of our telegraphic system are aware that in early life he was an
artist, and gave evidence of succeeding both in sculpture and painting.
Although his preference was for the latter, we are inclined to think
that he was best fitted to be a sculptor. He became the pupil of Allston
in London, and modelled at that time a statue called the "Dying
Hercules," which won the prize of a gold medal offered by the Adelphi
Society of Arts for the best single figure. From that statue he
afterward composed a painting of the same subject, which is now in New
Haven, a work of unquestioned power, showing thorough anatomical
knowledge and a creative imagination. But, while there was reason to
predict an interesting art career for the young American, circumstances
beyond his control drifted him away from the chosen pursuit of his
youth, and his fame and fortune were eventually achieved in the paths of
science. It is interesting in this connection to read the words which
Morse, suffering from the pangs of disappointment, wrote to one who
asked his advice about becoming a painter: "My young friend, if you have
determined to try the life of an artist, I wish you all success; but as
you have asked my honest opinion, I must say that, if you can find
employment in any other calling, I advise you to let painting alone. I
have known so many young men--some of them of decided talent, too--who,
after repeated trials and failures, became discouraged, gave up further
effort, and went to ruin." Notwithstanding that such were his views when
he abandoned art, did not Morse, in the prosperous hours of his life,
sometimes look back to his early art with a pang of regret? But while he
continued in the profession of art, his activity was such that the
National Academy of Design owes its origin to him, and with him closed
the first period of art in the United States.
We see that this division of our pictorial art--with the exception of
Thomas Birch, of Philadelphia, a marine painter of some repute, and a
few others of less note--was devoted to the figure; and, if sometimes
feeble in result, was inspired by lofty motives. In historical art and
portraiture it was, if not strictly original, yet often very able, and
fairly maintained itself on a level with the contemporary art of Europe.
Owing to the entire want of opportunities for professional education at
home, our leading artists, with few exceptions, were forced to pass a
good part of their lives in foreign studios.
We also find that a feeling for the beauty of form, as indicated in
black and white, or in sculpture, was scarcely perceptible in this stage
of our art. With the exception of Shem Drowne and Patience Wright, who
modelled skilfully in wax, the sense for plastic art was altogether
dormant in the country; while any progress in architecture, until in
recent years, was hopelessly ignored. It is true that the active,
restless intellect of Thomas Jefferson sought to endow the nation with a
sixth order of architecture, called the Columbian, and patriotically
resembling a stalk of Indian-corn. The small pillars made after this
design are in one of the vestibules of the basement of the Capitol at
Washington, where the ardent patriot may visit them, and see for
himself the beginning and the end of the only order of architecture ever
attempted in this country.
Through much tribulation, much earnest faith, and enthusiasm for art,
our early painters prepared the way for the national art of the future.
They met only moderate appreciation in their native land at that time.
But we owe much to them; and in our preference for present
methods--which must in turn be superseded by others--let us not forget
the honor due to the pioneers of American art. In the first articulate
utterances of a child, or in the dialect of an aboriginal tribe, lie the
rudiments of a national tongue eventually carried to a high degree of
culture; and the first rude art or poesy of a young people sometimes
possesses touches of freshness, charming simplicity, or virile force
which are too liable to be softened away beyond recall by the
refinements of a later civilization.
II.
_AMERICAN PAINTERS._
1828-1878.
The generation immediately succeeding the American Revolution was
devoted by the people of the young republic to adjusting its commercial
and political relations at home and abroad. Early in this century,
however, numerous signs of literary and art activity became apparent,
and in 1815 the _North American Review_ was founded. We mention this
fact, although a literary event, as indicating the point in time when
the nebulous character of the various intellectual influences and
tendencies of the nation began to develop a certain cohesive and
tangible form. It was about the same time that our art, subject to
similar influences, began to assume a more definite individuality, and
to exhibit rather less vagueness in its yearnings after national
expression.
Gilbert Stuart, one of the most remarkable colorists of modern time,
died in the year 1828. In the same year the National Academy of Design
was founded. These two events, occurring at the same time, seem properly
to mark the close of one period of our art history and the dawn of its
successor; for notwithstanding the excellence of Stuart's art, and the
virile character of the art of some of his contemporaries, yet their
efforts had been spasmodic and unequal; much of it had been done abroad
under foreign influences; and there was no sustained patronage or art
organization at home which could combine their efforts toward a
practical and common end. The first president of the new institution was
Samuel F. B. Morse.
The National Academy of Design superseded a similar but less wisely
organized society, which had led a precarious existence since 1801. With
the new institution was collected the nucleus of a gallery of paintings
and casts; and from the outset the idea suggested by its name was
carried out, by furnishing the most thorough opportunities for
art-instruction the country could afford.
[Illustration: "MUMBLE THE PEG."--[HENRY INMAN.]]
Although seemingly fortuitous, the establishment of the Academy of
Design really marks the opening of a distinct era in the history of
American art; during which it has developed into a rounded completeness
to a degree that enables us, with some measure of fairness, to note the
causes which led to it, which have nourished its growth, and which have
made it a worthy forerunner of new methods for expressing the artistic
yearnings of those who are to follow in years to come. It has indicated
a notable advance in our art; it has, in spite of its weakness or
imitation of foreign conventionalisms, possessed certain traits
entirely and distinctively native; and has been distinguished by a
number of artists of original and sometimes unusual ability, whose
failure to accomplish all they sought was due rather to unfortunate
circumstances than to the lack of genuine power, which in another age
might have done itself more justice.
It is interesting to observe at this juncture that our art was
influenced by exactly the same causes as our literature of the same
period; and, like our national civilization, presents a singular
reaching after original expression, modified sometimes by an unconscious
imitation of foreign thought and methods.
There is one fact connected with the early growth of our art which is
entirely contrary to the laws which have elsewhere governed the progress
of art, and is undoubtedly due to the new and anomalous features of our
social economy. Elsewhere the art-feeling has undeviatingly sought
expression first in earthen-ware or plastic art, then in architecture
and sculpture, and finally in painting. We have entirely reversed this
order. The unsettled character of the population--especially at the time
when emigration from the Eastern to the Western States caused a general
movement from State to State--together with the abundance of lumber at
that time, evidently offered no opportunity or demand for any but the
rudest and most rapidly constructed buildings, and anything like
architecture and decorative work was naturally relegated to a later
period; and for the same reason, apparently, the art of sculpture showed
little sign of demanding expression here until after the art of painting
had already formulated itself into societies and clubs, and been
represented by numerous artists of respectable abilities.
The art-feeling, which made itself apparent, vaguely and abortively,
during our colonial period, began to demand freer and fuller expression
soon after the new Republic had declared its independence; and, with
scarce any patronage from the Government, assumed a degree of excellence
surprising under the circumstances, and rarely reached by a nation in so
short a time.
We recall no art of the past the order and conditions of whose growth
resemble those of ours, except that of Holland after its wars of
independence with Spain. The bane and the blessing of our art have been
in the enormous variety of influences which have controlled its action.
This has been a bane, because it has, until recently, prevented the
concentration of effort which might lead to grand results and schools.
It has been a blessing, because individual expression has thus found a
vent, and mannerism has not yet become a conventional net, so thrown
around our art as to prevent free action and growth. The American art of
the last two generations has resembled the restless activity of a
versatile youth, who seeks in various directions for the just medium by
which to give direction to his life-work. If there has been, on the
whole, a national bias in one direction more than another, it has been
for landscape-painting.
Our intellectual state has also resembled the many-sided condition of
Germany in the Middle Ages, waking up from the chaos of the Dark Ages,
but broken up into different States, and representing different
religions and races. But our position has been even more agitated and
diverse; a general restlessness has characterized the community--a vast
intellectual discontent with the present. Although strongly moved by
pride of country, we have also been keenly sensitive to foreign
influences, and have received impressions from them with the readiness
of a photographic plate, although until recently the result has been
assimilation rather than imitation; while internally we have been trying
to harmonize race and sectional differences, which as yet are far from
reaching homogeneity.
Together with all these individual influences must be included one of
general application, to which nearly all our artists, of whatever race
or section, have been subject in turn. In other countries the people
have, by a long preparation, become ready to meet the artist half-way in
appreciating and aiding him in his mission, either from the promptings
of the religious sentiment to which his art has given ocular
demonstration, or from a dominating and universal sense of beauty. With
us it has been quite otherwise; for the artists have been in advance of
public sentiment, and have had the misfortune to be forced to wait until
the people could come up to them. In addition to the fact that in New
England Puritan influences were at first opposed to art, the restless,
surging, unequal, widely differing character of our people, brought face
to face with the elementary problems of existence, founding new forms of
government, and welding incongruous factors into one race and nation--in
a word, wresting from fate our right to be--made us indifferent to the
ideal, except in sporadic and individual cases, which indicated here and
there that below the surface the poetic sentiment was preparing to
assert itself; and that we, in turn, were preparing to acknowledge the
great truth that art is an instinctive yearning of the race to place
itself in accord with the harmony which rules the universe.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF PARKE GODWIN.--[THOMAS LE CLEAR.]]
The result has been that a very large proportion of the artists of this
period of our history have been compelled to endure far more than the
traditionary hardships of the profession. They have been obliged to
devote some of the best years of their lives to trade, and have not been
able to take up art until late. To accuse American artists, as a class,
of being mercenary--a charge made quite too often--is really something
akin to irony, so much more successful pecuniarily would the majority of
them have been in mercantile pursuits. The heroism of our early
painters, struggling, in obscure corners of the country, for
opportunities to express their yearning after the ideal, without
instruction, without art-influences, meeting little or no sympathy or
encouragement, and in spite of these obstacles often achieving a
respectable degree of excellence, is one of the most interesting,
instructive, and sublime episodes in the history of art.
Growing out of this hesitating condition of our early art may be
discerned a secondary cause, which occurred in so many cases as to be
justly considered one of the forces which formed the careful, minute,
painstaking style of much of our landscape art. We refer to the fact
that many of the best of our early painters were first engravers on wood
and steel. This gave them a minute, formal, and precise method of
treatment, which led them to look at details rather than breadth of
effect.
When we turn to the influences from abroad which stimulated American art
during this period, we find that, while they fostered the growth of a
certain æsthetic feeling, they at the same time instilled conventional
methods and principles that deferred the development of a higher kind of
art. It is greatly to be regretted that, notwithstanding the friendly
relations between the United States and France, our art, when it was
first looking to Europe for direction, should not have come in contact
with that of France, which at that time, led by Gericault, Rousseau,
Troyon, Delacroix, and other rising men, was becoming the greatest
pictorial school since the Renaissance. But Italian art at that time was
sunk to the lowest depths of conventionalism; while the good in the
English art of the time was represented less by a school than by a few
individuals of genius--Turner, Wilkie, Constable--who were so original
that they failed to attract students whose first art ideas had been
obtained in Italy.
The influence of Italy on our early art was shown by the tendency of our
painters in that direction--as now they go to France and Germany--and
this was due primarily to Allston and Vanderlyn. The latter, when at
Rome, occupied the house of Salvator Rosa--apparently a trivial
incident, but if we could trace all the influence it may have had on the
fancy and tastes of the young American artist, we might find it was a
powerful contributor to the formation of the early style of the
landscape artists who followed him to Italy. This bias was also greatly
assisted by the many paintings imported at that time from the Italian
peninsula, which were either originals, bought cheaply during the
disturbances which then convulsed Europe, or copies of more or less
merit. These works made their way gradually over our country, from
Boston to New Orleans; and, with the rapidly shifting fortunes of our
families, have often been so completely placed out of sight and
forgotten, that it is not an unfrequent instance for one to be unearthed
in a remote country village, or farm-house that would never be suspected
of harboring high art.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF FLETCHER HARPER--[C. L. Elliott]]
The larger portion of these foreign works came first to Boston, and
were hidden away somewhere in that vicinity, as in the case of the
collection bequeathed to Bowdoin College by its founder; whose best
specimens were eventually sold and scattered for a mere song by a
faculty who were ignorant of their value, and thought they might at the
same time aid morality and add an honest penny to the funds of the
institution by selling its precious nudities, and thus remove them from
the student's eye. As Allston and Stuart, who were colorists, also
settled in Boston, after years of foreign study, these two circumstances
contributed to make the Boston school from the first one of color--a
fact less pronounced in the early art of New York.
It is to West and Allston and Trumbull that we are to attribute the
English element in our arts. The prominent position they then occupied
before the American public made their example and opinions of great
importance with their countrymen, and undoubtedly contributed to suggest
one of the most characteristic traits of American art, that is, the
tendency to make art a means for telling a story, which has always been
a prominent feature of English art. May we not also trace to English
literature the bias which unconsciously led our painters to turn their
attention to landscape with a unanimity that has until recently made our
pictorial art distinctively a school of landscape painting? Cowper,
Byron, and Wordsworth introduced landscape into poetry, and undoubtedly
impelled English art in the same direction; and it was exactly at that
time that our own poet, Bryant, undoubtedly influenced at the
turning-point of his character by Wordsworth's solemn worship of nature,
was becoming the pioneer of American descriptive poetry; while Irving
was introducing the picturesque into our literature; and Cooper, with
his vivid descriptions of our forests, was, like Irving, creating a
whole class of subjects that were to be illustrated by the American
artists of this period.
The influences cited as giving direction to the struggling efforts of
art in our country during the early part of this century are illustrated
with especial force by five portrait, figure, and landscape-painters,
who may almost be considered the founders of this period of our
art--Harding, Weir, Cole, Doughty, and Durand.
[Illustration: AN IDEAL HEAD.--[G. A. BAKER.]]
Chester Harding was a farmer's son, who, after an apprenticeship in
agriculture, took up the trade of chair-maker at twenty-one, the time
when the young Parisian artist has already won his _Prix de Rome_. After
this he tried various other projects, including those of peddling and
the keeping of a tavern; and then took his wife and child and floated
on a flat-boat down the Alleghany to Pittsburgh--at that time a mere
settlement--in search of something by which to earn a bare living. There
he took to sign-painting; and it was not until his twenty-sixth year
that the idea of becoming a professional artist entered his head. An
itinerant portrait-painter coming to the place first suggested the idea
to Harding, who engaged him to paint the portrait of Mrs. Harding, and
took his first art-lesson while looking over the artist's shoulder; and
his first crude attempts so fascinated him that he at once adopted art
as a profession, and in six months painted one hundred likenesses, such
as they were, at twenty-five dollars each, and then settled in Boston,
where he seems to have been taken up with characteristic enthusiasm. On
going to England, Harding, notwithstanding the few advantages he had
enjoyed, seemed to compare so favorably with portrait-painters there
that he was patronized by the first noblemen of the land. Although
belonging also to the latter part of the period immediately preceding
that now under consideration, yet Harding was, on the whole, an
important factor in the art which dates from the founding of the
National Academy, and was one of the strongest of the group of
portrait-painters naturally associated with him, such as Alexander,
Waldo, Jarvis, and Ingham. There was something grand in the personality
of Harding, not only in his almost gigantic physique but also his
sturdy, frank, good-natured, but earnest and indomitable character,
which causes him to loom up across the intervening years as a type of
the people that have felled forests, reclaimed waste places, and given
thews and sinews to the Republic that in a brief century has placed
itself in the front rank of nations.
While Harding, with all his artistic inequalities, fairly represented
the portrait art of Boston at that, period, Henry Inman may be
considered as holding a similar position in New York. As a resident of
that city and a pupil of Jarvis, he enjoyed advantages of early training
superior to those of most of our painters of that day. Exceedingly
versatile, and excelling in miniature, and doing fairly well in _genre_
and landscape, Inman will be best known in future years by his admirable
oil portraits of some of the leading characters of the time. He was a
man of great strength and symmetry of character, who would have won
distinction in any field, and his early death was a misfortune to the
country.
New York became the centre for a number of excellent and characteristic
portrait-painters soon after Inman established his reputation--such as
Charles Loring Elliott, Baker, Hicks, Le Clear, Huntington, and Page,
the contemporaries of Healy, Ames, Hunt, and Staigg, of Boston, and
Sully, of Philadelphia--all artists of individual styles and
characteristic traits of their own. Sully, owing to his great age,
really belonged also to the preceding period of our art.
[Illustration: "THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS."--[HENRY PETERS GREY.]]
In Elliott we probably find the most important portrait-painter of this
period of American art. It was a peculiarity of his intellectual growth
that only by degrees did he arrive at the point of being able to seize a
simple likeness. But it is not at all uncommon for genius to falter in
its first attempts; and Elliott was one of the few artists we have
produced who could be justly ranked among men of genius, as
distinguished from those of talents, however marked. Stuart excelled all
our portrait-painters in purity and freshness of color and masterly
control of pigments; but he was scarcely more vigorous than Elliott in
the wondrous faculty of grasping character. Herein lay this artist's
strength. He read the heart of the man he portrayed, and gave us not
merely a faithful likeness of his outward features, but an epitome of
his intellectual life and traits, almost clutching and bringing to light
his most secret thoughts. In studying the portraits of Elliott we learn
to analyze and to discern the essential and irreconcilable difference
between photography and the highest order of painting. The sun is a
great magician, but he cannot reproduce more than lies on the
surface--he cannot suggest the soul. He is like a truthful but unwilling
witness, who gives only part, and not always the best part, of the
truth. But then the genius of the great artist steps in, completes the
testimony, and presents before us suggestions of the immortal being that
shall survive when the mortal frame and the sun which photographs it
have alike passed away.
Baker, on the other hand, has excelled in rendering the delicate color
and loveliness of childhood, and the splendor of the finest types of
American feminine beauty. The miniatures of Staigg are also among the
most winning works of the sort produced by our art. Among other
excellent miniature-painters of this period was Miss Goodrich, of whose
personal history less is known than of any other American artist.
William Page occupies a phenomenal position in the art of this period,
because, unlike most of our painters, he has not been content to take
art methods and materials as he found them, but has been an
experimentalist and a theorist as well, and therefore belongs properly
to more recent phases of our art. Thus, while he has achieved some
singularly successful works in portraiture and historical painting, he
has done much that has aroused respect rather than enthusiasm.
If less refined in aim and treatment than Page in his rendering of
female beauty, Henry Peters Grey, who was also an earnest student of
Italian Renaissance art, succeeded sometimes to a degree which, if far
below that of the masters whom he studied, was yet in advance of most of
such art as has been executed by American painters, at least until very
recently. "The Judgment of Paris" is certainly a clever if not wholly
original work, and the figure of Venus a fine piece of form and color.