Art in America: A Critical and Historial Sketch

IV.

AMERICAN PAINTERS.

1828-1878

THE discovery of the gold mines of California was a signal for enterprise, daring, and achievement, not only to our commerce and the thrift of our shifting millions of uneasy settlers, but also to the literature and landscape-art of the United States. "To the kingdom of the west wind" hied artist and author alike; and the epic of the settlement of California, of the scaling of the Rocky Mountains, of the glory of the Columbia River, and the stupendous horrors of the Yellowstone was pictured on the canvas of the artist. Taylor and Scott conquered the Pacific slope; Fremont pointed out the pathway over the swelling ranges of the Sierras; and our painters revealed to us the matchless splendor of a scenery which shall arouse increasing astonishment and reverential awe and rapture in the hearts of generations yet to be. In the gratitude we owe to these landscape-painters who dared, discovered, and delineated for us the scenery of which we were hitherto the ignorant possessors, criticism is almost left in abeyance, for the service done the people has been a double one – in leading them to the observation of paintings, and informing them of the attractions of a little known possession. If the art of these paintings of our Western scenery had been in all respects equal to the subject, the country would have been rich indeed. Among the artist explorers to whom we are most indebted, Messrs. Bierstadt, Hill, and Moran are the most famous. The former, by his great composition entitled the "Rocky Mountains," threw the people into an ecstasy of delight, which at this time it is difficult to understand, and bounded at one step to celebrity.

Albert Bierstadt is a native of Düsseldorf, but came to this country in infancy. Subsequently he studied at Düsseldorf and Rome. On returning to America, he accompanied the exploring expedition of General Lander that went over the plains in 1858. Fitz Hugh Ludlow, the well-known littérateur, was associated with him in a subsequent trip, and several graphic articles in which he afterward described the journey undoubtedly helped to bring Mr. Bierstadt into notice.

The "Rocky Mountains" is not the representation of an actual scene, but a typical composition, and, thus regarded, is an interesting work, although it seems to us somewhat too theatrical, and scarcely true in some of the details. Local truth is desirable in topographical art, although of quite secondary importance in compositions of a more ideal character. Since then this artist has executed a number of similarly ambitious paintings of our Western scenery, including a colossal painting of the gorge of the Yosemite Valley. All of them are characterized by boldness of treatment, but sometimes they are crude in color and out of tone. Of these we prefer, as least sensational and most artistically correct, the painting of a storm on Mount Rosalie. Bierstadt's smaller California scenes are generally more valuable than his large ones for artistic quality: one of the best compositions we have seen from his easel is a war sketch representing Federal sharp-shooters on the crest of a hill behind some trees. This is an excellent piece of work, fresh, original, and quite free from the Düsseldorf taint; and confirms us in the opinion that Mr. Bierstadt is naturally an artist of great ability and large resources, and might easily have maintained a reputation as such if he had not grafted on the sensationalism of Düsseldorf a greater ambition for notoriety and money than for success in pure art.

Some of the qualities we have learned to look for in vain in the canvases of Bierstadt we find emphasized in the paintings of Thomas Hill, who succeeded him as court painter to the monarch of the Rocky Mountains. Hill began life as a coach-painter at Taunton, Massachusetts. After deciding on a professional art career, he visited Europe, and benefited by observation in foreign studios, especially of France, although his style is essentially his own. His method of using pigments is sometimes open to the accusation of hardness; there is too often a lack of juiciness – a dryness that seems to remind us of paint rather than atmosphere, which may be owing to the fact, as I have been informed, that he uses little or no oil in going over a painting the second time. But Mr. Hill is a good colorist, bold and massive in his effects, and a very careful, conscientious student of nature. He has been happy in the rendering of wood interiors, as, for example, bits from the Forest of Fontainebleau. One of his most remarkable New England landscapes represents the avalanche in the Notch of the White Mountains, which was attended with such disastrous results to the dwellers in the valley. But Mr. Hill will be identified in future with California, where he has become a resident, and has devoted his energies to painting some of the magnificent scenery of that marvellous region, where the roar of the whirlwind and the roll of the thunder reverberate like the tread of the countless millions who evermore march to the westward. As he sat on the edge of the precipice, the forerunner of coming ages, and painted the sublime, solitary depths of the Yosemite, did the artist realize that with every stroke of the brush he was aiding the advance guard of civilization, and driving away the desolation which gave additional grandeur to one of the most extraordinary spots on the planet? In his great painting of the Yosemite he seems to have been inspired by a reverential spirit; he has taken no liberties with his subject, but has endeavored with admirable art to convey a correct impression of the scene; and the work may be justly ranked with the best examples of the American school of landscape-painting.

The first fever of the California rush had subsided when the uneasy explorer again stirred the enthusiasm of adventurous artists by thrilling descriptions of the Yellowstone River, its Tartarean gorges, and the lurid splendor of its sulphurous cliffs and steaming geysers. Once more the landscape artist of the country was moved to go forth and make known to us those unrevealed wonders; and Thomas Moran, "taking his life in his hands," in the language of religious cant, aspired to capture the bouquet, the first bloom, from this newly-opened draught of inspiration. We all know the result. Who has not seen his splendid painting of the "Gorge of the Yellowstone," now in the Capitol at Washington? Granting the fitness of the subject for art, it can be frankly conceded that this is one of the best paintings of the sort yet produced. The vivid local colors of the rocks, which there is no reason to doubt have been faithfully rendered – for Mr. Moran is a careful and indefatigable student of certain phases of nature – appear, however, to give such works a sensational effect.

This seems to us to be the most valuable of the numerous paintings of Western subjects produced by this artist. It would be a mistake, however, to judge him wholly by the more ambitious compositions suggested by tropical or Western scenery. Some of his ideal paintings are very clever, and show us an ardent student of nature, and a mind inspired by a fervid imagination. But while conceding thus much to the talents of this artist – who belongs to an artistic family, two of his brothers being also well-known painters, one in marine, the other in cattle painting – we can not accord him great original powers. He has studied the technique of his calling most carefully, and has bestowed great attention to the methods of several celebrated artists; but we are too often conscious, in looking at his works, that his style has leaned upon that of certain favorite painters. There is great cleverness, but little genius, apparent in the landscapes of Mr. Moran, for the imitative faculty has been too much for him.

Contemporary with our school of grand nature, if we may so call it, and 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.