American Men of Mind Part 7

PEALE, CHARLES WILLSON. Born at Chestertown, Maryland, April 16, 1741; with Copley at Boston, 1768-69; went to London, 1770; and studied under Benjamin West; returned to America, 1774; served in Revolution, 1776-77; opened "Peale's Museum," 1802; died at Philadelphia, February 22, 1827.

STUART, GILBERT. Born at Narragansett, Rhode Island, December 3, 1755; went to London and became pupil of West, 1775; returned to United States, 1792; died at Boston, July 27, 1828.

TRUMBULL, JOHN. Born at Lebanon, Connecticut, June 6, 1756; served in Revolution, attaining rank of colonel; studied under West in London, and returned to America, 1804; died at New York City, November 10, 1843.

SULLY, THOMAS. Born at Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, June 8, 1783; brought to America at the age of nine; went to London, 1809, and studied under West; settled in Philadelphia in 1810, and spent the remainder of his life there, dying November 5, 1872.

ALLSTON, WASHINGTON. Born at Naccamaw, South Carolina, November 5, 1779; graduated at Harvard, 1800; studied at Royal Academy and at Rome, returning to America, 1809; died at Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, July 9, 1843.

VANDERLYN, JOHN. Born at Kingston, New York, October 15, 1775; studied art abroad, 1796-1801; and spent subsequent years in Europe, returning to America in 1815; died at Kingston, September 24, 1852.

PEALE, REMBRANDT. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1778; went to London and studied under West, 1801-03; died at Philadelphia, October 3, 1860.

HARDING, CHESTER. Born at Conway, Ma.s.sachusetts, September 1, 1792; studied in London, 1823-26; died at Boston, April 1, 1866.

ALEXANDER, FRANCIS. Born in Connecticut, 1800; went to Europe in 1831, finally taking up his residence in Florence, where he died.

NEAGLE, JOHN. Born at Boston, November 4, 1796; died at Philadelphia, September 17, 1865.

INMAN, HENRY. Born at Utica, New York, October 20, 1801; served seven years' apprenticeship with John Wesley Jarvis; died at New York City, January 17, 1846.

DURAND, ASHER BROWN. Born at Jefferson, New Jersey, August 21, 1796; apprenticed to Peter Maverick, an engraver, 1812; president of National Academy of Design, 1845-61; died at South Orange, New Jersey, September 17, 1886.

COLE, THOMAS. Born at Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England, February 1, 1801; came to America, 1819; settled in New York, 1825; died at Catskill, New York, February 11, 1848.

CHURCH, FREDERIC EDWIN. Born at Hartford, Connecticut, May 4, 1826; pupil of Thomas Cole; National Academician, 1849; died at New York City, April 7, 1900.

BIERSTADT, ALBERT. Born at Dusseldorf, Germany, January 7, 1830; brought to America, 1831; early developed a taste for art, and studied at Dusseldorf, 1853-57; returned to America and remained here, except for brief visits to Europe; died at New York City, February 18, 1902.

MORAN, THOMAS. Born at Bolton, England, January 12, 1837; came to America, 1844; National Academician, 1884; still living in New York City.

KENSETT, JOHN FREDERICK. Born at Chester, Connecticut, March 22, 1818; in Europe, 1840-44; National Academician, 1849; died at New York City, December 16, 1872.

INNESS, GEORGE. Born at Newburgh, New York, May 1, 1825; National Academician, 1868; died at Bridge of Allan, Scotland, August 3, 1894.

WYANT, ALEXANDER H. Born at Port Washington, Ohio, January 11, 1836; studied in Germany and settled in New York, 1864; suffered paralytic stroke, 1877, and afterwards painted with left hand; died at New York City, November 29, 1892.

MARTIN, HOMER DODGE. Born at Albany, New York, October 28, 1836; opened New York studio, 1862; National Academician, 1875; died at St. Paul, Minnesota, February 12, 1897.

VEDDER, ELIHU. Born at New York City, February 26, 1836; in Paris and Italy, 1856-61; and, after a year or two in America, returned to Italy, where he has since resided; National Academician, 1865.

LA FARGE, JOHN. Born at New York City, March 31, 1835; studied under Couture and Hunt; National Academician, 1869; president Society of American Artists and Society of Mural Painters.

HUNT, WILLIAM MORRIS. Born at Brattleboro, Vermont, March 31, 1824; studied under Couture and Millet, 1846-55; opened Boston studio, 1856; died at Appledore, Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire, September 8, 1879.

WHISTLER, JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL. Born at Lowell, Ma.s.sachusetts, 1834; entered West Point Academy, 1851, but soon left; settled in Paris, 1856, and studied art two years, and then settled in London, where the remainder of his life was pa.s.sed; died there, July 17, 1903.

HOMER, WINSLOW. Born at Boston, February 24, 1836; accompanied Army of Potomac in its campaigns, 1861-62; National Academician, 1865.

TRYON, DWIGHT WILLIAM. Born at Hartford, Connecticut, August 13, 1849; National Academician, 1891.

MILLET, FRANCIS DAVIS. Born at Mattapoisett, Ma.s.sachusetts, November 3, 1846; drummer 60th Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers, 1864; graduated at Harvard, 1869; studied at Antwerp, 1871-72; correspondent Russo-Turkish war, 1877-78; director of decorations World's Columbian Exposition, 1892-93.

ABBEY, EDWIN AUSTIN. Born at Philadelphia, April 1, 1852; educated at Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; went to England, 1878, and has since made that his home.

SARGENT, JOHN SINGER. Born at Florence, Italy, 1856; studied under Carolus Duran; has made England his home; Royal Academician, 1891; National Academician, 1897.

CHAPTER V

SCULPTORS

If background and tradition are needed for painting, how much more are they needed for sculpture! America was settled by a people entirely without sculptural tradition, for, in the early seventeenth century, British sculpture did not exist. More than that, to most of the settlers, art, in whatever form, was an invention of the devil, to be avoided and discouraged. So it is not surprising that two centuries elapsed before the first American statue made its shy and awkward appearance.

In considering the achievements of American sculpture, we must remember that it is still an infant. That it is a l.u.s.ty infant none will deny, though some may find it lacking in that grace and charm which come only with maturity.

The first man born in America who was foolhardy enough deliberately to choose sculpture as a profession was Horatio Greenough, born in 1805, of well-to-do parents, and carefully educated. It is difficult to say just what it was that turned the boy to this difficult and exacting art--an unknown art, too, so far as America was concerned. But he seems to have begun woodcarving at an early age, and to have progressed from that to chalk and on to plaster of Paris. The American national habit of whittling was perhaps responsible for the development of more than one sculptor.

At any rate, by the time he was twelve years old, Horatio Greenough had produced some portrait busts in chalk, and, after having tried unsuccessfully to learn clay-modelling from directions in an old encyclopedia, took some lessons from an artist who chanced to be in Boston, and from a maker of tombstones, got a little insight into the method of carving marble.

These lessons, elementary as they must have been, were very valuable to the boy, and his work showed such promise that his father finally consented to his adopting this strange profession, insisting only that he first graduate from Harvard, on the ground that a college education would be of value, whatever his vocation. So he entered college at the age of sixteen, devoting all his spare time to reading works of art, to drawing and modelling, and the study of anatomy. He had also the good fortune to meet and win the friendship of Washington Allston, who advised him as to plans of study.

Immediately upon graduation, he sailed for Italy, which was, sadly enough, to be the Mecca of American sculptors for many years to come.

For Italian sculpture was bound hand and foot by the traditions of cla.s.sicism, to which our early sculptors soon fell captive. Greenough was no exception, and some years of study in the Italian studios rivetted the chains.

His first commission was given him by J. Fenimore Cooper. It was a group called the "Chanting Cherubs," and when it was sent home for exhibition, it awakened a tempest of the first magnitude. Puritan ideas were outraged at sight of the little naked bodies, the group was declared indecent, and the bitter controversy was not stilled until it was withdrawn from view. Greenough wrote of Cooper, "he saved me from despair; he employed me as I wished to be employed; and has, up to this moment, been a father to me in kindness"--a singularly interesting addition to the portrait of the great novelist, famous for his enmities rather than for his friendships.

The tragedy of Greenough's life was the fate of his great statue of Washington, of which we have already spoken. He conceived the work on a high plane, "as a majestic, G.o.d-like figure, enthroned beneath the dome of the Capitol at Washington, gilded by the filtered rays of the far-falling sunlight." Perhaps it was too high, but on its execution Greenough labored faithfully for eight years. "It is the birth of my thought," he wrote. "I have sacrificed to it the flower of my days, and the freshness of my strength; its every lineament has been moistened by the sweat of my toil and the tears of my exile. I would not barter away its a.s.sociation with my name for the proudest fortune that avarice ever dreamed."

It will be seen from the above that Greenough's epistolary style was florid and grandiose in the extreme, but no doubt there was a foundation of sincerity beneath it. A bitter disappointment awaited him. The ponderous figure reached Washington safely in 1843, and was conveyed to the Capitol, where, beneath the rotunda, its predestined pedestal awaited it. But the statue was found too large to pa.s.s the door, and when the door was widened and the great stone rolled inside, the floor settled so ominously that it was hastily withdrawn.

It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that the floor might be braced; instead, the pedestal was set up outside, facing the building, and the statue hoisted into place. It speedily became the b.u.t.t of public ridicule. Once the fashion started, no one looked at it without a smile.

Greenough was in despair. "Had I been ordered to make a statue for any square or similar situation at the metropolis," he wrote, still in his inflated style, "I should have represented Washington on horseback and in his actual dress. I would have made my subject purely a historical one. I have treated my subject poetically, and confess I would feel pain in seeing it placed in direct flagrant contrast with every-day life."

But that is exactly how it was placed, and it is the incongruity of this contrast which strikes the beholder and blinds him to the merits of the work. For Greenough has represented Washington seated in a ma.s.sive armchair, naked except for a drapery over the legs and right shoulder, one hand pointing dramatically at the heavens, the other extended holding a reversed sword. It shows sincerity and faithful work, and had it been placed within the rotunda, would no doubt have been impressive and majestic. Where it stands, it is a hopeless anachronism.

This was the first colossal marble carved by an American. Fronting it on one of the b.u.t.tresses of the main entrance of the Capitol, is the second, also by Greenough. It is a group called "The Rescue," and shows a pioneer saving his wife and child from being tomahawked by an Indian, while his dog watches the struggle with a strange apathy--almost with a smile. Like most of his other work, it is stilted and unconvincing; but let us remember that Greenough was the pathfinder, the trail-blazer, and as such to be honored and admired.

Greenough's fame, such as it was, was soon to be eclipsed by that of a man born in the same year, but later in development because he had a harder road to travel. Hiram Powers was born into a large and poverty-stricken family. While he was still a boy, his father removed from the sterile hills of Vermont to the almost frontier town of Cincinnati, Ohio. He seems to have had little schooling, but was put to work as soon as he was old enough to contribute something toward the family exchequer. He did all sorts of odd jobs, and soon developed an unusual talent, that of modelling faces.

Those were the halcyon days of the dime museum, and there was one at Cincinnati. Its proprietor chanced to hear of the boy's gift for modelling, and offered him employment as a modeller of wax figures. Of course Powers accepted, for this was work after his own heart, and he succeeded not only in producing some figures which resembled definite human beings, but "breathed the breath of life into them" by means of clock-work devices, which enabled them to move their heads and arms in a manner sufficiently jerky, but at the same time astonishing to the simple people who visited the museum to behold its wonders.

Emboldened by this success, the young genius produced an "Inferno," or "Chamber of Horrors," which, when completed, was an immense success--too immense, indeed, for it had to be closed because of the fearful impression it made upon the ladies, who fainted in their escorts' arms whenever they gazed upon its terrors. One is inclined to suspect that the ladies might have withstood the horrors of the sight, but for a desire to prove their extreme sensibility. Fainting was more fashionable eighty years ago than it is to-day.