,there is not a square inch in the composition that is without individual interest1 and yet this elaborate mosaic unifies into a single impression of spaciousness2 for the relative significance of each plane in the picture has been so shrewdly realized4 ,the eye is invited to travel back to the remotest part of the ground and up into the expanse of sky4 ,this is the primary invitation of the picture as would be that of the actual scene2 and then follows1 if you have eyes for it1 the beckoning in this and that direction to the separate interest of the various parts4 ,this accurate rendering of the effect of intervening atmosphere upon the receding forms and colours brings the atmosphere itself into the picture2 a softly stealing animation1 not yet nimble1 but gently quickening into life4 ,it is1 indeed1 a picture of quite extraordinary subtlety2 and so much the more a triumph of accomplishment because it is a very large one1 and the mere problem of filling such an extent of canvas with the evidences of minute observation1 so that it should still hold well together1 was a most formidable one4 ,there was no possibility of evasion or of falling back upon convenient generalizations3 the problem1 once grasped1 had to be solved to its ultimate conclusion4 ,yet the very magnitude of canvas and of problem impairs somewhat the intimacy of feeling in the picture1 and for all its abounding skill we shall not reckon it among ,tryon's choicest work4 ,in that he gives us1 when he wills1 the sense of spaciousness within a much smaller frame1 and1 compassing it around so discreetly1 makes its subtle appeal by so much the more insinuating4 ,these comparatively smaller pictures are too numerous and different in character to allow of detailed allusion1 yet one may single out a few such gems as 8,the ,rising ,moon0 and 8,sunrise10 owned by ,mr4 ,charles ,l4 ,freer2 8,after ,showers--,june10 owned by ,colonel ,frank ,j4 ,hecker2 8,the ,meadow--,evening10 owned by ,mr4 ,a4 ,t4 ,sanders2 8,springtime10 owned by ,mr4 ,george ,illustration3 ,from the collection of ,j4 ,j4 ,albright1 ,esq4 ,,evening--,,autumn4 ,,by ,,dwight ,w4 ,,tryon4 ,a4 ,hearn2 and a 8,winter ,evening0 and 8,early ,spring10 the property of ,mr4 ,n4 ,e4 ,montross4 ,these are masterpieces1--and the list is incomplete1--pictures that you may study from the strictest standpoint of technical excellence1 and that exert an influence upon the imagination which one may believe will be felt by those who come after us as fully as by ourselves4 ,in considering ,american landscapes1 there is more than a little tendency to dwell upon the names of the painters who are dead1 regardless of the fact that the traditions which they established are being maintained4 ,among those who are maintaining them1 ,tryon is conspicuous1 and in a way that is1 perhaps1 more distinctive than theirs4 ,he represents much more closely the kind of contribution that the ,american temperament may be expected to make to the progress of painting4 ,for unless painting can continue to reflect the evolution of human progress1 it is1 after all1 only a 8dead language40 ,but it is landscapes such as ,tryon's that prove its vitality4 ,they represent the combination of qualities that differentiate ,american civilization in its worthiest form from that of other countries and of past times4 ,they combine a largeness of outlook with alert sensibility to impressions2 being1 at once1 big in character and minutely subtle4 ,,xii ,,horatio ,,walker ,upon his first appearance last year as a contributor to the exhibition of the ,british ,institute of ,water ,colours1 ,horatio ,walker's picture1 8,the ,potato ,pickers10 was prominently hung1 and he himself was elected a member4 ,considering the fine record of the ,institute and its high rank among water colour societies1 such instant recognition of a newcomer was very notable4 ,but it is just the way in which an artist of ,walker's calibre is likely to make his impression--at once and authoritatively2 for he is a painter of unusual personal force1 and of a persuasiveness quite as remarkable1 qualities not always found in combination1 but1 when united1 irresistible4 ,and these artistic qualities are the counterparts of similar elements in his character as a man4 ,his is a forceful personality of moral as well as mental force4 ,how much this means6 ,there is a kind of forceful person who slaps you on the back in the street1 and you probably consider him a nuisance2 and there is a kind of painter who would violently arrest your attention by the bravery of his brush strokes or some surprising crash of colour scheme or chiaroscuro4 ,in such forcefulness there is a certain effrontery that one resents at once2 or which1 if it arouse a little momentary curiosity or even interest1 will in the long run be followed by intolerable weariness4 ,for it is almost entirely a mere display of manual gymnastics1 an exploitation of self4 ,there may be a little mind behind it1 but it will be the quality of mind that is simply of the active kind1 enamoured of its own activity4 ,it is not regulated by the moral sense1 responsible to self-control1 contributory to some serious and absorbing purpose1 involving a realization of the intense meaningfulness of nature and life4 ,this is the foundation quality of what is big in life and art3 a noble seriousness that penetrates the facts1 and lifts them upon the elevation of its own spirit to the dignity of what is grandest and most abiding in the universal scheme4 ,painters who possess this faculty are apt to concentrate their sympathy and force upon some particular phase of life1 and ,walker has found the pivot point for his in the island of ,orleans1 in the ,st4 ,lawrence1 some twenty miles northeast of ,quebec4 ,here the descendants of the early ,french settlers still retain the simple faith and habits and fine ingenuousness of the peasants of northern ,france2 a sturdy race1 close to the soil1 and drawing dignity as well as nourishment therefrom1 perpetuating their origin even in their belongings3 the domestic utensils1 the farm implements1 in the racial characteristics of their clever little horses and oxen1 and in the very fashioning of their harness4 ,nor was the singling out of this ,acadia merely the happy discovery of a painter in search of the picturesque4 ,it was a harking back to the associations of his boyhood2 for1 though ,walker's later youth was spent in ,rochester1 ,n4,y41 he is a ,canadian by birth1 the son of an ,english army officer4 ,it is a beautiful thing for an artist when he can thus graft his maturity on to the roots of his early impressions4 8,a boy's will is the wind's will1 ,and the thoughts of youth are long1 long thoughts40 ,how often the will passes1 we know not whither1 like the wind2 and the thoughts1 swallowed up in the materialism of far other thoughts1 come back to us in later life only as random visions of what might have been6 ,indeed1 it is beautiful for the artist when he can recover that boy's will1 and link the early thoughts on to the maturer thoughts of manhood4 ,this way lie sincerity1 depth and fulness of conviction1 and ripest fruitfulness4 ,it has been difficult for ,american artists to maintain this continuity of evolution1 since they have had to travel far for instruction1 and the way of return to the associations of the past has not seemed clear4 ,still1 many have found it1 and perhaps a volume of criticism might be based upon this one fact2 and it might be shown that those whom we most admire as powerful painters1 for the reality of what they have to say and their impressive way of saying it1 are the ones who1 in their art1 have got back closest1 either to the actual scenes or to the mental associations of their youth4 ,illustration3 ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,n4,e4 ,montrose1 ,new ,york4 ,a ,,sty4 ,by ,horatio ,walker4 ,but besides the quality of force in ,walker and his art1 there is the other one of persuasiveness4 ,you may remember his 8,oxen ,drinking10--the two broad-fronted1 patient heads side by side at the water trough1 their driver1 in blue shirt1 standing by them1 and the rich brown backs of the massive beasts showing against the dark-gray horizon4 ,for the sky1 reaching far up above the group1 has been whipped into turbulence by the wind2 it is slaty-hued1 threatening storm4 ,how grandiose this elemental fermentation6 ,how significant the bulk and solidity of the beasts6 ,there is force all through the picture1 the force of disturbance and the force of immobility2 for the beasts are grounded like boulders2 the man1 motionless4 ,it is a force that compels attention and communicates its own strength to one's self2 and then succeeds an infinite suggestion of restfulness4 ,the heavens may labour1 but for man and oxen the appointed task is done1 and they enter into their rest4 ,and note that this suggestion is not arrived at by a process of the intellect1 but by pure sensation4 ,illustration3 ,copyright1 #aijb1 by ,n4,e4 ,montrose1 ,new ,york4 ,,ploughing ,,in ,,acadia4 ,by ,horatio ,walker4 ,it is the colour scheme that conveys it2 that note of blue1 so clear and flute-like1 against the sullen grayness of the sky2 the sobering1 complementary note of tawny brown1 even the chromatic variations of the gray sky that vibrate like music4 ,for all its menace1 the sky is beautiful1 and in union with the other notes of the scheme produces a throbbing tenderness of harmony that is irresistibly appealing4 ,it is through his colour schemes that ,walker tempers his force with persuasiveness4 ,for he is one of that small band to whom colour is as essential a part of their expression as notes are to the singer4 ,you may see pictures in which the colour is little more than tints to differentiate the objects2 others in which it is merely an accurate rendering of the phenomena studied2 then others1 again1 wherein the colour is as inseparable from the conception as fragrance from the rose4 ,it is essential1 interpenetrating the structure of the picture1 complete and indivisible as the components of a passage in music2 structurally1 sthetically1 and intellectually essential4 ,while one will find this true feeling for colour in all his work1 it is only in the later ones1 as one would expect1 that it reaches its fullest subtlety of expression4 ,one of his early pictures is the 8,milking10 a large canvas to which was awarded the gold medal1 by the vote of exhibitors1 at the exhibition of the ,american ,art ,association in #ahhg4 ,the scene is a stable interior1 with drab walls1 in which a woman in a blue gown is milking a black and white cow1 whose calf is standing near4 ,the light enters by a window on the right1 and percolates through the dim recesses of the stable4 ,at first one is conscious of the quiet beast standing across the picture1 turning its mild head toward us1 and of the woman in half shadow1 a strong-bodied form in the easy attitude of a habitual occupation2 but by degrees the eye penetrates the surrounding gloom1 and discovers another figure and other objects in the background4 ,in this gradual evolving of the subject1 art has followed nature1 and one feels also the evidence of a dignified reserve1 as of a man who does not wear his heart upon his sleeve or admit you hurriedly into the privacy of his thought1 but assures himself first of your sympathy and then bit by bit unfolds to you his purpose4 ,another characteristic of this picture is its grandiose passivity1 its suggestion of a liberal acquiescence in nature's plan4 ,we shall find this same large outlook1 under various guises1 in a great number of ,walker's pictures4 ,represented most differently1 one meets with it in 8,morning10 in which a flock of sheep have just emerged from a shed and are beginning to nose about the meadow1 which stretches behind them1 glistening with dew and bounded by a coppice of delicately branched trees1 through which the morning sky1 just quickening with light1 is visible4 ,here again is a suggestion of the routine in nature's scheme3 the awakening of day1 the following on of the beasts to play their appointed part4 ,and ,i think we shall be conscious also1 for this is a later picture1 penetrated with subtlety of manner and meaning1 of an extraordinary suggestion of the remoteness of nature at this silent1 undisturbed hour4 ,it is a repetition of an occurrence as old as any time we wot of1 and it links this modern scene in our imagination with ,virgil's 8,eclogues10 with ,homer's 8,odyssey0 and the ,hebrew ,laban's flocks1 forming a link in the endless chain of pastoral recollection1 at once the most enduring and most lovable of all our impressions of nature4 ,nor let us omit to notice the remarkable technical skill involved in the painting of this stretch of meadow1 the exquisite gradations of tone in the silvered greens as they recede from the eye1 the delicate stir of animation in the grass1 and also in the painting of the sky1 which is kept so surely behind the trees1 while its gathering volume of light steals gently through them4 ,so complete is the unity of the picture1 so musical its vibration1 that from the whole scene there seems to exhale a delicate sigh that floats through the fragrant soundlessness of awakening nature4 ,such technical accomplishment is the outcome of ,walker's penetrating earnestness4 ,like most of the best landscape painters of every country1 he is entirely self-taught4 ,the appeal of nature1 to one who is a true lover of it1 is so personal that no other man's method will avail to express what he feels4 ,he is compelled to discover his own way of utterance1 conforming in its individuality to the particular quality of his sincerity4 ,with ,walker the sincerity is characterized not only by a determination to reach the truth1 but by an instinct for the larger kinds of truth1 those which need no enforcing1 but make their own significance slowly and surely recognized4 ,nothing is more conspicuous in his best work than the reserve with which everything is stated4 ,he puts forth his strength with calculated orderliness1 gradually letting one into the heart of his meaning1 continually stimulating and rewarding by further study1 and leaving one at last with the consciousness that he has held back part of what he had in mind4 ,he leads one1 indeed1 to the dim border land where one says good-by to facts and yields only to the imagination4 ,in this respect he is nearer to ,israels than to ,millet in his attitude toward peasant life4 ,the peasant of ,gruchy was so profoundly impressed with the pitifulness of the peasant's life that his story of labour with all its force is a restricted one4 ,he missed its nobler aspect in relation to the universal scheme1 and feels only its heavy fatalism4 ,israels has a wider sympathy1 which can discover beauty in the monotonous routine1 the beauty of little observances well and faithfully done1 and the quiet intervals of rest and homely joy that intervene4 ,but while ,walker is akin to the ,dutch artist in the embracing tenderness of his vision1 he excels him in breadth and force4 ,israels continually invites you to look in2 ,walker1 to look in also1 but to look around as well4 ,in this respect he reminds one of ,troyon1 whose magnificent landscapes and grand cattle are big with nature's fecundity and strength4 ,there is not a little of these two men in ,walker2 of ,israels' tenderness and ,troyon's breadth4 ,even in so stirring a subject as the large 8,ploughing in ,acadia10 painted about #ahhg1 there is this infusion of tenderness4 ,the three horses straining abreast are full of vigour2 they tug with a sustained effort in which the continuity of the movement is finely expressed2 the high gear above their saddles1 covered with sheepskin1 tosses in the air over their shaggy arched necks2 the old man at the plough tail is stocky and hale2 lusty green weeds have their roots in the strong earth1 and the sky is full of bracing weather4 ,through and through it is a sturdy picture2 but note1 also1 the affectionateness with which the head of the nearest horse is rendered4 ,he is of the ,normandy breed1 the most willing of servants1 the most intelligent of animal companions4 ,his eye is bright1 the nostril inflated2 he is rejoicing in his strength2 and later on1 when labour is over1 he will nose into his master's jacket and both will feel like friends to one another4 ,this is the wholesome1 natural view of the peasant's labour1 when it is really close to the soil and uncorrupted by a cheap press2 man and the animals going about their appointed task until the day is done1 and finding companionship with one another and with nature2 and it is not without a quiet happiness of its own4 ,this ploughing scene reminds me of a later one1 painted a few years ago1 of two oxen coming up the furrow with their massive1 leisurely movement1 while behind them the light is mounting up in floods of crimson1 that overflow upon the broad backs of the beasts and lap the cool1 glistening earth4 ,it represents the first moments in nature's daily awakening to life and in man's daily routine of labour4 ,both in the sky and on the earth there is the steady gathering of force2 not a burst of energy1 but that massing of energy that will not readily expend itself4 ,i have heard it remarked that the oxen look tired already1 and the men likewise2 but perhaps it is rather a passivity of feeling that is conveyed1 that slow1 unquestioning resignation1 that is at once so pathetic and heroic in the true peasant4 ,and in another way many of these canvases of ,walker's involve this heroic suggestion4 ,while close studies of pastoral and agricultural life in a portion of this continent to-day1 they have a more universal significance and set one's imagination back in the ,old ,world that we call ,homeric2 times of spaciousness and simplicity1 when we fancy that man's strength was in closest affinity with nature's2 times of wholesomeness and poise of mind and body1 when man lived by nature's rule1 and labour was loving4 ,this universal suggestion is the product of the force1 united with persuasiveness1 that one marked at the outset as characteristic of ,walker and his work4 ,it comes of the large seriousness with which he thinks and works1 of the true perspective through which he views his subject1 wherein facts and sentiment take their due place not only in the foreground1 but in their relation to a distant horizon4 ,these risings and settings of the sun1 that he loves so much1 have run their course through ages2 not a little of his love for them no doubt is due to their suggestion of infinity in relation to the life of man2 and that life1 too1 he prefers to view as itself a heritage of the ages4 ,for many of us life is now a complicated affair1 with much whirring of human machinery within ourselves and around us2 yet it still has elemental facts and emotions4 ,the painter who can express these with their personal1 local significance1 and show1 as well1 their relation to the universal1 is one whose work will be likely to endure4 ,,xiii ,,gilbert ,,stuart 8,another ,king arose which knew not ,joseph10 and so it goes still4 ,most ,american children are familiar with the so-called 8,athenum ,portrait of ,george ,washington10 yet probably very few1 even of their parents1 know the name of the artist1 ,gilbert ,stuart4 ,we have got into the habit of dating the growth of modern ,american painting from #ahge1 and with some reasonableness1 for that was the period at which students began to arrive home from ,munich and ,paris in sufficient numbers to make their arrival felt4 ,yet twenty-five years earlier1 about the time that ,george ,inness was starting for ,europe1 ,william ,m4 ,hunt had returned1 bringing with him pictures of the ,barbizon painters and introducing their principles of nature study4 ,we are apt to dismiss the painting of the previous half-century as representing only the draggled ends of the ,english influence rudely severed by the ,revolution2 forgetting that the period is linked on to the ,augustan age of ,english painting1 to ,reynolds1 ,gainsborough1 and the somewhat later ,constable4 ,for ,gilbert ,stuart was a contemporary of all three1 and to some extent a rival of ,reynolds1 even in ,london1 and was born also within the lifetime of the first of the great ,englishmen1 ,william ,hogarth4 ,stuart1 moreover1 was not a follower of others1 but a distinct and forceful individuality that played a leading rle in the stirring drama of his times4 ,he was1 with little doubt1 the first of ,american masters of painting4 ,there is a romance in every life1 however gray and level1 but in ,stuart's the romance foamed upon the surface4 ,perhaps he had inherited it2 for his father1 a native of ,perth1 in ,scotland1 reached this country shortly after the battle of ,culloden ,moor1 that shattered the prospects of the ,pretender2 and there is more than a suspicion that his espousal of a lost cause had made it well to put the ocean between himself and his past4 ,however that may be1 he built himself a little mill with a gambrel roof1 at the head of the ,petaquamscott ,pond1 in ,narragansett county1 ,r4,i41 and settled down to the quiet occupation of grinding snuff4 ,he had married1 and in #agee1 after several other children1 came a boy1 who received the name of his father1 and was duly entered in the baptismal registry as 8son of the snuff grinder40 ,but in time the mill proved unprofitable1 and the family migrated to ,newport1 where the mother superintended the boy's education1 the ,rev4 ,mr4 ,bissert instructing him in ,latin4 ,he seems to have been quick at learning but averse to study1 being of a frolicsome disposition and addicted also to drawing4 ,none remains of ,stuart's early sketches1 but one day some of them were seen by ,dr4 ,william ,hunter1 as he was paying a professional visit to the family4 ,the kind and discriminating physician invited the boy to call upon him1 and when he came presented to him a box of paints and brushes1--a day of days in the child's life1 to be marked with red1 and to be looked back upon in the after years with thanksgiving4 ,what a pretty picture it presents of those brave old colonial days1 when simplicity and culture went hand in hand4 ,it is very sad1 of course1 that the poor boy should have lived too early to enjoy the blessings of a school system1 based on the strictest principles of pedagogy1 graded to an average not inconveniently high1 making much of words and relegating ideas to the proper limbo of things that are unpractical and1 therefore1 useless4 ,how pathetic1 too1 the unique event of this paintbox in view of the profusion of presents which our children now enjoy6 ,truly1 there is much room for complacent congratulation over improved conditions4 ,yet it is a little disconcerting to notice how much the less favoured children made of their meagre opportunities2 and we may begin to wonder whether education--the leading of the child step by step to a fuller and fuller consciousness of the realities of life--and instruction--the laying of brick upon brick to build an edifice of character--may not be a thing outside of systems1 and to be looked for rather in the daily contact of the child's expanding personality with good wholesome personalities around it4 ,perhaps1 after all1 the quiet spaciousness of those old colonial days was a fine nursery for men1 just as the western forests nurtured ,lincoln and many a quiet home to-day is fostering the goodness and greatness of the future4 ,stuart's earliest picture is said to be a portrait of ,mr4 ,thomas ,r4 ,hunter1 of ,newport1 and we read that when he was thirteen years old he received a commission to paint portraits of ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,john ,bannister4 ,two years later a ,scotch painter1 ,cosmo ,alexander1 arrived in ,newport and interested himself in the boy's efforts1 giving him instruction1 and when he returned to ,scotland two years afterward1 taking him with him4 ,one notes how readily the boy ingratiated himself into the hearts of those with whom he came in contact1 a trait that marks each stage of his subsequent career4 ,he had a quiet1 self-contained demeanour1 with a store of spirit that could flash out enthusiastically upon occasion and in a very tactful way2 with humour1 too1 and satire as he grew older1 and with a growing brusqueness and even intolerance1 toward his later life4 ,the urbanity1 discreetness1 and humour he would have inherited from his ,scotch father1 drawing from his ,welsh ancestry on the mother's side the ardour of his character and his love of music4 ,for his education had included the practice of music--he could play the organ and was skilful on other instruments4 ,he must have been1 indeed1 a personality of rare graciousness4 ,the stay in ,scotland was short1 for ,alexander died very soon after their arrival4 ,he had established his ward in the ,university of ,glasgow1 and1 dying1 committed him to the care of ,sir ,george ,chambers1 who himself died shortly after4 ,the youth pined for home1 and managed to get passage back to ,america on a collier4 ,with a friend named ,waterhouse he hired a model to study from1 8a strong-muscled blacksmith40 ,it was characteristic of the bent of choice that reappears in his mature work3 a love of strength and resolution1 delighting in the robust physical qualities or in the strong evidences of mental and moral character which time has impressed upon the face4 ,in #agge he again set out for ,great ,britain1 and this time reached ,london4 ,it was not until he had suffered much privation that he summoned up courage to call upon his countryman1 ,benjamin ,west4 ,the great man was entertaining friends and not disposed to be interrupted2 but the gentleman who left the party to interview the caller1 found him to be a connection of friends of his in ,philadelphia1 and ushered him into the assemblage4 ,the young man's demeanour pleased ,west1 who invited him to bring his work for inspection1 admitted him as a pupil1 and in #aggg installed him in his own household4 ,by this time1 besides painting under ,west1 with ,trumbull among his fellow-students1 he was attending the discourses of ,sir ,joshua and studying anatomy in ,dr4 ,cruikshank's classes at the ,academy4 ,his sojourn in ,west's studio extended over eight years1 although during that time he was engaged on some independent work2 the ,duke of ,northumberland1 for example1 sending for him to ,sion ,house1 on the ,thames1 to paint two portraits4 ,from being the pupil he became the assistant of his master1 until the painter ,dance advised him to set up a studio of his own1 which1 with ,west's approbation1 he did in #aghe4 ,his success was immediate2 people of wit and fashion thronged his rooms2 he 8tasked himself to six sitters a day10 then flung his work aside and devoted himself to society1 living in great splendour and spending freely4 ,during this period he painted ,louis ,,xvi1 ,george ,,iii1 and the ,prince of ,wales1 subsequently ,george ,,iv2 while among his other sitters were ,john ,kemble1 ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1 and ,benjamin ,west4 ,he had married ,charlotte ,coates1 daughter of ,dr4 ,coates of ,berkshire1 and with her moved1 in #aghh1 to ,dublin1 where he painted many eminent people and was welcomed in society for his personal gifts4 ,but he was eager to paint ,george ,washington4 ,it is memorable that ,stuart1 when once his position was assured1 indulged himself in the privilege of refusing many sitters4 ,notwithstanding his enormous expenses and the embarrassments to which they frequently led1 he kept his artistic conscience intact from the smudge of mere money-making1 and confined himself to those sitters who appealed to his particular temperament and afforded him the best opportunity of making a good picture4 ,so he was willing to throw up all the golden opportunities which ,europe presented1 that he might have the privilege and satisfaction of painting the one man whose heroic qualities had most fascinated his imagination4 ,he reached ,new ,york in #agib1 and two years later proceeded to ,philadelphia1 where ,congress was in session4 ,establishing his studio on the southeast corner of ,fifth and ,chestnut streets1 he painted three portraits of ,washington from life4 ,the first1 which showed the right side of the face1 was destroyed by the artist as not being satisfactory1 and only three1 or perhaps four1 copies are known to exist4 ,then followed the full-length portrait1 painted for ,lord ,lansdowne1 which shows the left side of the face and is now in ,london4 ,the third1 against ,washington's own desire1 was executed at the earnest solicitation of his wife and was left intentionally unfinished4 ,this picture1 which shows the left side of the face1 was purchased from ,stuart's widow and presented to the ,boston ,athenum4 ,known as the 8,athenum0 head1 it now hangs in the ,boston ,museum of ,fine ,arts1 and over fifty copies of it by ,stuart's hands have been traced4 ,unlike ,charles ,willson ,peale1 who made1 in all1 fourteen portraits from life of ,washington1 and painted him in the prime of his vigour1 ,stuart depicts the late autumn of his life1 when the fruitage of his activity had been gathered in2 a face on which the lines of character are softened2 the energy of expression mellowed2 a face chastened by responsibilities2 infinitely sweet and with a tender melancholy of exalted seriousness4 ,it is the face of one who has conquered himself as well as others2 it has the yearning solicitude of a father for his children2 it represents him as indeed the ,father of his people4 ,the painter ,leslie is quoted as having said that it was fortunate that an artist existed in the time of ,washington who could hand him down to posterity looking like a gentleman2 and1 while the remark seems at first sound a trifle flippant1 there is much in it1 after all4 ,for it is indeed the gentle qualities1 those evidences in word and deed of high breeding and elevated mind1 the prevailing graciousness and lofty seriousness of the true gentleman1--that rara avis among the indiscriminate flock of so-called gentlemen--that must have been preminently distinguishable in ,washington4 ,one feels that1 ,i think1 so sensibly in visiting ,mount ,vernon to-day4 ,set upon that fine bluff overlooking the ,potomac1 it has the dignity of elevation2 a certain aloofness above the level1 self-centred within its own appanage of outbuildings1 gardens and grounds1 and yet such a modest dignity1 suggesting the sweet amenities1 the little graces and quiet refinement of cultured country life4 ,certainly it is the most completely interesting memorial home of a great man anywhere to be seen1 inasmuch as it is pervaded by the flavour of the old times and by the spirit of its former occupant4 ,and the whole association of the place is of the choicest kind of gentle living4 ,assuredly it was a good thing that there should be an artist of the period who could record these qualities4 ,stuart brought to the task a keenly comprehending mind1 and a large experience in the acquaintanceship with men of affairs1 of wit and learning1 and brilliant1 varied accomplishments4 ,himself a man of brilliant parts1 he had ceased to be dazzled by brilliance2 could look at the individual example of manhood that he was studying in its own separate perspective2 could take in the complexities of his character and give a complete1 instead of a fragmentary1 record4 ,neither in his whirl of success1 we may believe1 had he lost touch entirely with the gentle associations that surrounded his early life4 ,there was much in the riot of those times to hurt a sensitive susceptibility1 and ,stuart so often refused a sitter1 or threw up a commission partly executed1 that it is not unreasonable to assume that such acts were due in some measure1 at least1 to a certain preciosity in his own feelings4 ,certainly no other man of his time could have presented this fine side of ,washington4 ,west would have given a grandiloquent rendering of the hero2 if not bombastic1 probably theatrical2 whereas it is the reticence of ,stuart's portraits that is so admirable4 8,i copy the works of ,god10 he said1 8and leave clothes to tailors and mantua makers40 ,without admitting the general desirableness of such a painter theory1 we may acknowledge its value when tested on such a subject as ,washington4 ,we are glad to be free of the curtains and columns and all the other stock paraphernalia of the painter of the period1 and to be left in uninterrupted possession of the man and nothing but the man4 ,such reserve on ,stuart's part is the measure of his ranking as an artist4 ,he worked1 as he said himself1 to express sentiment1 grace1 and character4 ,in ,washington he found all three2 with many of his sitters he was less fortunate4 ,consequently1 he is not a painter of great pictures1 but of some great portraits4 ,yet the limitation is in a way an evidence of greatness4 ,it was the fashion of his time to try and paint great pictures4 ,from this he had the hardihood to separate himself1 reaching with a true originality of feeling after what really interested him1 the big essentials in the subjects that he studied4 ,thus he put himself in line with the great painters1 shaking himself free of the fads and nostrums of his time1 and betaking himself straight to nature4 ,in the story of ,american art he holds a unique and dignified position4 ,illustration3 colophon ,,the ,,country ,,life ,,press ,,garden ,,city1 ,n4 ,y4