The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and a fourth signal for water was answered: "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are" – cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.7

The power to realize with fine feeling the possibilities of an occasion may be illustrated from the speech at Harvard:

If through me, an humble representative, seven millions of my people in the South might be permitted to send a message to Harvard – Harvard that offered up on death's altar young Shaw, and Russell, and Lowell, and scores of others, that we might have a free and united country – that message would be, Tell them that the sacrifice was not in vain. Tell them that by habits of thrift and economy, by way of the industrial school and college, we are coming up. We are crawling up, working up, yea, bursting up – often through oppression, unjust discrimination and prejudice, but through them all we are coming up, and with proper habits, intelligence, and property, there is no power on earth that can permanently stay our progress.8

The eloquence of Douglass differed from that of Washington as does the power of a gifted orator differ from the force of a finished public speaker. The one was subjective; the other was objective. Douglass swayed his audience, and even himself, by the sweep of his passion and rhetoric; Washington studied every detail and weighed every word, always keeping in mind the final impression to be made. Douglass was an idealist, impatient for the day of perfect fruition; Washington was an opportunist, making the most of each chance as it came. The one voiced the sorrows of the Old Testament, and for the moment produced the more tremendous effect; the other longed for the blessing of the New Testament and spoke with lasting result. Both loved their people and each in his own way worked as he could best see the light. By his earnestness each in his day gained a hearing; by their sincerity both found a place in the oratory not only of the Negro but of the world.

IX

THE STAGE

IN no other field has the Negro with artistic aspirations found the road so hard as in that of the classic drama. In spite of the far-reaching influence of the Negro on American life, it is only within the last two years that this distinct racial element has begun to receive serious attention. If we pass over Othello as professedly a Moor rather than a Negro, we find that the Negro, as he has been presented on the English or American stage, is best represented by such a character as Mungo in the comic opera, "The Padlock," on the boards at Drury Lane in 1768. Mungo is the slave of a West Indian planter; he becomes profane in the second act and sings a burlesque song. Here, as elsewhere, there was no dramatic or sympathetic study of the race. Even Uncle Tom was a conventional embodiment of patience and meekness rather than a highly individualized character.

On the legitimate stage the Negro was not wanted. That he could succeed, however, was shown by such a career as that of Ira Aldridge. This distinguished actor, making his way from America to the freer life of Europe, entered upon the period of his greatest artistic success when, in 1833, at Covent Garden, he played Othello to the Iago of Edmund Kean, the foremost actor of the time. He was universally ranked as a great tragedian. In the years 1852-5 he played in Germany. In 1857 the King of Sweden invited him to visit Stockholm. The King of Prussia bestowed upon him a first-class medal of the arts and sciences. The Emperor of Austria complimented him with an autograph letter; the Czar of Russia gave him a decoration, and various other honors were showered upon him.

Such is the noblest tradition of the Negro on the stage. In course of time, however, because of the new blackface minstrelsy that became popular soon after the Civil War, all association of the Negro with the classic drama was effectively erased from the public mind. Near the turn of the century some outlet was found in light musical comedy. Prominent in the transition from minstrelsy to the new form were Bob Cole and Ernest Hogan; and the representative musical comedy companies have been those of Cole and Johnson, and Williams and Walker. Bert Williams is to-day generally remarked as one of the two or three foremost comedians on the American stage. Even musical comedy, however, is not so prominent as it was ten years ago, by reason of the competition of vaudeville and moving-pictures; and any representation of the Negro on the stage at the present time is likely to be either a burlesque, or, as in such pictures as those of "The Birth of a Nation," a deliberate and malicious libel on the race.

In different ones of the Negro colleges, however, and elsewhere, are there those who have dreamed of a true Negro drama – a drama that should get away from the minstrelsy and the burlesque and honestly present Negro characters face to face with all the problems that test the race in the crucible of American civilization. The representative institutions give frequent amateur productions, not only of classical plays, but also of sincere attempts at the faithful portrayal of Negro character. In even wider fields, however, is the possibility of the material for serious dramatic treatment being tested. In the spring of 1914 "Granny Maumee," by Ridgely Torrence, a New York dramatist, was produced by the Stage Society of New York. The part of Granny Maumee was taken by Dorothy Donnelly, one of the most emotional and sincere of American actresses; two performances were given, and Carl Van Vechten, writing of the occasion in the New York Press, said: "It is as important an event in our theater as the first play by Synge was to the Irish movement." Another experiment was "Children," by Guy Bolton and Tom Carlton, presented by the Washington Square Players in March, 1916, a little play in which a mother shoots her son rather than give him up to a lynching party. In April, 1917, "Granny Maumee," with two other short plays by Mr. Torrence, "The Rider of Dreams," and "Simon the Cyrenian," was again put on the stage in New York, this time with a company of colored actors, prominent among whom were Opal Cooper and Inez Clough. This whole production, advertised as "the first colored dramatic company to appear on Broadway," was under the patronage of Mrs. Norman Hapgood and the direction of Robert Edmond Jones, and its success was such as to give hopes of much greater things in the future.

Three or four other representative efforts within the race itself in the great field of the drama must be remarked. One of the most sincere was "The Exile," written by E. C. Williams, and presented at the Howard Theater in Washington, May 29, 1915, a play dealing with an episode in the life of Lorenzo de Medici. The story used is thoroughly dramatic, and that part of the composition that is in blank verse is of a notable degree of smoothness. "The Star of Ethiopia," by Dr. DuBois, was a pageant, elaborately presented. Originally produced in New York in 1913, it also saw performances in Washington and Philadelphia. The spring of 1916 witnessed the beginning of the work of the Edward Sterling Wright Players, of New York. This company used the legitimate drama and made a favorable impression, especially by its production of "Othello." At present special interest attaches to the work of the Lafayette Players in New York, who have already made commendable progress in the production of popular plays.

The field is comparatively new. It is, however, one peculiarly adapted to the ability of the Negro race, and at least enough has been done so far to show that both Negro effort in the classic drama and the serious portrayal of Negro life on the stage are worthy of respectful consideration.

X

PAINTERS. – HENRY O. TANNER

PAINTING has long been a medium through which the artistic spirit of the race yearned to find expression. As far back as in the work of Phillis Wheatley there is a poem addressed to "S. M." (Scipio Moorhead), "a young African painter," one of whose subjects was the story of Damon and Pythias. It was a hundred years more, however, before there was really artistic production. E. M. Bannister, whose home was at Providence, though little known to the younger generation, was very prominent forty years ago. He gathered about himself a coterie of artists and rich men that formed the nucleus of the Rhode Island Art Club, and one of his pictures took a medal at the Centennial Exposition of 1876. William A. Harper, who died in 1910, was a product of the Chicago Art Institute, at whose exhibitions his pictures received much favorable comment about 1908 and 1910. On his return from his first period of study in Paris his "Avenue of Poplars" took a prize of one hundred dollars at the Institute. Other typical subjects were "The Last Gleam," "The Hillside," and "The Gray Dawn." Great hopes were awakened a few years ago by the landscapes of Richard L. Brown; and the portrait work of Edwin A. Harleston is destined to become better and better known. William E. Scott, of Indianapolis, is becoming more and more distinguished in mural work, landscape, and portraiture, and among all the painters of the race now working in this country is outstanding. He has spent several years in Paris. "La Pauvre Voisine," accepted by the Salon in 1912, was afterwards bought by the Argentine government. A second picture exhibited in the Salon in 1913, "La Misère," was reproduced in the French catalogue and took first prize at the Indiana State Fair the next year. "La Connoisseure" was exhibited in the Royal Academy in London in 1913. Mr. Scott has done the mural work in ten public schools in Chicago, four in Indianapolis, and especially was he commissioned by the city of Indianapolis to decorate two units in the city hospital, this task embracing three hundred life-size figures. Some of his effects in coloring are very striking, and in several of his recent pictures he has emphasized racial subjects.

The painter of assured fame and commanding position is Henry Ossawa Tanner.

The early years of this artist were a record of singular struggle and sacrifice. Born in Pittsburgh in 1859, the son of a minister of very limited means, he received his early education in Philadelphia. For years he had to battle against uncertain health. In his thirteenth year, seeing an artist at work, he decided that he too would become a painter, and he afterwards became a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. While still a very young man, he attempted drawings of all sorts and sent these to various New York publishers, only to see them promptly returned. A check, however, for forty dollars for one that did not return encouraged him, and a picture, "A Lion at Home," from the exhibition of the Academy of Design, brought eighty dollars. He now became a photographer in Atlanta, Ga., but met with no real success; and for two years he taught drawing at Clark University in Atlanta. In this period came a summer of struggle in the mountains of North Carolina, and the knowledge that a picture that had originally sold for fifteen dollars had brought two hundred and fifty dollars at an auction in Philadelphia. Desiring now to go to Europe, and being encouraged by Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, the young painter gave in Cincinnati an exhibition of his work. The exhibition failed; not a picture was regularly sold. Bishop and Mrs. Hartzell, however, gave the artist a sum for the entire collection, and thus equipped he set sail for Rome, January 4, 1891, going by way of Liverpool and Paris.

In the story of his career that he contributed to the World's Work some years ago, Mr. Tanner gave an interesting account of his early days in Paris. Acquaintance with the great French capital induced him to abandon thoughts of going to Rome; but there followed five years of pitiless economy, broken only by a visit to Philadelphia, where he sold some pictures. He was encouraged, however, by Benjamin Constant and studied in the Julien Academy. In his early years he had given attention to animals and landscape, but more and more he was drawn towards religious subjects. "Daniel in the Lions' Den" in the Salon in 1896 brought "honorable mention," the artist's first official recognition. He was inspired, and very soon afterwards he made his first visit to Palestine, the land that was afterwards to mean so much to him in his work. "The Resurrection of Lazarus," in 1897, was bought by the French government, and now hangs in the Luxembourg. The enthusiasm awakened by this picture was so great that a friend wrote to the painter at Venice: "Come home, Tanner, to see the crowds behold your picture." After twenty years of heart-breaking effort Henry Tanner had become a recognized artist. His later career is a part of the history of the world's art. He won a third-class medal at the Salon in 1897, a second-class medal in 1907, second-class medals at the Paris Exposition in 1900, at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901, and at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, a gold medal at San Francisco in 1915, the Walter Lippincott Prize in Philadelphia in 1900, and the Harris Prize of five hundred dollars, in 1906, for the best picture in the annual exhibition of American paintings at the Chicago Art Institute.

Mr. Tanner's later life has been spent in Paris, with trips to the Far East, to Palestine, to Egypt, to Algiers, and Morocco. Some years ago he joined the colony of artists at Trepied, where he has built a commodious home and studio. Miss MacChesney has described this for us: "His studio is an ideal workroom, being high-ceilinged, spacious, and having the least possible furniture, utterly free from masses of useless studio stuff and paraphernalia. The walls are of a light gray, and at one end hangs a fine tapestry. Oriental carved wooden screens are at the doors and windows. Leading out of it is a small room having a domed ceiling and picturesque high windows. In this simply furnished room he often poses his models, painting himself in the large studio, the sliding door between being a small one. He can often make use of lamplight effects, the daylight in the larger room not interfering." Within recent years the artist has kept pace with some of the newer schools by brilliant experimentation in color and composition. Moonlight scenes appeal to him most. He seldom paints other than biblical subjects, except perhaps a portrait such as that of the Khedive or Rabbi Wise. A landscape may attract him, but it is sure to be idealized. He is thoroughly romantic in tone, and in spirit, if not in technique, there is much to connect him with Holman Hunt, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. In fact he long had in mind, even if he has not actually worked out, a picture entitled, "The Scapegoat."

"The Annunciation," as well as "The Resurrection of Lazarus," was bought by the French government; and "The Two Disciples at the Tomb" was bought by the Chicago Art Institute. "The Bagpipe Lesson" and "The Banjo Lesson" are in the library at Hampton Institute. Other prominent titles are: "Christ and Nicodemus," "Jews Waiting at the Wall of Solomon," "Stephen Before the Council," "Moses and the Burning Bush," "The Mothers of the Bible" (a series of five paintings of Mary, Hagar, Sarah, Rachel, and the mother of Moses, that marked the commencement of paintings containing all or nearly all female figures), "Christ at the Home of Mary and Martha," "The Return of the Holy Women," and "The Five Virgins." Of "Christ and His Disciples on the Road to Bethany," one of the most remarkable of all the pictures for subdued coloring, the painter says, "I have taken the tradition that Christ never spent a day in Jerusalem, but at the close of day went to Bethany, returning to the city of strife in the morning." Of "A Flight into Egypt" he says: "Never shall I forget the magnificence of two Persian Jews that I once saw at Rachel's Tomb; what a magnificent 'Abraham' either one of them would have made! Nor do I forget a ride one stormy Christmas night to Bethlehem. Dark clouds swept the moonlit skies and it took little imagination to close one's eyes to the flight of time and see in those hurrying travelers the crowds that hurried Bethlehemward on that memorable night of the Nativity, or to transpose the scene and see in each hurrying group 'A Flight into Egypt.'" As to which one of all these pictures excels the others critics are not in perfect agreement. "The Resurrection of Lazurus" is in subdued coloring, while "The Annunciation" is noted for its effects of light and shade. This latter picture must in any case rank very high in any consideration of the painter's work. It is a powerful portrayal of the Virgin at the moment when she learns of her great mission.

Mr. Tanner has the very highest ideals for his art. These could hardly be better stated than in his own words: "It has very often seemed to me that many painters of religious subjects (in our time) seem to forget that their pictures should be as much works of art (regardless of the subject) as are other paintings with less holy subjects. To suppose that the fact of the religious painter having a more elevated subject than his brother artist makes it unnecessary for him to consider his picture as an artistic production, or that he can be less thoughtful about a color harmony, for instance, than he who selects any other subject, simply proves that he is less of an artist than he who gives the subject his best attention." Certainly, no one could ever accuse Henry Tanner of insincere workmanship. His whole career is an inspiration and a challenge to aspiring painters, and his work is a monument of sturdy endeavor and exalted achievement.

XI

SCULPTORS. – META WARRICK FULLER

IN sculpture, as well as in painting, there has been a beginning of highly artistic achievement. The first person to come into prominence was Edmonia Lewis, born in New York in 1845. A sight of the statue of Franklin, in Boston, inspired within this young woman the desire also to "make a stone man." Garrison introduced her to a sculptor who encouraged her and gave her a few suggestions, but altogether she received little instruction in her art. In 1865 she attracted considerable attention by a bust of Robert Gould Shaw, exhibited in Boston. In this same year she went to Rome to continue her studies, and two years later took up her permanent residence there. Among her works are: "The Freedwoman," "The Death of Cleopatra" (exhibited at the exposition in Philadelphia in 1876), "Asleep," "The Marriage of Hiawatha," and "Madonna with the Infant Christ." Among her busts in terra cotta are those of John Brown, Charles Sumner, Lincoln, and Longfellow. Most of the work of Edmonia Lewis is in Europe. More recently the work of Mrs. May Howard Jackson, of Washington, has attracted the attention of the discerning. This sculptor has made several busts, among her subjects being Rev. F. J. Grimké and Dr. DuBois, and "Mother and Child" is one of her best studies. Bertina Lee, of Trenton, N. J., is one of the promising young sculptors. She is from the Trenton Art School and has already won several valuable prizes.

The sculptor at the present time of assured position is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller.

Meta Vaux Warrick was born in Philadelphia, June 9, 1877. She first compelled serious recognition of her talent by her work in the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, for which she had won a scholarship, and which she attended for four years. Here one of her first original pieces in clay was a head of Medusa, which, with its hanging jaw, beads of gore, and eyes starting from their sockets, marked her as a sculptor of the horrible. In her graduating year, 1898, she won a prize for metal work by a crucifix upon which hung the figure of Christ torn by anguish, also honorable mention for her work in modeling. In her post-graduate year she won the George K. Crozier first prize for the best general work in modeling for the year, her particular piece being the "Procession of Arts and Crafts." In 1899 the young student went to Paris, where she worked and studied for three years, chiefly at Colarossi's Academy. Her work brought her in contact with St. Gaudens and other artists; and finally there came a day when the great Rodin himself, thrilled by the figure in "Secret Sorrow," a man represented as eating his heart out, in the attitude of a father beamed upon the young woman and said, "Mademoiselle, you are a sculptor; you have the sense of form." "The Wretched," one of the artist's masterpieces, was exhibited in the Salon in 1903, and along with it went "The Impenitent Thief"; and at one of Byng's exhibitions in L'Art Nouveau galleries it was remarked of her that "under her strong and supple hands the clay has leaped into form: a whole turbulent world seems to have forced itself into the cold and dead material." On her return to America the artist resumed her studies at the School of Industrial Art, winning, in 1904, the Battles first prize for pottery. In 1907 she was called on for a series of tableaux representing the advance of the Negro, for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and later (1913) for a group for the New York State Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In 1909 Meta Vaux Warrick became the wife of Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Mass. A disastrous fire in 1910 destroyed some of her most valuable pieces while they were in storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples of her early work, that for one reason or another happened to be elsewhere, were saved. In May, 1914, however, she had sufficiently recovered from this blow to be able to hold a public exhibition of her work. Mrs. Fuller resides in Framingham, has a happy family of three boys, and in the midst of a busy life still finds some time for the practice of her art.

The fire of 1910 destroyed the following productions: Secret Sorrow, Silenus, Oedipus, Brittany Peasant, Primitive Man, two of the heads from Three Gray Women, Peeping Tom, Falstaff, Oriental Dancer, Portrait of William Thomas, The Wrestlers, Death in the Wind, Désespoir, The Man with a Thorn, The Man who Laughed, the Two-Step, Sketch for a Monument, Wild Fire, and the following studies in Afro-American types: An Old Woman, The Schoolboy, The Comedian (George W. Walker), The Student, The Artist, and Mulatto Child, as well as a few unfinished pieces. Such a misfortune has only rarely befallen a rising artist. Some of the sculptor's most remarkable work was included in the list just given.

Fortunately surviving were the following: The Wretched (cast in bronze and remaining in Europe), Man Carrying Dead Body, Medusa, Procession of Arts and Crafts, Portrait of the late William Still, John the Baptist (the only piece of her work made in Paris that the sculptor now has), Sylvia (later destroyed by accident), and Study of Expression.

The exhibition of 1914 included the following: A Classic Dancer, Brittany Peasant (a reproduction of the piece destroyed), Study of Woman's Head, "A Drink, Please" (a statuette of Tommy Fuller), Mother and Baby, A Young Equestrian (Tommy Fuller), "So Big" (Solomon Fuller, Jr.), Menelik II of Abyssinia, A Girl's Head, Portrait of a Child, The Pianist (portrait of Mrs. Maud Cuney Hare), Portrait of S. Coleridge-Taylor, Relief Study of a Woman's Head, Medallion Portrait of a Child (Tommy Fuller), Medallion Portrait of Dr. A. E. P. Rockwell, Statuette of a Woman, Second model of group made for the New York State Emancipation Proclamation Commission (with two fragments from the final model of this), Portrait of Dr. A. E. P. Rockwell, Four Figures (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) for over-mantel panel, Portrait-Bust of a Child (Solomon Fuller, Jr.), Portrait-Bust of a Man (Dr. S. C. Fuller), John the Baptist, Danse Macabre, Menelik II in profile, Portrait of a Woman, The Jester.