Crowning a hill, which is the triumphant result of a series of terraces
rising from the town of Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, is Belmont, the
home of Gari Melchers, an American artist, who has been more honored
abroad than any of our living painters, with the exception, perhaps, of
John Singer Sargent.
Born in Detroit, Gari Melchers left America when he was seventeen, to
pursue his studies in Europe.
His apprentice days were spent in Dusseldorf and Paris, where his
professional debut in 1889 gained for him the coveted Grand Prix--Sargent
and Whistler being the only other American painters similarly honored.
Italy had to resign to Holland the prestige of lending her country to the
genius of Mr. Melchers, for he intended to reside in Italy, but owing to
the outbreak of the cholera there he settled at Engmond instead. His
studio borrowed the interest of the sea on one side and the charm of a
lazy canal on the other, and over its door were inscribed the words: "Wahr
und Klar" (Truth and Clarity). Here he worked at those objective and
realistic pictures of Dutch life and scenes; and free from all scholastic
pretense, he painted the serene, yet colorful panorama of Holland.
Christian Brinton says of the art of Gari Melchers that it is explicit and
veracious. Prim interiors are permeated with a light that envelopes all
things with a note of sadness. Exterior scenes reflect the shifting of
seasons or the precise hour of day. He paints air as well as light and
color. Without exaggeration, he manages to suggest the intervening aerial
medium between the seer and the thing seen.
Mr. Melchers has no set formula.
In 1918 there was a wonderful "one man" display of his art at the Corcoran
Art Gallery, and in 1919, the Loan Exhibition, held by the Copley Society
at the Boston Art Club, was the second of the two important recent events
in the artist's career since his returning to America. Here his work has
undergone some perceptible change, gaining lightness and freshness of
vision, which shows his reaction to a certain essential Americanism. Mr.
Melchers attacks whatever suits his particular mood, and his art is not
suggestive of a subjective temperament.
"The Sermon"--"The Communion"--"The Pilots"--"The Shipbuilders"--"The
Sailor and His Sweetheart"--"The Open Door" are some of his well-known
canvases. His reputation as a portrait painter rests upon a secure
foundation.
His awards include medals from Berlin, Antwerp, Vienna, Paris and Munich,
Ansterdam, Dresden, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and many other
medals for art exhibitions.
He is an officer of the Legion of Honor, France; officer of the Order of
the "Red Eagle," Prussia; officer of the Order of "St. Michael" Bavaria;
officer of the Order of the "White Falcon," Saxe-Weimar.
Mr. Melchers himself is frank and not chained by minor conventions. He has
a powerful personality and a charming wife, who dispenses a pleasant
hospitality, in a home that leaves nothing to be desired.
[Sidenote: _John Elder's Great Work_]