represented by artists native in thought and education, we find
evidences of another beginning to assert itself, of altogether a
different character. The former deals wholly with externals, and the
subject is the first end sought; it concerns itself altogether with
objects, and not with any ulterior thoughts which they may suggest to
the sensitive imagination. The latter, on the other hand, searches out
the mystery in nature, and analyzes its human aspects. It is the vague
suggestions seen in hills and skies, in sere woods and lonely waters,
and moorlands fading away into eternity--it is their symbolism and
sympathy with the soul that an artist like Mr. Jervis M'Entee seeks to
represent on canvas. This is, in a word, the subjective art to which we
have already alluded. To him the voice of nature is an elegy; the fall
of the leaves in October suggests the passing away of men to the grave
in a countless and endless procession; and whenever he introduces the
agency of man into his pictures, it is as if he were fighting with an
unseen and remorseless destiny. Exquisitely poetic and beautiful are the
autumnal scenes of this artist, the reaches of russet woodlands, the
expanses of skurrying clouds, gray, melancholy, wild. His art sings in a
low minor key that finds response in the heart of multitudes who have
suffered, to whom the world has been a battle-field, where the losses
have outweighed the gains, and have left them gazing into the mysterious
future like one who at midnight stands on the brink of a tremendous
abyss into which he must be hurled, but knows not what are the
shuddering possibilities that await the inevitable plunge.
A young artist of Boston died in Syria, four years ago, at the early age
of twenty-five, before he had acquired more than local repute, who gave
promise of standing among the foremost of American landscape-painters. I
refer to A. P. Close. Certainly no artist we have produced has evinced
more abundant signs of genius at so early an age. Nor was he wholly a
landscape-painter; the figure was also one aim of his art, and it was in
the combination of the two that he excelled. He also had an eye for
color that has not been too common in our art; and, wholly untaught,
expressed his moods and fancies with a force that, even in its
immaturity, suggested the master. But the one point in which he
surpassed most of our artists up to this time was in the singular and
inexhaustible activity of the imaginative faculty. It is strange that
one so young should have so early manifested in his art a serious,
almost morbid, view of life. It may have been because he found himself,
before the age of twenty, forced to provide for a fatherless family, and
to devote the greater part of his energies to what was to him the
uncongenial work of drawing on wood.
[Illustration: "COUNTY KERRY."--[A. H. WYANT.]]
Less subjective and morbid, but moved by a similar feeling for the
suggestions of nature, A. H. Wyant displays a sympathy with scenery and
a masterful skill in reaching subtle effects which place him among the
first landscape-painters of the age. In the suggestive rendering of
space and color, of the manifold phases of a bit of waste land, or
mountain glen, or sedgy brook-side, simple enough at first sight, but
full of an infinitude of unobtrusive beauty, he works with the magic of
a high-priest of nature; his style is broad in effect, without being
slovenly and careless, and gives a multitude of details while really
dealing chiefly with one central and prevailing idea. Mr. Wyant's work
occasionally shows traces of foreign influences; but he is an artist of
too much original power to be under any necessity to stunt himself by
the imitation of the style of any other artist, however great.
Homer Martin is another painter who views nature for the sentiment it
suggests, while he is impressed chiefly by color and light; for form he
seems to have less feeling. But he is a lyrist with the brush, and his
sympathy with certain aspects of nature is akin to idolatry. With a few
intense and telling strokes, he brings before us the splendors of sunset
or the quietude of twilight, the gray vapors of morning creeping over
dank woodlands or the sublime pathos of lonely sands, haunted by wild
fowl and beaten by the hollow seas. But we have no painter whose art is
so unequal: in all his works there is absolute freedom, freshness, and
originality; his scheme of color is altogether his own, full of
luminousness and purity; but he is weak in technique, and thus he
alternately startles us by the brilliance, beauty, and suggestiveness of
one painting, and the palpable failure to reach the desired end in
another. However, this very irregularity in achievement shows that he is
subject to inspirations, and thus partakes of the character of genius,
which, if it were of a higher order, would be more often successful in
its attempts.
In the works of these painters we see abundant reason to believe in the
permanent vitality of American landscape art, and evidence that it is
not inclined to run in a conventional groove. Just so long as the
artists who represent it continue to assert their individuality with
such nerve and keen perception of the essential truths of nature, art is
in a healthy and progressive condition. If further evidence of this were
needed, we might cite the landscapes of J. Appleton Brown, who, after a
rather discouraging servitude to Corôt, is at last beginning to show us
the reserve power of which he is capable when he is more concerned with
nature than with imitating the style and thoughts of another. Ernest
Longfellow, a son of the poet, is another exemplar of the sturdy and
healthful personality which everywhere crops out in our landscape art.
While it cannot be said that his paintings suggest greatness, they
breathe a true spirit, and possess a purity of color that is very
attractive.
D. W. C. Boutelle, long resident at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and rarely
exhibiting in public in late years, is well known by such works as "The
Trout Brook Shower" and engravings of other paintings by him, as an
artist of originality and force, who seems to combine in his style some
of the best traits of the American School of landscape-painting.
[Illustration: "THE ADIRONDACKS."--[HOMER MARTIN.]]
E. M. Bannister, of Providence, is also a man of genius. In the matter
of drawing he is weak; but, although he has never been abroad, we
recognize in his treatment of masses, and the brilliance of his method
of managing light and color, the progressive transition through which
our landscape art is passing, even when it does not pay allegiance to
foreign influences.
[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE.--[J. W. CASILEAR.]]
Our marine art of the last fifteen years has shown that the illimitable
aspects of the sea are also receiving increased attention, and are
calling forth some of the best art talent of the country. It may be
partly due to the advent of M. F. H. De Haas, who came here from Holland
already an accomplished artist, who had done so well in his native land
as to be appointed court painter to the queen. An artist of brilliant
parts, although sometimes inclined to sensationalism, he has undoubtedly
created some splendid compositions; and his influence must have been of
decided importance during this period. While he has been working in New
York, two marine painters of Boston have also executed some striking and
beautiful works. I refer to John E. C. Petersen and William E. Norton.
The former died young, in 1876. He was by birth a Dane, and in personal
appearance a viking: tall, handsome, tawny-haired, with a clear, sharp
blue eye, and a bearing that reminded one of an admiral on the
quarter-deck of his frigate swooping down with flying sheets across the
enemy's bow and pouring in a raking fire. Those who have seen him will
never forget the grand figure of Petersen, the very impersonation of a
son of the sea. When he first began to paint in Boston his pictures were
weak in color and rude in drawing. But he improved with marvellous
rapidity, and at the time of his death had few peers in marine art.
Every inch a sailor, to him a ship was no clumsy mass laid awkwardly on
the top of the water, as too many painters represent it, but a thing of
life, with an individuality of its own, graceful as a queen, and riding
the waves like a swan. "Making Sail after a Storm," representing a
clipper ship shaking out her top-sails in the gray gloom that succeeds a
storm, and rising massively but easily against the sky on the crest of
the weltering seas, is a very strong picture. So also is his "After the
Collision," and "A Ship Running before a Squall." When shall we see his
like again?
Mr. Norton began life as a house-painter, and is related to a family of
ship-builders. He has himself made several voyages before the mast, and
is therefore well equipped, so far as observation goes. He has painted
many works, sometimes with more rapidity than comports with artistic
success; and his style is occasionally hard, mannered, and mechanical.
But he is an enthusiast for his art, and sometimes a happy inspiration
enables him to turn off a painting that entitles him to a high rank
among the marine painters of the age. He has been most happy in quiet
effects and fog scenes, and a composition called the "Fog-Horn,"
representing two men in a dory blowing a horn to warn away a steamer
that is stealthily approaching them out of the fog, is a very
interesting work. "Crossing the Grand Banks" is the title of another
painting by this artist, in which the luminous haze of a midday fog and
a large ship threading her way through a fleet of fishing-schooners, are
rendered with a truth of color and majesty of form that give this work
an important position in contemporary American art.
[Illustration: "SHIP ASHORE."--[M. F. H. DE HAAS.]]
Inferior to these artists as a draughtsman or in knowledge of ships,
Arthur Quartley has, however, won a rapid and deserved reputation for
coast scenes and effects of shimmering light on still water. Prettiness
rather than beauty is sometimes too evident in his work; but he composes
with decided originality, showing a real passion for the effects after
which he strives, and his skies are often very strong. A "Storm off the
Isles of Shoals" is one of his most important compositions. Mr. Lansil,
of Boston, seems to be practically ignorant of the first principles of
drawing and perspective, but he has shown a feeling for color and light,
and we have at present few artists who equal him in painting still
harbor scenes, marbled with reflections wavering on a glassy surface.
Among our more clever coast painters we cannot omit the mention of A. T.
Bricher, who renders certain familiar scenes of the Atlantic shore with
much realistic force, but little feeling for the ideal. J. C. Nicoll
seems to show more promise in this direction. The color and technique of
his pictures are very clever and interesting, and well illustrate the
sea as it looks to a landsman from _terra firma_. Both of these artists
have painted extensively in _aquarelle_, in which medium they have
achieved some important results; which may justly be added regarding the
marine paintings of F. A. Silva. As a water-colorist Mr. Nicoll is not
excelled by any of our artists now concerned with coast scenes; and
some of his landscapes in _aquarelle_ sometimes rival his marines. What
we observe in most of our marine-painters, however, is weakness in the
matter of original composition. One would think that no object in nature
would stimulate the imagination and expand the mind more than the sea.
But it does not seem to have that effect in our marine art as yet,
excepting here and there a solitary instance.
[Illustration: "A FOGGY MORNING."--[W. E. NORTON.]]
No fact better attests the active and prosperous character of American
art than the rapid success which the culture of water-colors has
achieved among us. In 1865 a collection of English water-color paintings
was brought to this country, and exhibited in New York. It attracted
much attention; and although a few artists, like Messrs. Parsons and
Falconer, had already used this medium here, generally as amateurs, this
seems to have been the first occasion that stimulated our artists to
follow the art of water-color painting seriously. A society, headed by
such men as Messrs. Samuel Colman, G. Burling, well known
notwithstanding his early death, as a painter of game birds, J. M.
Falconer, and R. Swain Gifford, was formed within a year; Mr. Colman was
the first president, and the first annual exhibition was held in the
halls of the Academy of Design in 1867. Twelve exhibitions have now been
held, and Messrs. James Smillie and T. W. Wood have in turn succeeded
Mr. Colman in the presidency. A numerous school of artists has sprung
up, finding expression wholly in water-colors, like Miss Susan Hale or
Henry Farrar, the able landscape-painter; while many of our leading
artists in landscape and _genre_ have learned in this short period to
work with equal success in _aquarelle_ and oil. The later exhibitions
have been characterized by an individuality and strength that compare
most favorably with the exhibitions of the older societies of London.
Another interesting feature of the last part of the period under
consideration is the increasing attention bestowed on the drawing of the
figure. The number of _genre_ artists has notably increased; and the
quality of their work has, on the whole, been on a higher plane. The war
gave an impetus to this department, with its many sad or comic
situations, and the increasing immigration of the peasantry of Europe,
and the growing variety of our national types and street scenes, have
all contributed to attract and stimulate the artistic eye and fancy. To
mention all the artists among us who have, especially of late, achieved
more or less success in this line, would be to enumerate a long
catalogue, and we must content ourselves with the brief mention of a few
who seem, perhaps, to be the most noteworthy, and, at the same time,
indigenous in their style.
[Illustration: "A MARINE."--[ARTHUR QUARTLEY.]]
J. B. Irving, who has but recently passed away, executed some very
clever cabinet compositions, delicately drawn and painted, somewhat in
the modern French style, generally interiors, with figures in old-time
costume. A very favorable specimen of his work is represented in a
painting entitled "The End of the Game." B. F. Mayer, of Annapolis, has
also devoted himself to a similar class of subjects successfully. He is,
however, very versatile, and gives us at will a gentleman in Louis
Quatorze costume, elaborately painted, or a bluff tar on the forecastle
on the lookout, or aloft tarring down the rigging, or a religious
ceremonial in the wigwams of the North-west. Marcus Waterman, of
Providence, has displayed much dash in _genre_ combined with landscape,
and is fresh and vigorous in style; while such a carefully executed work
as his "Gulliver at Lilliput" is highly creditable to our art. J. W.
Champney studied abroad under Frère, and also at Antwerp, and is one of
the most broad-minded of our younger artists; indeed, it is refreshing
to meet an artist so unbiassed by prejudice. His foreign studies have in
no wise narrowed his intellectual sympathies. His small _genre_
compositions, especially of child life, often together with landscape,
have been carefully finished--latterly with an especial regard to the
values. Professor John F. Weir, who comes of an artistic family, and is
Superintendent of the Academy of Art at New Haven, has shown capacity
and nerve in his well-known painting called "Forging the Shaft,"
forcibly representing one of the most striking incidents in a foundry;
and A. W. Willard, of Cincinnati, has struck out in a similar vein.
Energy of action, and an effort after effect verging on exaggeration and
caricature, are the characteristics of the style with which he has
attempted such novel compositions as "Yankee Doodle" and "Jim Bludsoe."
They suggest in color the literature of Artemus Ward and Walt Whitman.
At the same time, we recognize in such thorough individuality a very
promising attempt to assert the possibilities of certain phases of our
national _genre_. These traits have been treated with less daring but
with more artistic success by two of our best-known _genre_ painters--T.
W. Wood and J. G. Brown. Mr. Wood, who is president of the Water-color
Society, and employs both oil and water colors, spent several of the
first years of his career at the South, and discovered of what
importance our colored citizens might prove in our art--their squalor,
picturesqueness, broad and kindly humor, and the pathos which has
invested their fate with unusual interest. This artist's first
successful venture in _genre_ was with a painting of a quaint old negro
at Baltimore; and since then he has given us many characteristic
compositions suggested by the lot of the slave, although he has not
confined himself to this subject, but has also picked up excellent
subjects among the newsboys in our streets, and amidst the homespun
scenes of rural life. Mr. Wood's style is notable for _chiar-oscuro_,
and his drawing is generally careful, correct, and forcible, and his
compositions harmonious.
Mr. Brown has also found that success and fame in _genre_ can be
obtained without going abroad to seek for subjects. To him the _gamins_
of our cities are as artistically attractive as those of Paris, and a
girl wandering by our sea-shore as winsome as if on the beach at Nice or
Scheveningen, and an old fisherman at Grand Menan as pictorial as if he
were under the cliffs at Etretât. Fault is sometimes found with the fact
that the street lads painted by Mr. Brown have always washed their faces
before posing, which is according to the commands of St. Paul, but not
of art canons, if we accept Mr. Ruskin's dictum regarding the artistic
value of dirt. Bating this apparently trifling difficulty, however, it
must be admitted that he often offers us a very characteristic and
successful bit of _genre_. Gilbert Gaul and J. Burns, pupils of Mr.
Brown, merit a word of praise in this connection, for giving us reason
to hope in time for some satisfactory work from their easels.
Child life finds a warm friend and delineator in S. J. Guy, who has made
many friends by the kindly way in which he has treated the simple pathos
and humor of childhood. He is an admirable draughtsman, and finishes his
work with great nicety--sometimes to a degree that seems to rob the
picture of some of its freshness and piquancy; but it cannot be denied
that Mr. Guy has often struck a chord in the popular heart, not merely
by his choice of subjects, but by legitimately earned success in his art
as well. Scenes of domestic life have also been treated sometimes very
interestingly by Messrs. B. F. Reinhart, Ehninger, Blauvelt, Satterlee,
Howland, Wilmarth, and Virgil Williams. Oliver J. Lay, although a slow,
careful artist, has executed some thoughtful and refined in-door scenes,
taken from domestic life, which show a thorough appreciation of the fact
that art, for itself alone, is the only aim the true artist should
pursue. E. L. Henry surprises one by the elaboration of his work, and is
open to the charge of crudeness in color and hardness in outline; but
occasionally he gives us a well-balanced composition, like the beach
scene, with horses and a carry-all in the foreground, entitled "Waiting
for the Bathers."
[Illustration: "ARGUING THE QUESTION."--[T. W. WOOD.]]
But it is in the works of Messrs. Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer that
we find the most successful rendering of American _genre_ of the present
day as distinguished from that which bears unmistakable evidence of
foreign inspiration. Mr. Johnson, as a student at Düsseldorf and other
art centres of Europe, might be expected to show the fact in his art;
but, instead of doing so, we have no painter who has a more individual
style. There is uncertainty in his drawing sometimes, but his color and
composition are generally excellent, and the choice of subjects are at
the same time popular and artistic. We have had no painter since Mount
who has done more to elevate the character of _genre_ art in the
community. Successful in portraiture and ideal heads, Mr. Johnson has
achieved his best efforts in the homely scenes of rustic negro life, or
from a thorough sympathy with the simplicity and beauty of childhood.
None who have seen his painting called the "Old Stage-Coach,"
representing a rollicking group of boys and girls playing on the rusty
wreck of an abandoned mail-carriage, can ever doubt again the
possibilities of _genre_ art in this country, although some of his
simpler compositions are more to our liking. There is, however, nothing
startling or especially novel in the style of Mr. Johnson. It is quiet
and unsensational.
It is to the eccentric and altogether original compositions of Winslow
Homer that we turn for a more decided expression of the growing
weariness of our people with the conventional, and a vague yearning
after an original form of art speech. The freshness, the crudity, and
the solid worth of American civilization are well typified in the
thoroughly native art of Mr. Homer. No artist has shown more versatility
and inventiveness in choice of subject, and greater impatience with
accepted methods. Impatience, irritability, is written upon all his
works--he is evidently striving after the unknown. But the key-note of
his art seems to be a realistic endeavor to place man and nature,
landscape and _genre_, in harmonious juxtaposition; never one alone, but
both aiding each other, they are ever the themes of his brush. His
figures are often stiff or posed in awkward attitudes, and yet they
always arrest the attention, for they are inspired by an active,
restless brain, that is undoubtedly moved by the impulse of genius. It
is the values, or true relations of objects as they actually appear in
nature, that this artist also seeks to render; while in his reach after
striking subjects or compositions he not rarely borders on the
sensational. But in some of his masterly water-color sketches, which are
almost impressionist in treatment, or such more finished works as "The
Cotton Pickers," a scene from Southern plantation life, Mr. Homer
asserts his right to be considered the founder of a new school of
_genre_ painting. The repose which is lacking in his style at present
may come to him later, or be grafted upon it by those who come after
him.
George Fuller, of Boston, is another artist in whose works we see an
additional proof of the growing importance attached to the painting of
the figure in our art. His paintings indicate the presence among us of a
vigorous, original personality, that is, of a genius striving for
utterance. They are incomplete, rarely altogether satisfactory; but we
feel, in the presence of such a subtle, suggestive, mysterious
composition as the "Rommany Girl," vaguely thrilling us with the deep
meaning of her weirdly glancing eyes, and weaving a mystic spell over
our fancy, that a mind akin to that of Hawthorne is here striving for
utterance, and unconsciously infusing new vitality into our _genre_ art.
[Illustration: "THE ROSE."--[D. F. NAYER.]]