Morse's life almost equally divided into two periods, artistic and
scientific.--Estimate of his artistic ability by Daniel Huntington.--Also
by Samuel Isham.--His character as revealed by his letters, notes, etc.--
End of Volume I.
Morse's long life (he was eighty-one when he died) was almost exactly
divided, by the nature of his occupations, into two equal periods. During
the first, up to his forty-first year, he was wholly the artist,
enthusiastic, filled with a laudable ambition to excel, not only for
personal reasons, but, as appears from his correspondence, largely from
patriotic motives, from a wish to rescue his country from the stigma of
pure commercialism which it had incurred in the eyes of the rest of the
world. It is true that his active brain and warm heart spurred him on to
interest himself in many other things, in inventions of more or less
utility, in religion, politics, and humanitarian projects; but next to
his sincere religious faith, his art held chiefest sway, and everything
else was made subservient to that.
During the latter half of his life, however, a new goddess was enshrined
in his heart, a goddess whose cult entailed even greater self-sacrifice;
keener suffering, both mental and physical; more humiliation to a proud
and sensitive soul, shrinking alike from the jeers of the incredulous and
the libels and plots of the envious and the unscrupulous.
While he plied his brush for many years after the conception of his
epoch-making invention, it was with an ever lessening enthusiasm, with a
divided interest. Art no longer reigned supreme; Invention shared the
throne with her and eventually dispossessed her. It seems, therefore,
fitting that, in closing the chronicle of Morse the artist, his rank in
the annals of American art should be estimated as viewed by a
contemporary and by the more impartial historian of the present day.
From a long article prepared by the late Daniel Huntington for Mr. Prime,
I shall select the following passages:--
"My acquaintance with Professor Morse began in the spring of 1835, when I
was placed under his care by my father as a pupil. He then lived in
Greenwich Lane (now Greenwich Avenue), and several young men were
studying art under his instruction.... He gave a short time every day to
each pupil, carefully pointing out our errors and explaining the
principles of art. After drawing for some time from casts with the
crayon, he allowed us to begin the use of the brush, and we practised
painting our studies from the casts, using black, white, and raw umber.
"I believe this method was of great use in enabling us early to acquire a
good habit of painting. I only regret that he did not insist on our
sticking to this kind of study a longer time and drill us more severely
in it; but he indulged our hankering for color too soon, and, when once
we had tasted the luxury of a full palette of colors, it was a dry
business to go back to plain black and white.
"In the autumn of that year, 1835, he removed to spacious rooms in the
New York University on Washington Square. In the large studio in the
north wing he painted several fine portraits, among them the beautiful
full-length of his daughter, Mrs. Lind. He also lectured before the
students and a general audience, illustrating his subject by painted
diagrams....
"Professor Morse's love of scientific experiments was shown in his artist
life. He formed theories of color, tried experiments with various
vehicles, oils, varnishes, and pigments. His studio was a kind of
laboratory. A beautiful picture of his wife and two children was painted,
he told me, with colors ground in milk, and the effect was juicy, creamy,
and pearly to a degree. Another picture was commenced with colors mixed
with beer; afterwards solidly impasted and glazed with rich, transparent
tints in varnish. His theory of color is fully explained in the account
of his life in Dunlap's 'Arts of Design.' He proved its truth by boxes
and balls of various colors. He had an honest, solid, vigorous _impasto_,
which he strongly insisted on in his instructions--a method which was
like the great masters of the Venetian school. This method was modified
in his practice by his studies under West in England, and by his intimacy
with Allston, for whose genius he had a great reverence, and by whose way
of painting he was strongly influenced.
"He was a lover of simple, unaffected truth, and this trait is shown in
his works as an artist. He had a passion for color, and rich, harmonious
tints run through his pictures, which are glowing and mellow, and yet
pearly and delicate.
"He had a true painter's eye, but he was hindered from reaching the fame
his genius promised as a painter by various distractions, such as the
early battles of the Academy of Design in its struggles for life,
domestic afflictions, and, more than all, the engrossing cares of his
invention.
[Illustration: SUSAN MORSE
Eldest daughter of the artist.]
"The 'Hercules,' with its colossal proportions and daring attitude, is
evidence of the zeal and courage of his early studies.... It is worthy of
being carefully preserved in a public gallery, not only as an instance of
successful study in a young artist (Morse was in his twenty-first year),
but as possessing high artistic merit, and a force and richness which
plainly show that, if his energies had not been diverted, he might have
achieved a name in art equal to the greatest of his contemporaries....
"Professor Morse's world-wide fame rests, of course, on his invention of
the electric telegraph; but it should be remembered that the qualities of
mind which led to it were developed in the progress of his art studies,
and if his paintings, in the various fields of history, portrait, and
landscape, could be brought together, it would be found that he deserved
an honored place among the foremost American artists."
This was an estimate of Morse's ability as a painter by a man of his own
day, a friend and pupil. As this would, naturally, be somewhat biased, it
will be more to the point to see what a competent critic of the present
day has to say.
Mr. Samuel Isham, in his authoritative "History of American Painting,"
published in 1910, after giving a brief biographical sketch of Morse and
telling why he came to abandon the brush, thus sums up:--
"It was a serious loss, for Morse, without being a genius, was yet,
perhaps, better calculated than another to give in pictures the spirit of
the difficult times from 1830 to 1860. He was a man sound in mind and
body, well born, well educated, and both by birth and education in
sympathy with his time. He had been abroad, had seen good work, and
received sound training. His ideals were not too far ahead of his public.
Working as he did under widely varying conditions, his paintings are
dissimilar, not only in merit but in method of execution; even his
portraits vary from thin, free handling to solid _impasto_. Yet in the
best of them there is a real painter's feeling for his material; the
heads have a soundness of construction and a freshness in the carnations
that recall Raeburn rather than West; the poses are graceful or
interesting, the costumes are skilfully arranged, and in addition he
understands perfectly the character of his sitters, the men and women of
the transition period, shrewd, capable, but rather commonplace, without
the ponderous dignity of Copley's subjects or the cosmopolitan graces of
a later day.
"The struggles incident to the invention and development of telegraphy
turned Morse from the practice of art, but up to the end of his life he
was interested in it and aggressive in any scheme for its advancement."
I think that from the letters, notes, etc., which I have in the preceding
pages brought together, a clear conception of Morse's character can be
formed. The dominant note was an almost childlike religious faith; a
triumphant trust in the goodness of God even when his hand was wielding
the rod; a sincere belief in the literal truth of the Bible, which may
seem strange to us of the twentieth century; a conviction that he was
destined in some way to accomplish a great good for his fellow men.
Next to love of God came love of country. He was patriotic in the best
sense of the word. While abroad he stoutly upheld the honor of his native
land, and at home he threw himself with vigor into the political
discussions of the day, fighting stoutly for what he considered the
right. While sometimes, in the light of future events, he seems to have
erred in allowing his religious beliefs to tinge too much his political
views, he was always perfectly sincere and never permitted expediency to
brush aside conviction.
We have seen that wherever he went he had the faculty of inspiring
respect and affection, and that an ever widening circle of friends
admitted him to their intimacy, sought his advice, and confided in him
with the perfect assurance of his ready sympathy.
A favorite Bible quotation of his was "Woe unto you when all men shall
speak well of you." He deeply deplored the necessity of making enemies,
but he early in his career became convinced that no man could accomplish
anything of value in this world without running counter either to the
opinions of honest men, who were as sincere as he, or to the self-seeking
of the dishonest and the unscrupulous. Up to this time he had had mainly
to deal with the former class, as in his successful efforts to establish
the National Academy of Design on a firm footing; but in the future he
was destined to make many and bitter enemies of both classes. In the
controversies which ensued he always strove to be courteous and just,
even when vigorously defending his rights or taking the offensive. That
he sometimes erred in his judgment cannot be denied, but the errors were
honest, and in many cases were kindled and fanned into a flame by the
crafty malice of third parties for their own pecuniary advantage.
So now, having followed him in his career as an artist, which,
discouraging and troubled as it may often have seemed to him, was as the
calm which precedes the storm to the years of privation and heroic
struggle which followed, I shall bring this first volume to a close.
END OF VOLUME I