such men as Washington Allston, the first great painter in this
country; Thomas Sully, whose rare works in portraiture entitled him
to paint the Queen of England, Victoria, when a girl; Henry Inman,
also a great portrait painter; George Fuller, a painter of poetic
dreams; and many others of talent, had said their say in America.
Almost with the beginning of the new country, public interest had been
roused in the fine arts by the efforts of such men as Gilbert Stuart
and the Peales, Charles and Rembrandt, who bridged the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries together, and labored to advance the cause of art.
Schools and academies, with adequate galleries for exhibition purposes,
became necessary; and such institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design in New York were
established. The latter was started in 1802, but did not receive its
charter until 1808; so the Pennsylvania Academy, which was incorporated
in Philadelphia in 1806, was really the first of its kind in the
country. In 1807, the minutes bearing the date of October 8 record as
follows: “Until the funds of the institution will admit of opening a
school on a more extended plan, persons of good character shall be
permitted to make drawings from the statues and busts belonging to
the Academy,” thus showing the humble beginning of art education in
America. Naturally, for many years the facilities for learning were too
limited to supply more than rudimentary instruction, and the pilgrimage
to Paris was a necessity before an artist could feel qualified to
launch out professionally. In these latter days that need no longer
exists, for the great art schools of New York, Philadelphia, Boston,
Chicago, and St. Louis can amply provide all that is required; but the
charm of the Latin Quarter still draws as a magnet all who can afford
to go there.
[Illustration: THE HORSE FAIR. (ROSA BONHEUR.)]
In that centre is a constant mingling of ideas from all sources
seeking new forms of expression, out of which proceed the impulses
that vibrate through the world of current art. Naturally enough many
of the new departures are futile experiments, short lived and not
sufficiently important to discuss; but within recent years the movement
known as impressionism has been so widespread in influence, so radical
in method, and so vital in result, that it has doubtless produced a
permanent effect on art. Like its predecessor, the renaissance after
the dark ages, this _mouvement moderne_ was an upheaval of all forms
of expression; and in painting it seemed as if a wave of dazzling
color had burst over the studios, drenching the canvases with rainbow
tints, flooding the exhibition galleries with bewildering brilliance.
The unaccustomed eye was overwhelmed, and the confused and wondering
public burst into loud outcry against the insane folly of these mad
young painters, who showed purple and green gridirons, speckled with
green and streaked with scarlet, and called them landscapes, marines,
and figure studies as they chose. Of course the pendulum swung to its
limit, the radicals carrying things to extremes after the fashion of
their kind, and making foolish caricatures of work that was really
great. By degrees, however, sober sense prevailed, the new ideas became
better understood, the public point of view changed, and it was seen
that there was method in this madness. The new movement was intended
simply to interpret what the artist saw most forcibly expressed by any
given subject, or, as the name implies, to record his first impression
and convey the idea rather by suggestion than by explicit statement
and detail. Applied to out-of-door subjects, these principles were
carried out by the _plein air_ colorists, as they were styled, from
their efforts to suggest atmosphere glowing with light, a feeling of
space and sunshine. Edouard Manet was the leader of the new school in
figure work, and Claude Monet in landscape. No two styles could be more
widely different save in their mutual abhorrence of detail; the first
dark, heavy, and sombre in color; the latter luminous and palpitating,
every conceivable tint vibrating into harmony, an example which is
followed in this country by Childe Hassam, often successfully, but
sometimes with extravagance. After reaching extreme high-water mark,
the flood of brilliance has somewhat subsided, and latter-day painters
do not find it necessary to observe the world through a prism. While
returning to more sober statements of simple truth, without trying to
copy a kaleidoscope, the vision men have had of pure color sparkling
with light has given them an insight into Mother Nature’s method that
has left a lasting impression upon the minds and manners of the best
workers and lifted the whole tone of modern painting. Whether one was
prepared to enjoy truly impressionistic pictures or not, the force
of them in a collection of works in the old manner of hard outline
and heavy shadow could not fail to be felt like a beam of light in
a dark room. However one might protest against the invader, the old
friends looked dull and flat after a time, in spite of the most
determined loyalty. The style of the Hudson River school was narrow
and petty, full of trifling little details, the color often being
forced and theatrical in effect. The striking scenery of that noble
stream inspired the efforts of American landscape painters of the two
decades from 1830 to 1850. Asher B. Durand was a leader among them,
and for many years the manner of a generation past held sway until the
new method forced a place for itself. It was an amusing experience in
following exhibitions of late years to see, one after another, the
leaders, long established in their own particular methods, finally
breaking away from lifelong habits and coming into line with the new
movement, some keeping step bravely with the vigorous newcomers, some
halting along with pitiful attempts at a jaunty stride. The strong men
neither hung back in sulky indifference nor flung themselves wildly
about in exuberant freedom, but kept quietly on the even tenor of their
way, absorbing what was best in the new, holding fast to what was
best in the old, and producing the kind of work that is independent
of schools and eras, but intrinsically great in itself. In Paris, the
younger workers who began sending strange wild landscape and figure
pictures to the exhibition at the Salon of the Champs Elysées, the most
important annual exhibition in the world, were indignantly rejected by
the horrified jury of selection. Equally indignant at their treatment,
the young painters, who felt themselves to be the coming men, gathered
their rejected treasures together in an independent exhibition of their
own, and established a rival salon in the Champ de Mars, which has come
to hold an equal footing in the world of art with the older institution.
By reference to “men” we do not at all exclude women, for there is no
sex in art, and women of our time paint as well as men, folding equal
rank in the exhibitions, equal places on the juries of selection, and
receiving equal honors and awards. One of the foremost women of the
day is a Philadelphian, Miss Cecilia Beaux, whose portraiture ranks
among the highest. Miss Mary D. Cassatt is also a Philadelphian,
although long resident in Paris, and highly esteemed there. Her name
is mentioned in a recent notice of a Salon exhibition among those of
distinguished men, which concluded with the words “and other strong
men,” meaning thereby no grain of disrespect to the woman, but only
honor to the artist, classifying her as among the first painters of
the time. Important exhibitions nowadays are likely to contain strong
works by many women, such as portraits by Mrs. Sarah Sears of Boston
or Mrs. Rosina Emmet Sherwood of New York, child studies by Ellen K.
Baker, or animal studies by Mrs. Helen C. Hovenden, widow of the late
master of modern genre, Thomas Hovenden, whose untimely death the
art-loving public of this country has not ceased to mourn. His faithful
studies of American domestic life have touched the people, who are,
after all, the final art critics, despite the claims of those who feel
themselves especially qualified by taste and training to tell others
what they must and must not like. Many times public opinion has been
unduly slow in setting the seal of its approval on worthy works, but
once established in the heart of the populace, immortality is assured,
and that place belongs preëminently to Thomas Hovenden, as proved by
the throngs that stood before his picture “Breaking the Home Ties,”
at the World’s Fair in Chicago. That cosmopolitan collection showed,
among other interesting developments, a strong school of vigorous young
Norsemen, hardy vikings of art from Scandinavia, of whom Anders Zorn
was the leader, with a variety of figure subjects, studied indoors
and out, with an unconventional freedom and dash as inspiring as the
breezes of his native fjords. Prince Eugene, the handsome popular
second son of the King of Sweden, was no mean contributor to this
school. Fritz von Thaulow is a Norwegian by birth, but being well
recognized in France he has taken up his abode at Dieppe, although
still finding inspiration in his native land. He is an exponent of the
theory of tone in painting, as it is technically termed. This refers
to the quality of harmony, or perfect balance of light and shade and
color. It does not depend upon the key of the picture, whether light
and bright or dark and sombre, but consists in keeping the relations
of the different masses of color true to each other, the small details
subdued to their proper places, yet each having its correct value in
the whole.
The Scotch painters, stimulated no doubt by the success of their
literary brethren, have established the Glasgow school of art, most
original in its methods, and in some cases highly peculiar in its
results, but with unquestionable strength in its more serious and less
fantastic work. John Lavery is a leader among these men. Germany prides
herself on one of the greatest painters of modern times in the person
of Adolph Friedrich Menzel, a Prussian, born 1815, contemporary with
Meissonier. As the latter was devoted to the Emperor of the French, so
was Menzel to his hero, Frederick the Great, and their vivid portrayals
of their respective sovereigns will keep the personality of these
conquerors fresh as long as art lasts. For many years Menzel has been
artist laureate to the court at Berlin, painting Hohenzollern family
portraits, battle pieces and scenes of court splendor in the most
masterly manner. The Hungarian, Munkacsy, has been widely known by
his huge religious works, lately exhibited in this country,—“Christ
before Pilate” and the “Crucifixion.” His work shows great power and
much originality in conception, although often somewhat morbid, a not
unnatural condition, as the unfortunate artist has become hopelessly
insane. The opposite extreme of expression is to be found in the
gorgeous coloring and superb compositions of Hans Makart of Vienna,
notably his “Coronation of Catherine Cornaro at Venice.” A revival
of interest in religious subjects has recently appeared, possibly
stimulated by the work of Mr. James Tissot, a Parisian, who has given
ten years to the production of a series of careful studies of the life
of Christ. These little paintings, numbering some five hundred in all,
are the result of close research in the Holy Land into the conditions
of life and customs which prevailed at the time of Christ, and are a
tribute of religious devotion. Whether through this influence or not,
Dagnan-Bouveret has been inspired to paint a number of strong scenes
of biblical subjects, two conceptions of the Last Supper being very
powerful. A young colored man, H. O. Tanner, has achieved success on
similar lines, an “Annunciation” recently shown giving evidence of
deep and original thought. Curiously enough, the women painters of
distinction do not seem to be given to religious subjects. One serious
lack in most of the work exhibited in recent years is the absence
of any importance in subject. The artists have been so concerned to
express what they saw in the simplest manner, that they have carefully
avoided seeing or thinking about anything but the simplest things to
be expressed. While some powerful work has resulted, it has often been
labor worthy of a better cause, for the pictures produced have had
little to tell beyond the skill of the painter. A nobly painted cabbage
field, or a superbly handled stone wall with the tail of a woman’s
skirt disappearing around a corner, may be masterly painting, but it
is not great art; and it is to be hoped that the day of meaningless
canvases will soon pass, and the coming painters will not be content to
discourse grandly about nothing.
[Illustration: AT THE SHRINE OF VENUS. (ALMA TADEMA.)]
Among the leaders of current art in America, the place of honor in
portraiture belongs to John S. Sargent, who easily ranks with Boldini
and Benjamin Constant in Paris. He is closely followed by Edmund C.
Tarbell, John H. Alexander, with his love for long flowing graceful
lines of drapery, Robert Vonnoh, and William M. Chase. John McClure
Hamilton has made some striking studies of some of the most prominent
people of our time, among them Gladstone and Pope Leo XIII. Elihu
Vedder, John LaFarge, Will H. Low, Carroll Beckwith, Abbott Thayer,
and E. H. Blashfield are figure painters whose subjects are frequently
of a decorative or semi-religious character. The latter is noted for
his literary as well as artistic ability. George H. Boughton, though
called an American, really belongs to England, where he paints interior
genre subjects usually of olden times. John Swan, the animal painter,
is also English. The names of Moran and Sartain are distinguished in
the history of American art, each family having contributed several
generations of talented painters. The elders were contemporary with
Daniel Huntington, long president of the National Academy of Design,
and Eastman Johnson, whose “Old Kentucky Home” was famous. William
T. Dannat, Herbert Denman, Frederick Bridgman, and F. L. Weeks are
all strong figure painters, the last two being especially given to
Oriental subjects. Winslow Homer includes figures with his marine
studies, often presenting groups of peasants on a stormy shore, while
Alexander Harrison and W. T. Richards usually confine themselves to
marines pure and simple. The ragged, dirty little street Arabs of J. G.
Brown have been exceedingly popular, and so have the landscapes of H.
Bolton Jones. The list of modern landscape painters really deserving of
mention is far too long to give in anything like complete mention. A
few leaders, such as Charles H. Davis, Homer Martin, the late William
T. Picknell, and George Inness must suffice to close our talk on the
painters of this century.
II. SCULPTURE.
Human progress seems to advance in waves, sending forerunners to
announce the gathering tide; and the ebb and flow of force is felt
in all manner of endeavor, but in nothing so instantly or accurately
as in the fine arts, the most sensitive and subtle forms of human
expression. The plastic arts are as keen to record these changes as
the pictorial, and the coming power of the nineteenth century found a
few prophets in the dying years of the century passing away. Antonio
Canova (1757–1822), born near Venice, left many graceful and delicately
finished works. His “Three Graces” and group of “Cupid and Psyche” are
well known, also his colossal bust of Napoleon and seated statue of
Washington for the State of Carolina. France produced a master in Jean
Antoine Houdon (1741–1828), more vigorous than his contemporaries, as
seen in his powerful work, the seated statue of Voltaire. His statue
of Washington, in the state capitol of Virginia, while preserving a
faithful likeness, has a singular air of French elegance. Despite his
strength, Houdon was not more accurate in study than the great Dane
Thorwaldsen, born at Copenhagen, 1770. His famous “Lion of Luzerne”
is known to all tourists, and his bas-reliefs are familiar the world
over. His chief religious works, the colossal figures of Christ and
the twelve apostles, are in the church at Copenhagen, where he died
in 1844. The greatest name of this period in England was John Flaxman
(1755–1826), who was as successful a teacher as he was a worker in his
art. He was the originator of the cameo designs on the Wedgwood ware,
being particularly happy in delicate reliefs. Christian Daniel Rauch
(1777–1857) achieved the place of honor among German sculptors of this
time by his heroic imperial monuments, of which the most important is
the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great.
Although, for many generations, Rome was the Mecca of artistic
pilgrims, and most of the great names have at one time or another
been enrolled upon the list of students sojourning within her gates,
the race characteristics of each strong mind were liable to find
expression in spite of classic training; and when the mature artist
brought forth his own creations independent of the touch of school or
master, they were likely to present his own national tendencies of
thought. Of late years, with increased facilities for studying other
art centres, of intercommunication of ideas by travel and increasing
duplication of works of art by various reproductive processes, the
“art atmosphere” seems to have extended so as to absorb, and in a
great measure obliterate, distinct lines of racial difference in
manners of expression, the fundamental principles of truth being more
generally sought for and applied. Thus, the unmistakably Teutonic
aspect of German sculpture in the early half of this century shows in
the great monument to “German Unity,” by Schilling, at Niederwald on
the Rhine, and the Walhalla decorations, by Ludwig Schwanthaler, for
King Louis of Bavaria. German seriousness of purpose lends a dignity of
appearance, even if it becomes somewhat grandiose at times, and German
painstaking accuracy perfects the technique even to the finish of small
details. During the same periods, in Italy, the classic influence was
more dominant where the Roman school still held sway, and delicacy
deteriorated into insipidity, and finish became finical. Religious
and classic subjects were most frequently produced, beside more vital
work in portraits, statues, and busts. Some there were who struggled
for freedom, among them Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850), a Florentine
professor, whose group, entitled “Charity,” is in the Pitti Palace.
Luigi Pampaloni achieved a surprising fame for his figures of children,
one of which, from a monument on a Polish sepulchre, has been widely
copied in cheap plaster under the erroneous title of “The Praying
Samuel.”
[Illustration: NAPOLEON I. (CANOVA.)]
In France, the advance of sculpture has been more continual and
consistent, the national artistic temperament finding abundant means
of expression in the plastic art. The French dramatic instinct has
a sure perception of the effect of a pose, the value of graceful or
vigorous lines and the balance of proportion, so that whether under
bonds to academic tradition in matters of technique, or broken loose
and working under individual inspiration, the French sculptor is likely
to create an artistic result. The minds of the common people are more
awakened to artistic impressions through the general excellence of
the public monuments and sculptural decorations, so freely displayed
throughout the land, than are the masses in countries where art is at a
low standard. Until after the middle of the century, French sculpture,
like the rest, was mainly of smooth and delicate finish and inclined to
be romantic, though François Rude was powerful and vigorous, as shown
in his patriotic group “Le Chant du Départ” on the Arc de Triomphe. In
England, the seeds of Flaxman’s sowing slowly began to bear fruit in
an awakening public interest, though the earlier efforts were sedate
and conventional rather than spirited, the most important works being
dignified and stately monuments and memorials. Westmacott (1777–1856),
Francis Chantrey (1782–1841), whose large fortune was bequeathed to
the Royal Academy as the “Chantrey Fund;” John Gibson (1791–1866), a
pupil of Canova; Henry Weeks (1807–1877), who made the first bust of
Victoria as Queen; and Alfred G. Stevens (1817–1875), are a few of the
more notable men of the past generation. Thomas Woolner (1825–1892)
expressed the feeling of the pre-Raphaelite movement in sculpture, as
did Hunt, Burne-Jones, and Rossetti in painting.
[Illustration: STATUE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. (BOYLE.)]
American sculpture began with the new century and, like most American
growths, began in a very small way; for although Rush had made a few
figures, notably a fountain now in Fairmount Park, one of the first
pieces of sculptural work in the country was that of a poor New
Jersey stone-cutter, John Frazee, who tried to comfort himself for
the death of his child by making a memorial figure of him, although
he had never seen a statue. From this meagre beginning started a line
of ever-increasing strength, until now, in the plastic arts, as in
all others, we can hold our own with the best in the world. Of course
the earlier students, led by Horatio Greenough, of Boston, Hiram
Powers, of Vermont, and Thomas Crawford, of New York, made their way
to Rome, where they applied the traditional methods to traditional
subjects with conventional results. Greenough’s colossal statue of
Washington is in the Capitol grounds; Powers’s “Greek Slave” is owned
by the Duke of Cleveland; and Crawford’s “Orpheus seeking Eurydice,”
now in the Boston Museum, and “Colossal Liberty” in the Capitol,
are his best-known works. Erastus Palmer, of Albany, contemporary
with these, developed his talent at home, and secured models and
subjects from his own neighborhood, giving a distinctly American
character to his work. Among the most noted of the American colony
at Rome, although not particularly given to American subjects, was
William Wetmore Story, of Salem, Mass., born in 1819. Thomas Ball,
born in the same State in the same year, was of the same class in
Rome; but his themes are more patriotic, notably the “Emancipation”
group in Washington. Harriet Hosmer is the first feminine name on
the American list of sculptors. She also settled in Rome, where she
completed many works. William Henry Rinehart and Randolph Rogers
were both of the idealist school, the latter completing Crawford’s
unfinished Washington monument at Richmond. The name of Rogers is
more commonly connected with the familiar little statuette groups
of every-day domestic scenes so appealing to the popular taste. The
sculptor John Rogers, of Massachusetts, has also made a few large
works, among them the equestrian statue of General Reynolds, before
the City Hall, Philadelphia. Henry Kirke Browne (1814–1886) made a
number of equestrian statues of note, one of Washington being the first
bronze actually cast in America. His figure of General Scott was cast
from captured cannon, relics of the Mexican war. His pupils, Larkin
Meade and J. Q. A. Ward, both attained high places, the latter being
especially prominent in the progress of American sculpture through such
works as his colossal Washington for the New York Treasury Building,
and his “Indian Hunter,” “Pilgrim,” and “Shakespeare,” in Central Park.
After the middle of the century, French art became emotional and
dramatic, the notorious “Dance” for the Paris Opera House, by J. B.
Carpeaux, being one of the first of the new utterances. Paul Dubois was
less astonishing in manner, and Henri Chapu was still more restrained,
although far more vital than the old conventional school. The name
of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi should be known to every American by
reason of his colossal statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” now
standing sentinel in New York harbor. This, and his figure of Lafayette
offering his services to Washington, were presented to America by the
French government. Antoine Louis Barye (1795–1875) was a sculptor _sui
generis_, a law unto himself of his own development; and though he has
many followers, as a sculptor of animals he has no rivals. In many
branches of art he was proficient, but his best-known works are the
marvelous studies of animal life, modeled with infinite skill.