English Painters Part 9

PAINTING IN AMERICA.

BY S. R. KOEHLER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PAINTING IN AMERICA.

INTRODUCTION.

The history of art in America is in reality the record only of the dying away of the last echoes of movements which had their origin in Europe.

Although the western continent has given birth to new political ideas and new forms of government, not one of its States, not even the greatest of them all, the United States of North America, to which this chapter will be confined, has thus far brought forth a national art, or has exercised any perceptible influence, except in a single instance, on the shaping of the art of the world. Nor is this to be wondered at. The newness of the country, the mixture of races from the beginning, and the ever-continuing influx of foreigners, together with the lack of educational facilities, and the consequent necessity of seeking instruction in Europe, are causes sufficient to explain the apparent anomaly. Even those of the native painters of the United States who kept away from the Old World altogether, or visited it too late in life to be powerfully influenced, show but few traces of decided originality in either conception or execution. They also were under the spell, despite the fact that it could not work upon them directly. The attempt has been made to explain this state of things by a.s.suming an incapacity for art on the part of the people of the country, and an atmosphere hostile to its growth, resulting from surrounding circ.u.mstances. These conclusions, however, are false. So far as technical skill goes, Americans--native as well as adopted--have always shown a remarkable facility of acquisition, and the rapidity with which carpenters, coach-painters, and sign-painters, especially in the earlier period of the country's history, developed into respectable portrait-painters, almost without instruction, will always remain cause for astonishment. Of those who went abroad at that time, England readopted four men who became famous (West, Copley, Newton, Leslie), and she still points to them with satisfaction as among the more conspicuous on her roll of artists. Nor has this quality been lost with the advance of time. It has, on the contrary, been aided by diligent application; and the successes which have been achieved by American students are recorded in the annals of the French Salon. There is one curious trait, however, which will become more and more apparent as we trace the history of art in America, and that is the absence of a national element in the subjects treated. If we except a short flickering of patriotic spirit in the art of what may be called the Revolutionary Period, and the decided preference given to American scenes by the landscape painters of about the middle of the present century, it may be said that the artists of the country, as a rule, have imported with the technical processes also the subjects of the Old World; that they have preferred the mountains of Italy and the quiet hamlets of France to the hills of New England and the Rocky Mountains of the West, the Arab to the Indian, and the history of the Old World to the records of their own ancestors. Even the struggle for the destruction of the last vestiges of slavery which was the great work entrusted to this generation, has called forth so few manifestations in art (and these few falling without the limits of the present chapter), that it would not be very far from wrong to speak of it as having left behind it no trace whatever. All this, however, is not the fault of the artists, except in so far as they are themselves part of the nation. The blame attaches to the people as a whole, whose innermost thoughts and highest aspirations the artists will always be called upon to embody in visible form. There is no doubt, from the evidence already given by the painters of America, that they will be equal to the task, should they ever be called upon to exert their skill in the execution of works of monumental art.

The history of painting in America may be divided into four periods:--1.

_The Colonial Period_, up to the time of the Revolution; 2. _The Revolutionary Period_, comprising the painters who were eye-witnesses of and partic.i.p.ators in the War of Independence; 3. _The Period of Inner Development_, from about the beginning of the century to the civil war; 4. _The Period of the Present_. It will be seen that the designations of these divisions are taken from the political rather than the artistic history of the country. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find other distinguishing marks which would allow of a concise nomenclature. As to the influences at work in the several periods, it may be said that the Colonial and Revolutionary were entirely under the domination of England. In the earlier part of the third period the influence of England continued, but was supplemented by that of Italy. Later on a number of American artists studied in Paris, without, however, coming under the influence of the Romantic school, and towards the middle of the century many of them were attracted by Dusseldorf. A slight influence was exercised also by the English pre-Raphaelites, but it found expression in a literary way rather than in actual artistic performance. In the fourth or present period, finally, the leadership has pa.s.sed to the Colouristic schools of Paris and Munich, to which nearly all the younger artists have sworn allegiance.

FIRST, OR COLONIAL PERIOD.

The paintings which have come down to the present day from the Colonial Period, so far as they relate to America, are almost without exception portraits. Many of these were, as a matter of course, brought over from England and Holland; but that there were resident painters in the Colonies as early as 1667, is shown by a pa.s.sage in Cotton Mather's "Magnalia," cited by Tuckerman. It is very natural that these "limners,"

to use a favourite designation then applied to artists, were not of the best. The masters of repute did not feel a call to dwell in the wilderness, and hence the works belonging to the beginning of this period are for the most part rude and stiff. Several of these early portraits may be seen in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, at Cambridge, Ma.s.s.

The first painters whose names have been preserved to us were not born to the soil. The honour of standing at the head of the roll belongs to JOHN WATSON (1685--1768), a Scotchman, who established himself at Perth Amboy, N.J., in 1715. Of his portraits none are at present known, but at the Chronological Exhibition of American Art, held in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1872, there was shown an India ink drawing by him, _Venus and Cupid_, executed on vellum. A better fate was vouchsafed to the works of JOHN SMYBERT, another Scotchman, who came to Rhode Island in 1728 with Dean, afterwards Bishop, Berkeley, in whose proposed college he was to be an instructor--probably the first movement towards art education made in the Colonies. Smybert settled and married in Boston, where he died in 1751 or 1752. He was not an artist of note, although his most important work, _The Family of Bishop Berkeley_, a large group, in which he has introduced his own likeness, now in the possession of Yale College, at New Haven, Conn., shows him to have been courageous and not without talent. Not all the pictures, however, which are attributed to him, come up to this standard. A very bad example to which his name is attached may be seen in the portrait of _John Lovell_, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University. The influence exercised by Smybert on the development of art in America is due to an accident rather than to actual teaching. He brought with him a copy of the head of Cardinal Bentivoglio, by Van Dyck, which he had made in Italy, and which is still preserved in the Hall just named. It was this copy which first inspired Trumbull and Allston with a love of art, and gave them an idea of colour. Of the other foreigners who visited the Colonies during this period, the more prominent are BLACKBURN, an Englishman, who was Smybert's contemporary or immediate successor, and is by some held to have been Copley's teacher; WILLIAMS, another Englishman, who painted about the same time in Philadelphia, and from whose intercourse young West is said to have derived considerable benefit; and COSMO ALEXANDER, a Scotchman, who came to America in 1770, and was Stuart's first instructor.

The earliest native painter who has left any lasting record is ROBERT FEKE, whose life is enveloped by the mystery of romance. Sprung from Quaker stock, and separated from his people by difference of religious opinion, he left home, and was in some way taken a prisoner to Spain, where he is said to have executed rude paintings, with the proceeds of which he managed to return home. Feke painted in Philadelphia and elsewhere about the middle of the last century, and his portraits, according to Tuckerman, are considered the best colonial family portraits next to West's. Specimens of his work may be seen in the collections of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.; the Redwood Athenaeum, Newport, R.I.; and the R. I. Historical Society, Providence, R.I.

Nearest to Feke in date--although his later contemporaries, West and Copley, were earlier known as artists, and the first named even became his teacher in England--is MATTHEW PRATT (1734--1805), who started in life as a sign-painter in Philadelphia. Pratt's work is often spoken of slightingly, and does not generally receive the commendation it deserves. His full-length portrait of _Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Colden_, painted for the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772, and still to be seen at its rooms, shows him to have been quite a respectable artist, with a feeling for colour in advance of that exhibited by Copley in his earlier work. Still another native artist of this period, HENRY BEMBRIDGE, is chiefly of interest from the fact that he is said to have studied with Mengs and Battoni, which would make him one of the first American painters who visited Italy. He seems to have painted chiefly in Charleston, S.C., and his portraits are described as of singularly formal aspect.

The most celebrated painters of this period, however, and the only ones whose fame is more than local, are John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West. But as both of them left their country at an early age, never to return, they belong to England rather than to America.

COPLEY (1737--1815) was a native of Boston, and did not go to Europe until 1774, when his reputation was already established. In 1760 he gave his income in Boston at three hundred guineas. He first went to Italy and thence to London, where he settled. Some speculation has been indulged in as to Copley's possible teachers. He must have received some aid from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, a schoolmaster and very inferior mezzotint engraver; and it has also been supposed that he may have had the benefit of Blackburn's instruction. This does not seem likely, however, judging either from the facts or from tradition. Copley was undoubtedly essentially self-taught, and the models upon which he probably formed his style are still to be seen. Several of them are included in the collection in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University.

One of these portraits, that of _Thomas Hollis_, a benefactor of the university, who died when Copley was only six years of age, is so like the latter's work, not only in conception but even in the paleness of the flesh tints and the cold grey of the shadows, as to be readily taken for one of his earlier productions. In England Copley became the painter of the aristocracy, and executed a considerable number of large historic pictures, mostly of modern incidents. He is elegant rather than powerful, and quite successful in the rendering of stuffs. His colour, at first cold and rather inharmonious, improved with experience, although he has been p.r.o.nounced deficient in this respect even in later years. Copley's most celebrated picture is _The Death of the Earl of Chatham_. Many specimens of his skill as a portrait-painter can be seen in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, the latter collection including the fine portrait of _Mrs. Thomas Boylston_. The Public Library of Boston owns one of his large historic paintings, _Charles I. demanding the Five Members from Parliament_.

BENJAMIN WEST (1738--1820) was born of Quaker parentage at Springfield, Pa., and was successfully engaged, at the age of eighteen, as a portrait-painter in Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Rome, and it is believed that he was the first American artist who ever appeared there.

Three years later he removed to London, where he became the leading historic painter, the favourite of the King, and President of the Royal Academy. His great scriptural and historic compositions, of which comparatively few are to be seen in his native country (_King Lear_, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; _Death on the Pale Horse_ and _Christ Rejected_, at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia), show him in the light of an ambitious and calculating rather than inspired painter, with a decided feeling for colour. His influence on art in general made itself felt in the refusal to paint the actors in his _Death of Wolfe_ in cla.s.sic costume, according to usage. By clothing them in their actual dress, he led art forward a step in the realistic direction, the only instance to be noted of a directing motive imparted to art by an American, but one which is quite in accordance with the spirit of the New World. West's influence upon the art of his own country was henceforth limited to the warm interest he took in the many students of the succeeding generation who flocked to England to study under his guidance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEATH ON THE PALE HORSE. _By_ WEST. A.D. 1817.

_In the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia._

_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]

SECOND, OR REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

The Revolutionary Period is, in many respects, the most interesting division, not only in the political, but also in the artistic history of the United States. It is so, not merely because it has left us the pictorial records of the men and the events of a most important epoch in the development of mankind, but also because it brought forth two painters who, while they were thoroughly American in their aspirations, were at the same time endowed with artistic qualities of a very high order. Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, the two painters alluded to, have a right to be considered the best of the American painters of the past, and will always continue to hold a prominent place in the history of their art, even if it were possible to forget the stirring scenes with which they were connected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL KNOX. _By_ GILBERT STUART

_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]

GILBERT STUART was born in Narragansett, R.I., in 1755, and died in Boston in 1828. He was of Scotch descent, and it has already been mentioned that Cosmo Alexander, a Scotchman, was his first teacher.

After several visits to Europe, during the second of which he studied under West, Stuart finally returned in 1793, and began the painting of the series of national portraits which will for ever endear him to the patriotic American. Among these his several renderings of Washington, of which there are many copies by his own hand, are the most celebrated.

The greatest popularity is perhaps enjoyed by the so-called Athenaeum head, which, with its pendant, the portrait of _Mrs. Washington_, is the property of the Athenaeum of Boston, and by that inst.i.tution has been deposited in the Museum of Fine Arts of the same city. The claim to superiority is, however, contested by the _Gibbs Washington_, at present also to be seen in the museum alluded to. It was painted before the other, and gives the impression of more realistic truthfulness, while the Athenaeum head seems to be somewhat idealized. Stuart's work is quite unequal, as he was not a strict economist, and often painted for money only. But in his best productions there is a truly admirable purity and wealth of colour, added to a power of characterization, which lifts portraiture into the highest sphere of art. It must be said, however, that he concentrated his attention almost entirely upon the head, often slighting the arms and hands, especially of his female sitters, to an unpleasant degree. Many excellent specimens of his work, besides the Washington portraits, are to be found in the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston and in the collection of the New York Historical Society, the latter including the fine portrait of _Egbert Benson_, painted in 1807.

His _chef-d'oeuvre_ is the portrait of _Judge Stephen Jones_, owned by Mr. F. G. Richards, of Boston, a remarkably vigorous head of an old man, warm and glowing in colour, which, it is said, the artist painted for his own satisfaction. Stuart's most celebrated work in England is _Mr.

Grant skating_. When this portrait was exhibited as a work by Gainsborough, at the "Old Masters," in 1878, its pedigree having been forgotten, it was in turn attributed to all the great English portrait-painters, until it was finally restored to its true author.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEATH OF MONTGOMERY IN THE ATTACK OF QUEBEC. _By_ J.

TRUMBULL. _At Yale College._

_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]

Still more national importance attaches to JOHN TRUMBULL (1756--1843), since he was an historic as well as a portrait-painter, took part in person as an officer in the American army in many of the events of the Revolution, and was intimately acquainted with most of the heroes of his battle scenes. America enjoys in this respect an advantage of which no other country can boast--that of having possessed an artist contemporaneous with the most important epoch in its history, and capable and willing to depict the scenes enacted around him. Colonel Trumbull, the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the Colonial Governor of Connecticut, studied at Harvard, and gave early evidences of a taste for art. At the age of nineteen he joined the American army, but in 1780, aggrieved at a fancied slight, he threw up his commission and went to France, and thence to London, where he studied under West. Trumbull must not be judged as an artist by his large paintings in the Capitol at Washington, the commission for which he did not receive until 1817. To know him one must study him in his smaller works and sketches, now gathered in the gallery of Yale College, where may be seen his _Death of Montgomery_, _Battle of Bunker Hill_, _Declaration of Independence_, and other revolutionary scenes, together with a series of admirable miniature portraits in oil, painted from life, as materials for his historic works, and a number of larger portraits, including a full-length of _Washington_. As a portrait-painter, Trumbull is also represented at his best by the full-length of _Alexander Hamilton_, at the rooms of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The most successful of his large historic pieces, _The Sortie from Gibraltar_, painted in London, is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Goethe, who saw the small painting of _The Battle of Bunker Hill_ while it was in the hands of Muller, the engraver, commended it, but criticized its colour and the smallness of the heads. It is true that Trumbull's drawing is somewhat conventional, and that he had a liking for long figures. But his colour, as seen to-day in his good earlier pictures, is quite brilliant and harmonious, although thoroughly realistic. In his later work, however, as shown by the Scripture pieces likewise preserved in the Yale Gallery, there is a marked decadence in vigour of drawing as well as of colour.

Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circ.u.mstances, Trumbull has not received the full appreciation which is his due, even from his own countrymen. Thackeray readily recognised his merit, and cautioned the Americans never to despise or neglect Trumbull--a piece of advice which is only now beginning to attract the attention it deserves.

Among the portrait-painters of this period, CHARLES WILSON PEALE (1741--1827) takes the lead by reason of quant.i.ty rather than quality.

Peale was typical of a certain phase of American character, representing the restlessness and superficiality which prevail upon men to turn lightly from one occupation to another. He was a dentist, a worker in materials of all sorts, an ornithologist and taxidermist, rose to the rank of colonel in the American army, and started a museum of natural history and art in Philadelphia. But his strongest love seems, after all, to have been for the fine arts. Among the fourteen portraits of _Washington_ which Peale painted, according to Tuckerman, is the only _full-length_ ever done of the father of his country: it shows him before the Revolution, attired as an officer in the colonial force of Great Britain. A large number of Peale's portraits may be seen in the Pennsylvania Academy and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The New York Historical Society owns, among other works by his hand, a Washington portrait and a group of the Peale family comprising ten figures. Much of Peale's work is crude, but all of his heads have the appearance of being good likenesses.

Among a number of other painters of this period we can select only a few, whose names receive an additional l.u.s.tre from their connection with Washington.

JOSEPH WRIGHT (1756--1793) was the son of Patience Wright, who modelled heads in wax at Bordentown, N.J., before the Revolution. While in England he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales. In the year 1783 Washington sat to him, after having submitted to the preliminary ordeal of a plaster mask. Tuckerman speaks of this portrait as inelegant and unflattering, and characterizes the artist as unideal, but conscientious. Wright's portrait of _John Jay_, at the rooms of the New York Historical Society, authorizes a more favourable judgment. It is, indeed, somewhat austere, but lifelike, well posed, and cool in colour.

E. SAVAGE (1761--1817) seems to have been nearly as versatile as Peale, emulating him also in the establishment of a museum, at first in New York, then in Boston. His portrait of _General Washington_, in the Memorial Hall of Harvard University, is carefully painted and bright in colour, but rather lifeless. His _Washington Family_, in the Boston Museum (a place of amus.e.m.e.nt not to be confounded with the Museum of Fine Arts), which he engraved himself, has similar qualities. A little picture by him, also in the Boston Museum, representing _The Signers of the Declaration of Independence in Carpenters' Hall_, is interesting on account of its subject, but does not possess much artistic merit. The portrait of _Dr. Handy_, on the contrary, which is a.s.signed to him, at the New York Historical Society, is a very creditable work, good in colour, luminous in the flesh, and simple in the modelling.

WILLIAM DUNLAP (1766--1839), finally, may also be mentioned here on account of his portrait of _Washington_--painted when the artist was only seventeen years old--although he belongs more properly to the next period, and is of more importance as a writer than a painter. He published, in 1834, a "History of the Arts of Design in the United States," a book now quite scarce and much sought after. A group of himself and his parents, painted in 1788, is in the collection of the New York Historical Society.

THIRD PERIOD, OR PERIOD OF INNER DEVELOPMENT.

The example of Trumbull found no followers. The only other American painter who made a specialty of his country's history seems to have been JOHN BLAKE WHITE (1782--1859), a native of Charleston, S.C., who painted such subjects as _Mrs. Motte presenting the Arrows_, _Marion inviting the British Officer to Dinner_, and the Battles of _New Orleans_ and _Eutaw_, placed in the State House of South Carolina.

White's fame is quite local, however, and it is impossible, therefore, to judge of his qualities accurately. Had there been more painters of similar subjects, a national school might have resulted; but neither the people nor the Government took any interest in Colonel Trumbull's plans.

It was necessary to employ all sorts of manoeuvring to induce Congress to give a commission to the artist, and the result was disappointment to all concerned; and when, later, the further decoration of the Capitol at Washington, the seat of government, was resolved upon, the artist selected for the work was CARLO BRUMIDI (1811--1880), an Italian artist of the old school. The healthy impetus towards realistic historic painting given by Trumbull thus died out, and what there is of historic and figure painting in the period now under consideration is mainly dominated by a false idealism, of which Washington Allston is the leading representative. To rival the old masters, to do what had been done before, to flee from the actual and the near to the unreal and the distant, to look upon monks and knights and robbers and Venetian senators as the embodiment of the poetic, in spite of the poet's warning to the contrary, was now the order of the day; and hence it was but natural that quite a number of the artists who then went to Europe turned to Italy. It was in this period, also, that the first attempts were made to establish Academies of Art in Philadelphia and New York--attempts which, while they were laudable enough in themselves, inasmuch as these inst.i.tutions were intended to provide instruction at home for the rising generation, still pointed in the same direction of simple imitation of the expiring phases of European Art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JEREMIAH AND THE SCRIBE. _By_ WASHINGTON ALLSTON. _At Yale College_.

_Copyright_, 1879, _by Harper and Brothers_.]

WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779--1843) was a native of South Carolina, but was sent to New England at an early age, and graduated from Harvard College in 1800. The year following he went to England, to study under West, and thence to Italy, where he stayed four years, until his return to Boston in 1809. After a second absence in Europe of seven years'

duration, he finally settled in Cambridge, near Boston. Allston's art covered a wide range, including Scripture history, portraiture, ideal heads, _genre_, landscape, and marine. It is difficult to understand to-day the enthusiasm which his works aroused, if not among the great public, at least within a limited circle of admiring friends. He was lauded for his poetic imagination, and called "the American t.i.tian," on account of his colour; and this reputation has lasted down to our own time. The Allston Exhibition, however, which was held two years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has somewhat modified the opinions of calm observers. Allston was neither deep nor very original in his conceptions, nor was he a great colourist. One of his most pleasing pictures, _The Two Sisters_, is full of reminiscences of t.i.tian, and it is well known that he painted it while engaged in the study of that master. In the case of an artist upon whose merits opinions are so widely divided, it may be well to cite the words of an acknowledged admirer, in speaking of what has been claimed to be his greatest work, the _Jeremiah and the Scribe_, in the Gallery of Yale College. Mrs. E.

D. Cheney, in describing the impression made upon her by this picture after a lapse of forty years, says:--"I was forced to confess that either I had lost my sensibility to its expression, or I had overrated its value.... The figure of the Prophet is large and imposing, but I cannot find in it the spiritual grandeur and commanding n.o.bility of Michel Angelo. He is conscious of his own presence, rather than lost in the revelation which is given through him. But the Scribe is a very beautiful figure, simple in action and expression, and entirely absorbed in his humble but important work. It reminds me of the young brother in Domenichino's _Martyrdom of St. Jerome_." The same lack of psychological power, here hinted at, is still more apparent in the artist's attempts to express the more violent manifestations of the soul. In _The Dead Man revived by touching Elisha's Bones_--for which he received a premium of 200 guineas from the British Inst.i.tution, and which is now in the Pennsylvania Academy--the faces of the terrified spectators are so distorted as to have become caricatures. This is true, in a still higher degree, of the heads of the priests in the great unfinished _Belshazzar's Feast_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The unnatural expression of these heads is generally explained by the condition in which the picture was left; but the black-and-white sketches, which may be examined in the same museum, show precisely the same character. The unhealthy direction of the artist's mind is apparent, furthermore, in his love of the terrible--shown in his early pictures of banditti, and in such later works as _Saul and the Witch of Endor_ and _Spalatro's Vision of the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand_; while, on the contrary, it will be found, upon closer a.n.a.lysis, that the ideality and spirituality claimed for his female heads, such as _Rosalie_ and _Amy Robsart_, resolve themselves into something very near akin to sweetness and lack of strength. In accordance with this absence of intellectual robustness, Allston's execution is hesitating and wanting in decision.