y / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/bookofartistsame00tuck_1 Book of tl)e Artists. American Artist Life, comprising biographical and critical sketches OF AMERICAN ARTISTS: PRECEDED BY AN HIS- TORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF ART IN AMERICA. BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF NOTABLE PICTURES AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS. NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 66 1 BROADWAY LONDON : SAMPSON LOW & CO. 1867. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6T, by G. P. PUTNAM & SON, In the Clerk’s Office of tho District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The New York Printing Company, 8 i , 83, and 85 Centre Street , N?;w York, CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction 7 Early Portrait Painters : — Watson. — Smybert. — Bembridge. — Pine, and others. — F eke. — Pratt. — W right. — C harles W ilson Peale. — Dunlap. — F ulton. — Sargent. — Jarvis. — Fraser. — Frothingham. — Rembrandt Peale. — Harding. — Newton. — Neagle. — Waldo. — Alexander, and others. — Fisher.— Ames.— Jouet. — Ingham 41 Copley 71 Trumbuli 82 West 96 Stuart 107 Malbonf. 12 1 Vanderlyn 126 Allston 136 Sully 158 Morse 163 Leslie 171 Durand 187 W. E. West 197 Weir 203 Chapman 216 Cole 223 Inman 233 Greenough 247 Powers 276 Page 295 Elliot 300 Crawford 306 Huntington . . . . . .321 Leutze 333 Brown 346 Palmer 355 Church 370 Bierstadt 387 Portraiture, Genre, and Historical Painters : — Jocelyn. — Oliver Stone. — Agate. — Healy. — Ver Bryck. — Fink. — Flagg. — Jared B. Flagg. — Woodville. — VI Contents. Edmonds. — Freeman. — Latilla. — Mount. — Glass. — Catlin. — Kellogg. — Deas. Cheney. — Duggan. — Rowse. — Ranney. — Matteson. — Lang. — Rossiter. — J. H. Beard. — Rothermel. — Edwin White — Le Clear. — Gray. — Staigg. — Hunt. — Lambdin. — Terry. — Vedder. — Hennessy. — Boughton. — C. C. Coleman. — Powell. — Ames. — W enzler. — Read. — Cranch. — Ehninger. — Hicks. — Eastman Johnson. — Darley. — Phillips. — Carpenter. — Furness. — Hall.— Dana.— Hoppin. — Tiffany. — Whistler. — Wilde. — Bellows. — Blauvelt. — Benson. — J. G. Brown. — Walter Brown. — J. F. Weir- — Noble. — Wood. — Lafarge. — Nast. — Baker. — Thompson. — Guy. — Homer. - Forbes. — Copeland. — Falconer. — Butler. — Gould. — Nehlig. — J. O’B. Inman. — Yewell. — Julian Scott. — Mayer. — Genin. — Bingham. — Audubon. — Tait. — Bispham. — Brackett. — W. H. Beard. — May. — Wight 398 Landscape-Painters : — Doughty. — Gignoux. — Kensett. — Whittredge. — Russell Smith. — Casilear. — Hubbard. — W. T. Richards. — T. A. Richards. — Gifford. — Inness. — Cropsey. — Suydam. — W enzler. — Heade. — McEntee. — W. Hart. — J. M. Hart. — Birch. — Salmon. — R. Bonfield. — De Haas. — Dix. — Warren. — Brad- ford. — Haseltine. — Williamson. — Bristol. — Tilton. — Colman. — Shattuck. — Griswold. — Gay. — Mignot. — Hamilton. — Brevoort. — Sontag.— Bellows. — Cole, and others. — Ropes. — Thorndike. — Ruggles. — Moran. — Hotchkiss . . 506 Sculptors : — Foreign Sculptors. — Rush. — Frazee. — Augur. — Hart. — Brown. — Story. — Ball. — Ward. — Ives. — Mills. — Dexter. — Volk. — Mozier. — Randolph Rogers. — Rhinehardt. — R. S. Greenough. — Jackson. — Rimmer.— Thompson.— Rogers. — Meade. — Haseltine. — Connolly, and others. — Brackett. — Gould. — Millmore. Female Sculptors : Harriet Hosmer. — Emma Stebbins. — Margaret Foley. — Edmonia Lewis. — Mrs. Freeman. — Anne Whitney. — Clevenger. — Bartholomew. — Akers 570 Appendix 620 ‘ W hen, from the sacred garden driven, Man fled before his Maker’s wrath, An angel left her place in heaven, And cross’d the wanderer’s sunless path. ’Tw as Art ! sweet Art ! new radiance broke Where her light foot flew o’er the ground, And thus with seraph voice she spoke : ‘The curse a blessing shall be found.’” Sprague. “ Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.” — Carlyle. PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT. A candid and comprehensive survey of the Progress of Art in the United States has for some years appeared to be an essential want in our literature, and a theme which cannot fail to be emphatically interesting and acceptable, not merely to those more direCtly connected with Art, professionally and as collectors, but also to the many thousands of intelligent people who can appreciate and enjoy good pictures, although they may not have means to buy them. In this faith the Publishers have induced Mr. Tuckerman to undertake the laborious yet genial task of collecting the leading faCts and details connected with the Progress of Paint ing and Sculpture in this country, and the personal, or at least the professional history of our Artists. In this under- taking the author has incorporated, as the groundwork, his own brief Sketch of American Artist-Life, published some twenty years ago, and which was warmly welcomed by judi- cious critics at home and in England. Biographies of the pioneer Artists, and of those whose names and works are most familiar, are given more at length, and with special regard to authentic details of their characteristic works. The limits of a single volume do not permit extended refer- ence to the works of all our younger Artists — and respeCt has been paid to the modest wishes of those who desire to accom- plish something more worthy of record before they are enrolled in our Art-Annals. PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THIS WORK. This work is essentially a Biographical History of Ameri- can Art ; the statistics, means, influences, obstacles, needs, and triumphs thereof are stated and discussed ; the past fabts, the present tendencies, and the future prospebts of Art among us are also suggested ; but the great feature of the work is its personal revelations. In many instances the author has enjoy- ed intimate relations with the artists he delineates ; and there- fore writes from his own observation and knowledge, which gives both value and vital interest to such memoirs as those of Greenough, Powers, Inman, Crawford, Clevenger, Brown, Leslie, Morse, Church, and many others. The account of Allston is by far the most complete ever written ; in that of Inman and Powers there are extrabts from letters, and speci- mens of original verse ; numerous fresh and significant anec- dotes enliven the narrative — the several departments of Art are fully discussed, as Portraiture , in the chapters on Copley, Stuart, Page, and Elliot ; Landscape , in those devoted to Cole, Durand, Church, etc. ; Miniature , in the sketches of Malbone and Staigg ; Historical \ under West, Trumbull, and Leutze ; Pano- ramic , under Vanderlyn ; and Plastic Art , in the memoirs of Greenough, Powers, Crawford, and Palmer. Among the other incidental subjebts treated in connection with these lives of American Artists, are Western Adventure, in relation to Deas, Bierstadt, Ranney, etc. ; Life in Italy, as experienced by Greenough, Crawford, Allston, etc. ; English Patronage, as enjoyed by West and Leslie ; Tropical and Arbtic Excur- sions, associated with the paintings of Church and Bradford ; the contrasted influence of the Dusseldorf, French, and Italian schools ; — and interspersed with these interesting subjebts, X Plan and Purpose of this Work. many anecdotes of Artist-Life, for the first time put on record by the author ; as, for instance, the experience of W. E. West, while portraying Lord Byron ; of Morse, while initiating the Eledfric Telegraph ; of Chapman, in his early excursions about Rome ; of Palmer, in his humble youthful days ; of Clevenger, Akers, and Powers, in their first isolated struggles ; and of Elliot, in his acquisition and profitable use of a “Stuart” accidentally acquired, “ whereby hangs a tale.” The illustra- tions from travel and books ; the quotations from the best foreign and native art-critics ; the descriptions, dates, and local habitation of interesting works of Art, their character and history ; the fadls of the Real, and the requirements of the Ideal, are among the many themes and associations which give value and variety to the historical details and personal experiences recorded in this work, with fulness, authentic pre- cision, and earnest sympathy. A recent liberal and judicious little treatise on Art, attrib- uted to. a foreign writer of acknowledged authority, contains the following remarks, which, by a pleasant coincidence, we find amply illustrated in this record and discussion of Ameri- can Artist-Life : “ Not by thinking about it will any one find out beauty ; but a sensibility that is weak may be strengthened, and one that is confused may be cleared and purified. Now, the way to make one’s perceptions clear in Art is to consider carefully what Art is in general ; what is its objedf ; under what con- ditions it works, and what may be expedled from it.” “There are standing controversies in Art, which are per- petually breaking out afresh : they take new forms with every new age, but they are essentially the same always. These violent dogmatic decisions crush and wither the timid likings of plain people, which might have developed into cultivated taste.” “ The artist’s capital is in himself ; it is the gift of nature, and incommunicable. And what is this gift ? It is the gift of joy. Will it not satisfy the artist that he should be regarded as one whom Nature has favored with a more elastic spirit than others? as one who, because he retains his fresh- Plan and Purpose of this Work. xi ness when others have lost it in cares and details, becomes a fountain of freshness to the community ? And if there is something sacred in the artist’s intrinsic superiority, is there not also something sacred in his function ? ”* The Publishers. * Elementary Principles of Art. A LeSture. Reprinted from McMillan’s Magazine Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1867. INTRODUCTION. ART IN AMERICA, O one familiar with the Art of Europe, or even with the criticism thereof by eloquent modern writers, there may be little attraction in the earlier productions of pencil and chisel on this Continent; yet liberal curiosity and humane sympathies will discover much significant interest in the fads attending the dawn and progress of Art in America. The contrast between the stern exigencies of primitive civilization and the absorbing claims of a nascent polity and social development, with the initiation of what have ever proved the mature elements of culture and character, alone suggests a certain degree of romance and philosophy ; and when these elements gradually assume an historical interest, and prove the germs of a progressive taste and practice, they acquire no inconsiderable, though often indirect, importance. Although a few portrait- painters have left traces of their vocation among the colonial relics anterior to 1700, such evidences of luxury are too few and ineffective to deserve much notice ; and their rarity may be inferred from the faCt that the artistic paraphernalia which a Scotchman, fifteen years after that date, possessed at Perth Amboy, N. J., made his studio as great a marvel to the scattered inhabitants as the cabinet of an astrologer. Cotton Mather, in his “ Mag- nolia,” speaking of the aversion of John Wilson to sit for his portrait, says: “Secretary Rowson introduced the limner” — showing there were limners in Boston in 1667. The Colony now known as Rhode Island wa's the scene of our earli- est Art ; thither the benignly enterprising Berkeley had brought Smybert, whose pencil transmits the features of some of New England’s fathers in Church and State, and a few of the belles of that day, and whose skill may be estimated by the first composite picture ever executed here — that of his beloved patron and his companions, now in the Yale College Gallery. To 8 Art in America. him, also, we are indebted for the only authentic portrait of Jonathan Ed- wards ; and it was his copy of a Cardinal by Vandyke, which gave Allston, then a Harvard student, his first ideas and practice in colors. Next, in the heart of Pennsylvania, and in the bosom of a seel remarkable for its in- difference to the beautiful as a means of refinement and pleasure, appeared Benjamin West, whose story is a household word; — his boyish sketch of his sleeping brother — his slow encroachments on the prejudices of his neighbors — the interest he excited in Rome, as the pioneer American art- student, who compared the Apollo to a Mohawk warrior ; the royal patron- age he enjoyed in England — his signal ability in choosing subjects and in composition, and his inadequate power of expression — his integrity and kindliness — the encouragement he afforded his countrymen who came to London to become painters — his numerous and elaborate historical works — his serene and prosperous- age, and his well-known “ Christ Rejected ” and “ Healing the Sick,” once so popular and still so endeared — make his benev- olent and venerable figure a genial objeCt in the foreground of our brief Art-history. Anterior to him, and entirely identified with colonial times, is Copley, through whom the brocade, buckles, velvet, powder, and other characteristics of an aristocratic and obsolete toilet, are associated with the old-fashioned dignity and formal self-possession of the eminent and the prosperous subjects of Britain, who were the oracles of society in Pro- vincial America. Like West, he adventured notably in the historical sphere ; and his “ Youth Rescued from a Shark,” and “ Death of Pierson,” and of Chatham, are among the memorable engravings of that period. Patience Wright soon after modelled cleverly in wax and clay, favored by Washington and Franklin; Bembridge and Fraser were celebrities at the South ; Paul Revere, a mechanical genius of Boston, and among her earliest patriots ; Feke and Pratt had set up their easels here and there ; and Wilson Peale and Colonel Trumbull united the fame of soldiers and artists — the former having earliest delineated the Father of his Country, and the latter the features of our Revolutionary heroes and statesmen — otherwise in many instances now lost to our senses forever. And then came Gilbert Stuart, whose humble birthplace, a small farm-house at Narragansett, near the site of the snuff-mill ereCted by his father, a shrewd Scotchman, may still be seen. The vigor of his pencil, the strength and character of his coloring, his colloquial fame, his numerous invaluable family portraits, which are among the most prized heirlooms in America ; the racy anecdotes, the characteristic originality and force of the man ; his work and his ways, his talk and his partiality to the “pungent grains of titillating dust,” once so copiously manufactured by his thrifty sire ; and especially his portrait of Washington, wherein the gentleman and the sage, the hero and the Christian, are so exquisitely combined and impres- sively embodied, — render his memory and his influence as an artist salient and enduring. Earle, Fulton, Dunlap, Williams, and Joseph Wright, are among those who simultaneously wrought in the same field ; and coincident therewith Introduction . 9 the visits of foreign artists, to depict or mould the features of those re- markable men who laid the foundation of our constitutional freedom, save a fresh impulse and an enlarged sphere to the art previously illustrated by native talent. Jarvis and Vanderlyn now became known to fame ; the stories of the former and his eccentricities are among the most amusing of Knicker- bocker reminiscences, and his portrait of “ Perry at Lake Erie,” authentic as a likeness, was long the admiration of hero-worshippers ; while the “ Ariadne ” of the latter was not only regarded as a miracle of beauty, but gave birth to an engraving from the burin of Durand, which threw the pre- vious labors of Edwin, Lawson, and Anderson, into the shade, and is still one of the most creditable specimens of the art, of native origin. Wilson, the ornithologist, soon after came to give the first impulse to the artistic illustration of Natural History, so nobly followed up by Audubon ; and an exquisite miniature painter, Malbone, while yet a youth, and, like Stuart, a native of Rhode Island, scattered precious gems of delicate portraiture from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and died at the zenith of his fame, by none more lamented than by Washington Allston, the sympathetic companion of his boyhood’s rambles at Newport, and of his mature experi- mental studies in art. With the name of this great painter, painting reached its acme of excellence among us. In genius, character, life, and feeling, he emulated the Italian masters, partook of their spirit, and caught the mellow richness of their tints. Around his revered name cluster the most seleCt and gratifying associations of native art ; in each department he exhibited a mastery, as- was emphatically acknowledged when a partial exhibition of his pictures was made in Boston thirty years ago. From an Alpine landscape, luminous with frosty atmosphere and sky-piercing mountains, to moonbeams flickering on a quiet stream — from grand Scriptural to delicate fairy figures — from rugged and solemn Jewish heads to the most ideal female conceptions — from “ Jeremiah ” to “ Beatrice,” and from “ Miriam ” to “ Rosalie,” every phase of mellow and transparent — almost magnetic color, graceful contours, deep expression, rich contrast of tints — the mature, satisfying, versatile triumph of pifitorial art, as we have known and loved it in the Old World, then and there, justified the name of American Titian bestowed on Allston at Rome ; while the spirit- ual isolation and benignity, the instructive and almost inspired discourse, the lofty ideal, the religious earnestness, even the lithe frame, large, ex- pressive eyes, and white, flowing locks of Allston, his character, his life, conversation, presence, and memory, proclaimed the great artist. Nor, though our country’s career in art is so brief, is he — comparatively ripe in years, fame, and achievement — the only highly-gifted and graciously influential native artist whose untimely departure we have been called to mourn. Newton, who alone rivalled Leslie in that deleCtable sphere of illustrative art for which Sterne, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Pope, and Irving have afforded memorable themes, died with too limited a bequest to the artistic treasures of two countries ; for years, miniature painting remained 10 Art in America. among us as it was left by Malbone ; Henry Inman, than whom no votary of the pencil in America had more of the true traits of artist-genius, whose few refined and graceful compositions, and portraits of Wordsworth, Chalmers, Macaulay, and others, amply attest his skill and originality, was cut off in the prime of his years and his faculties ; Thomas Cole, a landscape painter, as truly alive to the significance of our scenery as a subject of art, as is Bryant as one of poetry, and who united graphic pow- ers with poetical feeling, had but just reached his meridian when he passed away. Horatio Greenough left a void not only in the thin rank of our sculptors, but among the foremost of Art’s intelligent and eloquent advo- cates and expositors ; not soon will be forgotten his copious ideas, inde- pendent spirit, and genial fellowship ; no American artist has written more effectively of the claims and defeats of art-culture among us. The remark- able labors of Crawford, his consummate final achievement, his genius, assiduity, success, and early departure, are recent and familiar subjects of eulogy and regret. Deas, Doughty, Bartholomew, Cheney, W. E. West, one of the best delineators of Byron ; Van Bryck, Woodville, Glass, Dug- gan, Suydam, Furness, and other disciples of art, have swelled the obitu- ary, and left cherished memories and trophies. Such are a few of the names and the triumphs which the past affords ; for the most part incom- plete and casual indeed, yet not without precious results and delightful memories ; in some of these men we find the conservators of national fame through authentic portraiture, at a time and in a country when excellence therein was rare ; in others, was manifest a knowledge of art which guided and quickened aspiring students utterly destitute of educational means ; in some, the love of beauty, the moral sensibility and artistic perception glowed, and in all the love and the labors of art raised and propagated its principles and charms, then but imperfectly recognized, now so diffused and honored. A limited influence, but one not less valuable in the utter absence of artistic trophies, must have been exerted by Blackburn, through the few but highly-finished portraits he executed during a brief visit to the Eastern colonies ; the grace of his female heads and the beauty of the hands are remarkable. We can indeed trace the foreign element in ameliorating the method and refining the taste in Art, until several years after the estab- lishment of Independence. The portraits of Pine and Robertson, best known as having delineated Washington and the statesmen of the Revo- lution, the profile miniature likenesses by Sharpless, the Danae of Wert- miiller, who passed several years, and finally died, in Delaware ; the en- thusiasm of the republican sculptor Ceracchi, who modelled the heads of Washington, Hamilton, and other American celebrities, and contemplated a grand historical statuary composition to commemorate the triumph of Liberty, and, at last, was beheaded for conspiring against the first Na- poleon ; the statue by Houdon, and the occasional visits of other and less famed, but comparatively accomplished foreign artists, gradually made the appliances and technicalities of the pursuit more familiar and accessible. Introduction. 1 1 During the French Revolution, many valuable works of the' French, Italian, and Dutch schools found their way to America; within a few years some of the best pictures of the Dusseldorf and modern Parisian school have been exhibited here. American travelers in Europe have secured admirable copies of the most renowned works of the old masters, and foreigners or natives in our principal cities have, in several memora- ble instances, made collections, some of English, others of French and German, American, or Italian pictures, so that there is now an opportu- nity for our artists, without going abroad, to become familiar with the finest exemplars of the limner’s art. Whatever difference of opinion or taste may exist in regard to the comparative merits of the different schools, their products have made apparent to the least critical, the greater thoroughness of equipment and discipline which even moderate success demands of the artist in Europe ; while mediocrity and presump- tion have thus been reproved, true talent has received a new stimulus, the effeCt whereof is obvious in the greater variety of subjects, and the more studious treatment in native art. New York is nobly supplied with Hospitals and Libraries, but she lacks one Institution essential to a great civilized metropolis, — a permanent free Gallery of Art. There is no safe and eligible place of deposit and exhibi- tion for pictures and statuary. The many valuable works that formed the City Gallery, and were once gathered in the Park, long mouldered in a cellar; among them were the masterpieces of Vanderlyn and Cole. A few years ago, an enterprising merchant offered to place a large collection of pictures, by the old masters, in any secure edifice, for the benefit of the public ; but neither public munificence nor private enterprise would furnish the requisite shelter for these artistic exotics, and they now repose in the obscurity of lumber-rooms. Mr. J. J. Jarves brought a chronological se- lection of “ old masters ” from Italy, and sought a permanent home for them here in vain. Our native artists, toiling in their scattered ateliers , have no appropriate medium whereby their labors can be known to the public. It is not the custom here, as in Europe, for strangers to visit stu- dios uninvited ; accordingly, our artists, when they have a new picture to dispose of, send it to a fashionable print-shop, and pay an exorbitant commission in case of sale. The surprise and delight exhibited by die thousands of all degrees, who visited the PiCture Gallery of the Metropolitan Fair, has suggested to many, for the first time, and renewed in other minds more emphatically, the need, desirableness, and practicability of a permanent and free Gallery of Art in our cities. The third metropolis of the civilized world should not longer be without such a benign provision for and promoter of high civilization. Within the last few years the advance of public taste and the increased recognition of art in this country, have been among the most interesting phenomena of the times. A score of eminent and original landscape painters have achieved the highest reputations ; private collec- tions of pictures have become a new social attraction ; exhibitions of works 12 Art in America . of art have grown lucrative and popular ; buildings expressly for studios have been eredted ; sales of pictures by audtion have produced unprece- dented sums of money ; art-shops are a deledtable feature of Broadway ; artist-receptions are favorite reunions of the winter ; and a splendid edi- fice has been completed devoted to the Academy, and owing its eredtion to public munificence, — while a School of Design is in successful operation at the Cooper Institute. Nor is this all ; at Rome, Paris, Florence, and Dusseldorf, as well as at Chicago, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, there are native ateliers , schools, or colledtions, the fame whereof has raised our national charadter and enhanced our intelledlual resources as a people. These and many other fadts indicate, too plainly to be mistaken, that the time has come to establish permanent and stand- ard galleries of art, on the. most liberal scale, in our large cities. Hereto- fore the absence of fire-proof buildings has prevented many Americans of wealth and taste from contributing to such institutions as include the Fine Arts in their objects. Not long since a fire occurred in Boston, whereby several invaluable historical portraits were destroyed, and the risk of such catastrophes deters prudential lovers of artistic treasures from indulging at once their public spirit and private taste, by presenting works of art to such institutions as already exist. No sooner did the New York Historical Society possess a fire-proof edifice than valuable donations began there to accumulate ; the Nineveh marbles, the Egyptian museum, the Audubon colledtions, portraits, statues, and relics, were gratefully confided to this secure and eligible institution. It was soon found inadequate as to space, and the late President, with some of the more enterprising members, ob- tained a charter from the Legislature for a museum of art and antiquities, to be eredted in the Central Park, and open to the public, as are similar institutions in Europe. As a nucleus for the statuary department, the casts from Crawford’s Roman studio are most appropriate and valua- ble ; they are already stored in the old Arsenal. It has been proposed that a permanent colledtion of arms and trophies, such as have attradted such crowds of delighted visitors at the Fair, should constitute another feature. Already we have the munificent donation of Thomas J. Bryan, of his rare and costly gallery of pidtures to the New York Historical Society. It numbers two hundred and fifty pidtures, and is valued at one hundred thousand dollars. It is no casual gathering of odds and ends, such as may be brought together in any European capital by the mere expenditure of tasteless ambition. During many years of residence abroad, Mr. Bryan collected one after another of these interesting works. To him it was a labor of love. At Paris he enjoyed signal advantages ; and there are many exquisite specimens of the early French, Flemish and Italian schools in his gallery, such as are not now to be obtained at any price. As a colledtion, it is remarkable for the number of small masterpieces — those gems which the amateur loves to hang in library, boudoir and salon, and contemplate habitually, and with unsated relish. We remember pic- Introduction. 13 tures of Teniers, Ruysdael, Watteau, Wouverman, etc., which discover new charms the more they are studied ; add to these the fine exemplars of Italian masters, and several valuable historical portraits acquired in this country — such as a Washington, by Stuart — and Priestley and Jefferson, by Peale — and it is not easy to estimate the importance of such a collection as the basis of a Metropolitan gallery. We remember when Mr. Bryan first brought his pictures to New York, that a call upon him was like visiting a venerable burgomaster of Holland, or a merchant-prince of Florence, in her palmy days. He had collected his treasures in the second story of a private building on Broadway, and seated there, a vigilant and enamored custode, in an old arm-chair, with his snow-white hair, gazing round the walls covered with mellow tints, delicious figures, vivid or picturesque landscapes — chef s-dt oeuvre of picto- rial art, hallowed and endeared by memorable names, — he seemed to be- long to another sphere, and we to have wandered from Babel to Elysium in thus entering his gallery from bustling and garish Broadway. And now that he and others have bestowed art-treasures on our city, let us appreciate the gift by making them the starting-point of an enterprise worthy of a cultivated people in a prosperous Republic, — a permanent and precious shrine and heritage of art, to honor, elevate and refine the pros- perous but perverted instinCts of humanity, here and now, and modify the material tendencies of luxury and traffic by the presence of that truth and beauty which, accessible in daily life, are the most conservative of moral agencies, and the most inspiring means of popular culture. To these auspicious indications of art-study, progress and taste, many others could be added, suggestive of the growing interest of the American public in the subjeCt, and the more intelligent enterprise exercised in its behalf. We may cite, for instance, the free education, in elementary art, afforded by the benevolent founder of the Cooper Institute, in New York. Under the scientific training of Dr. Rimmer, and the effective co-opera- tion of many ladies of the city, poor women acquire skill in wood-engraving so as to obtain an honorable subsistence thereby ; others have developed superior capacity in plastic art, and become accomplished in drawing and designing. The careful anatomical instruction of Dr. Rimmer initiates a thorough system of art-knowledge and practice. Yale College has recently been endowed with an Art-fund, which will lead to pictorial exhibitions, a permanent gallery, and professional instruction. In Hartford, Connecticut, is a permanent art-exhibition, at the Wadsworth Gallery ; in Brooklyn, Long Island, an aCtive and prosperous art-association, — and in Boston a tasteful and efficient art-club ; while, by the recent aCtion of Congress, each State of the Union has been invited to fill certain niches or spaces in the old House of Representatives, in the Capitol, at Washington, with two statues, one of each of its most distinguished men, civil and military. These and like projects and social arrangements promise a more judicious conservation of works of art, a better method of instruction, desirable practical results, wider sympathy, and somewhat of that national pride 14 Art in America. and love, which, once freely enlisted in the cause of art, secures her pro* gress and prosperity. The liberality of the citizens of New York has enabled the National Academy of Design to establish a home and nursery of art, wherein the novice may find all needful facilities for study and practice, the adept a secure and eligible exhibition hall for his work, and the amateur a shrine and haunt for his favorite pursuit. A characteristic letter of Dr. Franklin to Wilson Peale, dated London, July 4, 1771, prophesies the future prosperity, while it recognizes the act- ual precarious tenure of Art in America. “ If I were to advise you,” says the prudent philosopher, “ it should be, by great industry and frugality to secure a competency; for, as your profession requires good eyes, and cannot so well be followed yvith spectacles, and, therefore, will not proba- bly afford subsistence so long as some other employments, you have a right to claim proportionally large rewards, while you continue able to exercise it to general satisfaction. The Arts have always traveled west- ward ; and there is no doubt of their flourishing hereafter on our side of the Atlantic, as the number of wealthy inhabitants shall increase, who may be able and willing suitably to reward them ; since, from several in- stances, it appears that our people are not deficient in genius.” Still the discouragements, at this period, were neither few nor small, even in the view of those who now seem to us to have achieved success. “ You have come a great way to starve,” said West to one of his subsequently eminent countrymen, who told him he had visited London to become an historical painter. “ You had better learn to make shoes or dig potatoes,” said Trumbull to another young aspirant, “ than become a painter in this country.” Indeed, the instances of genius to which Franklin referred were chiefly mechanical and political. In the useful arts, the Americans seemed destined to excel ; in naval architecture, machinery, and states- manship, they had already, and have since continued to win distinctive honors ; the Patent Office rather than Galleries of Art seemed the destined conservatory of national fame ; and it was only by slow degrees that the same alacrity and aptitude became manifest in the sphere of the beautiful which so early gained us prestige and promise in that of the practical. Isolated and itinerant, the votary of Art, in the latter years of our colo- nial and the first of our national existence, found his pursuit in America as capriciously remunerative as his education therefor was limited and accidental. West, to secure indispensable resources, had to reside abroad; and for many years he was not only the oracle, but, in the best sense, the patron of those of his countrymen who aspired to the fame and the disci- pline of Art. Peale, Trumbull, Sully, Fulton, Dunlap, Allston, Malbone, Morse, Leslie, and all our early painters, sought and found in him their patient teacher and most efficient friend. Their success, indeed, was long dependent upon foreign, and especially English recognition. The primal impulse and resources of their career indicate how little encouragement or guidance life in America then yielded the student of Art ; and the same Introduction. 15 precarious aids are characteristic of the initiation of those who subse- quently adopted the vocation. Trumbull and Allston found in a copy of Vandyke, Malbone in scene-painting, and Cole in the sight of a traveling limner’s apparatus, the first authentic hints of their chosen pursuit. Pat- ronage was also as diverse in the Old World as in the New ; no Royal Society awarded the prize to the young American at home, and, when a student in Rome, he found no national academy such as represents and fosters there the artistic culture of older countries. He looked to individ- uals for support, and the early and later history of American Art honorably identifies commercial success with tasteful liberality. Citizens of wealth or social influence almost invariably extended seasonable aid to the young and gifted in this career ; and in after years they gratefully trace their first success to the sympathy or beneficence of their prosperous countrymen. Cooper gave Greenough his first commission ; Longworth stretched out the right hand of liberal fellowship to Powers and scores of young West- ern artists ; Luman Reed first encouraged Cole and Durand ; the women of Kentucky sent Hart to Italy to model their great statesman, — and Leutze found his earliest encouragement in the personal interest and judicious orders of three American merchants. The artist, like the author, in America, finds his best and most legitimate sphere of work and honor in social rather than official life. It is true the exigencies of political routine or popular favor give rise to commissions. Portraits of municipal and military heroes are annually ordered ; but, with few exceptions, they are as uninspired in execution as they are uninteresting in subjedt. The whole history of what may be termed the conventional nurture of Art in America is as remarkable a contrast to the means thus employed in Europe as it is illustrative of the democratic tendencies of our professional, not less than our political, life. Local institutions for the encouragement of Art spring up and decline with the same facility as those associations designed for less permanent objedts ; yet, in several of our principal cities, there have been collections of pidlures accessible to students and the public ; and with every succeed- ing year the facilities both for education and enjoyment in Art have in- creased. Peale, soon after the Revolutionary War, established his once famous Museum in Philadelphia, of which national portraits were the chief attradtion ; and that city now boasts of one of the most eligible Art Acade- mies in the country. The Boston Athenaeum early commenced the ac- quisition of works of Art, some of which are invaluable trophies of native genius ; and the Trumbull Gallery at New Haven, Connedlicut, is full of interest ; while in many of the Western cities, annual exhibitions and pri- vate taste indicate the growth of interest in this once ignored and beautiful economy of life. In 1807, an Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in New York, under the auspices of Livingston, Clinton, Hosack, Fulton, Colden, and other prominent citizens, to which the first Napoleon sent casts from the antique and valuable engravings, and of which Colonel Trumbull was the first President. Needed! and controversy soon baffled i6 Art in America. its usefulness and narrowed its means. Revived in 1 8 1 6 by the advent of West’s pictures and Vanderlyn’s “Ariadne,” encouraged by the eloquent addresses of Clinton, Hosack, and Francis, and its practical utility en- hanced by regular instruction in anatomy, the opposition of cliques, and an unfortunate conflagration which destroyed the best part of its models and drawings in 1828, led to a reconstruction, of which the result was the National Academy of Design. Professor Morse, who had originated the earliest social organization of New York Artists, became the first President. The earliest professional art-anatomical leCturer in New York thus describes the experiment : — “The organization of the first association in this city, under the name of the ‘New York Academy of Fine Arts,’ was in 1801. In 1808, it re- ceived the act of incorporation under the name of the ‘ American Academy of Fine Arts,’ and Chancellor Livingston was chosen President ; Colonel John Trumbull, Vice-President ; Dewitt Clinton, David Hosack, John R. Murray, William Cutting, and Charles Wilkes, Directors. If we add the names of C. D. Colden, Edward Livingston, and Robert Fulton, we in- clude in this enumeration the leading New-Yorkers who, for years, were liberal in their patronage to promote the undertaking. Through the instrumentality of the American Minister at the Court of France, Napoleon presented to the institution many valuable busts, antique statues, and rare prints. After several years of trial and neglect, it was revived in 1816. Certain paintings of West, which for a time were added to its collections through the kindness of Robert Fulton, with the ‘Ariadne’ of Vanderlyn, and other results of the easel of that distinguished artist, sustained it for a few years longer from dissolution ; while the several addresses of Clinton, Hosack, and Trumbull, gave it for a season additional popularity. At this particular crisis in the Academy, a measure long contemplated was at- tempted to be carried into effedt, viz., the organization of a School of Instruction, with models and ledtures ; but the straitened condition of the Academy put a period to all plans cherished to protedt its duration and increase its usefulness. With the downfall of the American Academy, the National Academy of Design took its rise about 1828. S. F. B. Morse, who has recently become so famous by his invention of the elec- tric telegraph, was eledted President ; and the constitutional provisions of this association being far more acceptable to the feelings and views of a large majority of the artists than the old Academy favored, it has proved an eminently successful corporation, and has aided in numerous ways the promotion of its specified objedts, — the Arts of Design. The plan of Ana- tomical Ledtures was now carried into effedt, and Morse, and Dr. F. G. Kinp r , was a most successful medium for the direCt encouragement of native art : its income reached the sum mentioned as that of the London subscriptions ; it annually distributed from five hundred to more than a thousand works of Art ; it published a series of popular engravings from American pic- tures, and during several years issued a Bulletin, wherein much valuable criticism, a complete record of the artistic achievement of the country, and a large amount of interesting information as to the Art and Artists of Europe, were embodied for immediate satisfaction and future reference. Several American Artists, who have since achieved high and prosperous careers, were first substantially encouraged, and their claims made patent by the seasonable commissions of the Art-Union. After a brief period of eminent service, the institution was broken up, on account of the alleged violation its course offered to the lottery prohibitions of the State law. Perhaps it ceased at a time when its best work had been accomplished, and when American Art had acquired enough native impulse and self- reliance to flourish without such extraneous support ; but, in the retro- spect of our brief artistic annals, the Art-Union marks a period of fresh progress and assured prosperity. Constant, indeed, though irregular, has been the increase of means, appliances, resources, and recognition, in native Art. From annual me- tropolitan, we have advanced to frequent exhibitions in every part of the land, — those held within a few years at Providence, R. I. ; Albany, Buffalo, Troy, and Utica, N. Y. ; Chicago, 111 .; Baltimore, Md. ; Washington, D. C. ; Portland, Me.; Charleston, S. C. ; New Haven, Ct., and elsewhere, having brought together a surprising display of superior achievement in Art, the result of native talent or tasteful purchases of old and new foreign works. Let us rejoice, also, that American Art has, at last, been recognized as is Art in America. a faCt abroad. A permanent group surrounded the “ Greek Slave ” at the Manchester Exhibition; Crawford’s equestrian statue of Washington was the admiration of Munich ; Leutze’s departure from Diisseldorf is regret- ted as the loss of a leading spirit of its famous school ; Allston’s pictures are &mong the most cherished in the noble collections in England ; Story’s “ Cleopatra,” and the landscapes of Church, Cropsey, and others, have won high critical encomiums in London. At the late Fine Art Exhibitions in Antwerp and Brussels, several landscapes by American painters attracted much attention. The Ameri- can Minister at Belgium, Mr. Sandford, writes that an artist of Brussels, of much merit and celebrity, declared the works of our artists there exhib- ited to be among the most characteristic of the kind ever brought to that city, and that admiring .crowds were gathered around them at all hours. Hubbard’s “ Afternoon in Autumn ” was especially regarded with appre- ciation, and Rogers’s statuette groups, derived from incidents of the war, also attracted great attention. At the Antwerp exhibition, one of Ken- sett’s landscapes occupied the post of honor, and a noted piCture-dealer of that city has made a proposal to the artist to paint exclusively for that market, offering large prices as inducements for so doing. Pictures by Gifford, Hart, and others, were also favorably remarked upon. “ The American collection, as a whole, attraCls attention, and has been very highly praised by the first artists of France,” writes an intelligent critic of the Paris Exposition of 1867. “It is hardly possible to visit it without encountering some celebrity, and it is amusing to hear the surprise which is expressed at the progress which America is supposed to have made during the past two or three years — or since they knew there was such a country. Church’s 1 Niagara’ is once more enjoying a career, and the ‘ Rainy Seasons in the Tropics,’ with its double rainbow, has its admirers. The originality of this artist, more than his technical skill with the brush, entitles him to the leading position. The two pictures here exhibited illustrate the force and accuracy of a peculiar mode of observa- tion, and of a manner of composition which is quite free from the consid- eration of schools. “ Every nation thinks that it can paint landscape better than its neighbor ; but it is not every nation that goes about the task in a way peculiar to itself. No one is likely to mistake an American landscape for the land- scape of any other country. It bears its nationality upon its face smilingly. The poetic repose of Gifford is exquisitely presented in his ‘ Twilight on Mount Hunter,’ one of the finest pictures in the collection. Winslow Homer’s strongly defined war-sketches are examined with much curiosity, especially the well-known canvas, ‘ Prisoners to the Front.’ Hunting- don’s 4 Republican Court’ is in a good place, and is generally surrounded by a crowd. It is not often that so many pretty women can be seen together as in this graceful imagining of an impossible event. Eastman Johnson exhibits four canvases, all of them too well known to need par- ticular reference. There are not many genre pictures in the Exposition Introduction. 19 that excel these. They have the merit, too, of being true and faithful transcripts of American life, or of a phase of it which, as it has now passed away, can only be recalled by the pencil of the artist.” Of private collections, some of which were kept together but a few years, and others, which are still the source of great and instructive enjoy- ment to our citizens, may be mentioned those of Gilmore and Walters, of Baltimore ; Meade, Snider, Towne, Carey, Fales, and Harrison, of Philadel- phia; Hosack, Hone, Reed, Leupp, Cozzens, Lenox, Roberts, Stuart, Os- born, Olyphant, Nye, Bryan, Boker, Hunter, Belmont, Aspinwall, Johnston, Blodgett, and others, of New York; Corcoran, of Washington ; Shoen- berger, of Pittsburgh ; Longworth, of Cincinnati, etc., etc. “In the history of certain races of mankind it is related,” said Bryant, (when the corner-stone of the New York Academy of Design* was laid, Odtober 19th, 1863), “that in the earlier stages of their civilization they led a wandering life, dwelling in tents, migrating from place to place, and pasturing their herds wherever the glitter of cool waters or the verdure of fresh grass attracted them. As they made one advance after another in the arts of life, and grew numerous from year to year, they began to dwell in fixed habitations, to parcel out the soil by metes and bounds, to gather themselves into villages and to build cities. So it has been with this Academy. For more than a third of a century it had a nomadic existence, pitching its tent, now here and now there, as convenience might dictate, but never possessing a permanent seat. It is at last enabled, through the munificence of the citizens of New York — a munificence worthy of the greatness of our capital and most honorable to the character of those who inhabit it — to ereCt a building suitable for its purposes and in some degree 'commensurate with the greatness of its objeCts. It no longer leads a pre- carious life ; the generosity of its friends ensures it an existence which will endure as long as this city shall remain the seat of a mighty com- merce. When this institution came into existence I could count the eminent artists of the country on my fingers. Now, what man among us is able to enumerate all the clever men in the United States who have devoted the efforts of their genius to the Fine Arts ? For a taste so widely diffused we must have edifices of ample dimensions and imposing architecture, dedicated to that purpose alone, and one such we shall pos- sess hereafter in the Temple of Art whose corner-stone we are this day assembled to lay.” * The Academy is one of the finest buildings in the city. It consists of three stories and a base- ment. The main front extends along Twenty-third street for eighty feet, and the side front has a depth of one hundred feet on Fourth avenue. Both faces are of white Westchester county marble banded with North river graywacke stone, except the basement, which is of gray Hastings marble, banded with graywacke, and the third story, which shows a capricious and beautiful blending of white and gray marble. The external decorations of the building are rich but simple. There is a fine flight of steps on the Twenty-third street front, and a portico, the ornamentation of which is in the highest and most expensive style of carving and statuary. The style is like the famed Ducal palace at Venice The building and ground cost about two hundred thousand dollars — most of which has been con- tributed by our wealthy citizens, lovers of art. The basement story is for the necessary offices, and the upper stories for exhibition, ledture, and school-room. * 20 Art in America . The increased value of Art, as a commodity, and of its appreciation as an element of luxury, if not of culture, is evinced by the statistics of the Picture trade in the commercial metropolis. Twenty-five years ago and less, what were called the “ old masters ” occasionally had purchasers among us ; but so few were those who took any interest in, and professed any taste for, works of art, that they formed a very small and exceptional class. A person known as “old Paff” sold more pictures than any other' dealer ; he was an eccentric man, and his place of business was where the Astor House now stands. Paff, we are told, always had something new in the old line. “ Ah, Mr. Reed,” said he, to one of the most liberal and discriminating of the early friends of American art, in New York, “ der is a gem for you, but I don’t think I sell it to you. I was cleaning a land- scape I bought at auction, and I cleaned one corner a leetle hard and I thought I saw something underneath, and sure enough, some one has stolen an old master in Italy, and painted a landscape over it to prevent detection, and now I have him. I don’t know, but I think it is a Correg- gio. I sell him now for one t’ousan’ dollar. But come to-morrow.” Well, he came to-morrow, and the picture was all cleaned and varnished, with a nice glass in front. “ Ah, Mr. Reed, I can’t sell him for one t’ousan’ ; it is a fine Vandyke, here is the original engraving of it ; no doubt about it. I must have five t’ousan’ dollars for it.” Then came old Aaron Levy, whose evening audlion sales are remembered by a few of our older citizens. These were the predecessors of Leeds & Co. Soon after they commenced the occasional public sale of pictures, an eminent merchant of the city re- marked to the senior member of the firm one day, that he had done a very foolish thing, and was ashamed of having thrown away thirty-five dollars for a pidlure ; the same gentleman, however, died leaving ten thousand dollars’ worth of paintings. One of the earliest consignments from Italy, received by Leeds & Co., was a collection of pictures belonging to the estate of Cardinal Fesch ; he gave a standing order to his faCtor, to pur- chase any picture offered for sale at four scudi — expeCting to find some valuable works in the mass thus collected, which he had examined, every now and then, by an expert. The experiment was successful ; several rare and precious works were thus obtained ; doubtless, in some instances, they had been stolen. In the spring of 1839, in the old Academy galleries was exhibited one of the finest collections of pictures ever brought to this country, known as the “Abraham collection.” It was said that the pictures were entrusted to him to be cleaned, and were removed here. Among them were a fine Claude and Murillo. The exhibition was stopped by a law process, and the reputed owner incarcerated ; subsequently a com- promise was effected. He left in this country an original miniature por- trait of Oliver Cromwell, by Cooper.* The four hundred pictures from the Fesch Gallery were sold by Leeds & Co., eighteen years ago, at the rate of from two to two hundred and fifty dollars each ; one was bought * Annals of the National Academy of Design. Introduction, 21 for six dollars and a half ; the purchaser took it, with others, to New Orleans, and among them was one a connoisseur evinced great anxiety to buy, which excited the hopes of the owner ; it proved to be a Correggio — was purchased for three thousand dollars, and taken to England, where a nobleman bought it for two thousand guineas. American Art was then in its infancy ; but Vanderlyn and others had already obtained high prices ; and gradually a taste for foreign modern art sprang up. And this was a great benefit to our artists, as it made pictures better known and more interesting to the people than they had ever been ; thenceforth the sales increased in number and pecuniary results. Leeds & Co., twenty years ago, sold seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of pictures annually ; fifteen years ago the amount of their sales was two hundred thousand dol- lars ; ten years since, three hundred and fifty thousand ; and from that time, every year, the demand and supply have constantly expanded. They have sold many American single pictures for five thousand dollars, — one by Bierstadt for seven thousand two hundred dollars. The sale of the Boker collection of Diisseldorf pictures, and that of the Hunter collection of Italian, are comparatively recent. In December, 1863, they sold the pri- vate collection of Mr. John Wolfe, of New York, for over one hundred and eleven thousand dollars, which "was then considered the largest and best sale ever made in this country. Many of their sales range from twenty to sixty thousand dollars; those made gratuitously for the Artists’ Fund Society, for the last seven years, and consisting of pictures contributed by the artists for a charity fund for the bereaved families of their comrades, have averaged from three to eight thousand dollars. One of the most re- markable of their sales of American pictures was held the present year, and consisted of small works (from eight to ten and twelve inches) ; many of them, however, highly finished and characteristic : one hundred in num- ber, they brought twenty thousand dollars ; and one, a small head of Elliot, painted by himself, eight hundred. These faCts might be indefinitely multiplied : it is enough to add that Leeds & Co., after leaving their dingy auCtion room in Nassau street for the Diisseldorf Gallery, have been obliged, by the extent and popularity of this once utterly negleCted branch of business, to open an elegant permanent Art Gallery in the upper part of Broadway, for the exhibition and sale of pictures, — which is a favorite place of resort, and the frequent scene of amusing competition between rival purchasers of an “old master,” a modern European gem, or the work of a favorite American artist. The “ International Art-Institution,” in New York, distributes works of the best German artists. For several years two foreign houses in New York have been largely engaged in the importation and sale of modern European pictures ; and some idea of the amount ex- pended for such works may be inferred from the faCt that, during the past year, 1866-7, Goupil & Co. disposed of pictures by such artists as Auchen- bach, Bouguereau, Frere, Fichel, Gerome, Meissonier, Merle, Troyon, Wil- lems, etc., amounting in the aggregate to three hundred thousand dollars. Within a few years past, American artists, especially painters, have, in 22 Art in America . many instances, been remunerated for their labor far beyond its adtual mar- ket value, if we take European prices as a standard. One cause of this is the sudden prosperity of an imperfedtly educated class, who, with little discrimination, and as a matter of fashion, devote a portion of their newly acquired riches to the purchase of pictures ; and as our artists have of late established a certain social prestige, friendly influences are not wanting to secure their liberal patronage. In fadt, the entire relation of Art to the public has changed within the last ten years : its produdts are a more familiar commodity ; studio-buildings, artist-receptions, auction sales of special productions, the influence of the press, constant exhibitions, and the popularity of certain foreign and native painters, to say nothing of the multiplication of copies, the brisk trade in “ old masters,” the increase of travel securing a vast interchange of artistic products — these and many other circumstances have’ greatly increased the mercantile and social impor- tance of Art. Where there is absolute talent and consistent industry, the vocation is no longer precarious ; and among the many contrasts which the enlightenment and prosperity of our country offer to refledtive observ- ation, there is none more striking than that between the early and isolated struggles, and the adtual appreciation and success, of the genuine artist in America. It is remarkable how many American artists were originally apt in, or dependent upon, mechanical skill. Peale and Powers, Durand and Palmer, Chapman and Kensett, were disciplined for pidtorial or plastic work by the finer process of workmanship in machinery, watchmaking, carving, or engraving. Another characteristic is their versatility of talent. Allston, Leslie, Greenough, Cole, Akers, Story, and many other American artists, are endeared or admired as writers. We find also, in their respedtive traits, something kindred, however inferior, to the special excellences of “old masters,” or modern transatlantic artists: Allston was called the American Titian at Rome ; and Page and Gray assimilate to that peerless master of color ; there is a Moreland vein in Mount’s happiest concep- tions : somewhat of Hogarth and Wilkie in Darley : Inman at his best has been compared to Lawrence, and Boughton, Hunt, and Staigg to Frere. It was admitted a few years since at Rome, that the best modern copy of the Beatrice came from the pencil of Cephas G. Thompson, and the best re- production of a Claude sunset from that of George L. Brown. We thus often recognize in the crude efforts of American limners a true vein of tra- ditional art, and feel that, under favorable circumstances, it might have developed into completeness and charadter, instead of flitting across the dream of youth, and awaking the sigh of patriotic contemplation at its casual aspedt and evanescent life. Another obvious characteristic of our artists, as a body, and viewed in comparison with those of Europe, is the inequality of their productions. Abroad we are accustomed to recognize a different manner, as it is termed, in the works of painters, according to the epoch, from Raphael to Wilkie. Two classes of pictures, two kinds or degrees of style, identify different Introduction. 23 periods of the artistic career ; but in America the variations of ability or merit in the results of individual art are unparalleled. We can sometimes hardly realize that the same hand is responsible for the various works attrib- uted thereto, so wide is the interval between crudity and finish, expres- sion and indifference, between the best and worst pidtures : so many are experimental in their work, so few regularly progressive. The imperfedt training, the pressure of necessity, the hurry and bustle of life, the absence of a just and firm critical influence, and a carelessness which scorns pains- taking as a habit, and is only temporarily corredted by the intervention of some happy moment of inspiration and high encouragement — are among the manifest causes of this remarkable inequality. Incomplete endowment, and “ devotion to the immediate,” explain these incongruities of artist-life and pradtice in America. A “ knack at catching a likeness ” has often been the whole capital of a popular limner, whose portraits, in many in- stances, are the sole memorials of endeared progenitors in family homes, and, as such, cherished despite the violations of drawing, and absurdities of color, apparent to the least pradlised eye. In other cases there is a sense of color without knowledge of any other artistic requisite for a painter ; and by virtue of this one faculty or facility, the so-called artist will execute dazzling historical or allegorical works, sometimes on a large scale, and find their exhibition in the rural distridts amply remunerative. It not seldom happens, also, that a really skilled draughtsman and color- ist, whose best portraits are deservedly considered triumphs of skill or taste, will, for a certain time, and in certain places, and for special ends, turn his art into a trade, dash off likenesses cheap and fast, fill his purse, and compromise his fame ; so that those only acquainted with his carefully executed works, upon encountering these impromptu results of reckless thrift, will gaze incredulously, and perchance indignantly thereon. What Lord Bacon says of the pursuit of learning is often applicable here to that of art — temporary motives and unworthy compromise often degrad- ing the ideal and dwarfing the result: “Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisi- tive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and de- light ; sometimes, for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to enable them to a victory of wit and contradiction, and most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men ; as if there were sought, in know- ledge, a couch, whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospedt ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort of commanding ground, for strife and contention ; or a shop, for profit and sale ; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man’s estate.” It is evident that Art in America, as a social and aesthetic element, has formidable obstacles wherewith to contend ; the spirit of trade often de- grades its legitimate claims ; its thrifty, but ungifted votaries thereby 24 Art in America. achieve a temporary and factitious success, while its conscientious and aspiring devotees often pine in negleCfc. The lottery system, under different forms, and the “tricks of trade,” still further materialize what should be an artistic standard ; criticism, so called, ranging from indiscriminate abuse to fulsome partiality, rarely yields instructive lessons ; fashion, ignorance, the necessity of subsistence, the absence of settled principles of judgment in the public, and of intelligent method, scope, and aim in the artist, tend still further to lower and confuse the pursuit. But on the other hand, charityand patriotism, perseverance and progress, self-respeCt and earnest- ness, continually vindicate the character and claims of American artists. Among them are some noble men and refined associates, whose influence and example are singularly benign ; the war for the Union had no more disinterested volunteers, and the Pro P atria inscribed on the pictures they contributed to the Sanitary Fair was the watchword of their conduCt in that perilous time. Very true to their intuitions and special faculty, also, are many of our artists, working on in modest self-reliance, undeterred by vulgar abuse, cold indifference, or the temptation to compromise honest conviCtion and the higher claims of an intellectual profession. Critical observers have a good opportunity to judge of the respective merits of the different foreign schools of painting, as far as initiatory dis- cipline is concerned, in comparing the American eleves of the Paris atelier , the Diisseldorf professor, and the Italian academies ; while the works of our native painters, especially in landscape, who have never been abroad, offer another illustration of what may be called the educational system of Art. Accuracy and facility in drawing are generally conceded to the pupils of French artists, a rare knowledge of elementary principles of painting to those who faithfully improve the advantages of the best German schools ; and a certain bold adherence to nature, and fresh and firm grasp of her realities, have been recognized as characteristic of the best untravelled native limners. It is a trite maxim, that Art, to be at all valuable or significant, must be true ; but there are many kinds and degrees of truth : the literal truth of the Dutch, the suggestive truth of the English, the truth of sentiment of the Italian, the technical truth of the French school. In Egypt, the monumen- tal solemnity of Art, however enigmatical, is characteristic of a bygone civilization, and, therefore, of deep historical interest. In China, the very ugliness and mosaic imitation in Art is negatively eloquent of a stationary civilization. Greece, in her immortal types of beauty ; Etruria, with her graceful, massive, but limited forms and phases of Art ; the Nineveh mar- bles, the mediaeval tapestry and carvings, the religious Art of Spain and Italy, the domestic scenes, which, from Gainsborough and Hogarth to Leslie and Wilkie, identify British Art, each and all are true, either to an epoch, a faith, a national taste, or a sentiment of humanity ; and yet how widely separated in merit, in interest, and in beauty ! Here, in America, as we have seen. Art long struggled against the tide of thrift, political excitement, and social ambition. The tranquillity, the individuality, the Introduction. 25 pure and patient self-reliance and unworldliness, which is its native atmos- phere, have been and are alien to the tone and temper of our national life. But, on this very account, is the ministry of Art more needful and pre- cious ; and with all the critical depreciation which stridl justice may de- mand, we find, in the record and the observation of artist-life in America, its association and its influence, a singular balm and blessing. Consider it, for instance, as manifest in our great commercial centre and metropolis. Reader, did you ever spring into an omnibus at the head of Wall street, with a resolution to seek a more humanizing element of life than the hard struggle for pecuniary triumphs ? Did you ever come out of a Fifth avenue palace, your eyes wearied by a glare of bright and varied colors, your mind oppressed with a nightmare of upholstery, and your conscience reproachful on account of an hour’s idle gossip ? Did you ever walk up Broadway, soon after meridian, and look into the stony, haggard, or frivo- lous countenances of the throng, listen to the shouts of omnibus-drivers, mark the gaudy silks of bankrupts’ wives, and lose yourself the while in a retrospective dream of country-life, or a sojourn in an old deserted city of Europe ? A reaction such as this is certain, at times, to occur in the mood of the dweller in the kaleidoscope of New York ; and as it is usually induced by an interval of leisure, we deem it a kindly hint to suggest where an antidote may be found for the bane, and how the imagination may be lured, at once, into a new sphere, and the heart refreshed by a less artificial and turbid phase of this mundane existence. Go and see the artists. They are scattered all over the metropolis : sometimes to be found in a lofty attic, at others in a hotel ; here over a shop, there in a back-parlor; now in the old Dispensary, and again in the new University ; in Studio Building or Academy, isolated or in small groups, they live in their own fashion, not a few practising rigid and ingenious economies ; others nightly in elite circles or at sumptuous dinners ; some genially cra- dled in a domestic nest, and others philosophically forlorn in bacheloric solitude. But wherever found, there is a certain atmosphere of content, of independence, and of originality in their domiciles. I confess that the ease, the frankness, the sense of humor and of beauty I often discover in these artistic nooks, puts me quite out of conceit of prescriptive formali- ties. Our systematic and prosaic life ignores, indeed, scenes like these ; but the true artist is essentially the same everywhere — a child of nature, to whom “ a thing of beauty is a joy forever ; ” and, therefore, a visit to the New York studios cannot fail to be suggestive and pleasing, if we only go thither, not in a critical, but in a sympathetic mood. Even where we find no new and remarkable work, there are sketches and figures that excite the most congenial reminiscences. To the traveler, who cherishes Italian memories, there is somewhat of the poetry of life in a “ Beggar-Child,” who looks as if he had just stepped out from an angle of the Piazza d’Espagna or the shadow of Trajan’s Column, so much of the physiognomy and the magnetism of the clime are incarnated in lorm, com- plexion, attitude, eye, and expression. Equally suggestive are the Pifferini , 2 6 Art in America. sure to be found in some studio, two of those picturesque figures that swarm in Rome at Christmas-time, and are indissolubly associated with her fetes, ruins, and shrines ; the elder leans against a church-wall, on which the half-obliterated ecclesiastical placard looks marvellously fami- liar ; his peaked and broad-brimmed hat set on his head in a way inimita- ble for its effeCt of shadow and grace, his luxuriant beard, velvet jacket, effective attitude, and meditative gaze, are precisely true to faCt ; at his side nestles a boy, whose long tresses and large, pensive eyes, whose olive cheek and angelic smile remain indelibly stamped on the memory of all recent visitors to the Eternal City. We recognize in this beautiful urchin one of the “ things of beauty,” which the English poet, who died in Rome, has told us so truly, “ is a joy forever ; ” the pilgrim’s instrument is at his feet. How come back to the heart, as we gaze, the dreaminess, the calm, the sunny lapse in life’s struggle in which it was our privilege to revel, and is now our delight to remember, as the most peaceful and bril- liant episode of our days of foreign travel ! These two figures, caught from the passive life of old Rome, typify it completely to the imagination, and touch the key-note of an ended song. Not the successful and renowned alone reward our visit ; those who love and study art, but fail to achieve greatness therein, have a charm and a lesson for the catholic observer. From the busy limner, whose fresh array of pictures indicates that every passing hour brings its task, turn to a dreamer who lives in the past, because he is too ideal to clutch at the present. Yet if ever a man had the true artist-feeling, the genuine sense of beauty and poetic conscience, it is he. I know this from many a collo- quy with him while strolling along the sunny bank of the Arno, and through his acute and sympathetic comments in the Florence galleries. He used to make beautiful impromptu studies from Shakspeare. He has a keen perception of the humor and the sentiment of the poet, and could translate them daintily with pen or crayon. He is one of those artists who should live in Italy : the executive is subordinate in him to the imagi- native. I found him copying a portrait ; it was that of a genuine Italian woman : “ Heart on her lips and soul within her eyes, Soft as her clime and sunny as her skies.” He was doing it for the love of the thing, wishing to preserve a memorial so characteristic. I remembered an old man’s head, a Tuscan painter’s beard, and other gleanings from that Southern land ; and there were books I knew at a glance came from a stall in the Piazza del Duomo, in Flor- ence. There he sat, intent on the fine outline of the handsome Italian, contentedly touching her great orbs of jet with light, and tinting her softly-rounded olive cheeks to a Fornarina richness : the same reserved, quiet, and genial dreamer as years ago in Italy; never satisfied with his achievements, full of sensibility to the claims and the triumphs of art, and apparently content to breathe the air made vital by its enchantments. Introduction. 2 7 It is char after , as distinguished from vague imitation and inexpressive details, which is the conservative element in pidlorial art, and connects it with life, history, the affinities of individuals, and the sympathies of the race. Well says an English reviewer : “ What we want is what Hogarth gave us — a representation of ourselves.” So intimate, however unconsci- ous, is the relation of the artist’s character to his work, that one discrim- inating in moral indications, reads, at a glance, the honest patience of the Fleming in his elaborate fruit-pieces and interiors, the gentleman in Van- dyke’s portraits, the lover of aristocracy in Lawrence, the shadow of the Inquisition in Spagnoletto, and the saintliness of a holy mind in Fra Angelico. Applying this test to our American Art, we must feel that its grand deficiency is want of character; glimpses, prophecies, imperfedt developments thereof we discover ; but as a general rule, not enough to suggest high independence or refined individuality. In truth, our art, like our life, is too subject to vicissitude and cosmopolitan influ- ences, too dependent on the market ; most of our artists paint to live, hoping, perhaps, the time may come when they may live to paint. Meantime, let us recognize whatever of truth and feeling redeems cur- rent Art. Art is a language : followed to its legitimate significance, this definition affords at once a test and a suggestion of its character and possibilities ; for language is but the medium of ideas, the expression of sentiment — it may be purely imitative, or pregnant with individual meaning — it may breathe confusion or clearness, emotion or formality, the commonplace or the poetic. The first requisite for its use is to hare something to say , and the next, to say it well. Now, unfortunately, few artists escape the tyranny of conventionalism or the lures of ecledticism ; they drudge too blindly in the grooves of precedent, or they combine too many foreign to assimilate native elements — hence the monotony, mechanical, uninteresting, in Art. When a painter really expresses what is in him, and not what the public fiat approves, or famous limners have made manifest for ages, he is sure to be attended to if there is a spark of artistic genius or feeling in his nature. Ruskin, in his sweeping way, disapproved of the modern French school, finding only conventional merit and technical skill therein ; modest, pains-taking, ingenuous little Frere sends a picture to the London Exhi- bition — it is only that of a girl hanging up a chaplet ; but it told a story to every heart ; it was full of nature, truth, expression, and, therefore, more ostentatious pictures were neglected, and every one lingered, and gazed, and admired, and sympathized over that simple conception, by virtue of that “one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin.” Our peo- ple do not lack insight, observation, perseverance ; many of our young artists have a vein of perception or feeling which they long to express, and at the outset, they do express it — crudely, perhaps, but sincerely ; it is probably unrecognized ; they hear skilful execution praised, they find mechanical adepts- glorified, and so they turn aside from their own inspira- tion to follow the multitude ; they conform, and seek money, and forget 28 Art in America. the dreams of youth ; what was and is naive and original in them is over- laid and baffled. And yet our atmosphere of Freedom, of material activity, of freshness and prosperity, should animate the manly artist. He has a vantage-ground here unknown in the Old World, and should work confidently therein for the reason given by Agassiz in regard to science — the absence of routine. Academic trammels, prescriptive patronage, the deference excited by great exemplars, do not here subdue the artist’s aspirations, or make him de- spair of himself, or bewilder his ideal of excellence. However little our people know about Art, they are eminently teachable. Point out what is admirable or expressive in a picture, and they will perceive, remember, and draw wisdom from it. Let the American artist rise above the national drawbacks, the love of gain and the conformity to public opinion — let him use wisely the resources around him, and be true to himself and he can achieve miracles. But so long as he mistakes notoriety for fame, and thinks more of dollars than his artistic conscience, his course must be stationary or retrograde. “To a true man,” well says a recent writer, “ fame is valu- able precisely as he can solemnly append to it his own signature.” Another disadvantage under which the American artist labors is the absence of a recognized standard, test, and ordeal, such as a prosperous school, well-endowed academy, or even a cosmopolitan gallery of pidtures and statues, provides. There may be danger of slavish imitation at Rome and Florence, of local conformity at Diisseldorf, or mere technical progress at Paris ; but in each of these, and most of the other European cities, there are resources in the way of discipline and ideals of specific excellence, which continually guide aright, if they do not stimulate to high effort. These ample and accessible means, however liable to abuse, serve, at all events, as landmarks, examples, and precedents ; complacency with me- diocre success, glaring faults of execution, gross errors of taste, are thereby seasonably corredted where there is the slightest basis of good sense or the rudiments of genuine capacity. In the New World, on the contrary, although admirable pictures and statues may be found in the large cities, and an adequate supply of the literature of Art, they are not as accessible, nor do they find interpreters as readily as in Europe — so that the novice, unless remarkable for moral energy and zeal, is liable to be confirmed in practical faults or incongruous ideas before observation and study have hinted their existence. Hence, it is not uncommon to find crudity in some element, the effedt of early disad- vantage, united to great excellence in other qualities ; defedtive drawing, for instance, with superior color, exadt imitation of form and texture with false perspedlive — skill in the gradation of tints, with bad management of light and shade ; doubtless such anomalies are common to the votaries of art in all countries, and arise from incomplete endowments ; but they are more frequent and glaring here, because the correctives which acknow- ledged masterpieces supply are not so patent and perpetual ; the eye that daily scans a perfedt contour in the statue of the wayside, or an exquisite Introduction. 29 outline and tone in the altar-piece or family portrait always visible, is natu- rally quick to discern any great deviation from truth and nature in personal experiments with pencil and modelling-stick. In a word, the education of Art, partly unconscious and partly the result of earnest attention, derived from the constant presence of the best works, is, in a great measure, want- ing to our young artists. There is a singular identity in their experience : first, the indication of an aptitude and facility in imitating natural or arti- ficial objects, inexplicable on any but intuitive grounds, and exhibited, per- haps, under circumstances totally unsuggestive of Art ; then the encour- agement of friends, an over-estimate of the promise thus foreshadowed, an isolated practice, and, in some cases, marvellous stumbling onward, until some generous patron, lucky hit, or fashionable success, launches the flat- tered, confident, and not incapable, yet altogether uneducated disciple, into a career which, according to the strength or weakness of his character, will be a trade, a trick, a mechanical toil, an unmeaning facility, a patient advancement, or a triumph of genius. Sometimes the appreciation of a single great picture, the word of a true artist, the inspiration of an exalted sentiment, have rescued the would-be artist from years of commonplace industry and mercenary toil, and placed him on the track of noble achieve- ment and conscientious self-devotion. But we have only to mark the prevalent aims of American life, and analyze the spirit of our times and people, to feel how small the chances are that any such benign intervention will guide to fine issues, whatsoever of lofty and delicate power lives in the awakening soul prompt to dedicate itself to Art. There is, first of all, pressing upon his senses and belea- guering his mind, the ideas of material success, whereby not only fortune, but wit, is measured in this prosperous land ; then, the fever and hurry bred by commerce, political strife, and social ambition, insensibly encroach upon artistic self-possession ; again, the ease with which notoriety may be gained through the press and personal amenity, and the obtuseness with which it is so often mistaken among us for glory ; and, finally, the absence of that intelligent and enthusiastic sympathy, prompt to detect the beautiful, em- phatic in vindicating the true, which encompassed the old painters with a vital atmosphere of encouragement, and animates the best modern artists of Germany and England, by the honors of a munificent patfonage and national distinction. Art springs from, and is modified, as before suggest- ed, by individual character to an unappreciated degree ; and this subtle, yet shaping element, is obviously more exposed to coarse and indurating processes here than in any other civilized land. In Europe we encounter at every step the artistic organization ; here it is exceptional. Where trade and politics, material luxury and utilitarian habitudes, overlay finer mstincts — where there is so much struggle, such devotion to the immediate, such faith in enterprise and assertion of selfhood — but small range is allowed for repose, observation, and sympathy ; and thus the refined sense, the delicate feeling, the keen insight, which characterize the genuine artist, have little vantage for development. What industry, shrewdness, and per- 30 Art in America. tinacity can do, many effect. There are painters of rapid execution and social tadt that make money; but few who have the “vision and the faculty divine,” few who are prompted by disinterested enthusiasm, whose tone of mind, force of character, natural affinities, draw them inevitably into the sphere of form and color as a native element for their adtivity and happi- ness ; the will is more prominent in the exercise of art here than the imagination and the affections ; the spirit in which most of our artists work is that of trade rather than of poetry or exalted perception ; the con- scientiousness which secures accuracy , the observation which finds truthi the chastened mind and sympathetic feeling whence results harmony , the earnestness that consecrates work to a deep significance, are rare qualities among us ; but dexterity, confidence, a certain limited talent, a peculiar cleverness of manner or aptitude of execution, are the usual warrants for adopting a vocation once held to be justified only by high gifts or vast labor. Where do we behold that intense enjoyment in the use of color, which bred in the Venetian painters such brilliant triumphs ? Who, in this land of railroads and eledtions, stands apart rapt in solemn visions such as absorbed of old a Durer or an Angelo ? What vigils are kept here over casual effects of light and shade, whence Rembrandt caught the secret of chiar > oscuro ? Who studies reverently a masterpiece — not to imitate its execution, but to catch the spirit in which it was conceived ? How seldom do we find any cognizance of the more delicate phenomena of clouds, foliage, sunshine, and wind, in our walks and talks with those who profess to refledt nature on canvas ! To muse of a fadt which transpires in the quiet workings of air and vege- tation ; to penetrate, with entranced vision, the true meaning of a human countenance ; to foster a spiritual alliance with humanity and the outward world, so as to wrest their secrets and reproduce their intimate charms as only the inspiration of love and wisdom can — how incongruous do such mental tastes, such ideal tasks, appear in this our pradtical and busy land ! And yet, it was by a study of charadter approaching to psycho- logical insight, by a familiarity with nature, such as only patient love in- sures ; a sympathy with human life, as genuine as the affedtion of kindred; a relation with beauty, as real as consanguinity itself — that enabled Van- dyke and Murillo, Claude and Leonardo, to seize upon and express truth in Art ; having acquired the vocabulary, they vitalized it with sentiment ; and were, as men, possessed of the unity, energy, and susceptibility they embodied as painters. Art, like everything else here, is in a transition state. A few years ago, upon entering the dwelling of a prosperous citizen, even in some isolated district or minor town, who boasted the refinements of an educated ances- try, we found a full-length portrait by Copley, stiff, gorgeous, handsome, but official in costume and aspect ; or a vigorous old head by Stuart, full of charadter and magnificent in color ; or one of those sweet, dignified little pastel profiles of Sharpless, wherein the moral dignity of our Revolu- tionary statesmen seems gently incarnated ; now, in addition to these Introduction. 31 quaint relics, a landscape by Doughty, Cole, Kensett, Church, Bierstadt, or Durand, a genre piece by Eastman Johnson, a bust by Crawford, Pow- ers, or Palmer, or a group by Rogers, some specimen of the modern continental schools, with a good copy of Raphael, Domenichino, or Guido — indicate a larger sympathy and a more versatile taste. In the cities, this increase of works of art as household ornaments is remarkable ; a European amateur lately purchased in the United States old pictures to the value of thirty thousand dollars, to re-transport across the Atlantic ; while many gems are scattered through the sumptuous abodes of wealth and fashion throughout the land, and in each metropolis a rare pibfcure or new piece of native statuary is constantly exhibited, discussed by the press, and admired by the people. European travel, the writings of Art-com- mentators, clubs, and academies, the charming or tragic biographies of artists, ledlures, more discrimination in architecture, a love of collecting standard engravings, the reciprocal influence in society of artists and ama- teurs, and their friendly cooperation ; these, and such as these, are among the striking means and evidences of progressive intelligence and sympathy among us in regard to Art -her trophies, principles, and votaries. There are two methods of arriving at the philosophy of this subjeCt : analyzing the endowments, the development of which gives birth to Art, and tracing its external history, or the conditions which have fostered and secured that development. It is evident that from the very origin to the culmination of Sculpture in Greece, and of Painting in Italy, while execu- tive skill was gradually acquired through minute and patient observation and faithful practice, the vital expression which has conserved through ages, and hallowed to universal admiration the great exemplars in both these spheres of culture and creation, was born of sentiment — the love of Beauty and the consecration of Religion ; these linked the produCt of Art to the popular apprehension and love, — gave it an absolute and pro- found significance, by virtue of which the artist was perpetually inspired. If Byzantine form and color initiated the Italian limner into the elements, Worship kindled those mechanical agents into life ; the Church and the State, the Rulers and the People, Faith and Public Spirit, combined to give an impulse and an aim to the old masters, which elicited and defined their original proclivities, and lifted their scope far above mere selfish ambition and personal ends. Those primitive mosaics in the old churches of the Peninsula, which we gaze upon with curious wonder, rudely shaped upon dome and arch — the sacred figure of the Virgin, or the holy symbol of the Cross — though coarsely imitative, were then of vast import. Cimabue at first drew animals and faces at school, and found the shep- herd Giotto’s eyes busy with tracing, instead of vigilant of his flock — -just as West sketched the slumbering child with a brush made of a cat’s hair, and as Powers, in an isolated Western town, moulded wax effigies. Original instindt was the same ; but, in the former, how soon the tenden- cy or talent, thus spontaneously manifest, became an occasion of sympa- thy and encouragement to princes and citizens, a means of social welfare, 32 Art in America. an interest allied to the most exalted aspirations of humanity ! Soon, thus warmed and purified, the stiff outline beamed with divine meaning, the constrained style grew free, tenderness softened, and humility or love elevated, the countenance of Christ, Madonna, Angel, Saint, or Child, so that it is easy to trace from Cimabue to Perugino, and thence to Raphael, through the long intermediate succession of painters, the growing beauty, grace, and power, which the latter’s pencil consummated for all time. How much less direct and more complex are the social influences which now environ the artist ! What isolation, vagueness, caprice, and super- ficial motives, act upon him in comparison ! The dominant ideas then were few, but concentrated ; analysis had not broken up the freshness and diffused the power of Belief ; Civilization had not complicated the interests and diversified the objects of human life ; the soldier, the priest, the statesman, the poet, stood forth with unchallenged individuality ; society had not invaded the mystic unity of nature ; there was room and reason for reverence, enthusiasm, and ideality, in their integrity ; and so it was, that to work in the domain of Art had a recognized grandeur, a per- manent end, an immediate appeal to heart and eye, to mind and national pride, which have infinitely subsided with the triumphs of knowledge, trade, comfort, and even political freedom, by raising the average of mate- rial well-being, and denuding the arrangements and functions of govern- ment and religion of the sentiment and picturesqueness which made them splendid realities to sense and soul, if not to reason and will. According- ly the artist of old strove for complete equipment ; the great painters could model and design as well as draw and color. Giotto designed the exquisite “Campanile:” Michael Angelo left as memorable architectural as pictorial and sculptured trophies. What the news of a victory is to Paris, or the success of a party election to New York, was the advent of a new work of artistic genius to Florence and Rome. So vehement were the plaudits which attended the unveiling of Cimabue’s “ Madonna,” that the place thenceforth was called Borgo d? Allegri ; and the years of toil which Ghiberti devoted to the bronze gates of the Baptistery gained him forever the title of public benefactor ; illustrious painters were named from their birthplace, so entwined was the triumph of their art with national pride. Fra Angelico prayed before he seized the brush, as one conse- crated to a religious vocation ; Fra Bartolomeo was the friend of Savona- rola, to Lorenzo and Leo X. Art enterprise was among the most im- portant interests of private feeling and public administration. The study of Plato, at the revival of learning, recalled the claims of “the antique” as a means of culture and standard of taste, so that, in Padua, classic knowledge, while it found a shrine in the University, guided the students of Art at the Academy ; cities were as much identified by schools of paint- ing as by the Courts that ruled, the Trades that enriched, or the Wars that signalized them. Rome, Venice, and Parma gloried in Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, as much as in the princes, warriors, and scholars, who ennobled their annals. How readily arrogant Pope Julius forgave Introduction. 33 Michael Angelo ! How tenderly Francis I. watched over the infirm Leo- nardo Da Vinci ! The Emperor Charles venerated Titian, and Correggio was one of the few seledt witnesses to his sovereign’s marriage ; while Raphael was the intimate companion of the leaders in church, state, learning, and society, of the Capital of Christendom. These and innume- rable other fadts illustrate how, in the palmy days of Italian Art, her most gifted disciples were in the nearest relation to the most effective social agencies of their age — those of character, of position, and of popular feel- ing. In a high sense they were representative men — the expositors of the deepest sentiment of their time, of what was most patriotic and poetical, most holy and most influential ; they gave “ a local habitation ” to the dreams of faith, a living resemblance to the objedts of worship, a visible embodiment to the resignation, the hope, the martyrdom, the saintliness, the ecstasy, the remorse, the sacrifice, the beatitude, the miracle, the repentance, the divine love, which then and there warmed, raised, melted, revived, purified, and consecrated humanity — in its sorrows, aspirations, and “ longings after immortality.” Being thus an element and not an accident — a flowering, and not a graft — of human life and economy, we perceive how and why a natural aptitude was cherished, quickened, expanded, raised, and, as it were, in- spired, — the outward circumstances, the living atmosphere, coalescing with the inward purpose and ability, and thus lifting them to a plane of earnest strife towards perfection, concentrating the will by a heartfelt zeal, and fusing individual purpose with universal sympathy. How isolated is the artist of to-day in comparison ! Even in Paris, political prejudices cast out the followers of David from the kindly recognition of the romantic in- novators : and, later still, Ary Scheffer, and Delaroche, because they would not acknowledge an Imperial usurper, were unsustained by national encouragement. Even the successful English painters subsist on a casual, though noble patronage, in their works as in their lives illustrating the limited range even of a triumphant specialty in Art ; while here in Ameri- ca, despite a few scattered fraternities, more convivial and benevolent than artistic, the painter and the sculptor, for the most part, work apart ; follow, perhaps industriously, a branch of the most liberal of all pursuits in a spirit of meritorious patience, with precarious reward, spasmodic success, and incomplete results. The effect of these adverse influences is, not to extinguish the love or to quell the talent for Art, but to limit the development of both among us. Indeed, a somewhat remarkable interest in the subjedt prevails ; a piano is found in dwellings on the extreme line of civilization ; the mechanical processes, which imitate and preserve features and scenes, are universally adtive ; nowhere is the daguerreotype, photography, wood, steel, and mez- zotint engraving more subservient to popular uses ; singers and instru- mental performers reap golden harvests ; vast quantities of music are sold ; pictorial exhibitions attradl all classes ; our journals abound, with glowing tributes to native genius, which springs up unexpedtedly in re- 3 34 Art in America. mote quarters. Fashion annually extends her capricious hand, in our large cities, to some fortunate limner to whom “ everybody sits ; ” hun- dreds of painters among us can execute a likeness which no one ever mistakes ; to run the fingers over ivory keys with superficial dexterity, to sketch a little from nature, to own a tolerable landscape or engraving, to read Ruskin and Mrs. Jameson, and buy “old masters” at auction for a song, are among the most common of our social phenomena. The stereo- scope is a familiar drawing-room pastime ; Art-unions and pidture-raffles, the eclat of a new or the purchase of an old painting, Art-criticism. Art- clubs, Art-journals, are no longer novelties. But while a superficial ob- server might infer from these “signs of the times” an auspicious future for Art in America, and while they undoubtedly evince a tendency in the right direction — when we consider that, justly regarded, this great means of culture and sphere of genius is positively degraded by mediocri- ty — that it is sacred to Beauty, Truth, and high significance, moral and intellectual, and, therefore, absolutely demands accuracy, harmony, power, grace, purity, expression, and individuality, as normal attributes ; and re- member how much more these are the exceptions than the rule — to what a complacent level, to what an exclusive mechanical facility and economi- cal spirit, the feeling for, and practice of Art is often reduced among us — these indications of a superficial recognition of its claims must be taken with allowance. The instinctive aptitude, the normal love, exist in abun- dance ; but only occasionally are they intensified into lofty achievement or elevated into a legitimate standard of taste. The caricatures in “Punch,” the rude “ counterfeit presentment ” of a popular statesman, the wooden filigree of an anomalous villa, the coarsely “illustrated” paper, delineating an event or a personage about which the town is occupied ; bank-bill vig- nettes, Ethiopian minstrels, and “the portrait of a gentleman,” form the staple Art-language for the masses ; and, in all this, there is little to kin- dle aspiration, to refine the judgment, or to hint the infinite possibilities of Art. We have abundance of assiduous painters, who exhaust a town in a month in delineations of its leading citizens, fill their purses, and inherit a crop of newspaper puffs; but give no “local inhabitation or name ” to any idea, principle, sentiment, or even rule of Art ; we have abundance of croaking artists, who dally with the pencil and moan over their poverty and negleCted genius ; there is no lack of prodigies of juve- nile talent, who never realize the prophecies that hailed their first at- tempts ; and in every city may be found stationary devotees of the palette, who, partly from indolence, partly from egotism, and not a little from dis- couragement, have settled down into a mannerism in which there is no vitality, and, therefore, no progress. A single masterpiece of Art may be the product of individual genius self-sustained ; indeed, we have many traditions and authentic histories of achievements wrought out under the most unpropitious circumstances and from the inspired energy born in isolated minds, like the miracles created in monastic solitude, captivity, and the lonely toil of enthusiasts. But Introduction. 35 when a grand succession of immortal conceptions signalizes an era or a nation, we can always trace the phenomenon to the coincidence of genius with the discipline and the ardor fostered by a dominant public sentiment or accepted faith. But it is not alone a lack of enlightened public sympathy and extensive accesable resources for self-culture, against which the artist contends in America. The history of Government patronage, thus far, shows a lament- able ignorance and presumption in dealing with Art as a national interest ; only to a limited degree have men acquainted with the subject had a poten- tial voice in assigning commissions or regulating decorative work ; con- tracts have been secured in this, as in other departments, through local and personal influence, irrespective of capacity ; in more than one instance the higgling spirit of bargain, instead of the generous recognition of just claims, artistic and native, has been disgracefully exhibited ; men in power, wholly unversed in Art, have gratuitously pronounced the most superficial judgments, and aCted upon them to the detriment of the highest interests of the people and of native talent ; no single harmonized plan or principle has governed the adornment or extension of the Capitol, which, therefore, inevitably presents a most incongruous combination of good and bad effeCts, commonplace and superior ornaments — architectural, statuesque, and pictorial — brought together in a desultory, casual manner ; and the achievements of as many different minds, schools, and degrees of capacity, as there are separate items in the record. Our representatives have mani- fested no perception of what is due either to Art or to her genuine votaries ; the former has been treated without a particle of feeling for its unities, its intrinsic significance, and its national claims ; and the latter, like so many pedlers, expeCted to compete with their wares and be favored according to their politics, diplomatic taCt, local origin, or some other quality or circum- stance apart from the only test and criterion applicable in the premises — ability to execute a noble, patriotic trust, and produce an indisputable artistic work. There are, indeed, some exceptions to this programme ; there have been men of taste on Art Committees in Congress, and men of genius have left their sign-manual upon national commissions ; we do not forget what has been worthily accomplished ; but that the direction of public works of Art, the appropriations of public money to this object, the distribution, selection, and general administration of this high economy, have been, for the most part, ill-considered, inadequate, arbitrary, and tasteless, are faCts proved by the frequent and reasonable protests in the journals, by the cor- respondence of artists employed by the Government, by the visible results at Washington, and, finally, by the Convention held there before the War for the Union, expressly to obtain from Congress the appointment of a Board of Commissioners, to be formed of artists of recognized intelligence and impartiality, to administer this negledted and perverted interest This movement, if wisely consummated, will be a propitious reform. If we turn from Government to private encouragement, we find that the latter inclines 36 Art in America. chiefly to foreign products ; portraits alone are in constant demand from native studios ; men of wealth, observation, and travel, who aim at a col- ledlion of fine pictures, are usually devotees of the “ old masters,” or ad- mirers of the modern schools of England, Germany, and France ; and the most patriotic critic must admit that they often have ample reason for the preference, both as a matter of taste and as a judicious investment. As ornaments to a drawing-room or subjects of habitual contemplation, a first-rate copy of Raphael, Claude, or Leonardo, one of Landseer’s ani- mal groups, a cattle-scene by Rosa Bonheur, a landscape by Auchenbach, a domestic, historical, or natural study by one of those pains-taking, fresh, faithful, and feeling limners of Germany, France, or Belgium, specimens of whose skill and genial cleverness attracted so many admirers in New York during successive ^seasons — being absolutely “ things of beauty,” and, therefore, “ a joy forever,” appeal to the purse and eye of the judicious infinitely more than the average crude efforts of native art. On the other hand, the points of excellence in our artists, the things they are capable of doing well and have so done, have not been adequately estimated by their wealthy and tasteful countrymen. The few collectors who, with indepen- dent and sympathetic taste, have seen and prized native ability in art, have been amply rewarded by securing many admirable landscapes, some few creditable genre or historical pictures, really good ideal heads, or effective portraits, and exquisite pieces of sculpture, which mark the progress and vindicate the power of art among us. Enough is thus displayed to show that whoever, in the spirit of the best English patrons, will recognize genius, encourage its efforts, watch, with a fostering eye, its emanations, and generously provide for its success, will, in many instances, find a double recompense in the possession of works patiently and earnestly pro- duced, and in the consciousness of doing what the ignorant, the careless, and the prejudiced fail to do for the sensitive and aspiring, but often dis- couraged, and perhaps indignent artist, otherwise doomed to work only for bread, and feed the hope of excellence upon delusive dreams and baffled endeavor. The same causes which limit the patronage of art among us send its worthiest disciples to Rome, Paris, and Diisseldorf, where ample facilities, abundant sympathy, and the “honor” which never attends “ a prophet in his own country,” await the earnest student. Crawford and Leutze, Powers and Leslie, owe the best part of their acquired skill and their wide renown to means and influences, opportunities and encourage- ments, secured by expatriation to an atmosphere more congenial to Art than that of our externally prosperous, but socially material republic. Reputations are too easily made ; fashion, and the kind of arrangements which bespeak the mart and the stock company — the same machinery, in a word, that works such miracles in political and mercantile enterprise — are resorted to for the promotion of what, in its very nature, demands calm attention, gradual methods, a process and an impulse essentially thought- ful, earnest, and individual. These methods distribute and multiply pic- tures, but they lower the standard and vulgarize the taste ; they induce Introduction . 37 mediocrity, haste, and profit, rather than high and permanent rewards. That “ Art is long ” is scarcely proverbial among us ; literature and the liberal professions struggle with a like subservience of ends to means, a popular adaptation destructive of satisfactory progress ; such is the ten- dency of that devotion to the immediate which a French philosopher deems a law of republican life. The consequence of this is, that enthusiasm is baffled, the ideal sacrificed, and only an evanescent advantage sought. Hence genuine artists, like Allston, prefer solitude and loyalty to their convictions, to fellowship and public organizations ; they become ecleCtic, study a good picture wherever they can find it, cultivate the most gifted and high-toned men and women they can meet, observe nature assiduously, work out the most difficult problems of their art unsustained by sympathy, and keep themselves from contaCt with associations which fail to elevate, cheer, or inspire a career thus forced into singularity. As we wander through the Vatican, the Louvre, Hampton Court, or the Pitti Palace, it is not merely the trophies of a few great artists’ skill we behold — but the direction and triumph thereof as bred from the evolutions of history, the promptings of sympathy, the sentiment of religion, the representative ideas of government and society. Art in the concrete is national and historical — the offspring of many influences, allied vitally to the convictions, the enterprise, the polity, the literature of its nativity. The grave poetry of the Teutonic mind breathes from Handel’s oratorios ; the mystic supernaturalism of German philosophy in Beethoven’s sym- phonies ; Gallic valor is reflected from Vernet’s canvas ; in the foundries of Munich, the Academy of Rome, the mosaics and bronzes of Pompeii, the dim frescoes of the Pisan Campo Santo, the delicate tracery of the Alhambra, the shapes of Etruscan and the designs on Wedgwood ware, the cartoons of Raphael, the massive and muscular figures of Michael Angelo, the relievos of Cellini — in shaft, architrave, overture, outline — whether classic, Roman, Moorish, Byzantine — in every form, tone, and hue of art sufficiently expressive or beautiful to have survived in human admiration— from a Sphinx half buried in Egyptian sands, to the contour of an infant’s head in a Holy Family — there is a significant attestation, not only to what one artist executed, but to what many men and women be- lieved, desired, regretted, remembered, hoped, or felt. Accordingly the relation of Art to a country, a period, and a community, is no fanciful but an absolute element of its history. And when we contrast the popular tendencies, the national traits, the spirit of our life, institutions, and so- ciety, with those wherein the memorable fruits of chisel and pencil else- where have arisen, we find a diffusive material, a speculative and practical tone, which is infinitely more auspicious to the economy than to the ideal- ity of art, which ignores the profound interest, the universal appreciation, the national pride, the religious interest, and the munificent patronage, whereby art has so triumphed and prevailed. So many other voices ap- peal, so many other interests divide, so much nearer to modern life is the pursuit of well-being under a political, commercial, and mechanical regime , 38 Art in America. that this once-hallowed avenue, through which the soul of the ages uttered itself and found universal response, has become narrower, sequestered, dear to few, reverenced only by selebt intelligences, and its vast and beau- tiful possibilities rather a dream, like Tennyson’s Palace of Art, than an abtual conservation of faculty and love. There are two essential capabilities which seem to us alone to warrant that life-devotion to art, as a vocation, into which so many clever but un- disciplined minds so confidently rush ; these are a deep sense of the beau- tiful, and mechanical skill — the first being the inspiration and the second the alphabet or language of Art. It is for want of one of these attributes that we have so many mediocre artists, than which there is no position more melancholy to the eye of good sense and intellectual rebtitude. The love of beauty is often mistaken for the ability to reproduce it ; and a cer- tain manual aptitude for color and modelling is thought by the inex- perienced to justify the profession of painting and sculpture. In this country especially, where there are so few standards of judgment or pre- scribed ordeals in Art, a certain facility in drawing, a faculty of imitation rare enough to excite wonder, is hailed as prophetic of future triumph — and in many cases results in disappointment. On the other hand, a natural love of Art exhibits itself under circumstances quite unfavorable ; and the hasty inference is that a child of genius is born ; yet the feeling may bear no proportion to the power, and taste has been perhaps recog- nized as talent. The habit of exaggerated praise and newspaper puffs — the conceit in- variably attendant upon the exercise of a faculty regarded by the ignorant as next to miraculous — the want of means to form a correbt self-estimate — all tend to foster and confirm these practical errors. We deem it, there- fore, the first duty of a lover of Art, in this country, to exercise discrimi- nation ; no man with the soul of a true artist is gratified with unmerited applause, or shrinks from a just analysis of his powers, or criticism of his works. We need especially more definite eulogiums, more measured com- mendation — the why and the wherefore of excellence and defebt to be stated ; not the fulsome exaggeration of the one, nor the malicious elabora- tion of the other. Let us approach a genuine work of art with love, but with a love that gives insight, which does not blindly idolize, but intelli- gently appreciates. For much as Art, in a broad view, is indebted to propitious external influences ; where these are unfavorable, a stern fidelity to one’s sphere and intuitions, a brave though lonely crusade for truth, a patient, vigilant study and unwearied discipline and experiment, constitute the most secure and honorable means of success. Thus, indeed, have all great artists toiled ; half of Raphael’s short life was initiatory, and bred the knowledge and skill which subsequently embodied so perfectly the sentiment his pic- tures conserve. How little Wilkie owed to teachers ; how persevering the search of Turner for original effebts of color; how must Claude have drunk in the serene light of sunset ere his pencil gave it expression ; Introduction. 39 not a master line of Leonardo but grew slowly out of mathematical prac- tice ; not even an effeCt of Rembrandt but resulted from a force and feel- ing merged in expression through intent observation and endeavor. There are no artists whose circumstances and environment demand more of this individuality of aim and concentration of labor than our own. And it is because these redeeming qualities are so often wanting that after an advent of eclat , so many cease to advance, and for years exhibit a station- ary style and a poverty of ideas, never going beyond a certain respectable grade of execution or rising above a stereotyped tone and manner. The vague encomiums of a friendly journal, the praise of a clique, the ready money their pictures bring, the indifference of the public to new refine- ments, and their own unaspiring disposition, thus make Art to them a prison rather than a world, a sphere wherein the limits rather than the progress of their minds are made apparent. Perhaps some of these dis- couraging faCts as to the aCtual condition of art among us, may be ascribed to the prevalent subjects delineated. Few of these appeal to the national mind or average sympathies ; let a bold genius scan our history, note our civilization, examine our life, and he will discover innumerable themes characteristic enough to excite the interest of the people. Our colonial, pioneer, and Revolutionary eras, the customs and local peculiarities of the land, are prolific subjects for pictorial art ; let them be seized with a native zest and true insight, and new life will be imparted to the limner and his achievements. It requires no argument to attraCt the eye and heart to the authentic portraits of our heroes and statesmen, or the effective illus- tration of our history, or delineation of our memorable scenery. Not a hundredth part of the subjects at annual exhibitions here are national ; and yet we have some native peculiarities in the events of our civic life, the phases of nature, and the forms of social development — which abound in picturesque effeCts, or that romance of sentiment that hallows an art- memorial to a people’s love. The modern English school of painters have won no small degree of their renown by illustrating the domestic and liter- ary charms of their country — her waters and her animals, her harvests and her homes — the phases of life and character familiar and endeared to her children; and the love of glory — military glory in particular, which is the popular instinct in France — is reflected by the master-pieces of her paint- ers. It is impossible to estimate how far the selection of subjects related to the experience, or precious to the hearts of a nation, has made Art loved at last for her own sake, and to what extent the reaction of this popular interest upon the artist’s will and imagination, has nerved him to fresh triumphs. What we especially need is, to bring Art within the scope of popular associations on the one hand, and, on the other, to have it con- secrated by the highest individuality of purpose, truth to nature, human sentiment, and patient self-devotion. AMERICAN ARTIST LIFE. EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS. Watson . — Sinybert . — Pine , and others . — Bembridge . — Feke. — Pratt . — Wright . — Charles Wilson Peale . — Dunlap . — Fulton . — Sargent . — Jarvis . — Frazer . — Frothingham . — Rembrandt Peale . — Harding. — Newton . — Neagle . — Fisher. — A mes . — Jouet . — W aldo. — A lexander , and others. — Ingham. E earliest professional impulse given to pictorial Art in America was derived from two Scotchmen — one of whom is now only remembered by name, his works being tradi- tional; the other is enrolled in Walpole’s anecdotes, and endeared by several authentic portraits belonging to old American families. Of the former, John Watson, we chiefly know that he established himself as a portrait-painter at Perth Amboy, N. J., in 1715, and acquired a handsome competence by his labors. The latter, John Smybert, after an apprenticeship to a coach-painter, and a studious visit of three years to Italy, where he became an accomplished copyist of the old masters, won the regard of the benign and ingenious Berkeley, who selected him as a companion in his humane mission to America. According to Horace Walpole, John Smybert was born in Edinburgh, about 1684, and served his time as a common house-painter, went to Lon- don and Italy, and, after the failure of Berkeley’s beneficent scheme and his return to England, “settled in Boston, in New England, where he suc- ceeded to his wish, and married a woman of considerable fortune, whom he left a widow, with two children, in 1751.” “Smybert,” says the same authority. “ was a silent and modest man, who abhorred fi 7 iesse in his pro- fession, and was enchanted with a plan which he thought promised tran- quillity and an honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian climate; and, in spite of remonstrances, engaged with the Dean, whose zeal had ranged the favor of the court on his side. The king’s death dispelled the vision ; but one may conceive how a man devoted to his Art must have been ani- mated when the Dean’s enthusiasm and eloquence painted to his imagina- tion a new theatre of prospedts, rich, warm, and glowing with scenery 42 American Artist Life . which no pencil had yet made common.” * To this brief outline of Smy- bert’s career may be added the statement of Mr. Verplanck, that, although “he was not an artist of the first rank, the Arts being then at a very low ebb, yet the best portraits we have of the eminent divines of New England and New York, who lived between 1725 and 1751, are from his pencil.” Several are in the collections of New England colleges ; at Harvard Uni- versity, a fine copy of Vandyke’s Cardinal Bentivoglio, and a portrait of John Lovell. Two of his portraits, which are in excellent preservation and fair examples of his style, are the likenesses of John Channing and his wife, the grandparents of Dr. W. E. Channing, and in the possession of his family. Another of Smybert’s reputed portraits is in the possession of Hon. R. C. Winthrop, and represents one of the Bowdoin family. At Worcester, Mass., a portrait of Mrs. Martha, wife of Norton Gurney, is attributed to Smybert ; and those of Cornelius Waldo and his wife, Faith, dated 1750, and of Daniel Waldo and his wife, Rebecca, are certainly from his pencil. A portrait of Bishop Berkeley, said to have been painted during the latter’s voyage to America, one of Rev. Joshua Gee and his wife, and a copy of an original likeness of Governor John Endicott from Smybert’s pencil, are in the collection of the Massachusetts His- torical Society. A portrait of Daniel Oliver, and one of his wife, and another of Madam Oliver, nee Belcher, with a group of the three sons of the former, dated 1730; also portraits of the Hon. Benjamin Lynde, chief justice of Massachusetts, of Mrs. Lynde, nee Brown, and of Hon. B. Lynde, Jr., likewise a chief justice of the Colony, and of his wife, all fine illustrations of Smybert’s pencil, are in the possession of Fitch E. Oliver, Esq., of Boston ; who has, besides, four other ancestral portraits of anterior date, probably executed in England. There are numerous portraits in various parts of the country attributed to Smybert, but which it is impos- sible certainly to identify as his, although often the date of their execution and the style justify the conjecture. He seems to have sympathized with the good Dean in his love of knowledge ; an interesting visit they made to the Narragansett Indians is, perhaps, the first ethnological anecdote in our history. But the most pleasing and precious memorial of their sojourn, as well as the best speci- men of the artist’s talent, is the picture of Dean Berkeley and his family, the artist himself being introduced, now in the Gallery at New Haven. It was painted for a gentleman of Boston, of whom it was pur- chased in 1808, by Isaac Lothrop, Esq., and presented to Yale College. “It is nine feet long and six wide, and represents Bishop Berkeley as standing at one end of a table, which is surrounded by his family. He appears to be in deep thought, his eyes slightly raised, one hand resting on a folio volume — his favorite author, Plato — and is dictating to his amanuensis part of the ‘ Minute Philosopher,’ which is said to have been * Anecdotes of Painting : He is said to have lived on terms of friendship with Allan Ramsay, the author of the “ Gentle Shepherd,” with whom he corresponded after his settlement in America. His name is written Swibert, Smibert , and Smybert — the last is the way he wrote it. Early Portrait Painters. 43 commenced during his residence at Newport. The figure of the amanuen- sis, which is an uncommonly fine one, represents James Dalton ; Miss Handcock, and Mrs. Berkeley, with an infant in her arms, are seated on one side of the table, while Mr. James, and a gentleman of Newport named John Moffatt, stand behind the ladies. The painter has placed himself in the rear, standing by a pillar, with a scroll in his hand.” A letter preserved in the Gentleman’s Magazine indicates the continued friendship of the painter and the prelate after the latter returned to Great Britain to become Bishop of Cloyne, wherein he urges his old companion to rejoin him in Ireland ; but Smybert preferred to follow his vocation in America, and we find him prosperously established in Boston in the year 1728. The earliest and best portraits executed in America before the Revolution, of which*that of Jonathan Edwards is one of the most valua- ble, were those of Smybert. They were the exemplars of our pioneer limners. Copley, Trumbull, and Allston, caught their first ideas of color and drawing from Smybert’s copy of Vandyke ; and although Allston re- marks, “ When I saw the original I had to change my notions of per- fection,” — he adds, “ I am grateful to Smybert for the instruction he, or rather his work, gave me.” There are several interesting portraits by unknown artists executed at a very early date ; among them one of Dr. John Clark, dated 1765, and one of Peter Faneuil, and several old New England divines, — in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of conjectural origin. Others may be seen at Harvard University, at Newport, R. I., at the South, and in the Middle States ; likenesses by un- known artists of Governor Endicott, the four Mathers, Higginson the younger, and others, are in the Antiquarian Hall at Worcester, Mass. Not a few portraits by celebrated English and continental painters (the best of these and the rarest are by Holbein, Kneller, Lely, Reynolds, Opie, Rae- burn, Rembrandt, and Gainsborough) were brought to this country by the colonial families, for whom they had an ancestral value and interest, and are still possessed and prized by their descendants. In the Winthrop family, for instance, there is a likeness of a distant progenitor, by Holbein ; Mrs. Erving, widow of the late Col. John Erving, and a resident of New York, has a fine Kneller, Copley, etc.; the portrait of Lord Dartmouth, in the college that bears his name, is an endeared specimen of early English Art; and Leverett Saltonstall, of Newton, Mass., has a portrait by Rem- brandt of Mr. Richard Saltonstall, who came to New England in the Lady Arabella, in 1630, but leaving his sons, returned with his daughters to Eng- land, and then went to Amsterdam, where this picture was painted in 1644. Col. Byrd, of Westover, Va., was a most accomplished man, and his learning and talents, as well as his wealth, procured him a place in the highest society, and the intimacy of some of the most distinguished men of his time. Several interesting portraits graced his hospitable mansion, and are now in the possession of his descendants and others. There is a likeness of Sir Wilfred Lawson, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. One of a progenitor of the Byrd family, by Van Dyke ; it represents a 44 American Artist Life. lovely boy of twelve years. He had been stolen by gipsies, and is in the costume he wore when his parents discovered him : an old cloak thrown over the shoulders, with the inimitable grace for which Van Dyke was re- markable ; the beautiful face sad and tearful ; the child followed by a dog. It all makes a lovely picture. There is a portrait of Gen. Monk, Duke of Albemarle. There are also portraits of the Duke of Argyle (Jeannie Deans’ friend) ; Lord Orrery, son of the Duke of Ormond ; Sir Charles Wager, an English admiral ; Miss Blount, celebrated by Pope ; Mary, Duchess of Montague, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and wife of John, fourth Duke of Montague (it is said the duplicate of this portrait is at Windsor Castle) ; Governor Daniel Parke, with a miniature of Queen Anne, set round with diamonds, given him by the Queen when he brought her the news of the battle of Blenheim ; he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough. There are many family portraits : Mrs. Lucy Parke Byrd and her beautiful daughter, Evelyn Byrd ; the second Col. Byrd and his wife, etc., etc. An amusing anecdote is handed down of an old gentleman who left a splendid diamond ring to Col. Byrd, provided his own picture, with his hat on, might hang by the side of dukes and earls. This picture is at Lower Brandon, and the ring is in possession of a lady of the family. * Portrait-painting received an impulse in the colonies, immediately sub- secpient to the Revolution, from the visits and pictures of foreign adepts in the profession. Some of the latter are occasionally encountered in old family mansions or public institutions, and must have served as valuable precedents in the limited Art-sphere of those early times. Wollaston executed several portraits in Philadelphia in 1758, and in Maryland the following year ; his portrait of Mrs. Washington was engraved for Sparks’ Biography, and is an elaborate and clever work ; and there was an excel- lent portrait by him of John Randolph’s grandmother, at Petersburg, Va. Judge Hopkinson eulogized this artist in verse, f In 1760 we find the name of Taylor, and in 1763 Hesselius, an English painter, was established at Annapolis, Md. He was of the school of Kneller, Peale’s earliest teacher ; and most of the portraits in the older dwellings of Maryland are from his pencil. There are many portraits of Philadelphians by this artist, several of them of ancestral interest. Two in the Walton family are dated 1752. Hesselius was an industrious and faithful painter, but respectable rather than superior in Art. Cosmo Alexander passed a year in America; he arrived in 1770 and was Stuart’s first instructor ; a por- trait of Hon. John Ross by the artist, bearing date more than a century ago, is a favorable specimen of his style. Mr. Ross was the rival, at the Philadelphia bar, of Andrew Hamilton, who defended Zenger in the famous trial in New York, and brother-in-law of George Read, one of the signers of the Declaration. He is represented as sitting in his library with a table near him. This portrait belongs to J. Meredith Read, Esq., of Albany, *From a letter of Miss Lucy Harrison, great granddaughter of the late Col. Byrd, of Westover. t American Magazine, September, 1758. Early Portrait Painters. 45 the accomplished author of the Life of Hudson, who also has two other portraits by Cosmo Alexander and several by Wollaston. Ramage was one of the first miniature painters ; he was an Irish gentle- man, and executed many small likenesses in Boston in 1771. James Peale appears to have been the earliest native artist in this sphere ; Durand made many showy, but not elegant portraits in Virginia, in 1772 ; and a mediocre painter named Matthew Brown was full of business from 1775 to 1785. Duche, Field, andTrenchard are other artistic names on the primitive roll. Thomas Coram was an active limner in Charleston, S. C., in 1780. Wist- anley, chiefly remembered for the salient anecdote respecting his copy of Stuart’s Washington, was at work in the colonies in 1769. Of native painters of that period, Flenry Bembridge, of Philadelphia, is represented by many portraits of a singularly formal aspect ; he had studied under Mengs and Battoni, was liberally educated, and highly esteemed as a gen- tleman. There were many of his portraits in Charleston, S. C. Blackburn was Smybert’s immediate successor, or cotemporary, and, during a brief visit, executed several notable portraits in Boston, Portsmouth, N. H., and other New England towns. There is one in the possession of Mrs. Erving, of New York. Good specimens of Blackburn’s style are afforded by the portraits in the possession of Judge Cutts, of Brattleboro’, Vt., — likenesses of his wife’s grandparents. There is something very piquant and charming in the lady’s head, and her hands are beautiful ; while her husband’s fine, ruddy countenance, lapelled coat, wig, and ruffles, are characteristic of his times. There are also two fine portraits by Blackburn in the possession of Dr. Nicol Dering, of Utica, N. Y., one of Miss Mary Sylvester, after- wards Mrs. Thomas Dering, of Boston, Mass., painted in 1754 at New- port, R. I. ; and one of Miss Margaret Sylvester, afterwards Mrs. David Cheesbrough, of Newport, R. I., of the same date. These portraits are large, three-quarter size, and are much admired for their artistic merit. They were exhibited several years since at the National Academy, N. Y., at the request of Colonel Trumbull. Mrs. Nichols, a granddaughter of Dr. Holyoke, of Salem, has a portrait of Jonathan Simpson, a merchant of Boston, by Blackburn, and Hon. R. C. Winthrop one of a lady belong- ing to the Temple family. Another Englishman, named Williams, was busy about the same time and in the same way in Philadelphia. West is said to have derived con- siderable benefit from the books and conversation of this painter. Ed- ward Savage was engaged on portraits in New York in 1789: one of Washington from his pencil is at Harvard University. Green and Theus were also somewhat known about this period and earlier, and occasionally specimens of their works are still to be seen. A portrait -painter called by the indefinite name of Smith is remembered as probably the first Ameri- can who enjoyed the advantage of studying in Italy, and is also remarka- ble for his longevity. More than one portrait of Washington and a few of his cotemporaries bear the name of Polke, who passed a year or two in America. One of the former was found at Leesburg on the estate of Ar- 46 American Artist Life. thur Lee, and sent to Washington city during the war, but returned by the government at its close. Some of the portraits have characteristic merits. “ A few octogenarians in the city of Brotherly Love used to speak, not many years since, of a diminutive family, the head of which manifested the sensitive temperament, if not the highest capabilities, of artistic genius. This was Robert Edge Pine. He brought to America the earliest cast of the Venus de’ Medici, which was privately exhibited to the seleCt few — the manners and morals of the Quaker City forbidding its exposure to the common eye. He was considered a superior colorist, and was favorably introduced into society in Philadelphia by his acknowledged sympathy for the American cause, and by a grand projedt such as was afterwards par- tially realized by Trumbull— that of a series of historical paintings illus- trative of the American Revolution, to embrace original portraits of the leaders, both civil and military, in that achievement, including the states- men who were chiefly instrumental in framing the Constitution and organ- izing the Government. He brought a letter of introduction to the father of the late Judge Hopkinson, whose portrait he executed, and its vivid tints and correct resemblance still attest the ability of the painter. He left behind him, in London, creditable portraits of George II., Garrick, and the Duke of Northumberland. In the intervals of his business as a teacher of drawing and a votary of portraiture in general, he collected, from time to time, a large number of 1 distinguished heads,’ although, as in the case of Ceracchi, the epoch and the country were unfavorable to his ambitious projeCt ; of these portraits the heads of General Gates, Charles Carroll, Baron Steuben, and Washington are the best known and most highly prized. Pine remained three weeks at Mount Vernon, and his por- trait bequeaths some features with great accuracy ; artists find in it certain merits not discoverable in those of a later date ; it has the permanent interest of a representation from life by a painter of established reputa- tion ; yet its tone is cold and its effeCt unimpressive beside the more bold and glowing pencil of Stuart. It has repose and dignity.”* It is in the possession of the Hopkinson family at Philadelphia, and a fac simile of Washington’s letter ; it was painted in 1785. A large copy, or more pro- bably the original, was purchased in Montreal, in 1817, by the late Henry Brevoort, and is now in the possession of his son, Carson Brevoort, of Bedford, L. I. Sharpless, Wertmiiller, St. Memim, Martin, Giillagher, Robertson, Bel- zoni, Roberts, Malcolm, Earle, and other artists visited America immedi- ately after her Independence was established ; and several of them are chiefly memorable for their delineations of Washington and our early statesmen and soldiers.! They exerted a progressive influence upon native Art, just then dawning upon us with the freedom and peace of the new-born Republic ; previous to which era artists were inevitably but a casual and isolated class. “ Under the pressure of cares, and struggles, * Character and Portraits of Washington. t See the author’s “ Character and Portraits of Washington.” Early Portrait Painters. 47 and urgent anxieties,” says Dr. Bethune, “there would be neither time nor desire for the cultivation of these elegant pursuits, which are the luxury of leisure, the decoration of wealth, and the charms of refinement. The Puritans and the Presbyterians together, the most influential, were not favorable to the fine arts, and the Quakers abjured them. Men living in log cabins, and busied all day in field, workshop, or warehouse, and liable to attacks by savage enemies at any moment, were indisposed to seek after or encourage what was not immediately useful. Their hard-earned and precarious gains would not justify the indulgence. There were few, or rather no specimens of artistic skill among them to awaken taste or imitation. It is, therefore, little to be wondered at if they did not show an appreciation of Art proportionate to their advance in other moral respects, or that they waited until they had secured a substantial prosperity before they ventured to gratify themselves with the beautiful. The brilliant exam- ples of West and Copley, with some others of inferior note, showed the presence of genius ; but those artists found abroad the encouragement and instruction not attainable at home, thus depriving their country of all share in their fame, except the credit of having given them birth.” * The earliest native colonial painter who had any proper training in Art, appears to have been Robert Feke. The only work of his in the posses- sion of his descendants is the portrait of a little girl painted on panel. Dunlap speaks of a likeness of a Mrs. Welling bearing his signature and dated 1746. During that year he painted several portraits in Philadelphia, considered the best colonial family portraits except West’s. A gentleman of that city, of highly cultivated taste, whose maternal grandparents were painted by Feke, says of them, that the “drawing and expression are good, and the coloring still fresh and natural ; they are of life size and the full dress of the time.”f A portrait of Rev. John Callender, which belonged to Colonel Bull, of Newport, R. I., and was attributed to Smybert — a copy of which, by Miss Stuart, is in the Redwood Library — is believed to be from the pencil of Feke. How, in those primitive days, this painter learned to draw and color so well is a matter of conjecture. He was a descendant of Henry Feake, who emigrated to Lynn, Mass., in 1630, and a branch of whose family settled at Oyster Bay, L. I., whence, it is said, the future artist came to Rhode Island. The religious controversies of the day seem to have invaded the peace of the household ; the Feakes, as the name was originally written, were Quakers, and one of the younger — tradition says the artist — went over to the Baptists, and was followed to the water’s edge, on the occasion of his immersion, by his outraged sire with threats of disinheritance. This anecdote accords with the spirit of those times, whether it really belongs to the painter or to one of his kin- dred ; but another tradition explains his equipment for his vocation, which could scarcely have been attained at that period in the colonies. Robert Feke, whether from disgust at the persecution he suffered for differing * Home Book of the Picturesque. t G. Francis Fisher, Esq. 48 American Artist Life. from his family in religious belief, or to indulge the adventurous temper so native to artistic organizations, left home and was absent several years ; according to a writer in the Historical Magazine, he was taken prisoner and carried into Spain, managed to obtain pencils and colors, and beguiled his captivity by making rude paintings, which he sold upon his release, and, with the proceeds and the fruits of practice and observations abroad, returned home and began his career as a portrait painter, married, and settled at Newport, where, among others, he painted the beautiful wife of Governor Wanton, now in the Redwood Library. He made professional visits to New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, went to Bermuda for his health, and died there at the age of forty-four. * There was a publican's sign in Spruce-street, Philadelphia, a few years since, which used to attradl the notice of amateur pedestrians on account of its manifest superiority to such insignia in general. It consisted of a cock in a barnyard, and was executed with rare truth and spirit. Those curious enough to inquire of the local antiquarians, learned that it was the work of Matthew Pratt, who acquired of Claypole, a miscellaneous and now forgot- ten painter, the rudiments of his Art, which he long exercised in his native city in any manner that proved lucrative — ranging from decorative to sign- painting ; but at last concentrating his skill and time upon portraiture, wherein he acquired a notable success ; the memorable evidence whereof are the likenesses he made of the prominent members of the Convention which assembled in Philadelphia in 1788 — a composition which originally figured as a sign at the corner of Chestnut and Fourth streets, and for weeks was the nucleus of a gratified crowd who readily identified the por- traits. The long-affianced bride of Benjamin West was a relative of Matthew Pratt’s father, and the young painter was her escort to England. Soon after their arrival in London he u gave her away ” at the wedding, which took place at St. Martin’s Church in the Strand. Pratt passed fouf* years in England, studied with West, executed portraits of the Duke of Portland, the Duchess of Manchester, and Governor Hamilton, and ex- hibited a Scripture piece and “ The London School of Artists.” Born in 1734, he returned to his native city in 1768, and died there in 1805. His portraits, though of no high artistic merit, are considered as exhibiting talent and truth, and, like those of Trumbull and Copley, are often the only representations extant of early American leaders in civil and social life. A critic, who seems well acquainted with his pictures, describes them as “ broad in effedt and loaded with color.” He executed between fifty and sixty portraits in New York ; among them a full length of Gover- nor Colden, now in the possession of the New York Historical Society, and several members of the Walton family. The vessel in which Pratt embarked for Jamaica, in 1757, was commanded by the father of the late Bishop Hobart, of New York ; she was captured by a French privateer. Upon resuming his practice of Art in Philadelphia, Pratt was intro- Historical Magazine, 1859-60. Early Portrait Painters. 49 duced by Thomas Barton to the best local society. He had been a school- mate of Peale, and assisted him in establishing and arranging his museum. It is rather a curious distinction for an artist who aimed at the higher branches of his profession, to be remembered as excelling in one scarcely included in the range of the fine arts, however calculated to educate the masses. Pratt’s signs enjoyed a great reputation, and still have a tradi- tional renown ; two especially, a group of drovers and a hunting scene, are often praised by his cotemporaries. “They were,” says Neagle, “by far the best signs I ever saw.” There resided, in colonial days, at Bordentown, New Jersey, Patience Wright, who used to model in wax miniature heads, usually in relievo , a rare accomplishment at the time, and one in which she was thought to excel; some specimens extant indicate considerable imitative tad. It is natural that with such a taste and talent she should encourage artistic apti- tudes in her children. She taught her son Joseph what she knew, his brother-in-law added his instruction, and West also gave him the benefit of his advice. Wright was born in Bordentown in 1756, and in 1772 the family went to England, where the young artist executed a portrait of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. He was sent to Paris and placed under the care of Dr. Franklin to pursue his studies. Returning to Amer- ica he narrowly escaped with his life from shipwreck. Having embarked at Nantes, the vessel was cast away on the coast of Spain, and Wright reached Boston at last penniless. In the autumn of 1783 he painted at headquarters, Princeton, New Jersey, a three-quarter length portrait of Washington, having previously subjected him to a coat of plaster by way of obtaining the dimensions and proportions of his head. His portrait is remarkable for fidelity to details of feature, form, and costume ; and, although inelegant and unflattering, is probably authentic to a remarkable degree, and may be considered a fair specimen of the unideal but con- scientious skill of this early American artist. It is now in the possession of Samuel Powell, Esq., of Philadelphia.* Employed professionally, before the peace of 1783, in New York and Philadelphia, Wright was appointed by Washington, when the United States Mint was established, draughtsman and die-sinker thereat, and there is every reason to believe that the first coins and medals executed in this country were his handiwork. Besides the portrait he painted of Washington soon* after his return, for Mrs. Willing, now in the possession of the Powell family, he executed another for the Count de Solms, and not satisfied with either, or rather desirous of possessing one for himself, he solicited another sitting of the first President, who was too much occupied with public duties and too weary of the. irksome process to consent ; the artist, however, was not to be baffled — he attended St. Paul’s Church in New York and sketched a miniature profile from life, as his unconscious subjedt sat in his pew. The terrible pestilence which ravaged Philadel- * For the details respecting this portrait, see the author’s “ Character and Portraits of Washing- ton.” Wright’s portrait of John Jay is in the collection of the New York Historical Society. 4 50 American Artist Life . phia in 1793, of whose devastations Brockden Brown left so graphic a picture, numbered among its eminent victims this upright and ingenious artist. The American portrait painter of this era best known at the time and best remembered now, was Charles Wilson Peale, who was born in Ches- terton, Maryland, in 1741. As the first painter of Washington, his name is identified with the early career of our peerless chief. The museum he established in Philadelphia, until recently, kept before the minds of his countrymen the genial enterprise and the national sympathies for which he was remarkable ; while the talent and worth of his son Rembrandt, who died within a short period at an advanced age, tended to prolong the artis- tic and social consideration so honorably associated with the name. The life of this pioneer in the virgin field of Art in America, was marked with characteristic vicissitudes and experiments. Endowed with remarkable mechanical skill, which he adapted readily to the exigencies of a new coun- try, we find him a clever workman successively in leather, wood, and met- als ; he could make a harness, a clock, or a silver moulding; he knew how to stuff birds for the ornithologist, to extract and repair teeth, and to deliver a popular lecture ; nor, at the outset of his career, did he fail to exercise with credit and assiduity each and all of these widely different vocations. But the proclivities of Wilson Peale were undoubtedly for Art, and eventually painting became his chief and his favorite occupation. The idea became a pradlical intuition with him when quite young. He saw the works of Fraser at Norfolk; on his return home he succeeded in making a portrait which astonished his neighbors and decided him to adopt the artistic profession. He sought instruction in Philadelphia, and derived much benefit from the teachings of a German pupil of Sir Godfrey Kneller, and subsequently from those of Copley at Boston. In 1770 he went to London to study with West, who continued to befriend him long after his funds were exhausted. After a residence of four years in England, Peale returned home and settled, first at Annapolis, Maryland, and subsequently at Philadelphia. He commanded a corps of volunteers during the Revo- lutionary War, and took part in two battles — those of Trenton and Ger- mantown. He did not forget the artist in the soldier, but sedulously improved his leisure in camp by sketching from nature, and his rare opportunities to study “ the human face divine” by transferring to his portfolio many heads which afterwards he elaborated for his gallery of national portraits. His portrait of Washington as a Virginia Colonel is well known through multiplied copies and engravings, and is highly valued as the first authentic likeness. “ The earliest portraits of Washington are more interesting, perhaps, as memorials than as works of Art ; and we can easily imagine that associa- tions endeared them to his old comrades. The dress — blue coat, scarlet facings, and underclothes — of the first portrait by Peale, and the youthful face, make it suggestive of the early experience of the future commander, when, exchanging the surveyor’s implements for the colonel’s commis- Eaidy Portrait Painters. 51 sion, he bivouacked in the wilderness of Ohio, the leader of a motley band of hunters, provincials, and savages, to confront wily Frenchmen, cut for- est roads, and encounter all the perils of Indian ambush, -inclement skies, undisciplined followers, famine, and woodland skirmish. It recalls his calm authority and providential escape amid the dismay of Braddock’s defeat, and his pleasant sensation at the first whistling of bullets in the weary march to Fort Necessity. To Charles Wilson Peale we owe this precious relic of the chieftain’s youth. This portrait was executed in 1772, and was, for many years before the war for the Union, at Arlington House. The resolution of Congress by which the subsequent portrait by this artist was ordered was passed before the occupation of Philadelphia. Its pro- gress marks the vicissitudes of the Revolutionary struggle ; commenced in the gloomy winter and half-famished encampment at Valley Forge, in 1778, the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth intervened before its completion. At the last place, Washington suggested that the view from the window of the farm-house opposite to which he was sitting would form a desirable background. Peale adopted the idea, and represented Monmouth Court-House and a party of Hessians under guard marching out of it.* The picture was finished at Princeton, and Nassau Hall is a prominent objedt in the background ; but Congress adjourned without making an appropriation, and it remained in the artist’s hands. Lafayette desired a copy for the King of France, and Peale executed one in 1779 which was sent to Paris ; but the misfortunes of the royal family occa- sioned its sale, and it became the property of Count de Menou, who brought it again to this country and presented it to the National Institute, where it is now preserved. Chapman made two copies at a thousand dollars each ; and Dr. Craik, one of the earliest and warmest personal friends of Wash- ington, their commissions as officers in the French War having been signed on the same day (1754), declared it a most faithful likeness of him as he appeared in the prime of life, f There is a tradition in the Peale family, honorably represented through several generations, by public spirit and artistic gifts, that intelligence of one of the most important triumphs of the American arms was received by Washington in a despatch he opened while sitting to Wilson Peale for a miniature intended for his wife, who was also present. The scene occur- red one fine summer afternoon ; and there is something attractive to the fancy in the association of this group quietly occupied in one of the most beautiful of the arts of peace, and in a commemorative adt destined to * MS. Letter of Titian R. Peale to George Livermore, Esq. t Philadelphia, Feb. 4. — His Excellency General Washington set off from this city to join the army in New Jersey. During the course of his short stay, the only relief he has enjoyed from service since he first entered it, he has been honored with every mark of esteem. The Council of this State, being desirous of having his picture in full length, requested his sitting for that purpose, which he politely complied with, and a striking likeness was taken by Mr. Peale, of this city. The portrait is to be placed in the council chamber. Don Juan Marrailes, the Minister of France, has ordered five copies, four of which, we hear, are to be sent abroad. Penn. Packet , Feb. n, 1779. He painted one in 1776 for John Hancock, and besides that for New Jersey, others for Pennsylva- nia and Maryland. 52 American Artist Life. gratify conjugal love and a nation’s pride, with the progress of a war and the announcement of a victory fraught with that nation’s liberty and that leader’s eternal renown. The characteristic traits of Peale’s portraits of Washington long at the National Institute and Arlington House, and the era of our history and of Washington’s life they embalm, make them doubly valuable in a series of piCtorial illustrations, each of which, independent of the degree of pro- fessional skill exhibited, is essential to our Washingtonian gallery. Before Trumbull and Stuart had caught from the living man his aspeCt in maturity and age- — the form knit to athletic proportions by self-denial and activity, and clad in the garb of rank and war, and the countenance open with truth and grave with thought, yet rounded with the contour and ruddy with the glow of early manhood — was thus genially delineated by the hand of a comrade, and in the infancy of native art. Of the fourteen portraits by Peale, that exhibiting Washington as a Virginia colonel in the colonial force of Great Britain, is the only entire portrait before the Revolution extant.f One was painted for the college of New Jersey, at Princeton, in 1780, to occupy a frame in which a portrait of George the Third had been destroyed by a cannon ball during the battle at that place on the 3d of January, 1777. It still remains in the possession of the College, and was saved fortunately from the fire which a few years ago consumed Nassau Hall. Peale’s last portrait of Washington, executed in 1783, he retained until his death, and two years since, it was sold with the rest of the col- lection known as the “ Peale Gallery,” at Philadelphia. There is a pencil sketch also by this artist, framed with the wood of the tree in front of the famous Chew house, around which centred the battle of German- town. f Peale was a man of liberal sympathies and public spirit ; he not only was an efficient military officer, but served his State worthily in the legisla- ture. He had the prescience rightly to estimate the historical value of native portraiture in the crisis of his country’s destiny, and carefully gathered the materials which have since proved so valuable in illustrating the incidents and characters of our brief annals. Although widely dis- persed, the best portraits of Peale are cherished memorials, and some of them are unique. The sight of some mammoth bones suggested to Peale the idea of combining scientific with artistic attractions, and for years his thoughts and time were occupied in forming the collection which so admi- rably served its purpose in the early days of the Republic, and gave that impulse to natural history and the fine arts which has since developed in Philadelphia into such noble and prosperous institutions. For a considerable time antecedent and subsequent to the Revolutionary War, Peale was almost the only portrait painter in America known to fame ; Smybert and Copley had disappeared, and Trumbull and Stuart had * A miniature, said to have been painted in 1757, at the age of 25, has been engraved for Irving’s Washington. t Character and Portraits of Washington. Early Portrait Painters . 53 not yet become familiar names ; here and there an isolated or itinerant portrait painter found work ; but the one universally recognized artist was Peale. He was accordingly sought by sitters from afar ; frequently they came from Canada and the West Indies. There was more versatility and aptitude than positive genius in Peale ; he was intuitively mechanical ; he modelled as well as painted, and was equally at home with crayon and palette, in elaborate oil and delicate miniature portraits. It is a curious illustration of the man and the times, that, according to one of his biogra- phers, “ he sawed his own ivory for his miniatures, moulded the glasses, and made the shagreen cases.” His conscientious and intelligent labors in the cause of Art merit the grateful remembrance he enjoys. “ His like- nesses,” says his son Rembrandt, who has written his life, “were strong, but never flattered ; his execution spirited and natural. The last years of his life he luxuriated in the enjoyment of a country life, near German- town, with hanging gardens, grotto and fountain, and a hospitable table for all his friends. His last painting was a full length portrait of himself, painted at the age of eighty-three. He died in his eighty-fifth year, in 1826.” The most interesting and valuable trophies of his career are now gathered in Independence Hall, Philadelphia ; and, however deficient in the more brilliant qualities of artistic genius, have the charm of fidelity, and often are the sole authentic likenesses of the eminent men delineated. In this respeCt, they form a unique municipal collection — “within the sacred hall, where, in committee of the whole, the Declaration of Inde- pendence was passed and signed, and, from the yard, proclaimed to the world.” Among these portraits, by Peale, are those of General and Mrs. Washington, John Hancock, Robert Morris, Generals Greene, Gates, Ham- ilton, Read, Steuben, Lincoln, Rochambeau ; Dr. Franklin, Peyton Ran- dolph, Volney, Jefferson, Laurens, Bartram, Chastellux, Gallatin, Rush, Dick- inson, Witherspoon, Pickering, DeKalb, Bishop White, Carroll, and Lord Sterling — one hundred and seventeen in all, including most of the celeb- rities, native and foreign, associated with American history and society, during the last of the preceding and the earlier part of the present century. Peale’s portrait of George Clymer is in the Philadelphia Academy, his own portrait, by West, in the Bryan collection of the N. Y. Historical Society, which also includes Peale’s family group of Major Ramsay, the historian, and the old dog Argus. Portraits by C. W. Peale, of Governor McKean and his son, belong to D. Pratt McKean, Esq., Philadelphia, and of Washington, painted at Valley Forge. There is an interesting portrait of Franklin by him, painted a few days before his death, the result of a single sitting. “ I accompanied my father,” writes Rembrandt Peale, “ to engage him for another. We found him sitting up in his bedroom, in much pain, with the sad conviction that he should never leave it. Yet the resigned expression of his venerable countenance, and his noble, patriarchal head, from which flowed ample locks of gray hair on his shoulders, impressed me with unspeak- 54 American Artist Life. able reverence.” At the sale of the Peale Museum, this portrait was bought by and is now in the collection of Joseph Harrison, Esq., of Philadelphia, who also owns Peale’s last portrait of Washington, painted in 1783. Rev. William Hazlitt came to America soon after the Revolutionary War, with a son, the future essayist, then seven or eight years old, a daughter, and an older son, John, who was a portrait painter ; he exe- cuted likenesses in Hingham, Mass. ; among them, those of Gen. Benja- min Lincoln, Rev. Ebenezer Gay, D.D., Col. Nathan Rice, Dr. Joshua Barker, and others. T. Earle painted portraits in Connecticut in 1775, and in Charleston, S. C., in 1792; his full length portraits of Dr. Dwight and his wife are in Copley’s manner, with black shadows ; this painter was among the Governor’s militia guard, marched to Cambridge and Lexington, made drawings of the scenery in both places, and outlined, perhaps, the first historical compositions in America ; they were engraved by his com- rade in arms, Doolittle. Earle studied with W est, and returned to America in 1786 — painted many portraits in New York and more in Connecticut; according to Dunlap, he had “facility of handling,” and caught likenesses well. He painted Mrs. Alexander Hamilton in 178 7 ; Earle being in diffi- culty and imprisoned for debt, General Hamilton induced his wife and other ladies to sit to him in prison, and thereby secured his release. He was the father of Augustus Earle, known as “ the wandering artist,” who practised his vocation in New York in 1818 ; a fellow-student with Leslie and Morse, who used to relate many curious anecdotes of his roving dis- position. Two Americans, whose names are identified with the early history of Art in this country, were born twenty years after Peale ; and both are now chiefly remembered by claims to public gratitude quite diverse from those of the vocation to which they were more or less devoted. I refer to Robert Fulton and William Dunlap. So exclusively associated is the former with the grand triumph of a vast mechanical experiment, that few are aware that he ever loved and labored in the sphere of the Fine Arts ; while the latter’s assiduity in collecting the facts of dramatic and artist life in America, antecedent to and cotemporaneous with his own, has merged his reputation as a painter with that as annalist. William Dunlap was born at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1766. He prepared an elaborate sketch of his life, which abounds in curious adventure and versatile enterprise. He was but seventeen years of age when he began to execute portraits ; and relates, with much naivete, his experience when Washington gave him a sitting at the house of Van Horne, of New Jersey, in the summer of ’83. The result was what might be expeCted from a novice ; but the incident was memorable. Dunlap went to London and studied with West ; his success as an artist was not remarkable ; he returned to New York and joined his father in business, and consoled himself abroad and at home by wanderings and social expe- riences of which the record is amusing. Having failed in trade, he alter- nated through a long life between the studio, the stage, and the library, as Early Portrait Painters. 55 a resource : in other words, he painted, managed a theatre, and wrote books : for quite a period, however, Dunlap steadily pursued Art ; he exe- cuted a series of pictures on subjects indicated by West, which were exhibited ; he took an active part in establishing the New York Academy of Fine Arts, and his portraits are numerous. Fie wrote several plays : a life of Brockden Brown, one of Cooke ; a History of New Netherlands, and one of the American Theatre. In old age and reduced circumstances, encouraged by his kind physician, Dr. Francis, he compiled the History of the Arts of Design in the United States, wherein are crudely put together many facts of curious interest and biographical value — often from the pens of artists then living — facts which otherwise must have been soon forgotten ; and the faithful collection of which was a genial service ren- dered by a venerable artist and annalist to the cause and the country he loved. He died in New York, September 28, 1839. Dunlap’s personal interest in and association with the Fine Arts, rather than his achievements there- in, identify him with their origin and growth among us. He was a worthy and industrious man, with strong prejudices, and a tenacious memory. During his latter years, when suffering from straitened circumstances and illness, he was warmly befriended by some of our leading citizens. One who knew him well, speaks of him as “the acrimonious Dunlap,” yet credits him with “ patient research,” * and traces his influence and effi- ciency in the social promotion of local history and artistic enterprise and biography — at a period when but few bestowed any thought or sympathy on such objects. Robert Fulton left Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1765, to practise as a draughtsman in Philadelphia, having been ini- tiated therein by a schoolfellow. Of Irish descent and in narrow cir- cumstances, his temperament and his position urged him to exertion ; and whatever his artist-skill might have been in the estimation of critical taste, it sufficed in a few years to win him a sum adequate to the purchase of a farm, whereon he comfortably established his widowed mother. Removing to New York, he was known and encouraged there in 1785 as a miniature painter; but soon became absorbed in mechanical inventions, and went abroad to study and submit his economical theories to savans and governments. His patience and genius in these enterprises is a familiar story — alike honorable to his character and his country ; and the successful application of steam to navigation was the crowning achieve- ment to a life of rare vicissitude, experiment, and energy. He never, however, forgot the love of his youth ; his leisure was appropriated abroad and at home to the promotion and practice of Art. He sketched pic- turesque figures by the way-side in his travels on the Continent, and occa- sionally executed the portrait of a friend ; his intervals of waiting for recognition as a mechanician — whether in regard to submarine ordnance * Old New York. 56 American Artist Life . or improvements in canal navigation, submitted to government agents in Paris, were devoted to executing the first panorama exhibited in that city — a branch of art then original, and which has since proved of wide utility and interest. He wrote from London urging the citizens of Philadelphia to secure West’s pictures as the nucleus of a national gallery; and when unsuccessful, bought the Ophelia and Lear at the Royal Academy sale, and bequeathed them to the New York association of artists ; he spent five thousand dollars upon engravings of West’s illustrations of Bar- low’s heavy epic, and gave the interest thus obtained in the copyright to the author’s widow — the original studies being among the curious and cherished trophies of his long and amiable relations with the venerable pioneer artist of America. In these and various ways Fulton proved an early and efficient friend to, as well as votary of, Art. Of his own pictures few exist ; a print from one of them representing Louis XIV. in prison with his family, indicates no inconsiderable skill and grace of composition and execution. His portraits are very rare ; there is one in Philadelphia, of Mr. Plumstead’s sister, in the possession of the family, which is probably a fair specimen. “Fulton,” says Dr. Francis, “was emphatically a man of the people, ambitious, indeed, but above all sordid designs ; he pur- sued ideas more than money. Science was more captivating to him than pecuniary gains ; and the promotion of the arts, useful and refined, more absorbing than the accumulation of the miser’s treasures. I shall never forget the night of February 24, 1815, on which he died. I had been with him at his residence a short time before, to arrange some papers relative to Chancellor Livingston and the floating dock eredted at Brook- lyn. Business despatched, he entered upon the character of West, and the pictures of Lear and Ophelia, which he had deposited in the American Academy.” There are three portraits in the possession of the Massachusetts Histo- rical Society, by Colonel Henry Sargent — of Rev. John Clark, General B. Lincoln, and Jeremy Belknap, D.D. ; and they recall an instance of dal- liance with, rather than devotion to, Art, characteristic of her early devel- opment among us. Although Colonel Sargent never lost his fondness for painting or entirely relinquished its practice, other tastes and occupations, and, for many years, uncertain health, rendered the pursuit with him, occa- sional ; while his best efforts indicate a culture and talent which, under more favorable circumstances, would have gained him a high and wide reputation. He was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1770 ; his father, an emi- nent merchant, resided at Newburyport, and the son was educated at Dum- mer Academy, until the departure of the British troops from Boston ena- bled his father to remove to that city, in whose excellent schools the future artist’s early studies were completed. He was intended for a merchant, and entered first the counting-house of Thomas Perkins and subsequently that of his father. No indication of an aptitude for or love of Art had, as is usual, appeared ; and his first interest in the subject was inspired by some chalk sketches of his brother’s, on the walls of their chamber ; he imitated and ex- Early Portrait Painters. 57 celled them ; and when a painter was at work on one of his father’s ships, took advantage of the man’s absence, to try his hand at a sea nymph with the paint-pot and pound brush. Thenceforth he was constantly drawing, and his father supplied him with more eligible means of gratifying his taste. He copied Copley’s Shark pifiture, and Trumbull, when in Boston in 1790, praised the work. He went to London in 1793, and profited by the kindly counsels of West and Copley; on returning to Boston and finding little encouragement in his chosen pursuit, he accepted a commission in the army raised in 1799, and was placed under the immediate direction of General Hamilton. The taste for military life then acquired, divided his attention with love of Art ; he was commissioned by successive governors of his native State. “ I well remember,” says Dunlap, “the finest body of light infantry I ever saw, going through their evolutions in the mall and on the Common, under the command of Captain Sargent.” He was also distinguished in political and social life. His most elaborate picture is the “ Landing of the Pilgrims ; ” it cost many years’ labor, was exhibited and almost ruined by careless rolling on fresh, unseasoned pine ; the sap rotted the picture and it fell to pieces in unrolling. His next large picture was “ Christ entering Jerusalem,” and it was quite popular ; an- other called “ The Dinner Party ” was remarkable for its light and shade. “ Christ Crucified ” is in the possession of the original Roman Catholic Society in Boston. His “Dinner and Tea Party” — beautiful and fin- ished pictures, originally belonged to Mr. D. L. Brown, of that city ; his full length of Peter Faneuil hangs in the famous hall of that name; the “Tailor’s News” and “ Starved Apothecary ” are from the same pencil. The portraits of Jarvis are widely scattered and singularly unequal in merit. They may be found in old Southern manor-houses and Eastern municipal halls. Inman, who was several years his pupil, gives us a good idea of the rapid and careless manner in which Jarvis despatched work when in pecuniary stress or a gainful humor — dashing off five or six heads a day, and leaving them for his protege to finish up, and add draperies and accessories. Sometimes, however, he was more painstaking and elaborate. He painted many of our naval heroes of the War of 1812. Among his famous sitters were Bishop Moore, of New York, John Randolph, of Vir- ginia, DeWitt Clinton, Halleck, and Commodore Perry. His portraits of Perry, Hull, McDonough, Bainbridge and Swift and General Brown, are in the City Hall, N. Y.; those of John Randolph, Rev. Dr. Stanford, Daniel Tompkins, Christopher Colies, Egbert Benson, and Robert Morris, are in the collection of the N. Y. Historical Society. A portrait of the Hon. Stephen Van Renssellaer, father of the present patroon, at the manor-house, is a good exemplar of his manner. James M. Falconer, Esq., of New York, the accomplished treasurer of the Artists’ Fund Society, has a water- colored portrait by Jarvis — one of those mentioned by Dunlap, as painted in Broadway, near the old City Hall — also a portrait of much merit, by Bass Otis, of Jarvis ; — they having for a time worked together in a kind of partnership. Some qualities in this work are very fine, and met the ap- 58 Am eric m i Artist Life. proval of the artist’s friends ; it is on panel, cut clown rather closely to the life-size head. His delineations of morbid anatomy, illustrative of the cholera, were highly praised by the Faculty. Many of his heads are painted with a characteristic vigor and individuality which, under more favorable circumstances, would have given him a higher and more perma- nent rank. A native of South Shields on the Tyne, and a nephew of the celebrated Wesley, John Wesley Jarvis took the lead in portraiture for several years on this side of the water — when the art of painting was in a transition and comparatively ignoble state among us. Born in 1780, at the age of five years he was sent to his father, who had emigrated to America, and was then in Philadelphia. The boy was soon left to himself, his parent being a mariner by profession ; J>ut the lad’s disposition and talent were such as make friends. Dr. Rush took an interest in him ; Stuart did not consider his promise remarkable, and therefore discouraged his artistic ambition ; but Edwin, an employe of that gifted painter, taught the young novice to draw ; Martin, in New York, was more kindly than capable as a teacher ; and Gallagher, another artist, gave him hints and help. One of his earliest attempts was a likeness of Hogg, a well-known comedian of the day ; and, ere long, the youth was deemed more clever than Buddington. Malbone’s success and friendliness inspired Jarvis to practise miniature painting ; and he invented a machine for drawing profiles on glass ; he also executed them in black and gold-leaf; and, associated with Joseph Wood, in Park row, at one time earned, upon an average, a hundred dollars daily — charging live for each gilded silhouette. Profiting by the instructions of Malbone, Wood became a successful artist in this department; his like- ness of Paulding has been lately engraved and prefixed to that pioneer author’s life, by his son. Those artistic comrades and partners were gay fellows ; Wood played the violin and flute, and Jarvis was an inimitable raconteur , and fond of practical jokes ; but they were of the Bohemian order — not aspiring in their social relations, unwise but witty, often industrious, but always er- ratic ; both, says Dunlap, “ made mysterious marriages.” We next find Jarvis established in Broadway, and rapidly painting profiles on Bristol board at five dollars each, u very like and pretty,” according to the preva- lent standard of taste ; he also had frequent and more profitable orders for works in oil and on ivory. He turned his attention with much zeal to anatomical studies ; and borrowed from Dr. Francis the then novel trea- tises of Gall and Spurzheim, which, said the painter, “make our art a science ; ” he was struck with the want of individuality of most engraved heads, and recognized a character in the contour and minute diversities thereof in nature, which he now felt had been neglected in portraiture. To obtain a precise knowledge in this regard, Jarvis began to model care- fully from life. There is a curious specimen of these experiments in the collection of the N. Y. Historical Society: a plaster cast from Jarvis’ model of Tom Paine’s cranium and features — the extraordinary proboscis Early Portrait Painters. 59 identifying it to everyone who has ever formed an idea from description of the author of “ Common Sense.” Among the numerous eccentricities of Jarvis was a dogmatical pride ; he relished an opinion antagonistic to the multitude ; and to this habitude of mind we must attribute his perverse denial of great merit to Stuart, though it may have originated in that artist’s want of recognition of his own youthful aspirations. One of his favorite books was the Life of Moreland, whom he deemed a character akin to his own. For many years, Jarvis annually made a professional tour to the South ; his abilities were in constant requisition ; vagabondage was intuitive ; anecdote his forte ; by turns extravagant and laborious, dramatic and domestic; almost desti- tute of what the phrenologists call the organ of order ; social by instinct, convivial by temperament, capable of vigorous artistic effects, yet imprudent and reckless, with hosts of acquaintances, keen observation, inexpressible humor, violent prejudices, and genial fellowship — the traditional man, as known through still current anecdotes and the personal reminiscences of his intimates, is far more of a character than a painter ; his words are more vital than his pictures, his personal qualities more salient than his professional ; for the idea we form of Jarvis assimilates him to several memorable characters, familiar to all who affeCt the oddities of human na- ture ; he reminds us sometimes of Abernethy and sometimes of Theodore Hook, now of Fuseli and again of Jerrold; his love of notoriety, his fan- tasy in costume, his remarkable conversational talents and imitative skill, his fund of amusing stories, his independent habits, costly dinners, and improvised suppers, and the variety of characters with which he came in contact, are still vividly remembered ; and have, in a manner, caused the artist to disappear in the boon-companion. His way of life favored this predominance of social over professional interest. In summer, his studio in New York was the favorite haunt of the wits ; and, in winter, he was the welcome guest on isolated plantations or in the cities of the South ; and was ever meeting with curious adventures, and adding to his stock of facetious or dramatic narratives. His rooms are described as chaotic in the juxtaposition of artistic implements and domestic utensils — palettes in all conditions, decanters, dresses, a cradle, an easel, musical glasses, books, lay figures — inextricable confusion, sometimes picturesque, but rarely com- fortable ; yet, amid these paraphernalia of art and economy, the richest “ feast of reason and flow of soul ” would often be realized — canvas-backs eaten with a one-pronged fork, and rare wines drunk without the aid of a cork-screw, and from glasses of all shapes. Out of doors, the painter was recognized at one time by his “ long coat, trimmed with fur ” ; at another, by the companionship of two enormous dogs ; now by the dandyism, and now by the slovenliness of his attire. It was said, with some truth, that story-telling had been fatal to Jarvis ; doubtless, his extravagance was stimulated by his social habits. Matthews dramatized many of his im- promptu descriptions. The finale of such a life is easily anticipated ; ne- gleCt, excitement, improvidence, never can produce the results of method, 6o American Artist Life. self-control, and foresight; but, withal, Jarvis, as his friendly biographer boasts, was no hypocrite or sycophant ; his comic powers and “ tales of a traveller,” with his labors as an artist, are among the curious social phe- nomena of a period when conviviality was more sanctioned by fashion ; and the deeper insight and more generalized experience of a scientific era had not yet quite dissipated the popular fallacy that genius is inevitably allied to recklessness, and, in pursuit of art and literature, a valid excuse for despising the wholesome discipline of social conformity. Of the stage improvisations caught from Jarvis, by Dunlap, Hackett, and Matthews, two are remembered by veteran habitues of the theatre, — “ Mon- sieur Mallet” and a “Trip to Niagara,” — both indebted to the painter for the incident and characters. His biographer describes his “last visit” to Jarvis in a manner which would have afforded pathetic and picturesque hints to Hogarth or Dickens. He that was wont “to set the table in a roar ” was a mere wreck of his former self, his tongue paralyzed, his memory weakened, his strong constitution broken down ; separated from his wife, who kept the children, and therefore alone ; surrounded by unfinished portraits, bottles, and brushes, and vitality only prolonged by stimulants. The habits and tone, not less than the professional career of Jarvis, illus- trate a class and a period in our Art history ; facility of execution and social talents may be called the capital of such painters ; occasionally, in a happy mood, and, in an hour of high resolve, doing justice to their talent and ideal as limners — but unable to sustain “ the height of that great argu- ment ;” and therefore, never, in life or art, attaining the consistent dig- nity and gracious progress of an Allston or a Malbone. One significant difference in the two orders of men is, that the latter sought and wooed the best female society, thereby refining and elevating their sentiments ; while the former found social position almost exclusively with their own sex, and hence had no restraint on those convivial tendencies which so often mar their fortunes and their fame. Anecdotes of his professional evasion of Bishop Moore’s religious appeals to him, while sitting for his portrait, and of his ruse to excite Perry’s anger, in order to give spirit to the likeness, with many similar illustrations of his humorous tadt, Jarvis used to relate with singular relish and effect. He was a ludicrous imitator of lisping and stuttering readers. “ Dr. Syntax,” says Dr. Francis, “never sought after the pidturesque with more avidity than did Jarvis after the scenes of many-colored life ; his stories, particularly those connected with his Southern tours, abounded in motley scenes. His humor won admira- tion ; but he deserves to be remembered also for his corporeal intrepidity and reckless indifference to consequences : he became familiar with the terrific scenes of yellow fever and cholera. He seemed to have had a singular desire to become personally acquainted with their details ; and a death-bed scene, with all its appalling circumstances, in a disorder of a formidable character, was sought after by him with the solicitude of the inquirer after fresh news.” The manner in which his own decease is re- corded in the annals of the National Academy is a suggestive commentary Early Portrait Painters. 6 1 on his career: “He was not a member of the Academy; he was, how- ever, one of the best portrait-painters of the day,— eccentric, witty, con- vivial ; and his society much sought by the social. He died in extreme poverty, under the roof of his sister, Mrs. Childs.” At the South, Charleston, South Carolina, has been prominent in en- couragement to art ; as in Virginia, many ancestral portraits, some of English origin, and others by Copley, adorn the older family mansions, Malbone’s miniatures are among the cherished heir-looms. At the commencement of the present century, this accomplished artist, with Fra- ser and Allston, was professionally occupied and socially honored in the State which enjoys the high distinction of being the native place of the latter. Charles Fraser was also born at Charleston, May 20, 1782; and died there on the fifth of October, i860. He began to delineate the scen- ery around his native city when a mere lad. Destined by his family for the legal profession, he commenced his studies therefor at the age of six- teen ; after three years of exclusive devotion to law, he resumed practice with the pencil, but had no longer the same confidence in his abilities, and, therefore, again became a law-student ; and, in 1807, was admitted to the bar. With a wise providence, rare in the artistic fraternity, he succeeded, by assiduous attention to his professional business, in acquiring sufficient to live with economy after eleven years of work ; and, thereupon, felt at liberty to follow the pursuit so dear to his taste, wherein the example and friendship of Malbone had confirmed him. Like this accomplished and endeared artist-friend, Fraser gave his attention chiefly to miniature, and attained therein a rare degree of eminence. When Lafayette visited the United States in 1825, his portrait was painted by Fraser. Besides numer- ous works in this department, he executed pictures in historical, genre , and scenic art ; and, to add to the versatility of his talents, he excelled in literature ; many admirable public addresses, numerous graceful and high- toned poems, and contributions to periodicals attest his culture, reflection, and fancy. Throughout his native State the evidences of his artistic taste and assiduity are scattered ; and it has been said that there is no distin- guished native thereof, who has lived within the last fifty or sixty years, whose “counterfeit presentment” was not painted by Fraser. Indeed, the best proof of his industry and skill was afforded his fellow-citizens in 1857, when an exhibition of his collected works was opened at Charleston ; among them were miniatures or oil portraits of the Rutledges, the Pink- neys, the Pettigrus, the Hugers, Haynes, Lowndses, Pringles, and other well-known Carolina families ; — no less than three hundred and thirteen miniatures, and one hundred and thirty-nine landscapes and compositions. James Froth ingham was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1786, and followed his father’s trade, — that of a builder of chaise-bodies, — in painting which he experimented with color, then in drawing, and finally attempted chalk likenesses with a success which encouraged him to try oil painting, which he did in a very crude and ingenious fashion, having to work out his ideas without any familiarity with established processes. His first 62 American Artist Life. accidental encounter with a portrait-painter put him on the right track A son of General Whiting, who had studied with Stuart, instructed him how to prepare, modify, and apply colors, so that he commenced at the age of twenty a professional career, carried a specimen of his work to Stuart, who advised him to stick to coach-building, but subsequently praised his work, and at last declared, “there is no man in Boston, but myself, can paint so good a head.” In Salem and New York, Frothingham was em- ployed ; he made admirable copies of Stuart’s Washington, and some of his portraits in color and character are excellent; but so precarious were his gains that he often repeated his great instructor’s advice, and in an economical point of view thought he had better have stuck to his first vocation ; he continued, however, says Dunlap, “painting heads with great truth, freedom, and excellence, but not with that undeviating employment which popular painters of far inferior talent often find.” Rembrandt Peale was born on the 22d of February, 1787, in Buck’s county, Pennsylvania, and died in Philadelphia, October 3, i860. He could draw remarkably well for a child, at the age of eight ; he executed many portraits, when a young man, at Charleston, South Carolina ; became a pupil of West, in London, and was long occupied in Paris making like- nesses of European celebrities for his father’s museum. Two of his more elaborate works were exhibited many years ago, and attracted much atten- tion, “ The Roman Daughter,” and the “ Court of Death.” The latter was a very large work, and very successful as an exhibition picture. It was suggested by a passage in the Poem on Death, by Bishop Porteus ; it was twenty-four feet by thirteen, and contained twenty-three figures. During the remainder of his long life, Peale occupied himself with por- trait-painting. His portraits of Denon and Houdon are in the Philadel- phia Academy of Fine Arts ; that of Dr. Houghton, of Dublin, in the col- lection of A. M. Cozzens, of New York ; those of Rammohun Roy, Joseph Dennie, Jefferson, and Priestly, in the possession of the New York Plis- torical Society. Rembrandt Peale, when quite young, became the companion of his father’s artistic labors. In compliment to the latter, Washington sat for a likeness to the novice of eighteen, who says the honor agitated more than it inspired him, and he solicited his father’s intercession and countenance on the memorable occasion. Of the precise value of his original sketch it is difficult to form an accurate opinion ; but the mature result of his efforts to produce a portrait of Washington has attained a high and per- manent fame. He availed himself of the best remembered traits, and always worked with lioudon’s bust before him. This celebrated picture is the favorite portrait of a large number of amateurs. It is more dark and mellowed in tint, more elaborately worked up, and, in some respeCts, more effectively arranged, than any of its predecessors. Enclosed in an oval of well-imitated stone fretwork, vigorous in execution, rich in color, the brow, eyes, and mouth, full of character — altogether it is a striking and impressive delineation. That it was thus originally regarded we may Early Portrait Painteis. 63 infer from the unanimous resolution of the United States Senate, in 1832, appropriating two thousand dollars for its purchase, and from the numer- ous copies of the original, in military costume, belonging to the artist, which were ordered. Rembrandt Peale was long the only living artist who ever saw Washington. In the pamphlet which he issued to authen- ticate the work, we find the cordial testimony to its fidelity and other mer- its of Lawrence Lewis, the eldest nephew of Washington ; of the late ven- erable John Vaughan, of Bishop White, Rufus King, Charles Carroll, Edward Livingston, General Smith, Dr. James Thatcher, and Judge Cranch. Chief Justice Marshall says of it : “It is more Washington himself than any portrait I have ever seen and Judge Peters explains his approval by declaring, “ I judge from its e fife 61 on my heart.” * On the first of April, 1866, a genuine representative of the Western artist died in Boston ; and his career may be regarded as the connecting link between the early and the present generation of American portrait painters. Born in a little mountain village of Franklin county, Massachu- setts, called Conway, in 1792, he knew all the privations and struggles of rustic indigence ; but blest with an excellent mother, he learned self-reli- ance, and was a cheerful “hired boy” as soon as he was old enough to work. The family emigrated to Western New York when Chester Harding was fourteen ; he became an itinerant vender and agent, and thus traversed the country in a wagon, enjoying new glimpses of life, until he fell in love with a rural beauty, turned chairmaker, and went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which place he reached on a raft, having arrived at the Alleghany river on foot. “ All our valuables,” he says, “ consisted of one bed and a chest of clothing and some cooking utensils, so that we had little labor in getting settled down.” Here he went to work as a sign-painter, and thus gained a livelihood for a twelvemonth, when the advent of an artist completely changed his destiny. Fascinated by the vocation, he watched the progress of his own and his wife’s portraits, and then tried to imitate the process. Upon partially succeeding, in a very crude manner, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the pursuit ; painted a hundred likenesses in six months, at twenty-five dollars each ; went to Philadelphia, and profited by the obser- vation and criticism there afforded ; and finally became prosperously estab- lished in his new and improvised vocation, at St. Louis. In 1823, Harding was the fashion in Boston ; even Stuart was neglected, and used to ask sarcastically, “ How goes the Harding fever ? ” He went to London and began to study ; was kindly treated by Leslie and Lawrence, made good likenesses of the Dukes of Sussex, Hamilton, and Norfolk, and of Alison the historian, and Rogers the poet. On his return, he continued, with more or less assiduity and success, the career begun under such discour- agements. His portraits of Daniel Webster and other celebrities are much esteemed ; his last work was an excellent likeness of General Sher- man, which he painted in St. Louis, the scene of his earliest good fortune ; * Charact&er and Portraits of Washington. 6 4 American Artist Life. and, in the spring, passing through Boston, on his annual sporting excur- sion to Cape Cod, he was taken ill, and died, at the age of seventy-three, in the city where his original reputation first dawned. “ I feel,” he says, “that I owe more to it than to any other place ; more of my professional life has been spent in this city than anywhere else ; and it is around it that my most grateful recollections cluster.” Harding was very tall, broad- shouldered and athletic ; in build and aspeCt a fine, manly specimen of his race ; he was an ardent disciple of Isaac Walton, and a favorite compan- ion of genial sportsmen ; unaffected, kindly, simple, frank, and social, his personal qualities greatly promoted his artistic success. His numerous portraits, -widely scattered over the country, are, in many instances, highly valued, because they adequately suggest the expression and appearance of the departed to loving survivors ; yet incorrectness in drawing often ren- ders them valueless as works of Art, and no one was more keenly aware of their deficiencies than the artist himself ; independent and unpretend- ing, it was the true native flavor of the man and cleverness of the painter, rathei than adequate discipline, that won him both affeCtion and success. From several tributes to his memory which were elicited by his death, we cull the following : “ It was impossible to see him without both admir- ing and liking him ; he had, in his heart as well as in his manners, that quality which wins affeCtion at the same time it inspires respeCt ; and his constant regard for the rights and feelings of others was his shield against any invasion of his own. A duke who met him in a drawing-room, a country lad who was his companion in a fishing-excursion, would find that his manhood was broad enough for both. He visited England twice, and there was hardly a place in the United States where he was not known. His conversation was rich in recollections of eminent men of all kinds in both hemispheres, while it was absolutely untainted by self-assertion and self-conceit. At one time we heard of him as painting Daniel Webster at Washington, and soon after that he had started off to the wilds of the West to paint Daniel Boone. The massiveness and vigor of his body, his noble presence, and the mingled rusticity and courtliness of his manners, gave intimations of the stern and rough nursing of his earlier years, and kept the remembrance of the scenes and hardships through which he had made his way to the intimacy with the most distinguished men in his middle and later life. “ His children had often urged him to put upon record, at least for their use, some memorial of his early experiences. He gratified their wishes, so far as to write, under the apt title of ‘ My Egotistography,’ a too brief, but most lively, humorous, and thoroughly frank sketch of what he regarded as most likely to interest them in his fortunes and doings. His manu- script, with a few modest additions by one of his daughters, has been put into print. It is not published ; we wish it were, for it has a most relish- ing flavor for appreciative readers, and carries with it an admirable moral. We have had the privilege of reading a borrowed copy, and have vastly enjoyed the perusal. The straits and buffetings of boyhood, met and Early Poi trait Painters. 65 turned to account by real Yankee pluck ; the shifts and schemes for get- ting a living ; the wanderings and struggles of a premature manhood, and, as it would seem, the almost blundering upon the destined career for his genius, are related with a quaint directness and candor. His journals and letters during his two visits abroad, showing the Yankee backwoods-boy as the diner-out with nobles, the inmate of the castles of the great, and the painter of the Dukes of Sussex and Hamilton, are models of that kind of writing, and incidentally afford illustrations of his own noble and engag- ing character.” Gilbert Stuart Newton painted many American portraits in London. Ilis parents left Boston for Halifax, N. S., when that city was evacuated by the British ; and he was born in the latter place, September 2, 1795 ; but brought back to Boston after his father’s death, in 1803, and resided in Charlestown until his uncle, Gilbert Stuart, was established in Boston, when his nephew became his pupil ; later in life they seem to have been alienated. Newton paid a brief visit to Italy, and then joined Leslie in Paris ; they went together to London in 1817. He began as an artist with great promise, had a good eye for color, doubtless, in part, owing to his early familiarity with Stuart’s style ; he also had genius, humor, and pathos ; his “ Dull Lecture,” formerly belonging to Philip Hone, is a good illustration of the former quality, — “The Vicar of Wakefield restoring Olivia,” of the latter. Leslie’s companionship was a great advantage to him ; he inclined to and excelled in scenes from Gil Bias and Moliere. He was not a devoted student ; and the labor required for effective genre pictures was distasteful to him, although he will be remembered by a few choice efforts of this kind. He therefore took to portraiture ; one of his best cabinet likenesses is that of Washington Irving, who said to him, on seeing him at work on the picture of “ The Poet reading his Verses to the impatient Gallant,” “ Now you are on the right road !” For several years, a mental disorder blighted and isolated the life of Newton, the best idea of whose character, tastes, and career, can be gathered from his friend Leslie’s autobiography. There is a portrait of John Adams, by him, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Stuart Newton was more of a man of society than any of our artists ; his social intercourse with leading people in England, with the fastidiousness of his artistic habits, and the state of his health, limited his work. Contemporary with Harding were several portrait painters who attained a local and sometimes an extensive popularity, and some of their works are valuable exemplars of this department of Art. John Neagle, the son-in- law of Sully, was born in Boston, while his parents, who were Philadel- phians, were on a visit to that city, November 4, 1799. His father was ot Irish descent, and his mother a native of New Jersey. His first im- pulse toward, or, at least, praclice of, Art, seems to have been awakened by his schoolfellow, Petticolas, subsequently a miniature painter at Richmond, Va., and whose original small likeness of Washington is in the collection of J. Taylor Johnston, of New York. He had a quarter’s instruction in 5 66 American Artist Life. drawing from Pietro Amora ; and probably from his enjoyment of vivid colors, like several embryo painters mentioned in this work, when obliged to become a tradesman’s apprentice, selected coach-painting as an employment. His master studied with a limner, with a view to the ornamental part of his business, and young Neagle was frequently em- ployed to carry palette, colors, and brushes, from fadlory to atelier ; in this way, he soon grew familiar with the processes and materials of Art, and encouraged by Wilson, Peale and Sully, in 1818, began practice in Phila- delphia. Thence he went to Lexington, Ky., and experienced much priva- tion and discouragement, until the fortunate accidental sitter appeared ; and his fame, after a successful sojourn at New Orleans, grew rapidly, until we find him married, and busy in his old home, in 1820. Six years after, the full-length, stalwart and vigorous figure of Patrick Lyon, the black- smith, at his forge, gained Kim wide reputation. Dunlap gives an animated description of the circumstances attending this production and the original character it represents. This picture is in the possession of the Boston Athenaeum. His portrait of Mrs. Wood as Amina, in Bellini’s opera of La Sonnambula, is in the Philadelphia Academy, as is that of Matthew Carey ; his portrait of Henry Clay belongs to the Union League Club of that city. His portrait of Washington hangs in Independence Hall, over the doorway. The frame which encloses this picture was made in the great procession which passed along the streets of Philadelphia on the centennial celebration of Washington’s birthday, February, 22, 1832. Neagle was a great admirer of Stuart, and some of his portraits have a strength and vividness akin to that master. Among his subjects are Dr. Chapman, Commodore Barron, and Rev. Mr. Palmer. Some years before his death he became paralyzed, and left an unfinished portrait of Judge Stroud, undertaken after his attack. In his prime he was a remarkably genial companion, and devoted to aClive life. For eight years he was president of the Artists’ Fund Society of Philadelphia. Samuel Waldo was a native of Windham, in Connecticut ; he died after fifty-three years’ devotion to his profession, in New York, Feb- ruary 16, 1861, at the age of 78. Fie studied portrait painting with an indifferent artist at Hartford ; with fifteen dollars received from a British commodore for his portrait, he commenced business, and the hospitable encouragement of a gentleman at Litchfield started him on a prosperous career in his native State ; befriended at Charleston, S. C., by Mr. Rutledge, he had ample occupation there, and was enabled to embark for London in 1806, where he was kindly received by West, Copley, and Fulton, and painted many likenesses at five guineas each. On his return to America, he landed in New York in January, 1809, with two guineas in his pocket, but soon made friends by his integrity and courteous manners, and was adequately employed. Among his portraits are those of Mayors Willet, Radcliffe, and Allen, and Gen. McComb, in the City Hall, N. Y., and of Peter Remsen, in the posses- sion of the N. Y. Historical Society. Many of Waldo’s portraits, that re- Early Portrait Painters. 67 mained in his studio, were sold within two years, at auCtio^i ; and some of them are now encountered at bookstalls and curiosity-shops. S. P. Avery bought, at the sale, a charming female head, superior in color; and among the portraits thus disposed of, were those of Jeffer- son Davis and ex-Mayor Harper. He is remembered now as the part- ner of William Jewett, who was born in East Haddam, Ct., February 14, 1795, and worked on a farm until he was apprenticed to a coachmaker in New London. Having an “eye for colors,” he managed to evade his in- dentures, and made his way to New York in a coasting vessel. Having been employed by Waldo to grind paints, that gentleman now received him into his family ; and when he had studied three years, he assisted his bene- factor, and eventually became the sharer of his work and profits ; so that the portraits of Waldo and Jewett were joint productions, it being a puzzle to the uninitiated to assign to either painter his share of a portrait. Some of the male heads from this double hand are very good ; the likenesses were often successful, and for many years the artists were fully occupied in New York. Meantime, in Boston, Francis Alexander was a favorite portrait painter. Born in Windham county, Ct., in February, 1800, his first earnings were forty dollars for schoolkeeping, at the age of eighteen ; when off duty, on account of a slight indisposition, he was struck with the beautiful colors of some fish he had caught, and attempted to reproduce them in water-color. This “ study from nature ” revealed his artistic pro- clivities ; and, encouraged by his mother, he continued to experiment with pencil and brush until, as he naively said, his fame “spread half a mile.” Not without much opposition and despite scanty means, he went to New York, and studied with Alexander Robertson, a Scotch artist. Colonel Trumbull lent him the heads to copy ; he received a commission to paint a family at Providence, R. I., and going thence to Boston, soon became a favorite portrait painter. In 1833, in conjunction with Harding, Fisher, and Doughty, he exhibited many of his pictures in Boston, having two years before visited Italy, where he has resided for many years past. With less strength but more refinement than Harding, Alvan Fisher had a pleasant career in Boston and its vicinity. He was a native of Needham, Norfolk county, Ct., and studied with Penniman, an ornamental painter ; the mechanical aptitude there acquired was long a hindrance to the future artist ; as such he commenced praCtice in 1824, at first as a landscape and afterwards as a portrait painter, visiting. Europe in 1825, and studying chiefly in Paris. He produced many satisfactory and graceful likenesses ; that of the lamented Spurzheim, taken partly from recolleCtion, immedi- ately after his death in Boston, was highly valued. He died at his resi- dence, at Dedham, Mass., February 14, 1863. In the early chapters of Leslie’s delightful Recollections , lately published, frequent mention is made of a brother artist and countryman, Charles B. King, who, with Moore and Allston, lived in London under the same roof with the young painter. This estimable man was a native of Newport, 68 American Artist Life. and passed his summers there and his winters in Washington. Few liv- ing American artists, looked back upon the dawn of Art in America, and recall so many of her earliest votaries. Mr. King showed his love for his native town by the donation of a sum to the public school fund, the interest of which is devoted to musical instruction, and by the gift of numerous paintings and several thousand dollars to the Redwood Library. During a period of forty years his studio at the Capital was filled with the portraits of the political and other celebrities of the day, — not remarkable for artistic superiority, but often curious and valuable as likenesses, especially the In- dian portraits. His industry and simple habits enabled him to acquire a handsome competence, and his amiable and exemplary character won him many friends. He died at Washington, District of Columbia, March 18, 1862, at the age of seventy-six. Ezra Ames, a coach-painter of Albany, turned his attention to portrait- ure, and gained distinction in 1812 by exhibiting his likeness of Governor George Clinton at the Pennsylvania Academy ; during several years he executed portraits of the western members of the legislature, and these, with other specimens of his imitative skill, are widely scattered in New York State, many being in Albany, where his son has long followed the vocation of a miniature painter. In the Capitol are his portraits of Gov- ernor Clinton and Herman Bleecker, and his copy of Washington is in the State Library. William Wilson, an Englishman, painted portraits about 1 840-5 with a felicitous coloring ; his heads of Porter, the editor, and of Rich- ards, the proprietor, of the Spirit of the Times , and others, were much esteemed. John T. Peale executed some portraits of decided merit. C. E. Weir, brother of the professor, painted many truthful cabinet heads, and a careful and minute composition portrait by him was noted at one of the early Art-Union exhibitions. De Veaux, of South Carolina, made creditable portraits. Matthew Jouet, a humorous, tasteful man, was the best portrait painter, for many years, “west of the mountains”; he was a native of Fayette county, Kentucky, and educated for the bar ; he was a favorite pupil of Stuart’s, in Boston, in 1817 ; and practised his art successfully in his native State, at New Orleans, Natchez, and other places in the southwest; and died at the age of forty-three, at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1826. Edward Petticolas was a pupil of Sully, and his father taught the latter’s wife music, by way of ecjui valent. The family settled in Richmond in 1805. Petti- colas visited Europe three times, and was considered an accomplished portrait painter when at last established in Richmond. “His style was chaste, his coloring clear, but his manner somewhat timid.” An original miniature of Washington by him is in the gallery of S. Taylor Johnston, of New York. Many American and several foreign artists of this period, and before and subsequently, have executed portraits more or less creditable, in oil portraiture, miniature, crayon, composition and copying ; of the for- Early Portrait Painters. 69 mer, some having enjoyed at certain times and places quite a successful career, and others are still more or less professionally occupied ; but there are so few salient points or such limited interest in their works, that an extended notice would afford but a repetition of the average artistic expe- rience and achievement ; although in several instances their pictures have a distinctive value and merit.* With the increase of wealth, population, and taste for Art, portrait-paint- ing has so enlarged its bounds and multiplied its proficients that it would be a hopeless task even to enumerate those who have pursued it in the United States, with success, during the last twenty years ; several foreign artists have reaped a harvest in this field, and scattered their “ counterfeit presentments ” broadcast over the republic. Nor have our own portrait- painters failed to win European commissions and fame. One of the last of the old generation of portrait-painters was C. C. Ingham, whose pic- tures are remarkable for a high degree of finish, and an exquisite refine- ment, not always compatible with strength and nature, but often illustra- tive of the most tasteful patience. His “ Flower Girl,” “ Day Dream,” and “Portrait of a Child” in the collection of Jonathan Sturgis, Esq., are good exemplars of his style and manner. The following account of this artist appeared soon after his death in a leading journal of New York, and gives a just view of his career and character : “He was born in Dublin in 1796, and came to this country with his father’s family at the age of twenty-one, after having studied his profession four years in his native city, and produced works which won a premium from the Dublin Academy, and gave him a popular reputation and employ- ment. He exhibited his ‘ Death of Cleopatra,’ a work which had created a sensation in Europe, in the Gallery of the old Academy of Fine Arts, in Barclay street, at their first exhibition. It attracted great attention, and at once led to extensive employment. From that day to his last illness, he continued with wonderful industry to work at his easel, rarely losing a day, or even an hour of sunlight. He was one of the founders of the pres- ent National Academy of Design, having, at the time of the revolution in the old Academy, arrayed himself in the ranks of the malcontents. Of the original members of the National Academy he was the last survivor but three — Cummings, Durand, and Morse. He was for many years the vice-president, and until recently an aClive and useful member. “ His forte was female portraiture ; and although he worked slowly and tired his sitters with numerous sittings, a vast number of his pictures of the reigning beauties of other days adorn the walls of New York mansions. His style of painting was peculiar, and from the excessive patience and industry necessary to its success, was seldom imitated. He elaborated his flesh to the verge of hardness, touching and retouching his larger por- traits, until the picture presented all the delicacy and finish of the finest miniature on ivory. * For some interesting fadts, regarding the painters of Boston before the Revolution, vide a pam- phlet by W. H. Whitman, Esq., of that city. 7 o A merican A rtist L ife. “ This elaboration was probably done more in a feeling for mechanical finish, than to realize any quality which he saw in his sitters. But his pictures have satisfied public appreciation, and he has fully shared the popularity of the distinguished American portrait painters who lived in his day. “ He bore an unimpeachable character, and was much beloved, and will be long regretted by his friends and fellow-artists.” COPLEY. ORTRAITS appeal to the love of order as well as of beauty. They are useful and attractive not only as connected with the affections, or as meritorious works of art, but as sym- bols of departed races and ages. All admit the moral charm which invests an ancient estate ; and the inactivity of the sentiment of veneration among us, has been not irrationally ascribed to the comparative absence of those revered objects which, from earliest childhood, habituate the mind to dwell upon its relations with what has gone before, and its consequent responsibility to the future. That whole- some conservatism by which the feelings are rendered consistent and strong, from the influence of attachment to principles, is justly regarded as the most desirable safeguard against reckless fanaticism, both in politics and religion. Human beings are so much the creatures of sympathy, and the memory depends so greatly upon the imagination, that conservative influ- ences are intimately allied with material objects. Even the sear&d con- science of Lady Macbeth was touched by the resemblance of the sleeping Duncan to her father ; and when Jeannie Deans visited the Duke of Argyle, she wore her country’s plaid, knowing “ his honor would warm to the tar- tan.” In this respect the fine arts enact an important part. One of Haz- litt’s most suggestive essays is that on “ A Portrait by Vandyke ; ” and we have but to remember the psychological and historical as well as artistic interest which Titian, Velasquez, and Reynolds gave to this branch of art, to realize its possible significance. The architecture of castles and palaces, the statues of local divinities, the designs of escutcheons and sepulchral monuments, address the feelings both of love and pride which bind gene- rations of men together. Still nearer to the heart are family portraits. It is not the invention of romantic fiction which so often describes its heroes as musing in their youth, in some quiet gallery, over the lineaments of a noble ancestry. “ Look on this picture, and on this,” is an admonition more widely suggestive than it was to Hamlet’s mother. “ A portrait,” says Hervey, “is a mournful thing, the shadow of a joy ; ” but it may be impressive, affecting, and invaluable, when brightened by a feeling of per- sonal devotion or hallowed by retrospective sentiment. Copley’s portraits are among the few significant Art-memorials of the past American Artist Life . /2 encountered in this country ; and, as they are characteristic to a high degree, possess the interest which is ever attached to such relics. It has been said that the possession of one of these ancestral portraits is an American's best title of nobility. He was the only native painter of real skill which the New World could boast prior to the Revolution ; and seems to have followed his art with signal pride and assiduity. The heads of leading families, especially those of New England, sat to him ; and the prices he commanded, and the fame he achieved, were quite remarkable for the period. At many an old family dwelling in Massachusetts, in the commercial cities of most of the Eastern States, and occasionally at the South, are encountered portraits by Copley ; and not unfrequently our living painters are called upon to copy them: encrusted as they often are with the dust of a century , # when cleaned and varnished, the features and dress come out with a vividness and strength indicative of a master’s hand. Among the good specimens of his skill and style is the portrait of the Rev. John Ogilvie, in Trinity Church Vestry, New York ; Ralph and Mrs. Igard playing chess, now in Charleston, S.C., — painted in Italy ; that qf General Brattle, at Boston, in the uniform of a British officer ; Dr. Miles Cooper, as President of Columbia College, N. Y. ; Rev. James Cooper, D.D., and Rev. James Allen, the poet, belonging to the Massachusetts Historical Society ; Judge Jared Ingersoll, in the possession of Charles Ingersoll, Philadelphia ; Rev. Mr. Fayerweather, of Narragansett. in his Oxford robes ; a portrait belonging to William Thomas, Esq., of Baltimore ; Mrs. Hoo- per, in the collection of James Lenox, of New York ; a fine likeness of a gentleman, in the possession of Mrs. A. Woodruff, of Perth Amboy, N. J. ; one of a lady as St. Cecilia playing on the harp, belonging to Mrs. N. Apple- ton, Boston ; of Dr. Joseph Green, the property of Dr. Joshua Green, of Groton, Mass. ; one of John Adams, belonging to the City of Boston, and another in Harvard Hall, Cambridge ; of Governor and Mrs. Shirley, in the possession of Mrs. E. S. Erving, of New York; of Judge and Mrs. Langdon, in the possession of Madame Eustis, of Roxbury ; two portraits of the Misses Plumpstead, of Philadelphia ; of Sylvester Gardiner, belong- ing to W. H. Gardener, of Boston ; and several of the Hancock family, in the possession of their descendants ; admirable full-lengths sitting, of Thomas and Nicholas Boylston, Thomas Hubbard, Thomas Hollis, and Edward Holyoke, an early President of the College, with those of Mr. and Mrs. Appleton, in the possession of Harvard University. The most ela- borate work of Copley’s in Boston, in the way of family portraiture, is a full length of General Vassal in uniform, standing beside his horse and taking leave of his two daughters, Mrs. Fitch and Miss Vassall, before mounting. This picture, while in execution it is an excellent illustration of the artist’s style, is curious for the example it preserves of the costumes and manners of the day. It originally belonged to the Lloyd, and is now owned by the Borland family. Hon. G. C. Verplanck, of Fishkill, N. Y., has a portrait of his father, when a child, playing with a squirrel ; Mrs. Burnap, of Baltimore, Mel, two pastel portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Turner; Copley. 73 and a remarkable portrait of a lady, her hair flying loose, belongs to the Rogers family, of Boston, Mass. ; and excellent specimens to the Tracy family, of Newburyport, Mass. At a family mansion at Haverhill, Mass., there is a fine portrait by this artist, of Judge Saltonstall, who was born in 1703, and died in 1756, having always resided at this old homestead, on the Merrimack, just below the town. In the possession of the Dixwell family, of Boston, and of the Derby family, of Salem, there are several good exemplars of Copley’s portraiture, the latter being likenesses of Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, of Boston ; another belongs to Dudley Hall, of Medford. Thomas W. Ludlow, of New York, has excellent portraits of his grand- parents, from the same assiduous pencil ; and those of Benjamin and Mary Pickman, dated 1762, are in the possession of their great-grandson, Dr. Loring, of Salem. Four miniatures on copper, — likenesses of Hon. Andrew Oliver, and his daughter and sons, — by Copley, belong to Fitch Ed. Oliver, Esq., of Boston. Two full-length portraits of the Cranston family are in the possession of Dr. S. L. Miller, of Providence, R. I., and a three-quarter length belongs to the Bowler family, of the same city. An engraving, dated 1753, made by Copley when he was fifteen, indi- cates that he practised with his stepfather, Pelham, who engraved two or three plates from Smidert’s pictures. Of his miniatures two good exem- plars are the likenesses of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Cary, now in the posses- sion of one of their descendants. Among the Hancock portraits are sev- eral pastels, life-size heads, quiet in color and in an obsolete style, but remarkably fresh and clear. A picture in Boston — a portrait of himself as a boy, and apparently from his own hand — represents a lad of about eigh- teen, with a broken straw hat on ; — probably one of his earliest efforts. Fie painted the Greens, Hubbards, Broomfields, Inches, Pepperells, Sargents, Murrays, and others of his native city and its neighborhood ; and these families possess memorable specimens of his art. Therp is a portrait of himself, undoubtedly from his own pencil, in the Bryan collection of the New York Historical Society. The want of early advantages appears chiefly in Copley’s coloring. It is probable that an earlier acquaintance with Titian would have felicitously influenced his habits in this regard. Lord Lyndhurst, the son of the artist, declared that his father never saw a good picture until he was thirty years of age. It cannot be doubted that his knowledge was acquired under con- siderable discouragement, and that the excellence of his drawing was the result of persevering study. It is said that the first picture which he sent to England, juvenile effort as it was, exceeded all subsequent attempts in point of transparency and richness of hue. The dryness of tone and for- mality of manner in his pictures is, in a great degree, attributable to the unpropitious influences under which he acquired the rudiments of his art. It is an interesting coincidence that West and Copley, unknown to each other, were studying the rudiments of their art, the one in Pennsylvania, and the other in Massachusetts, under many disadvantages ; yet both des- 74 American Artist Life. tined to achieve success, in an eminent degree, both in England and Amer- ica. At the age of thirty Copley was favorably known on each side of the Atlantic, and in 1778 had set up his easel in George St., Hanover Square, London, and wrote West he had more orders than he could execute. Nor was he unremembered at home. “ I trust,” writes John Scollay, from Boston, in 1782, “that you do not forget your dear native country, and the cause she is engaged in.” And the venerable Mather Byles assures him : “ I delight in being ranked among your earliest friends ; ” while Washing- ton, in acknowledging the artist’s gift of an engraving of his “ Death of Chatham,” adds : “ This work, highly valuable as it is in itself, is rendered more estimable in my eyes, when I remember that America gave birth to the celebrated artist who produced it.” John Singleton Copley was seventeen years old when he fairly embarked in the profession of a painter. Few artists more intuitively seize their vocation, and at once manifest so decided an ability therefor, without ad- ventitious aid ; for, unassisted by teachers, he gave evidence of remarkable practical aptitude. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 3d of July, 1737, and died in London on the 25th of September, 1815. His native city, within a few 3'ears, added to its artistic trophies one of his most char- acteristic pictures, — that which represents Charles the First demanding the five impeached members of the House of Commons* The original is of cabinet size, and the figures admirably delineated, true as to individual portraits, and authentic in all the details of costume and surroundings ; the drawing is correCt, the coloring brilliant, and the composition masterly. In 1774 Copley visited Italy, and studied his art there for two years, giving special attention to the works of Titian and Correggio, with the most obvi- ous advantage as to skill in and feeling for color. In 1776 he went to Lon- don, soon joined by his wife and children from Boston ; obliged to remain by the impediments to transatlantic voyagers occasioned by the American Revolution, he achieved a vigorous and prosperous career, received a large income as a portrait painter, and was soon eleCted a member of the Royal Academy. His large picture of the Siege and Relief of Gibraltar, so prominent an ornament of the Guildhall, was executed in 1790. Many of his works have been engraved ; one of the most celebrated, the Death of Chatham, by Bartalozzi, copies of which he sent to Washington and John Adams ; and his best obtainable works were collected by his son Lord Lyndhurst. An anecdote significant of the historical associations of Copley’s times and position, is recorded by an American who sat to him for a portrait in 1782 ; die picture was completed with the exception of the background ; the sitter dined with the painter on the 5th of December, when the news reached them of the acknowledgment of American Inde- pendence : Copley immediately introduced a ship in the distance, “and,” writes his grateful guest, “ with a bold hand, a master’s touch, and I be- lieve, an American heart, attached to the ship the Stars and Stripes ; this was, I imagine, the first American flag hoisted in old England.”f * In the City Library. t Watson' s Men and Times of the Revolution. Copley. 75 Copley married, in 1769, Miss Clarke, daughter of a Boston merchant. When his wife and children joined him in London, they left Massachusetts from Marblehead harbor on the 27th of May, 1775, in the Minerva, Captain Callahan, arriving at Dover on the 24th of the subsequent June, the vessel being the last that left New England bearing the British flag. Copley, a few months before his marriage in 1769, purchased the estate in Beacon street, lying west of Walnut street. Here it is presumed Lord Lyndhurst and his sisters were born. Copley’s mother married, for her second husband, Mr. Pelham, a school- master ; she was long a favorite tobacconist in Boston. The following notice of her death appears in the Gazette of that city of May 4, 1789 : “Died, on Wednesday last, Mrs. Mary Pelham, widow of Mr. Peter Pelham, late of this town, and mother of Mr. Copley. Her funeral will be attended this afternoon, at four o’clock, from her dwelling house, at New Boston, when and where her, Mr. Copley’s, and the family’s friends and acquaintances are requested to grace the procession.” From the hint Trumbull gives us of his style of living, as well as from the characteristics of his paintings, his taste inclined to magnificence. For his “ Death of Chatham ” he refused fifteen hundred pounds ; and even in America, where he began his career as early as 1760, his annual income, according to his own statement, was three hundred guineas,* which, he remarks in one of his letters, is equal to nine hundred in London. Methodical and industrious to the last, what remains to us of his labors evidences that his talent was essentially for portraiture, the more ambitious efforts being only a collection of likenesses. He had the good sense to postpone visiting England until the com- mencement of hostilities, and reaped a liberal harvest from his industry at home. The fruits of his early toil are now to be found on the walls of sev- eral public institutions, in venerable country houses, and the more aristo- cratic dwellings of our cities. Associated as they chiefly are with the Colonial or Revolutionary period of our history, there lingers around them the charm of a bygone era, which endears even their palpable defe6ts. The want of ease and nature in these time-hallowed portraits, is, indeed, as authentic as their costume. They are generally dignified, elaborate, and more or less ostentatious and somewhat mechanical, but we recognize in these very traits the best evidence of their correctness. They illustrate the * One of his bills, which came to light a few years ago, is of historical interest : The Hon’ble John Hancock, Esqr. Boston, 1765. To Jno. S. Copley, Dr. To painting one portrait of himself, at 8 guineas nl. 4 To one portrait in miniature, 5 guineas 7 o 1767. To cleaning and varnishing seven pictures, at 8 2 10 1766. To a portrait of Mr. Henchman, £ cloth 9 16 1770. To one portrait of himself 9 16 To do. of Dodtr. Sewall, at 4 guineas 5 12 Boston, Sept. 18, 1771. Reed, the contents in full, for Mr. Copley 46/. 4 pr. Henry Pelham. American Artist Life. 76 men and women of a day when pride, decorum, and an elegance, sometimes ungraceful but always impressive, marked the dress and air of the higher classes. The faces are rarely insipid, and the hands almost invariably fair and delicately moulded. It appears to have been a favorite mode either with the artist or his sitters, to introduce writing materials, and to seleCt attitudes denoting a kind of meditative leisure. The otium cum dignitate is the usual phase. A rich brocade dressing-gown and velvet skullcap— a high-backed and daintily carved chair, or showy curtain in the background, are frequently introduced. “ Sir and Madam ” are the epithets which in- stinctively rise to our lips in apostrophizing these “ counterfeit present- ments.” There is that about them which precludes the very idea of tak- ing a liberty. They look like incarnations of self-respeCt — people born to command — men whose families were regulated with the reserve of state policy, and women who were models of virtue and propriety. In reading of John Hancock, or Mrs. Boylston, we think of them as painted by Copley. Large ruffles, heavy silks, silver buckles, gold-embroidered vests, and powdered wigs, are blent in our imaginations with the memory of patriotic zeal and matronly influence. The hardness of the outlines, and the semi-official aspeCt of the figures, correspond exaCtly with the spirit of those times. Like all genuine portrait painters, Copley uncon- sciously embodied the peculiarities of his age. Pride of birth had not then been superseded by pride of wealth. The distinction of gentle blood was cherished. Equality had only begun to assert itself as a political axiom ; as a social principle it had not dawned upon the most ultra reformers. The patrician element still carried honorable sway in the New World, and ere its external signs were lost in republican sameness of bearing and costume, the pencil of Copley snatched them from oblivion, by a faithful transfer to canvas. The sympathies of the painter were modified by the circumstances of his life. Of good lineage, and on intimate terms with the wealthy mer- chants of Boston and the learned professors of Cambridge, isolated in his vocation, aristocratic in his manners, and almost constantly occupied, he shared not the vagrant habits and undisciplined enthusiasm of artists of a later day. He was eminently respeCtable ; and his character was based upon English pride and intelligence. There was no overflowing geniality in his style. He seems never to have come into any vivid rela- tion with nature ; but painted with studious regard to established rules and conventional propriety. While quite a youth, he sent a picture enti- tled “ The Boy and Squirrel” to the Royal Academy. Its merit was at once acknowledged ; and there being no name annexed, its American ori- gin was inferred from the quality of the wood of which the frame was made, as well as from the species of squirrel delineated. He regularly exhibited for several years afterwards, so that, on arriving in England, his reputation for portraiture was already established. Within a comparatively recent period, an early repetition of this picture found its way back to the artist’s native city, one of whose journals thus 77 comments upon the work : — “ After an absence of more than ninety years, Copley’s picture of ‘ The Boy and the Tame Squirrel ’ is again here. It is beautiful as a portrait, life-like and yet local, of young Pelham, half- brother of the painter. The boy is contemplating, with intent gaze, the squirrel, fastened to a chain, on the table before him. The handsome, graceful form, in the dress of the last century, so much more picturesque than that of the present day, and the various accessories, are treated with a happy blending of the familiar and the imaginative which belong to the highest order of portraiture. The most careless observer cannot refrain from musing upon what might have been the future of the boy, and won- dering what direction, in after years, the fixed and earnest look, now riveted on the agile creature, would take. How gladly would he follow him down the stream of life, until it, rough or smooth, is lost in the ocean of eternity. Strange to say, save the name, all we know of those breath- ing features is told on the canvas before us ; that is now the reality — the life itself, but the shadow. Some pictures have a ‘history stranger than fiCtion’ — first in the scenes and character they portray, and again in the various vicissitudes of place and ownership they undergo ; others are shrouded in a strange mystery — a haunting face, perchance, with naught to solve the riddle of its existence. But though we know so little of the original of this portrait, its excellence as a work of art established Mr. Copley’s European reputation nearly a century ago, and confirmed it at the late International Exhibition in England in 1862. It was sent to Mr. West, from Boston, and as it was received without the name or the address of the painter, some difficulty was made about its admission at Somerset House. The beauty of the execution, however, overcame all opposition, and insured it a favorable position, and also excited great in- terest in the unknown artist. In faCt, it moulded the whole future career of Mr. Copley, who was induced, by the representations of his admirers, to remove with his family to England, where he became, first, associate, and afterwards, by royal sanction, member of the Academy.” Cunningham says that Copley was so much obliged to Malone for his- torical subjects, that he made a public acknowledgment of it ; and that no artist “ was ever more ready to celebrate passing events.” From an amus- ing description of a provoking and eccentric fellow-traveller in Italy, in one of his letters, we infer that he was not deficient in humor. It was one of his peculiar fancies to introduce squirrels into his pictures, and he is said to have been intimately acquainted with the natural history of this animal, and made pets of several of the species. He was an excellent kinsman. Considering his Irish descent and his artistic propensities, he was prudent and systematic to a remarkable degree ; and the minute finish of the accessories and fabrics in his portraits suggests great patience and industry. He was an experimentalist in color, which accounts for the striking difference of merit in this respeCfc his pictures exhibit. Cunning- ham thinks his earliest tints the best. He cultivated a love of literature, and was partial to History and Epic poetry, Milton being his favorite ; he ;3 American Artist Life. was more of a pedestrian than a rider ; in temper, contemporary evidence indicates an extreme of mood, from the peremptory to the amiable ; and as an artist, like West, he was regarded as deficient in glow, and more in- clined to the stately than the tender or impassioned. Copley painted with great deliberation. He had sixteen sittings, of six hours each, when executing the likeness of a Boston lady, although only a head was delineated ; and the attendants of the royal children at Wind- sor complained of the time required by the artist ; but the result proved the wisdom of patience, the picture being admirable. West told Leslie that Copley was the most tedious of all painters, and that he was in the habit of matching, with his palette-knife, every tint of the face. The lat- ter artist, who was a wise judge of the comparative merits of different schools and painters, said, of Copley that he was “ corredl in drawing, with a fine manner of composition, and a true eye for light and shadow ; but that he was deficient in coloring — with him it wants brilliancy and trans- parency.' 5 His reputation seems to have been established by his famous picture of the Death of Chatham, wherein the orator is depidted as “ faint- ing in the House of Lords, after his speech in favor of America,” and containing portraits of all the leading members. In 1790 Copley went to Hanover, at the invitation of the City of London, to paint four Hanoverian officers, for his pibture of the Siege of Gibraltar, a work highly popular at the time, and still greatly admired, though it is defective in aerial perspec- tive. “ The Surrender of Admiral De Winter to Lord Duncan, on board the Venable, off Cape Town,” is another of the subjects of national interest which he delighted to paint. Samuel and Eli, the King’s Chil- dren Playing with a Dog, and the Boy Rescued from a Shark, are other most prominent works of Copley, all of them widely known through en- gravings. In regard to the latter, which is a familiar ornament of Christ’s Hospital School, in London, a curious tradition exists. Such an adven- ture as is represented in this picture actually occurred to a boy when bathing at Havana. A shark seized his foot, when a seaman struck the creature on the head with a boat-hook, and rescued the youth. “ Dry and bad in color,” as this painting has been justly described, it is also not the less true that “ the terror of the boy, the fury of the fish, and the resolution of the seaman, are well represented.” But there is another story illustrated by this picture. Brooke Watson, “ an adventurer from one of the New England provinces,” was commissary in the British army, member of Par- liament, and finally Lord Mayor of London. He took an afitive part in opposition to our independence, in the House of Commons ; and before he joined himself to the enemies of America, he had, under the guise of an ally and friend, possessed himself of much valuable information for the benefit of the English government and our opponents. To this treachery he added the not less base reputation of a zealous advocate of the slave trade ; his argument for which infamous traffic was, that its suppression “would injure the market for the refuse of the English fisheries,” — being purchased by the West India planters for their slaves. Dunlap is indig- Copley. 79 nant that Copley should have immortalized this devotee of the traffic in human flesh by the picture of “ The Boy Rescued from a Shark but the latter evidently valued the trophy, since he bequeathed it to Christ’s Hos- pital School. The same individual is the hero of one of the few facetious papers from the pen of Edward Everett, called “ Curiosity Baffled,”* wherein a London Lord Mayor, formerly a resident in the American colo- nies, is described as worn out with the pertinacious queries of two Yankee guests, whom he had invited to dinner, and who were dying to know how he lost his leg ; and when they begged leave to ask one question more, the request was granted, on condition it should be the last. The delicate inquiry was propounded, and the reply, “It was bitten off,” only baffled the curiosity it failed wholly to gratify. The career of Copley was revived to our memory within a few years, by the exhibition and sale of the collection of his pictures belonging to the estate of Lord Lyndhurst, who died October ioth, 1863. The sale took place in London on the 5th of March, 1864. Proof impressions of his engraved historical pictures, and the original studies for each, together with numerous portraits, evidenced the industry and progress of the artist, and illustrated all his traits. The portraits of Lord Howe, Admiral Barrington, Viscount Duncan, afterwards Lord Camperdown ; sketches of the siege of Gibraltar, of the deaths of Chatham and Pierson, and of the pidlure of Charles I. demanding the arrest of the Five members ; Abra- ham’s Sacrifice, Llagar and Ishmael, the Princesses Mary, Sophia, and Amelia, children of George IIP, in the garden at Windsor, a highly fin- ished sketch ; Samuel and Eli, the well-known piCture engraved by Valentine Green for a Bible illustration ; a fine copy of St. Jerome, after Correggio ; Saul Reproved by Samuel, The Boy and Squirrel, and The Boy Res- cued from a Shark, — very early and slightly modified repetitions of the originals ; the Battle of the Pyrenees, with portraits of the Duke of Wel- lington and Lord March, unfinished, combined to reveal the artist-life of Copley, — his studies in Italy, his careful delineation of heads from life, and his experiments in classic, Scriptural and historical subjects. There were the original likenesses of the Hessian officers ; the head of the favorite negro, introduced in the shark picture ; the “ Red Cross Knight,” an alle- gorical work, based on Spenser, and including portraits of Lord Lynd- hurst, his father, and his two sisters, Miss Green and Miss Copley. This interesting work is now in the possession of his Boston kindred, who pur- chased several other of the most characteristic pictures at the sale. “ Cupid caressing Venus the portrait of an unknown lady, signed Boston, 1772 ; George the Fourth, as Prince of Wales, at a review, with a distinguished group ; the Offer of the Crown to Lady Jane Grey ; and the celebrated chef-d'oeuvre, the Death of Major Pierson, repurchased by Copley ; with the well-known family picture, representing the artist, his wife with an infant in her arms, his father, his three other children, and Mr. Clarke, the father of Mrs. Copley, — made up a remarkable and characteristic collec- * Boston Book, 1841. So American Artist Life. tion ; its chief obje6ts familiar to many, through the Royal Academy exhi- bitions and a series of popular engravings. Of his portraits of Earl Spen- cer, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Colchester, and Richard Heber in boyhood — all but the last engraved, — Dr. Dibdin says the first — in the gallery at Althorp — “must have been a striking likeness, although too stiff and stately ;” the latter has considerable merit : there is a play of light and shadow, and the figure, with a fine flowing head of hair, mingles well with its accessories. He is leaning on a cricket-bat, with a ball in one hand. The contemplation of this portrait has at times produced mixed emotions of admiration, regard and pity ; for, as Dean Swift remarked, “ if you should look at him in his boyhood through the magnifying end of the glass, and in his manhood through the diminishing end, it would be impossible to spy any difference.” Thus nearly allied is the art of portraiture and the science of character. Although Copley was, in a great measure, self-taught, he doubtless saw in his novitiate more or less of the pictures of Smibert, Blackburn, and West. He had many fine drawings and casts when he resided in Boston. In 1768, Charles Wilson Peale went thither, from Annapolis, to seek his instruction ; and Trumbull, who visited him at the time of his marriage, as we have seen, conceived a fascinating idea of the career of a painter from Copley’s elegant costumes of crimson velvet, and comfortable mode of life. He died suddenly, at the age of seventy-eight ; and his latter years were somewhat embarrassed, owing to the dilatory conduCt of Bartolozzi, who engraved his popular works. His last exhibited picture was far below the efforts of his prime. He suffered some “noble higgling,” and knew the law’s delay ; he was devoted to his art ; and his career, though unevent- ful, was, on the whole, prosperous, and he was emphatically “ a good artist and a good man.” There are many curious but unauthenticated anecdotes of Copley. One story attributed to him was long current. It is said that he engaged to paint a family group ; and, before it was fin- ished, the wife died and the husband married again. The first wife was therefore painted as an angel, and the second given her terrestrial place ; but the latter died also before the picture was completed, and had to be “placed aloft,” while her successor occupied the earthly centre of the family group. Eventually, we are told, the third wife insisted upon hav- ing her predecessors obliterated. The anecdote seems like a satirical invention to indicate Copley’s slow method of painting. West, Copley and Trumbull, in their military compositions, first success- fully introduced modern costumes in historical painting. How far the actual should be sacrificed to the picturesque, the familiar to the ideal, has long been a question, and one which it is very difficult to settle. When, in 1798, Washington replied to Jefferson’s inquiry as to his views regarding costume, for the proposed statue by Houdon, he says : “ Not having sufficient knowledge of the art of sculpture to oppose my judgment to the taste of connoisseurs, I do not desire to dictate in the matter. I venture to suggest that a servile adherence to the garb of antiquity might Capley. Si not be altogether so inexpedient as some little deviation in favor of mod- ern costume.” The good sense which suggested the innovation in plastic art, and the deference to more practiced judges, are alike characteristic, and show how great a novelty in pictorial art was West’s experiment in his “ Death of Wolfe,” which initiated the style successfully adopted by Copley. There is something, however, essentially ineffective and ungrace- ful in dress-coats, stocks, chapeaus and top-boots. Copley found it a difficult problem to group a large number of inactive figures naturally. In statuary, no one can fail to perceive how much is gained by approaching the nude, or introducing the simple folds of classic drapery. In the “ Declaration of Independence,” the row of legs is positively uncouth ; and in the military scenes of Trumbull and Copley, only the interest of the aCtion reconciles us to the homeliness of the details. Red coats and muskets have no ideal associations ; but these artists had the talent to give character to postures and faces ; and, like good aCtors in an indiffer- ent theatre, win attention from the accessories by the spirit of the main conception. Copley’s “ Death of Major Pierson ” thus affeCtingly com- memorates an instance of heroic self-sacrifice ; and, had the requisite encouragement been given, he would have devoted himself exclusively to that department of historical painting which embodies important events, by distinguished groups and aCtual portraits — a branch for which his practiced skill in likenesses and his judgment in arrangement were finely adapted. 6 TRUMBULL. RT, in its Comprehensive sense, appears designed to vindi- cate nature. A genius for adtion, when thwarted by physical or moral inaptitude, is often happily exhibited through the imagination. Thus poetry has been defined as the expression of unattained desire ; and it is no small consolation to enthu- siasts, when denied a career, to represent adequately, in language or colors, the events in which they would have fain taken part. The love of glory is as evident in the subjects which artists choose to illustrate as in the patient toil they devote to renown, and it is not more difficult to infer the modesty or ambition of a painter than his taste. Th*e dominant idea of Trumbull, in his artistic labors, was to celebrate great events. He was endowed to sympathize with these. By early associa- tion he was identified with that peculiar tone of character — blending a keen sense of honor with a spirit of enterprise, that marked our revolu- tionary epoch. He inherited a strong national feeling. To remarkable quickness of perception, habits of study, and a thirst for distinction, he united a decided talent for drawing, but, apparently, little of that intense love of the beautiful or deep enthusiasm for art which distinguish more gifted painters. John Trumbull, son of the colonial Governor of Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull, a steadfast patriot of the Revolution, was born in Lebanon, in that State, on the 6th of June, 1756, and died in New York, November, 1843. A graduate of Harvard University, his artistic taste was awakened by familiarity with the portraits of Copley and Smibert. The same copy of Vandyke — by the latter artist — which furnished to Allston his first study of color, also inspired the early attempts of Trumbull. He had scarcely, however, adopted his chosen pursuit as a vocation, when the war of the Revolution interrupted his work, and patriotism won him from painting. His skill as a draughtsman soon came into use in military life ; and when, in 1775, at the age of nineteen, he joined the army as adjutant, Washington employed him to make a plan of the enemy’s works, and rewarded the service by placing him on his staff, with the rank of brigade- major. He went with the army to New York ; and, with a colonel’s rank, accompanied Gates northward. Under this general, and subsequently Tfumbull. 8 3 with Arnold, he continued to hold the office, until, with the sensitiveness which characterized him as a soldier, a gentleman, and an artist, he felt aggrieved at the date which Congress assigned to his commission, threw it up in disgust, and, quitting the army, resumed the pencil. In 1780, Colonel Trumbull visited France, and thence went to London, and studied auspiciously with West. The retaliatory spirit induced by the execu- tion of Major Andre, led to severe measures on the part of the British government, and among the first victims was Trumbull, who, while quietly pursuing his art, was arrested as a spy. At the earnest interposition of West, then in high favor with George the Third, the life of his brother- artist and pupil was spared ; and, after eight months’ imprisonment, Trum- bull was released, on condition of leaving the kingdom, West and Copley being his sureties. With the former he resumed his studies when the close of the war enabled him once more to visit England, the intermediate period having been passed in his native country. In the autumn of 1789, Trum- bull returned to America for the purpose of taking likenesses of the eminent living patriots of the new Republic and heroes of the Revolu- tion, with a view to the execution of an historical work commemorative of the recent times, now become so illustrious, and destined to be of per- manent historical interest. ‘Until the year 1794, this enterprise engaged all the painter’s time and talent. He had then collected an invaluable series of heads, and delineated to his heart’s content the peerless chief whom he so loved and honored. He then went again to England, as secretary to Mr. Jay, and in 1796 was appointed fifth commissioner for the execution of the seventh article of that minister’s treaty of ’94. These duties occupied Trum- bull during seven years. His pencil was not idle meanwhile ; but few of his pictures of this date had much success. He returned to the United States in 1815 ; and, two years later, was commissioned by Congress to paint four elaborate historical works to fill the panels of the rotunda in the Capitol at Washington. Engravings have made these pictures familiar throughout the land ; they have been the subjects of much indiscriminate criticism, and have afforded no little patriotic delight. “ The Declaration of Independence,” “The Surrender of Burgoyne,” “ The Surrender of Cornwallis,” and “ The Resignation of Washington at Annapolis,” are themes which, for moral and national significance, have rarely been equalled in modern history. They furnish subjects for art endeared to the people by every association of honorable patriotism. The artist had mingled in the scenes he commemorated, partaken of the spirit he aimed to represent ; a sterling patriot, and a devoted personal friend and admirer of Washington ; a sufferer in the cause of American liberty; he brought to his task a degree of knowledge and sympathy which seldom inspires the heart and hand of an historical painter, to whom the event or character delineated is usually remote from personal association, and vaguely identified with the distant past. Faithfully, for years, gleaning the materials of the work, Trumbull’s feelings and fame, fortune and pride, were too deeply involved in the experiment not to arouse in its behalf all the latent susceptibilities s 4 American Artist Life. of a mind at once high-toned and keenly alive to the claims of art and character. Many difficulties and numerous discouragements attended the enterprise. He had to deal with men in office unversed in the requisites of enlightened and liberal patronage. Political prejudice and indifference to the intrinsic claims of art, combined often to thwart and annoy him ; and when Government, in his old age and straitened circumstances, declined to purchase the original sketches and portraits, fifty-seven in number, which had formed the basis of these pictures, he was glad to accept from Yale College a pension in exchange for the collection, which that institution formed into a permanent gallery — now constituting, at the painter’s fond instance, his own best monument and memorial, which recalls that of Thorwaldsen at Copenhagen. The following inscription there designates his tomb and the traits and triumphs of his life : — “ Col- onel John Trumbull, patriot and artist, friend and aide of Washington, died in New York, Nov. io, 1843, JE. 88. He reposes in a sepulchre built by himself, beneath this monumental gallery, where, in September, 1834, he deposited the remains of Sarah, his wife, who died in New York, April 24, 1824, M. 51. To his country he gave his pencil and his sword.” When Horatio Greenough returned to this country, after many years’ residence in Italy devoted to the study and practice of art, his mind was keenly alive to all the achievements and tendencies of his native land in regard to this, in his view, high and dear social interest : few places excited his sympathies so deeply as the unique memorial tomb of his rev- ered artist-friend ; and we cannot more appropriately indicate its claims both on the patriotic and the critical lover of art than by quoting the lamented sculptor’s impressions there received, as expressed in one of his occasional contributions to the literature of art. “ In passing through New Haven, a few days since, I visited the Trum- bull Gallery, and was sincerely gratified to find the works of my venerable friend collected, cared for, and in the keeping of a dignified and permanent corporation. “ I remarked with regret that the building, where these works of Col. Trumbull are kept, was in part of combustible material, and warmed in a manner which must always be injurious to pictures. I am not aware of the wants which placed the gallery on the second story, with a wooden floor and a wooden staircase so near the pictures. Whatever ends may have been gained by this arrangement, much has been sacrificed to them. Had this gallery been located on a ground floor, in a building of one story, lighted as at present, with a stone or painted brick floor resting upon ven- tilated cobble stones, I must believe that the expense would have been no greater, and the security perfect. “ I noted a most interesting object in this gallery — a sketch of Major Andre, made by himself on the day of his execution. This sketch, which is made with a pen, is not of artistic value beyond what may be looked for in similar efforts of any educated engineer ; but it has a historic and per- sonal interest of a high order, and I would venture to hint that it is not Trumbull. 85 properly framed considering its value, nor safely kept, if any one consider its high interest elsewhere. It should form an inseparable part of some larger fixture. This suggestion would be both uncalled for and ungracious, but for the faCt that much larger works have in Europe been abstracted from places of public resort, and that, too, in spite of a jealous supervision of the authorities interested in their preservation. “ It was truly interesting to observe in this collection the small studies of Col. Trumbull’s pictures for the Rotunda ; and since I have mentioned these, I cannot refrain from saying a few words in relation to the Declara- tion of Independence, which I regard as by far the ablest of these pictures, — a work selected by John Randolph as the butt of his unscrupulous sar- casm, stigmatized by him as the Shin Piece, and almost universally known, even now, and mentioned by that ludicrous cognomen. “ I believe I shall be speaking the sense of the artistical body, and of cognoscenti in the United States, when I say that the ‘Declaration of In- dependence ’ has earned the respeCt of all, the warm interest of such as watch the development of American Art, and the admiration of those who have tried their own hand in wielding a weighty and difficult subjeCL “ I admire in this composition the skill with which Trumbull has col- lected so many portraits in formal session, without theatrical effort, in order to enliven it, and without falling into bald insipidity by adherence to trivial faCt. These men are earnest, yet full of dignity ; they are firm yet cheer- ful ; they are gentlemen ; and you see at a glance that they meant some- thing very serious in pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors. “ The left hand of the figure of Adams is awkwardly pushed forward. The left arm of Jefferson is singularly incorreCt for so careful a draughtsman as Col. Trumbull. One could wish that the lower limbs of Hancock had been made more distinCl ; perhaps a slight enlargement and extension of the light upon his chair, uniting with the mass of light, would have effected this objeCt. Would not the chair itself, in such case, be less a spot than it now is in the composition ? “ Those who have seen only the sortie of Gibraltar and the battle of Bunker Hill, would scarcely believe that these larger works of the Capitol are of the same hand, from their inferiority in color and effedt. They have a chalky distemper-like tone, which is very unpleasing. “In calling this picture the Shin Piece , Mr. Randolph accused a defeCt of composition. If I understand the gibe, it meant that there was an undue prominence and exhibition of legs in the work. Now, in point of faCt, this is the last charge which he should have made ; nay, if Mr. Ran- dolph had any special aversion for legs, he owed a tribute of praise to the artist for sparing him in that regard, since, of more than forty persons who are there assembled, ten only show their legs. The gibe, however, took with the house, because the house was, by its tedium, prepared for a laugh, and not prepared to do justice to the painter. “ The veteran artist, whose feelings were thus wounded, was but a few 86 American Artist Life. feet distant from the shameless orator. He afterwards assured me, with tears in his eyes, that up to that moment he had always believed Randolph his personal friend. If those who echoed and still echo that paltry jest, will look carefully at the Declaration of Independence, they will see that the fadt of those legs appearing in small-clothes, no longer familiar to the eye, calls attention to them in an undue manner, and they will rather pity the spirit and the intelligence which overlooked this difficulty, than blame the painter for an inevitable consequence of the change of fashion.” The paintings have been recently removed from the Trumbull Gallery to the new Art-Building of the College. Col. Trumbull’s pictures do not now occupy a room by themselves, but are placed with some others in a large gallery. They have been very judiciously cleaned and renovated, so that they appear to much .better advantage than before, and the additions already made to the collection have greatly increased its value and inter- est. TrumbulPs celebrated painting of Washington occupies a conspicuous place on the eastern wall of the south hall, and under it -is suspended, by way of comparison, a copy of Stuart’s head of Washington. The one represents the soldier bronzed and worn through years of anxious cam- paigning, and the other the grave statesman, enjoying all the ease and elegance that wealth and position command ; and the dissimilarities of the two may be readily explained by the circumstances under which they were painted. It is stated, on authority, that the noticeable difference in the breadth of the lower part of the face is to be attributed to the faCt that Washington wore ill-setting false teeth when Stuart painted him. Around the large painting of Washington are grouped, with very excellent effeCt, a number of Trumbull’s miniatures of revolutionary notables, male and female, together with full-sized portraits of members of the painter’s family, flanked by old Governor Jonathan Trumbull on the one side, and Presi- dent Dwight on the other. Under them, and extending along the side walls, are the original paintings of Trumbull’s battle-piCLures of the Revo- lution, from which the large paintings in the Capitol at Washington were reproduced. As very many of the persons represented were painted from life, and as Col. Trumbull always exhibited a remarkable nicety in matters of costume, these paintings have a value in addition to whatever they may claim as works of art. There is a significant feature in one of his historical tableaux. General Schuyler, to whose judicious management the vidtory over Burgoyne was chiefly owing, was deprived of the leadership just when his efforts were to be crowned with success. “ Though sensible,” he writes, “ of the in- dignity of being ordered from the command of the army, at the time when an engagement must soon take place, I shall go on doing my duty and endeavoring to deserve your (Washington’s) esteem ; ” and it has been well said that in “the pidture by Trumbull of the surrender of Burgoyne, of interest as preserving the likenesses of those who were present at the scene, but one figure is represented in citizen’s dress ; it is that of General Trumbull. 8 ; Schuyler, to whom the sympathetic nature of the artist thus pays a passing tribute. “ No artist* enjoyed the opportunities of Col. Trumbull as the portrayer of Washington. As aide-de-camp he was familiar with his appearance in the prime of his life and its most exciting era. At the commencement of the Revolutionary struggle, this officer was among the most aCtive, and essentially promoted the secure retreat of the American forces, under Gen. Sullivan, from Rhode Island : he, therefore, largely partook of the spirit of those days, came freely under the influence of Washington’s char- acter as it pervaded the camp, and had ample time and occasion to observe the Commander-in-chief in his military aspeCl, and in social intercourse, on horseback, in the field, and at the hospitable board, in the councils of war, when silently meditating his great work, when oppressed with anxiety, animated by hope, or under the influence of those quick and strong feel- ings he so early learned to subdue. After Trumbull’s resignation, and when far away from the scene of Washington’s glory, he painted his head from recolledtion, so distinctly was every feature and expression impressed upon his mind. The most spirited portrait of Washington that exists— the only reflection of him as a soldier of freedom in his mature years wor- thy of the name, drawn from life — is Trumbull’s. The artist’s own account of this work is given in his memoirs : ‘ In 1792 I was again in Philadel- phia, and there painted the portrait of General Washington, now placed in the gallery at New Haven, the best, certainly, of those that I painted, and the best, in my estimation, that exists in his heroic and military character. The city of Charleston, S. C., instructed Mr. W. R. Smith, one of the rep- resentatives of South Carolina, to employ me to paint for them a portrait of the great man, and I undertook it con amove , as the commission was unlimited, meaning to give his military character at the most sublime mo- ment of its exertion — the evening previous to the battle of Trenton, when, viewing the vast superiority of his approaching enemy, the impossibility of again crossing the Delaware or retreating down the river, he conceives the plan of returning by anight march into the country from which he had been driven, thus cutting off the enemy’s communication and destroying the depot of stores at Brunswick.’ There is a singular felicity in this choice of the moment to represent Washington, for it combines all the most desi- rable elements of expression characteristic of the man. It is a moment, not of brilliant achievement, but of intrepid conception, when the dignity of thought is united with the sternness of resolve, and the enthusiasm of a daring experiment kindles the habitual mood of self-control into an un- wonted glow. As the artist unfolded his design to Washington, the memory of that eventful night thrilled him anew ; he rehearsed the circumstances, described the scene, and his face was lighted up as the memorable crisis in his country’s fate and his own career was renewed before him. He spoke of the desperate chance, the wild hope, and the hazardous but fixed determination of that hour ; and, as the gratified painter declares, ‘ looked * From the author’s “ Character and Portraits of Washington.” 88 American Artist Life. the scene.’ ‘The result,’ he says, ‘was, in my own opinion, eminently successful, and the General was satisfied.’ Whether the observer of the present day accedes to the opinion, that he “ happily transferred to the can- vas the lofty expression of his animated countenance, the resolve to con- quer or perish ; ’ whether the picture comes up to his preconceived ideal of the heroic view of Washington or not, he must admit that it combines great apparent fidelity, with more spirit and the genius of adtion, than all other portraits. “ Although not so familiar as Stuart’s, numerous good copies of Trumbull’s Washington, some from his own, and others by later pencils, have rendered it almost as well known in this country. Contemporaries gave it a decided preference ; it recalled the leader of the American armies, the man who was ‘first in the hearts of his countrymen,’ ere age relaxed the facial muscles and modified the decisive lines of the mouth ; it was associated in their minds with the indignant rebuke at Monmouth, the brilliant surprise at Trenton, and the heroic patience at Valley Forge ; it was the Washing- ton of their youth, who led the armies of freedom — the modest, the brave, the vigilant and triumphant chief. Ask an elderly Knickerbocker what pidture will give you a good idea of Washington, and he will confidently refer you, as the testimony his father has taught him, to Trumbull’s por- trait in the City Hall. When Lafayette first beheld a copy of this pidture, in a gentleman’s house in New Jersey, on his visit to this country, a few years before his death, he uttered an exclamation of delight at its resem- blance. An excellent copy by Vanderlyn, adorns the U. S. House of Rep- resentatives, for the figure in which, Geo. B. Rapalye, Esq., a highly respedted citizen of New York, stood with exemplary patience, for many days, wearing a coat, perhaps the first specimen of American broadcloth, that had been worn by Washington. The air of the figure is manly and elegant, the look as dignified and commanding, and the brow as pradtical in its moulding, as in Stuart’s representation of him at a more advanced period ; but the face is less round, the profile more aquiline, the complex- ion has none of the fresh and ruddy hue, and the hair is not yet blanched. It is, altogether, a keener, more adtive, less thoughtful, but equally graceful and dignified man. In Trumbull’s military portrait, he stands in an easy attitude, in full uniform, with his hand on his horse’s neck ; and the most careless observer would recognize, at a glance, the image of a brave man, an intelligent officer, and an honorable gentleman. The excellent engraving of Durand has widely disseminated Trumbull’s spirited head of Wash- ington. “ Although the concurrent testimony of those best fitted to judge, gives the palm to Trumbull’s portrait, as the most faithful likeness of Washington in his prime, this praise seems to refer rather to the general expression and air, than to the details of the face. Trumbull often failed in giving a satisfadlory likeness ; he never succeeded in rendering the complexion, as is obvious by comparing that of his pidture in the New York City Hall with any or all of Stuart’s heads ; the former is yellow, and gives the idea of a Trumbull. 89 bilious temperament, while the latter, in every instance, have the florid, ruddy tint, which, we are assured, was characteristic of Washington, and indicative of his aCtive habits, constant exposure to the elements, and Saxon blood. The best efforts of Trumbull were his first, careful sketches; he never could elaborate with equal effeCt ; the collection of small, original heads, from which his historical pictures were drawn, have a genuine look and a spirited air, seldom discoverable in the enlarged copies. “ ‘ Washington,’ says Trumbull, in describing the picture, ‘is repre- sented standing on elevated ground, on the south side of the creek at Trenton, a little below the stone bridge and mill. He has a reconnoitring glass in his hand, with which he is supposed to have been examining the strength of the hostile army, pouring into and occupying Trenton, which he has just abandoned at their appearance ; and, having ascertained their great superiority, as well in numbers as discipline, he is supposed to have been meditating how to avoid the apparently impending ruin, and to have just formed the plan which he executed during the night. This led to the splendid success at Princeton on the following morning ; and, in the esti- mation of the great Frederic, placed his military character on a level with that of the greatest commanders of ancient or modern times. Behind, and near, an attendant holds his horse. Every minute article of dress, down to the buttons and spurs, and the buckles and straps of the horse furniture, were carefully painted from the different objeCts.’ The gentleman who was the medium of this commission to Trumbull, praised his work ; but aware of the popular sentiment, declared it not calm and peaceful enough to satisfy those for whom it was intended. With reluCtance, the painter asked Washington, overwhelmed as he was with official duty, to sit for another portrait, which represents him in his every- day aspeCt, and, therefore, better pleased the citizens of Charleston. ‘ Keep this picture,’ said Washington to the artist, speaking of the first experi- ment, ‘ and finish it to your own taste.’ When the Connecticut State Society of Cincinnati dissolved, a few of the members purchased it as a gift to Yale College. “Trumbull’s style was founded on that of West. His ‘ Death of Mont- gomery ’ has been justly ranked by intelligent critics as ‘ one of the most spirited battle-pieces ever painted.’ That part of the scene is chosen where General Montgomery commanded in person ; and that moment, when, by his unfortunate death, the plan of attack was entirely discon- certed, and the consequent retreat of his column decided at once the fate of the place, and of such of the assailants as had already entered at another point. The principal group represents the death of General Montgomery, who, together with his two aides-de-camp, Major McPherson and Captain Cheesman, fell by a discharge of grape-shot from the cannon of the place. The General is represented as expiring, supported by two of his officers, and surrounded by others, among whom is Colonel Campbell, on whom the command devolved, and by whose order a retreat was immedi- ately begun. 90 American Artist Life. “ Grief and surprise mark the countenances of the various characters. The earth covered with snow — trees stripped of their foliage — the desola- tion of winter, and the gloom of night — heighten the melancholy character of the scene. “ His ‘ Sortie of the Garrison from Gibraltar ’ was exhibited with success in London, and is the subjeCt of a popular engraving by Sharpe. An in- valuable feature in his American historical pictures, as we have said, is the authenticity of the portraits. “The 4 Declaration of Independence,’ for instance, contains only aCtual portraits of men in that Congress which declared the United States inde- pendent of Great Britain ; the men whose wisdom, firmness and sagacity, Lord Chatham was the first Englishman to discover and to proclaim in the British Parliament, more than a year before the declaration of Inde- pendence. He then further told the House of Lords, Lve shall be forced ultimately to retraCt ; let us retract while we can, not when we must I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive aCts ; they must be repealed ; you will repeal them ; I pledge myself for it, that you will in the end repeal them ; I stake my reputation on it : — I will consent to be taken for an idiot , if they are not finally repealed .’ “ Three years after, Parliament did repeal those oppressive aCts (the Bos- ton Port Bill, &c.), but it was then too late to conciliate America. Inde- pendence had in the meantime been declared, and nothing less would then satisfy the country. “The painting represents the Speaker, John Hancock, in the chair. The committee of five have come to the table, and are presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence. They were Dock Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, Roger Sherman, and John Adams. Charles Thompson, Secretary of Congress, is standing to receive the Re- port. By reference to the key, which hangs below the picture, the names of all the portraits can be ascertained. The room is copied from that in which Congress held their sessions at the time.” His pictures of the Battles of Bunker Hill, and Trenton, and Princeton, are correct transcripts of those memorable engagements, every detail being historical. The catalogue of the Wadsworth Gallery Exhibition at Hartford, where Trumbull’s enlarged copies of these works now are, gives an elaborate description of each. Here also is a duplicate of the “Death of Montgomery ; ” a Holy Family by the same artist ; his copy of the “ Declaration of Independence;” a portrait of the first Governor Trumbull, and of Mrs. L. IT Sigourney; a copy of his portrait of Col. Wadsworth and his son, executed in London, and that of Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth by Bryant; his own first essay in painting — “Brutus;” a portrait of a Gentleman ; and a View of the Falls of Niagara from the Upper Banks — making altogether a very characteristic series of Col. Trumbull’s art-studies and mature works. The painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill represents the moment when (the Americans having expended their ammunition) the British troops be- Trumbull. 9 1 came completely successful, and masters of the field. At this last moment of the aCtion, General Warren was killed by a musket ball through the head. The principal group represents him expiring, — a soldier on his knees supports him, and with one hand wards off the bayonet of a British grenadier, who, in the heat and fury natural at such a moment, aims to re- venge the death of a favorite officer, Col. Abercrombie, who had just fallen at his feet. Colonel Small had been intimately connected with General Warren, — saw him fall, and flew to save him. He is represented seizing the musket of the grenadier, to prevent the fatal blow, and speak- ing to his friend : it was too late ; the General had barely life remaining to recognize the voice of friendship ; he had lost the power of speech, and expired with a smile of mingled gratitude and triumph. Near him several Americans, whose ammunition is expended, although destitute of bayonets, are seen to persist in a resistance obstinate and desperate, but fruitless. Near this side of the painting is seen General Putnam, re- luctantly ordering the retreat of these brave men ; while beyond him a party of the American troops oppose their last fire to the victorious column of the enemy. Behind Col. Small, is seen Col. Pitcairn, of the British marines, mor- tally wounded, and falling into the arms of his son, to whom he was speaking at the fatal moment. Under the feet of Col. Small lies the dead body of Col. Abercrombie. Gen. Howe, who commanded the British troops, and Gen. Clinton, who, towards the close of the action, offered his servives as a volunteer, are seen behind the principal group. Behind are seen the British column ascending the hills ; grenadiers headed by an officer bearing the British colors and mounting the feeble intrenchments ; in the distance the Somerset ship of war ; north end of Boston and smoke indicating the con- flagration of Charlestown. The last twenty-seven years of Trumbull’s life were passed in the city of New York, where he long held the office of President of the Academy of Fine Arts. His friend and physician, Dr. Francis, in a reminiscent discourse before the New York Flistorical Society thus speaks of Colo- nel Trumbull’s latter days and personal character. “ This accomplished scholar, enlightened and unswerving patriot, emi- nent artist and delineator of American history, closed his honorable career in New York, in 1843, i n the eighty-eighth year of his age. He was conspicuous among the old-school gentlemen then among us. A few days before his death he accepted the presidency of the Washington Monument Association, recently organized in this city. He readily gave his countenance to the work. I attended him in his last illness, in con- sultation with his excellent physician, the late Dr. Washington, and it is curious to remark that the last word he distinctly uttered, on his dying bed, was ‘Washington,’ referring to the Father of his country, a name often on his lips. “ A genuine love of country, a noble devotion to her interest in times 9 2 American Artist Life. of deep adversity, a patriotic ardor which led him, in season and out of season, amidst almost insuperable difficulties and perils, to rescue the fleeting and precious materials which might give additional interes-t to her annals, entitle him to the admiration of all future time. We already see that the lapse of each successive day gives increased value to his labors for the student of American history.” There are more satisfactory themes for the poet and artist than war affords ; but the cause for which a battle is waged, and the results of a single contest, often give vast moral interest to its very name. The prom- inent events of our Revolutionary era have this character ; and to have portrayed any of them with truthfulness and effeCt, is no ordinary distinc- tion. Such is the feature of Colonel Trumbull’s artist-life. Engravings have rendered his pictures *so familiar, that it is unnecessary to enumerate or discuss them. They have but inconsiderable claims to lofty conception or original beauty, and merit attention chiefly as veritable glimpses of aCtual men and events^ which have exercised a wonderful agency upon human welfare. In faCt, Trumbull’s life was one of various aCtion, and his military title and diplomatic reputation mingle rather incongruously with the serene avocation to which his intervals of business were given. It is natural that he should have gratified his patriotism and adventurous instinCt in employing his pencil upon the memorable themes of our history. We can with difficulty imagine a man whose time and thoughts were so con- stantly employed in affairs, turning readily to landscape or still life, while historical subjects at once would awaken a familiar interest. His reason- ing far transcended his imaginative powers. Skill, rather than fancy, marks his pictures. His father was not wrong in supposing him fitted to shine in the legal profession. Even in painting we discern the practical turn of his mind ; and he was more of an engineer than a poet. When his education was completed, it was long before he could reconcile himself to a merely studious course ; and after having left the army, he acknowl- edges that the sound of a drum often called a tear to his eye. Burke advised him to study architecture, in order to minister to the exigencies of a new and growing country ; and there is reason to believe he would have excelled in this branch. The suggestion did not, however, coincide with the idea of glory he was fond of attaching to art. To realize the vicissitudes of Trumbull’s life, it is only necessary to recall some of the occupations in which he was at various periods engaged. From school- master of a Connecticut village he became an adjutant ; from secretary of legation, circumstances transformed him to a brandy merchant, and from a treaty commissioner abroad to a portrait painter at home. Meantime, he had sketched Indians and Rhine scenery, copied celebrated originals, journalized, and travelled — flown over a battle-field in the midst of the fight — suffered imprisonment — been threatened more than once with ship- wreck, and enjoyed the society of the leading men of his own country and Europe. As regards social advantages, indeed, Trumbull, through life, was great- Tr limb till. 93 ly favored. His official relations, as well as his pursuit of art, brought him into intimate contaCt with the most distinguished of his time. In the flush of youth he was, for a brief period, aide-de-camp to Washington. Fox and his illustrious rival visited him when incarcerated in London. He disputed Jefferson’s atheistical philosophy at his own table, and had long conversa- tions with Madame de Stael, Talleyrand, Sheridan, and other celebrities. Sir Joshua criticised and complimented him ; Governor Hancock visited his sick-bed ; Lafayette confided to him the secrets of French politics, and David rescued him from the police of Paris. He was morbidly sensitive, and this, with a certain pride of character, involved him in many disputes, and led him abruptly to leave the army, in consequence of the injustice of Congress ; while others equally meritorious, like General Schuyler, suffer- ed worse treatment patiently, for the sake of the great cause in which they were engaged. He was gloomy in youth, and it was in no small degree through his ambition that art captivated his mind. While a schoolboy, reading of Zeuxis and Apelles, in an obscure country town, he conceived the desire to be a painter. This predilection was confirmed by the sight of Copley, whose portraits were the first specimens of the art he ever saw, in a splendid wedding-suit. As to his juvenile praCtice, it began with drawing figures on the sanded floor of his nursery. He experienced the truth of his father’s remark, while dissuading him from the pencil — that Connecticut was not Athens ; yet no artist of the period, in this country, ever received such an amount of government pat- ronage. The proceeds of his four pictures, thirty-two thousand dollars, were honorably appropriated to the liquidation of his debts ; and by an arrangement with Yale College he secured an annuity adequate to his support during the remainder of his life. His perseverance and industry were remarkable. The former quality, however, induced the same error as with Copley — that of prolonging his labors after his ability to do him- self justice had ceased. Even if a Gil Bias had been at hand, he would not probably have consulted him on the expediency of commencing a new series of pictures of Revolutionary subjects at the age of seventy-two. Before that period he had served, as we have seen, his generation enough to satisfy a just ambition. He had been engaged in the opening of the war of independence, rendered essential aid as a commissioner under Jay’s treaty, and taken an aCtive and honorable part in public affairs throughout his life. He had been made a prisoner of war as an offset to the lamented Andre, and taken counsel with the most influential spirits of an exciting era, on subjects of vast moment. The details of his experiences, especially in public life, are recorded in his autobiography ; * and both the elevation and the faults of his character are therein betrayed. His brave spirit is manifest in his bearing and replies, when arraigned before the police authorities of London on the charge ot treason. “ I am,” he said, “an American. My name is Trum- bull ; I am a son of him whom you call the rebel Governor of Connecticut ; * Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters : 1756-1S41. New York, 1841. 94 American Artist Life. I have served in the rebel army ; I have had the honor of being an aide- de-camp to him whom you call the rebel George Washington. I am entirely in your power ; treat me as you please — always remembering that as I may be treated, so will your friends in America be treated by mine.” Discouraged in his artistic enterprises, and vexed at what he deemed un- just criticism in later years, he thus expressed himself — in reference to some personal reflections in Congress — to the editor of one of the New York journals : — 11 After having devoted ten of the best years of my life, in very early youth and in middle age, to the service of my country, and having employed the intervals of military and political occupations in acquiring an elegant art, for the very purpose of preserving, through its means, the memory of the great events and illustrious men of the Revo- lution, I did hope to enjoy some repose during the fragment of life which can remain to a man who has passed its ordinary limits.” Trumbull’s old age was saddened also by isolation. His art was his great solace. “ My best friend,” he writes, in allusion to the death of his wife, “ was removed from me, and I had no child. A sense of loneliness began to creep over my mind ; yet my hand was steady and my sight good.” He began a new series of historical pictures illustrative of the Revolution ; but the expense of the enterprise drained his resources, and he was glad, at last, to be- queathe ins pictures to Yale College, and receive a life-annuity of a thou- sand dollars — the receipts of the exhibition to be devoted to the education of indigent youth. “I thus have the happy reflection,” he writes, “that when I shall have gone to my rest, these works will remain a source of good to many a poor, perhaps meritorious and excellent, young man.” He removed to New Haven in 1837, and in 1841 returned to New York, for the benefit of medical attendance, and there continued to reside until his death. His remains, as before stated, at his request, were interred in a tomb built by himself, beneath the monumental gallery at New Haven. A catalogue of Trumbull’s pictures was prepared by his own hand.* Besides the historical works at Washington and New Haven, many por- traits from his pencil are to be found in private hands and public institutions. Among them we may designate as fair specimens of his style, portraits of Governors Clinton, Lewis, and Tompkins, in the New York City Hall; portraits of Alexander Hamilton — which resembles the well-known picture of Pitt — of a Revolutionary officer, and of John Pintard, in the collection of the New York Historical Society ; and of Washington, Christopher Gore and John Adams, at Harvard University ; a family group in the pos- session of George Bowdoin, Esq., of New York; an excellent oil minia- ture of Mrs. Wolcott, in the possession of Mrs. Laura Gibbs, of New York ; a portrait of Mr. Rogers, belonging to Ward Hunt, of Utica, N. Y.; one of a lady, in the gallery of James Lennox, of New York ; and one of the artist himself, belonging to Mr. D. Lanamar, of Brooklyn, L. I. One of the most characteristic and authentic likenesses of Colonel Trumbull, as he appeared in later years, is a full-length, cabinet-sized oil portrait by * Dunlap’s History of the Arts of Design, vol. 1., p. 302. Trumbull. 95 George W. Twibill (painted in 1835), a pupil and brother-in-law of Inman, who died young, and was quite esteemed for his small portraits at that time. A miniature of Washington, by Trumbull, was bought at the sale of the Wolfe collection, for two hundred and fifty dollars, by J. T. San- ford. Trumbull’s initiation into life was stormy, and his early impressions in- delible. He witnessed the ravages of pestilence at Crown Point, and studied the picturesque by the light of a burning forest, on his midnight watch. His first promising attempt in oil was a copy of a portrait in Har- vard College library; and that which made him known as an efficient draughtsman was a sketch of the relative positions of the two armies on the eve of the battle of Bunker Hill. It is as exclusively the limner of occurrences like this that Trumbull became celebrated. He created no marvels of beauty ; he left behind no wonderful reflections of nature ; but he transferred to canvas the features of those extraordinary men whose wisdom and valor guided to a triumphant issue the struggles of an oppressed people. He delineated scenes the details of which are deeply interesting to the world ; and snatched many a face endeared to patriotism from oblivion, — thus illustrating an art whose ideal heights it was not given him to reach. The education and experience of Trumbull fostered his natural integ- rity and precision ; and these qualities marked his habits and manners, and are evident in his pictures. His sense of honor and idea of correct- ness were extreme, — hence the accuracy of his portraits and grouping. In his latter days, before age had subdued his energy, he was a type of the revolutionary character, — proud, intelligent, and conscientious. Fertile in reminiscence, scrupulous in intercourse, and dignified in bearing, he was among the last representatives of the Hamilton school of politics, and his patriotic feelings and admiration of Washington were undying sentiments. The apathy with which his claims were recognized as an artist, pecuniary difficulties, and academic controversies, doubtless somewhat warped his views, and they were often insisted on with a pertinacity that seemed un- reasonable. To a liberal mind, however, the circumstances that attended his long and varied career sufficiently account for the captious spirit into which he was occasionally betrayed ; and it should never be forgotten that he left an honorable and patriotic record, as well as an invaluble bequest to his country, and that his artist-life is indissolubly associated with men and events which the progress of time only render more sacred. WEST. RT, if the anecdote be not invented by the romance of bio- graphy, was born on this continent beside the cradle of a sleeping infant ; and the extraordinary career of the Qua- ker boy who left the woods of America to become the Presi- dent of the Royal Academy in London, is one of the memor- able lessons of childhood. The personal respedt which the character of Benjamin West has universally inspired, the interesting details of his life, and the grateful recollection in which his name is held by succeed- ing painters, have tended in some degree to blend his claims as an artist with those to which he is entitled as a man. It is important to define, if possible, the limits of both. Discrimination is quite compatible with love. Indeed, the only affection that has a sure basis is one conceived and nur- tured in the invigorating atmosphere of truth. Character and genius are quite distinCt, and we may feel sincere homage for the one while we ques- tion the reality of the other. There can, indeed, be no acceptable tribute to a manly soul except that which justice sanctions and wisdom confirms ; and we deem ourselves offering a genuine oblation to the integrity of the pioneer of American art, if, while cordially recognizing his moral attributes, we frankly discuss his artistic merits. That “tide in the affairs of men” of which the great bard speaks is as often discernible in the achievement of fame as of fortune. A remarkable series of propitious circumstances attended the life of West. When he firsc began to indulge his imitative faculties, the accidental visit of a rela- tive suggested the gift of a paint-box — at that time no small rarity in his isolated neighborhood. There is little in the habits or creed of the Qua- kers auspicious to the fine arts ; yet if we are to believe one of his biogra- phers, the spirit moved a member of the fraternity to reconcile, with no little eloquence, the alleged vanity of painting with the requirements of the Gospel, — a triumph over bigotry quite extraordinary, considering the con- dition of society where it occurred While he was yet a youth, a famine in the south of Europe induced a Philadelphia merchant to dispatch a vessel to Leghorn with flour ; and the opportunity was improved by one of his juvenile friends to see the world, to whom the painter became a companion. When they were boarded at Gibraltar by a British officer, this young man proved to be his kinsman, and they were not only unmo- lested, but treated with a distinction that gave eclat to the voyage up the Mediterranean — the effedt of which was clearly perceptible on their arri- * West. 97 val. At the period that West visited Rome, the mere fa<5l was calculated to excite attention. He came from a land around which still hung the charm of tradition and romance. It was deemed by the imaginative Italians a circumstance of great interest, that a handsome youth should have made a pilgrimage from the distant forests of the western world to study art in Rome. The very day succeeding his arrival, a curious party followed his steps to observe the impression created by the marvels he encountered, and a friendly regard naturally sprang up in their minds for the inexperi- enced exile. It is now a thing of common occurrence for an American to arrive in the Eternal City, bent upon the same objects. Then it was a novelty, and one which operated most favorably upon the dawning career of West. The kindness of Robinson and Cardinal Albani was also op- portune in the highest degree ; nor is it difficult to trace its after influence. The state of art in England, when our fortunate artist went thither, proved no less favorable. The throne of historical painting was vacant, and although, in portrait and landscape, a few stars yet glimmered, their light rather heralded than outshone the new aspirant for honor and emolument. His countrymen in London were already prepared to extend the hand of fellowship ; and Archbishop Drummond’s kindly taCt soon obtained for him the favor of the king, which his own prudence and amiability ere long ripened into adlual friendship. We do not intend to ascribe all the success of the artist to circumstances, but in the lives of few of his profession have they combined to such a degree towards encouraging whatever of native power existed. The sunshine of prosperity is generally acknow- ledged to exert a fostering influence, and through a large part of West’s career, it glowed with a brightness that seldom irradiates the precarious fortunes of artist-life. Some of the very circumstances adduced by the disciples of West, in upholding his title to the highest rank in art, confirm the view we have suggested. That he should compare the Apollo Belve- dere, at the first glance, to a young Mohawk warrior, shows how much his mind was given to the conventionalities of art ; for upon an ideal specta- tor, it is the thrilling expression of the god that arrests both eye and heart, and not the litheness of his mould and the graceful animation of his figure. The painter’s complaint of Michael Angelo, that he had not succeeded in giving any probability to his works, also shows a want of sympathy with the adventurous. The famous reply that, as a boy, the future President of the Royal Academy made to his comrade, who looked forward to being a tailor — “ A painter is a companion for kings and emperors ” — strikes us as indicative of worldly ambition far more than of any precocious idea of the dignity of art. One of his eulogists gravely declares that he “ rarely failed to achieve what he proposed within the time allotted for its perform- ance,’’ — a tribute to industrious and methodical habits, rather questiona- ble when applied to efforts requiring felicitous and exalted moods. Plis powers ot observation were evidently far greater than those of conception. He assiduously sought and improved occasions to widen their range. The manner in which he inferred the principle of the camera, from seeing the 7 98 American Artist Life. effeCt of light that gleamed through a closed shutter upon the wall of his sick-room ; his successful experiments to discover how a candle’s rays were reflected in an old picture ; his visit to Spithead to study the effeCt of smoke in a naval combat, preparatory to executing the battle of La Hague, evince, among other instances, how carefully he strove to apply the fadts of nature to the purposes of art. This, as well as nearly all his desirable traits, arose from the pradtical good sense which he possessed — a quality we would by no means undervalue in affairs, but one of but lim- ited efficacy in the creations of genius, to which its relation is by no means intimate. In proportion as the designs of West came within the sphere of the adtual, and were removed from highly poetic or deeply religious associations, they are fitted to please. His classical scenes and battle- pieces we contemplate without impatience. His fame suffers from that common error — a mistaken position. He attempted to embody ideas and represent sentiments beyond the reach of his natural powers. With every endowment necessary for high respedtability in art, he had no legitimate claim to be one of her chief priests. Yet, with no conscious irreverence did he approach the altar, when he should have lingered in the vestibule of the temple. It was the boldness of ignorance, the self-confidence of a mind to which the mysteries of life were but slightly revealed. It has been a theme of surprise that West should have so long kept the favor of his royal patron ; but the wonder is at once dissipated if we study his charac- ter. He was from first to last an American Quaker, — a being to whom the didtates of prudence were a satisfadtory law, and whose ideal of virtue consisted in maintaining a passionless and kindly spirit. He sent home for the bride whom he had so patiently loved, when his circumstances justified marriage. He consulted the king more frequently than any inward oracle ; and when the monarch’s patronage was withdrawn, he did not complain. When between sixty and seventy years of age, he commenced a series of great works, quite too extensive ever to be realized. This mechanical view of his profession, and the complacent readiness with which it was followed, accord with the opinions expressed in his discourses, where he declares that “the true use of painting resides in assisting the reason to arrive at a certain moral inferences, by furnishing a probable view of the effects of motives and passions.” The amount of native enthusiasm and divine aspiration that belonged to West, may be inferred from this humble and prosaic estimate of his own art. Born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of October, 1738, his demise occurred in London on the nth of March, 1820 ; and rarely is so long a life marked by so much serene prosperity ; in the long retrospect he could trace the dawn of art in the New World by his familiar experi- ence ; for, during his residence in London, he was the resource and oracle of his countrymen engaged in the same pursuit ; and his career was parallel with some of the most remarkable events in his country’s history. For that country his attachment appears to have been strong, notwithstand- ing the court atmosphere in which he lived ; and he asked Sully, when that West. 99 artist went to America, to visit his native town, and write him an account of its aspebt and condition. Tradition fixes the date of his first attempt in painting, at the age of seven years ; and it is certain that when about nine years old he painted, what, sixty-seven years after, he pronounced superior in some of the touches to his mature works. The sight of some engravings was a revelation to the boy, and the gift of a paint-box an inspiration. His initiatory art-experience is thus recorded : “ Even after going to sleep he awoke more than once during the night and anxiously put out his hand to the box, which he had placed by his bedside, half afraid that he might find his riches only a dream. Next morning he rose at break of day, and, carrying his colors and canvas to the garret, proceeded to work. Everything else was now unheeded ; even his attendance at school was given up. As soon as he got out of the sight of his father and mother he stole to his garret, and here passed the hours in a world of his own. At last, after he had been absent from school some days, the master called at his father’s house to inquire what had become of him. This led to the discovery of his secret occupation. His mother, proceeding to the garret, found the truant ; but so much was she astonished and delighted by the creation of his pencil, which also met her view when she entered the apartment, that, instead of rebuking him, she could only take him in her arms, and kiss him with transports of affebtion. He made a new composition of his own out of two of the engravings, which he had colored from his own feeling of the proper tints ; and so perfebt did the performance already appear to his mother, that although half the 'canvas yet remained uncovered, she would not suffer him to add another touch to what he had done. Mr. Galt, West’s biographer, saw the pibture in the state in which it had thus been left sixty-seven years afterwards ; and the artist himself used to acknowledge that in none of his subsequent efforts had he been able to excel some of the touches of invention in this his first essay.” While acquiring such elementary instruction as Philadelphia then afforded, he painted “ The Death of Socrates ” for a gunsmith — his first figure-piece ; and at the age of sixteen, returned to Springfield, where and when the question of his future vocation was solemnly discussed by his family and the Society of Friends. In West’s complacent estimate of his crude, childish experiment in art, and in the ambitious subjebt of his boyish achievement, we recognise those unawed and confident feelings which stamps him in the annals of art as more dexterous than inspired. It his choice of a profession and the sanbtion it received were anomalies of Quaker discipline, not less so was his volunteering as a recruit in the old French war; his services, however, consisted only of an attempt to join the remains of Braddock’s army ; his martial ardor was as short- lived as his artistic proclivities were normal ; and we find him, when eighteen years of age, established in Philadelphia as a portrait painter, and receiving “ five guineas a head.” 100 American Aitist Life. It was through the liberality of several merchants of that city and of New York, that West was enabled to visit Italy ; his portrait of Lord Grantham and his own story of the pursuit of art under difficulties, excited much interest, and that nobleman’s introduction facilitated his auspicious visit to England, where he arrived in 1763. Encouraged by some connexions in London to come, and by influential patrons to re- main there, two years after, he received and married his lady-love, Eliza- beth Shewed. In the meantime he had gained the esteem of many associates, and was honored with continental recognition, being eleCted an academician in Florence, Bologna, and Parma. His picture of “ Agrip- pina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus ” gained him the favor of George the Third, and the commission to paint the “ Departure of Regu- lus.” His “ Death of Wolfe ” has been truly declared to have created an era in English art by the successful example it initiated of the abandon- ment of classic costume — a reform advocated by Reynolds, who gloried in this popular innovation. West sketched or painted during the last forty years of his life, at least four hundred pictures, many of them large, and he left two hundred elaborate drawings. To his remarkable facility, care, and taste, he united a singular intrepidity unchilled by age ; one of his best works is the “ Battle of the Hague,” for its scope requires less posi- tive elevation and originality of genius than the grand religious themes to which he so much inclined. In 1762 West succeeded Sir Joshua Rey- nolds as President of the Royal Academy ; and when he died, “academic correctness” was the ideal of piCtorial art in England. Now public taste and artistic tests are more catholic ; hence the original exaggeration of West’s fame. However deficient, upon aesthetic analysis, his claims may be to the highest order of artistic genius, his reputation has a benign, conservative charm based upon reCtitude and benevolence ; exemplary in life, kindly in spirit, more than one generation of American artists had reason to bless his memory : and among those who gratefully associate their early studies and precarious beginnings of artist-life and work ' with the hospitable and wise encouragement and substantial kindness of Benja- min West, are Pratt, Trumbull, Peale, Malbone, Dunlap, Allston, Sully, Morse, and Leslie. West commenced portrait-painting in 1753, and one of his earliest works is in the possession of the Read family, of Delaware, now owned by J. Meredith Read, of Albany, N. Y. He passed eleven months in New York, and was liberally employed by the merchants, among whose de- scendants are still to be seen examples of his early manner. Trinity Church owns his portrait of Bishop Prevost. Those of Gerardus Duy- kinck and his wife , — nke Rapelye, a belle in her day, — full-lengths, are highly characteristic specimens of West’s early portraiture. They belong to Mrs. Lewis, of Brooklyn, L. I. Other portraits of the same period, from his pencil, are in the Abeel family, of New York. One of Miss Eliza- beth Anderson, afterwards Mrs. Samuel Breese, belongs to Thomas R. Walker, Esq,, of Utica, N. Y. Judge Abbott, of Salem, has a number of West. IOI West’s early portraits, — his mother being of the same family. There is a full-length of one of his most liberal American friends,— -General James Hamilton, of Bush Hill, near Philadelphia. In the latter city are his por- traits of Mrs. Hare, Professor Robert Hare, and Rev. Dr. Preston, in the public library ; and at Middleton Place, South Carolina, before the War for the Union, the beautiful family group — painted in London — of Arthur Middleton, his wife, and son. Mr. Longworth, of Cincinnati, Ohio, owns his Ophelia and Hamlet, and the Boston Athenaeum his Lear. The pic- ture of Christ Healing the Sick is still in the Pennsylvania Hospital, to which institution it was originally presented by the artist. In this painting, the face of the paralytic woman is said to be a portrait of West’s mother. J. Harrison, of Philadelphia, has the picture of Christ Rejected, and the Death of Sir Philip Sydney at the Battle of Zutphen. The same gentle- man is also the possessor of West’s picture of Penn’s Treaty with the Indians at Shackaniaxon, now Kensington, — the scene representing the founding of Pennsylvania, in 1682. It was purchased by the owner from the last representative of the Penn family, for whom it was painted — Gran- ville Penn, Esq. “ I have taken the liberty,” wrote West to one of his family, in reference to an engraving of this work, “ of introducing the likeness of our father and brother Thomas. That is the likeness of our brother that stands immediately behind Penn, leaning on his cane. I need not point out the picture of our father, as I believe you will find it in the print from memory.” His portrait of Commodore Silas Talbot, U. S. N., is in the possession of that officer’s descendants. Two of his pictures, illustrative of scenes in the Iliad, are in the collection of the New York Historical Society. His Cupid, also owned in Philadelphia, is one of his best pictures as to color. He made a sketch of Dr. Franklin, seated in the clouds, and surrounded by naked boys, which was never completed. His Death on the Pale Horse is in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. In the opinion of many critics, of all West’s pictures in America, the Christ Rejected most effectively illustrates his skill in composition, drawing, expression, and dramatic effeCt. Among West’s paintings in England, the Pylades and Orestes, one of the best, was also one of the first in what was regarded as an innovating school of art. Although the servants gained over thirty pounds for show- it, no purchaser appeared ; indeed, such was the prejudice in favor of the u old masters,” that a nobleman, who really admired this work, excused hiipself from buying it on the plea that it would not do to hang up a mod- ern English piclure in his house, unless it was a portrait. The Death of Wolfe, Regulus a Prisoner to the Carthaginians, the Battle of La Hague, the Death of Bayard, Hamilcar Swearing the Infant Hannibal at the Altar, the Departure of Regulus, and Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus, from Tacitus, — suggested by Drummond, Archbishop of York, — are among the subjects which West treated in a characteristic manner, and were best received ; and are still striking illustrations of his artistic method and style. It has been truly observed that “ his natural 102 American Artist Life. endowments impelled him to paint history long before he had acquired the knowledge and skill of a draughtsman but his industry and zeal soon gave him force and facility, in certain respeCts ; so that his first pic- ture in Rome — the portrait of Robinson, afterwards Lord Grantham — was taken for a Mengs. He assiduously sketched groups and figures from the old masters while in Italy. The change in British art, signalized by the advent of West, was slow. A certain pedantic conservatism opposed the substitution of English for Greek and Roman subjects. When the Death of Wolfe was exhibited at the Royal Academy, the multitude, we are told, “ acknowledged its excellence at once ; but the lovers of old art — called classical — complained of the barbarism of boots, buttons, and blunder- busses, and cried out for naked warriors, with bows, bucklers, and batter- ing-rams.” It required some courage in Lord Grosvenor to purchase the work declared so exceptional by traditional amateurs. Reynolds and the Archbishop of York called on West, to remonstrate against so bold an innovation. His reply was logical — viz.: that “ the event to be commem- orated happened in the year 1758, in a region of the world unknown to Greeks and Romans, and at a period when no warrior who wore classic costume existed. The same rule which gives law to the historian should rule the painter.” The king regretted he had been anticipated in the pur- chase of the picture when, at last, Reynolds declared: “West has con- quered. I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.” His color has been objected to as too exclusively a “reddish brown;” and, while praised for freedom from exaggeration, he seldom won admira- tion for expressive power. Llis facility and extensive theoretical know- ledge, his acquaintance with available expedients, and his regular industry, were the great means of his advancement as an artist ; while his thorough benevolence, correCt habits, and self-respedt, as effectually promoted his social consideration. The bland atmosphere of his early associations and his matured fortunes seems to have continued to the last, for he died at the age of eighty-two, without any specific disease, unimpaired in mind and urbane in spirit. West relied upon general efifeCts ; his ability lies in combination rather than detail. He excites respeCt, on account of the sound judgment displayed in his works. We recognize in them a mature knowledge. His aim seems to have been scenic, and therefore he depends almost wholly upon the spectator’s first impression. Our feelings are not won by degrees into sympathy with a great idea or touching sentiment, but attention is caught by the grandeur of the entire design and the breadth of the scene. There is no intense individuality, no concentrated emotion, such as emanates from those masterpieces into which the artist has infused his very being. We think more of art in general than of the idiosyncrasies of the painter in contemplating his productions, and gratify our imaginations by the thought of what a more inspired limner would have done with such a com- mand of materials. Intelligence is, indeed, stamped upon his composi- West . 103 tions ; and if this were the greatest human attribute, they would not chal- lenge inquiry ; but we do not feel that eleCtric spirit and mysterious prin- ciple which distinguish the offspring of genius from that of talent and industry. The point at issue between the advocates of such efforts and those who lament their inadequacy, is one that has been again and again discussed in reference to literature. Perhaps the most striking instance on record is the controversy as to the respective merits of Shakspeare and the French drama. Minds which the truthful and living creations of the English poet do not render unconscious of his violation of technical rules, we conceive to be by nature incapable of appreciating his excellencies. It is, after all, a question of feeling ; and if those who are content with the artificial proprieties of Racine, wonder at the lovers of Shakspeare for enduring his sins against taste or probability, not less great is the aston- ' ishment of the latter that one who has ever felt the glow of ambition, the thrill of love, or the anguish of remorse, could fail to recognize in Lear, Macbeth, and Hamlet, the greatest written types of humanity. It is no fanciful distinc- tion which we desire to indicate. On the contrary, the principle at issue underlies not only literature and art, but manners and life. It forms the true difference between spontaneous and conventional virtue, between etiquette and heartfelt courtesy, acquirements and wisdom, the spirit and the letter of the law. Take an effusion of Dryden and one of Coleridge, — Alexan- der’s feast and Genevieve, for instance. In the former we behold at once a command of language, a sense of rhythm, a hand practiced in versifica- tion, and apt in rhetoric ; in the latter, we pause not to consider these ex- ternal facilities, because of the beautiful and absorbing sentiment of which they are exponents. One we remember as an elocutionary exercise, the other as a cherished echo of the sweetest experience of our hearts. And thus a Madonna of Raphael, or a Magdalen of Correggio, conveys a lively consciousness of the feelings they represent, as if it had been breathed through color and outline. In a word, we are magnetized by the holy spell of maternal love or penitent grief. Is it thus with the pictures of West? With the events they commemorate, do we realize the idea and emotion that render them sacred ? In “Christ healing the Sick,” what fixes the mind ? Is it the benign inspiration of the prominent figure, or the awe-stricken gaze of reverence, and the earnest pleadings of human affebtion in those that surround it? Is it not rather the successful repre- sentation of physical suffering, the dexterous grouping, and the effective drapery ? The sick man excites far higher and more deserved admiration than he by whose divine word he is healed. It may be argued that such a comparison is unfair, inasmuch as the difficulties to be overcome and the effeCt to be realized in the two cases are quite diverse. This is but admit- ting West’s over-estimate of his own powers. The choice of a subject is often as indicative of genius, or its absence, as its development ; and the manner in which West treated the grand themes he selected, proves that between them and his mind there was little affinity. If the picture we are considering was intended to portray a hospital, to excite benevo- 104 American Artist Life. lence by a vivid representation of “ the ills the flesh is heir to,” it would merit the highest encomiums ; but the acknowledged purpose is far more lofty, — it professes to depidl the most venerated character that ever lived on earth, — the exercise of the highest functions ever delegated to a being in the form of man, — the exhibition of a sympathy for human sorrow more tender, comprehensive, and profound, than was ever manifested in the world. “To the height of this great argument ” something besides tadt, dexterity, and skill in drawing and color ; something besides a knowledge of light and shade, a practiced hand, and a confident mind, was needed. An inspiration such as filled the heart and imagination of the painter, and involved the absorption of self in the pathos and majesty of the scene, — a sympathetic, as well as an intelligent relation to the subject, — alone would justify and hallow such an undertaking. And it is this very simplicity — this apparent unconsciousness of conditions like these — which affords the ‘ best evidence of West’s comparative incompetency. There is no trace of that solemnity of feeling which breaks from Milton in contemplating his great poem. It would appear as if he set about portraying miracles in a spirit the most commonplace and familiar. There was no pluming of the wings for a long flight, — no vibration of the harp-strings preparatory to an earnest strain, — no gathering up of the waters ere the glorious march. The cherubim were not invoked to impart their sacred fire, nor did the hesitancy of self-distrust cause the dilated heart to tremble. It was ap- parently in the mere spirit of honest industry and a good intention, that our excellent painter grappled with the most exalted subjects. And yet his self-complacency, as a representative of art, was amusing. “ I was walking,” he writes, “with Mr. Fox, in the Louvre, and I remarked how many people turned to look at me. This shows the respedt of the French for the Fine Arts.” If West had one poetic instindt, it was implied in a sensibility to the grand in point of scale and manner. He seems to have conceived of art under a kind of melodramatic phase. There was some- thing noble in the scope of his conceptions. A magnificent whole, a bringing impressively together of forms and hues, was the ideal he cher- ished — for if we take a single figure into careful view, there is often a strik- ing want of oneness of effect. The hands of the Saviour in the pidture we have noticed, for example, do not seem to involve the same expression as the chest ; but the figure itself, taken in connection with those around, is effedtive. West, accordingly, seems to have excelled in unity of design, without recognizing that higher law, unity of expression ; and this, we think, arose from a lack of that soul of art whereby its creations are both harmonized and made vital. West’s ancestors were natives of Buckinghamshire, and one of them a companion in arms of John Hampden. As this family claim diredt descent from the Black Prince, and Lord Delaware, when the artist was at work on his pidture of the Institution of the Garter, the king was delighted when the Duke of Buckingham assured him that West had an ancestral right to a place among the warriors and knights of his own painting. His father West. 105 was one of the initiators of emancipation, and his mother’s grandfather the confidential friend of William Penn. Thus signally favored in his ante- cedents, the circumstances of his early life were also exceptionally propi- tious, and have been recorded by John Galt,* from the artist’s own state- ments. According to the superstitious feeling of the time and region, his premature birth, occasioned by the over-excitement at a religious revival, was the presage of a remarkable career ; then his first experiments in art from pigments given him by the Indians, who taught the boy archery ; his discovery of the principle of the camera obscura / the religious question and sanction induced by his exceptional choice of a vocation in the wilds of a new State, and in the seclusion of a rural Quaker community ; the providential acquisition of a paint-box at the age of eight, and, later, of the art-writings of Fresnoy and Richardson ; his prophecy of future renown ; the kindly aid extended so seasonably in Philadelphia and New York, and the auspicious debut of the young artist at Rome — form a series of fortu- nate circumstances which find their consummation in the “ courtly sanc- tion ” he attained in England ; — the long and steady patronage of the king, his baronetcy, ample means, domestic happiness, gracious fame, and serene old age. West died in his seventy-ninth year, soon after his wife, their union having benignly lasted half a century ; and was buried in St. Paul’s beside Reynolds, Opie, and Barry. A portrait of West by Leslie, after Lawrence, and a beautiful one in his latest years, by Allston, belong to the Boston Athenaeum. The full-length portrait of the artist, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, was obtained by a number of gentlemen of New York, for the Academy of that city ; they subscribed two thousand dollars ; it was considered a perfect likeness in the face, but somewhat too large and tall for the figure, though finely composed. It represents West in his character as President of the Royal Academy, delivering a ledture to the students. Under his right hand is seen, stand- ing on an easel, a copy of Raphael’s cartoon of the Death of Ananias. The subjedt of the ledture is Coloring, as is indicated by the rainbow-tints arranged on the left side of the pidture, — which is now in the Wadsworth Gallery at Hartford, Ct. Within a few months, at the audtion sale, in New York, of a colledtor of old furniture, china, and pidtures, a portrait of West from his own hand, taken apparently at about the age of forty, three-quarter-length, and in Quaker costume, was sold for three hundred dollars. Leigh Hunt, whose mother was a relative of the artist, says, that “ the appearance of West was so gentlemanly that the moment he changed his gown for a coat he seemed to be full dressed. The simplicity and self- possession of the young Quaker, not having time enough to grow stiff, — for he went early to Rome, — took up, I suppose, with more ease than most would have done, the urbanities of his new position. Yet this man, so well bred, and so indisputably clever in his art, whatever might be the amount * The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West. By John Galt. London : 1820. io 6 American Artist Life. of his genius, had received a homely or careless education, and pronounced some of his words with a puritanical barbarism ; he would talk of his art all day ; there were strong suspicions of his leaning to his native side in politics, and he could not restrain his enthusiasm for Bonaparte ; how he managed these matters with the higher powers in England I cannot say.” As an artist, “indefatigable application ” was his distinction, which re- sulted in numerous and noble compositions, of which the technical faults most frequently recognized are “ dryness of manner ” and “ hardness of outline.” A writer in Blackwood’s Magazine estimates the number of West’s pictures at three thousand ; and Dunlap says that a gallery capable of holding them, would be four hundred feet in length, fifty in breadth, and forty in height, or a wall ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long. In regard to the sacred subjecls of West, Cunningham declares that the list “ makes one shudder at human presumption ; ” among them are u Moses receiving the Law on Mount Sinai ; ” “ The Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Saviour in the Jordan ; ” The Opening of the Seventh Seal in the Revelations ; ” “ Saint Michael and his Angels casting out the Great Dragon ; ” “ The mighty Angel with one foot on the Sea, and the other on the Earth ; ” and “ The ResurreCtion.” It was with a different inspiration that the old masters dealt with such themes ; a holy sense of beauty gives divine grace to Raphael, and sacred grandeur to Angelo. West lacked imagination and reverence, but not conscience or skill ; hence the senti- ment is so inadequate while the technical excellence is often great : given the appropriate subjeCt, and our sense of the effective is fully gratified ; but in the more exalted subjects we feel with Cunningham that “the coldness of his imagination nipped the blossoms of history.”* “ The farm-house at Springfield, just beyond Darby,” wrote Galt, fifty years, ago, “in which he first saw the light, still stands, an objeCt of vener- ation to those who are curious in such matters.” When we conneCt, in fancy, West’s humble birthplace with his cathedral tomb, and revive the details of his life, we recognize a singular exception to the fortunes of our early native artists, most of whom had so long a conflict with adverse circumstances. Indeed, the comfort he enjoyed may somewhat account for the absence of intensity and aspiration in his genius ; spirituality is the offspring of deep experience ; he suffered no trying ordeal — he was not disciplined and elevated by the battle of life : his success was too easily achieved ; order, calmness, and regularity marked his experience not less than his character. It is an anomalous faCt in American artist-life that our earliest painter was the most prosperous. * Lives of British Sculptors, Painters, and Architects. By Allan Cunningham. 3 vols. New York: 1832-34. STUART. HARLES GILBERT STUART was born in Narragan- sett, R. I., in 1756, and died at Boston in 1828. A recent visitor to his natal spot thus describes the locality : “At the head of Petaquamscott Pond, in Rhode Island, shut in on all sides but the south by hills, stands a high, old- fashioned, gambrel-roofed, low-portaled, and massive house, wearing the appearance of a good old age. Here was the birthplace and early home of Gilbert Stuart. “ We entered the house on the west by a door level with the top of the bank, which slopes so rapidly to the east as to allow of a basement on that side wholly out of ground, and now given up to the pigs and poultry raised on the place. There is little to attract attention on either floor. The ceilings are low, the fireplace wide and flaring, and the stairs are both steep and contracted. For the asking, one may see the room in which the painter first saw the light, and, having surveyed a spot so full of interest, we turned to the surroundings of the house. These have undergone but slight change since the time when the youthful Gilbert climbed the trees that bend to kiss the little stream in which his naked limbs were often laved. The bream and perch that rise to catch the crumbs we cast upon the water are no less tame, and quite as innocent of the angler’s hook, and the sun plays hide-and-seek the same in the thick wood that makes a fitting background to the scene.” Shortly before his death Stuart visited Newport for the last time, and crossed the ferries to look at his old home ; in the northeast bedroom he said to his companion : “ In this room my mother always told me I was born.” The record of Stuart’s baptism, in the handwriting of Rev. Mr. Mc- Sparran, Episcopal Missionary to the Narragansett Church, is preserved in the old register.* His father married a daughter of Captain John Anthony, a Welsh emigrant to Rhode Island, a prosperous farmer, who occupied and afterward sold to Dean Berkeley the farm near the Hanging Rocks of the second beach known as Whitehall. Stuart ft ere was a tory, * Updyke’s History of the Narragansett Church. American Artist Life. 10S and removed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his daughter married Henry Newton, Collector of his Majesty’s Customs. They were the parents of Stewart Newton, the artist. Mrs. Stuart was a handsome wo- man ; her son Gilbert was named Gilbert Charles Stuart in accordance with his father’s Jacobite affinities ; but he dropped the middle name, and also the manner of spelling Stewart which at one time prevailed. He was but thirteen years of age when he began to copy pictures ; then he attempted likenesses in black-lead. In the year 1770, Cosmo Alexander, a Scotch artist, between fifty and sixty, visited America for political rea- sons ; he was in ill-health, and apparently no enthusiast in his art; he gave Stuart his first lessons, and after a brief sojourn in Rhode Island; visited the South, and then returned to Scotland, taking the young artist with him. He died soon after, and left his pupil to the care of Sir George Chambers. Stuart returned home, after a trying ordeal among strangers, and spoke of this episode of his life as one of great hardship and little progress. He was educated at the grammar school of Newport, and passed much of his time at the farm of his grandfather. On his second visit to Great Britain, when his talent had become manifest, he was greatly disappointed to find his prospers in Ireland — whither he went expressly to paint the likeness of the Duke of Rutland, then Lord Lieutenant — overshadowed by the death of that nobleman ; but he soon found both employment and appreciation from the resident nobility, and on his re- turn to London, his portraits exhibited in the Royal Academy won him reputation and eligible orders, so that, after a hard struggle, his position in art was recognized and his prosperity assured. He married Charlotte Coates, of Reading, in the county of Berkshire. Among his earliest London portraits were those of Drs. Fothergill and Letsom. He came back to America in order to paint Washington, declining his brother-in- law’s invitation to visit Halifax in a British ship of war to execute a por- trait of the Duke of Kent. Thus Stuart began the pradlice of his art at Newport, R. I.; at the age of eighteen was taken to Edinburgh ; and in 1781 commenced a highly successful professional career in London, where he resided for a con- siderable period with Benjamin West, of whom he painted an excellent full-length portrait ; among other likenesses of celebrated men of the day there achieved, were those of Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Kemble, Barre, and Alderman Boydell. Having passed some time in Dublin and Paris prosperously occupied, he executed, while in the latter city, a portrait of Louis XVI. Stuart returned to America in 1793, and resided alternately in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston, in each of which cities may be found memorable exemplars of his skill, among the most highly valued family portraits in the country. After several years passed at the capital, he took up his abode in Boston in 1806, and remained there until his decease. Among his many admirable portraits of eminent Americans, those of Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, are Stuart. 109 well known, and have been often engraved. The distinguished men of the revolution, and the leading merchants, divines, gentlemen, and belles of his day, still live in the vigorous outlines and unrivalled flesh-tints of his masterly hand. One of his latest works was a portrait of John Ouincy Adams, which he did not live to complete, and the finishing touches were given by Sully. A catalogue of Stuart’s pictures is a desideratum ; one was prepared some years ago, but is lost. We can but indicate some of his American portraits. In 1793 he painted admirable likenesses of the Pollock and Yates families ; Plon. John Jay twice — one portrait is at Bedford, West- chester Co., in the possession of the grandson and namesake of the original, and the other in that of Henry E. Pierrepont, of Brooklyn, L. I. ; General Clarkson and Colonel Giles live in his vivid portraiture ; two of his ear- liest are the likenesses of John and Mrs. Bannister, in the Redwood Library at Newport, R. I., but they bear little trace of his mature style. His por- trait of Gov. Oliver Wolcott is in the Wadsworth Gallery, Hartford, Ct. ; that of General Gates is a fine specimen ; so are those of William Wells, of Cambridge, Rev. Dr. Gardiner, of Boston, and James Otis, of New York ; Mrs. Lee, in the possession of Mrs. Lucpieer, of Brooklyn, L. I. ; Bishop Cliev- erus ; and of Geo. Gibbs, in possession of his widow, New York. His portraits of Lawrence and Mrs. Yates, painted in 179 7, and of Andrew Dexter, of Boston- (1806), belong to Ward LIunt, Esq., of Utica, N. Y. ; Mrs. Erving, of New York, has his fine likeness of Sir Henry Baker ; in the Baltimore Historical Society is Madame Bonaparte’s portrait — three heads on one canvas — front, three-quarters, and profile ; the Massachusetts Historical Society have a portrait of Jeremiah Allen, and an unfinished one of Ed- ward Everett ; Rev. John Parkman, of Boston, has good exemplars of Stuart in the portraits of his parents ; there is a second one there, in his early style, of Mrs. Swan ; James Lenox, of New York, owns five charac- teristic pictures from the same pencil ; Sullivan Dorr, of Providence, R. I., has a striking portrait of his mother, by Stuart ; there is one there, also, of Dr. Wayland ; and Philadelphia is especially rich in admirable works of this master. His portrait of Mrs. Greenleaf, a belle of that city in the days of the Revolution, fascinated Thackeray ; those of the beautiful Mrs, Bingham, of Rev. Wm. Smith, Gen. Mifflin, Mr. and Mrs. Pennington ; of Lord and Lady Ashburton ; of Horace Binney, Bishop White, Alexan- der Dallas ; of the Spring, Clymer, Peters, Willing, Jackson, Plumstead, and McKean families, in the possession of their descendants, are among the best portraits for character, color, and vital truth. In New York, Stuart’s portraits of Robert and Mrs. Morris, and of Judge Egbert Benson, are memorable and characteristic ; the portrait of Captain Anthony, for vigor, vividness, and expression, is an artistic study ; it belongs to Professor Wolcott Gibbs, of Cambridge, Mass. The Boston Athenaeum owns his portrait of Commodore Hull ; at Worcester, Mass, are three of his pictures, likenesses of the Salisbury family. Henry C. Carey, of Philadelphia, has his fine portrait of Mrs. Blodgett ; Harvard Col- I 10 American Artist Life. lege owns a good one of Justice Story, presented by the artist,* and others of President Kirkland, Samuel Elliot, and Rev. J. S. Buckminster. Stuart left several unfinished heads much prized by art-students as indicative of his method of painting ; among them is a head belonging to G. W. Riggs, of Washington ; one in the N. Y. Academy of Design ; one of Coun- sellor Dunn, of which the completed copy is in the Boston Athenaeum ; and one of Mrs. Perez Morton, of Massachusetts, belonging to Ernest Tuck- erman. Stuart's portrait of Mrs. John Forrester, a sister of Judge Story, and owned by Mrs. Forrester, of Salem, Mass, is one of his best works ; the flesh coloring and finish are superior ; the artist was interested in this picture, because he was struck with the resemblance of the original to his old friend, Lady West, the wife of Sir Benjamin. While engaged on this portrait Stuart was seized with his last illness ; and after his death his daughter Jane painted the drapery. There are other notable works of Stuart in Essex county ; the portrait of Col. T. Pickering belongs to Miss Mary Pratt, of Boston ; that of Mrs. Story, to her son William, the artist. There are five good Stuarts in the possession of the Robbins family, of Roxbury, Mass. At the Manchester exhibition the portrait of Dr. Priestley, from his pencil, was much admired ; and those of Admiral Lord Rodney, Hon. Mr. Grant, Lord St. Vincent, and Lady Clive, are highly estimated in England. But the works of Stuart are too widely scattered on both sides of the ocean to be easily enumerated. They include some of the most satisfactory and inimitable pictures from life of modern times ; but as a series or collection they are necessarily of unequal merit : like eloquence, as defined by Webster, this branch of art, in its highest phase, seems to exist “ in the man, the subjeCt, and the occasion ; ” the painter’s mood, the sitter’s character, and the circumstances influenced the limner’s hand ; his early style was delicate, pure, and very effective ; some of his later works have the paint laid on thicker — they are full of power, but less interesting. Stuart early established a peculiar fame, based upon his flesh-coloring, (which, by general consent, was esteemed the best of any modern school,) and upon his marvellous power of distinguishing “ the individual from the conventional,” — in which respeCt Allston declared him peerless in his own branch of art While thus superior and complete in the essentials of por- traiture, Stuart bestowed little care upon accessories ; and many of his works have an unfinished air, except in the heads. He once illustrated his views of high finish, as regards the texture of costume, by placing a shawl on the back of a chair, and asking a visitor, with whom he discussed the subject, whether, at the distance of a few feet, he received any but a general impression of the hue and form — arguing that minute imitation of drapery was unnatural. “Nature,” he said, “does not color in streaks. Look at my hand ; see how the colors are mottled and mingled, yet clear as silver.” On the other hand, no artist has caught with more truth, or delineated with more power, the expression and character of the physi- ognomy and the temperament. Many a beautiful woman and venerable * Life and Letters of Judge Story, Vol. ii., p. 555. Stuart . 1 1 1 statesman of the Republic yet exist to the eyes of this generation — known, the one in all her blooming loveliness, and the other in all his characteristic features and form, upon Stuart’s vivid canvas. A good idea of his method may be attained by examining the unfinished heads ; herein we recognize the freedom and force of his touch, and the original manner in which he combined and disposed of tints, to reproduce the very effects of nature. No portraits better preserve their hues and expression than those of Stuart. When the subject is favorable, and the picture cared for with the least at- tention, there is a living, fresh reality about them which captivates or impresses the spectator with an almost magnetic attraction and human individuality. We seem to know the person represented, and to feel an aCtual presence and character, as if somewhat of the will and experience, the sympathies and traits of the original, had been vitally communicated to pigment and outline. One of the most striking illustrations of this power of Stuart’s pencil was related to me by a lady nearly connected with him. She had occasion to visit Trumbull’s studio, during the latter years of that artist’s life, and it so happened that, when she noiselessly entered the room, Trumbull was intently occupied with a portrait of him- self, painted in his younger days by Stuart, who visited him for the pur- pose when a prisoner-of-war in London. He had just obtained possession of this long-lost and long-coveted trophy, had placed it upon his easel, and, seated before this “counterfeit presentment” of his former self, was so interested in the train of thought it excited, that he unconsciously solilo- quized. Concealed by a screen before the door, and at first hesitating to enter, from an impression that the artist was conversing with a visitor, the lady’s attention was caught by the name of Stuart, and she paused silently. Trumbull was carried back to the most eventful days of his early life and to his consciousness of old, by the sight of this picture of himself, painted by such a master and under such memorable circumstances. “ Stuart,” he exclaimed, as he gazed, “ was indeed a great painter. I may not be a judge of this likeness, — they say no one is of his own, — but this I know, that face looks exaCtly as I felt then, when Stuart used to come and greet me through the prison-bars as Bridewell Jack.” Stuart was in Boston at the time of the battle of Lexington, and there painted his grandmother from memory, and his own portrait — the only one he ever took of himself. Dr. Waterhouse says : “ It was painted in his freest manner, and with a Rubens hat. In his best days Stuart need not have been ashamed of it. ” John Neagle painted a very good likeness ot Stuart, as he appeared in his later years ; it is in the possession of the Boston Athenaeum. James M. Falconer, Esq., of New York, has a pen- and-ink likeness of Stuart, by himself. It is on the back of a letter ad- dressed to Mr. Bennett, then Curator of the Academy of Design. Little more than an outline, it is characteristic, with a striking device underneath. The best recognition has attended Stuart. His portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds was selected to be engraved for the first elegant edition of that artist’s lectures ; he was requested to paint a head of himself for the I 12 American Artist Life. Florence Gallery. Sully, when he finished Stuart’s last portrait, declined to touch the head, saying : “ It would be little better than sacrilege.” “ He seemed,” wrote Allston, “to dive into the thoughts of men, for they were made to live and speak on the surface.” In his happier efforts, no one ever surpassed him in embodying, if we may so speak, the transient ap- parition of the soul. Allston has well emphasized his traits : “ Gilbert Stuart was, in its widest sense, a philosopher in his art. He thoroughly understood its principles, as his works bear witness, whether as to har- mony of colors, or of lines, or of light and shadow — showing that ex- quisite sense of a whole which only a man of genius can realize and embody. Of this, not the least admirable instance is his portrait of John Adams, whose bodily tenement, at the time, seemed rather to present the image of a dilapidated castle, than the habitation of the unbroken mind ; but not such is the picture. Called forth from its crumbling recesses, the living tenant is there, still ennobling the ruin, and upholding it, as it were, by the strength of his inner life.” It is said that incipient insanity was foreshadowed in one of his portraits ; and it is certain that, to the eye of love and knowledge, he often revealed the most latent individuality. Stuart’s genius was eminently practical. There are two very distinCt processes by which superior abilities manifest themselves — that of intel- ligence, and that of impulse. As great military achievements are realized equally through self-possession and daring, skill and bravery, foresight and enthusiasm, the calmness of a Washington and the impetuosity of a Murat, literary and artistic results owe their efficiency to a like diversity of means. The basis of Allston’s power was a love of beauty — that of Stuart’s, acuteness ; the one possessed delicate, the other strong percep- tion ; one was inspired by ideality, and the other by sense. Hence Stuart has been justly called a philosopher in his art. He seized upon the essen- tial, and scorned the adventitious. He was impressed with the conviction that as a portrait painter it was his business to deal frankly with nature, and not suffer her temporary relations to interfere with his aim. Hence his well-known pertinacity in seeking absolute expression, and giving bold general effeCts — authentic hints rather than exquisitely-wrought details. Hence, too, his amusing impatience at everything factitious and irrelevant. A young physician, now a venerable man, whom he desired to paint in remuneration for professional services, told me that he made a studied toi- let, and with a deep sense of the importance of the occasion, appeared punctually at the hour designated. Stuart was prepared to receive him — canvas, throne and palette all arranged. To his visitor’s surprise, however, after surveying him a moment, he deliberately seated himself and com- menced a series of those interesting narrations for which he was celebrat- ed. Time flew by, and the annoyed Esculapius heard the hour chimed when he should be with his expeCtant patients. At length he ventured upon the dangerous experiment of interrupting the irascible but fluent artist. “ Mr. Stuart, this is very entertaining, but you must be aware that my time is precious. I feel very uncomfortable.” “ I am very glad of it,” Stuart. 1 13 replied Stuart; “I have felt so ever since you entered my studio.” “ Why ? ” “ Because you look so like a fool. Disarrange that fixed-up costume, and I will go to work.” His sitter, feeling the justice of the rebuke, pulled off his stiff cravat, passed his hand through his hair, and threw himself laughing into an eas) attitude. “ There,” said the painter, catching up his brush with alacrity, and quite restored to good-nature by the metamorphosis, “ now you look like yourself.” This anecdote illus- trates a great principle upon which Stuart habitually aCted, and to which is attributable much of his success. He sought expression in the intervals of self-consciousness, and considered no small part of the art of portraiture to consist in making the subjeCt forget himself. He ventured even to irritate Washington by intentional unpunCtuality, in order to enliven his serene countenance by a glow of displeasure, which he seized with avidity. To this end he cultivated his powers of observation and memory, and stu- died human nature with as much zeal as art. He sought a command of the original elements of expression, and endeavored by exciting idiosyn- crasies to bring out the character, until eye, lip, and air most eloquently betrayed the predominant spirit of the man ; and this, when transferred to the canvas, alone realized his idea of a portrait. A Scotch gentleman — one of those quaint disciples of Boerhaave, who were among the original settlers— undertook to practice the healing art among the Quaker colonists of Rhode Island, but neither his manners, dress, nor turn of mind assimilated with their severe philosophy ; and in considering the most available expedient within his power to insure a sup- port, it occurred to him that the large quantity of snuff annually imported from Glasgow was a guarantee that the article might be profitably manu- factured here. Accordingly, a sequestered rivulet, at which the Pequod warriors had often drank before they were dispossessed of Narragansett, Tvas chosen as the site of the experiment. It appears that there was not sufficient mechanical skill in the colony to ereCt the mill, and the clodtor sent home for one of his thrifty countrymen experienced in the business. The new emigrant was the father of Gilbert Stuart, and hence the habit thus early acquired of taking snuff, which copiously sprinkled his linen, and, as in the case of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was ever resorted to in the intervals of story-telling, at the conclusion of a witty rejoinder, or as he leaned back from his easel to observe the effeCt of an hour’s limning. There was in Stuart’s character something of the dogmatic spirit which belonged to Dr. Johnson. Indeed, it would not be difficult to establish a striking parallel between the two. Decided talent, fertility in conversa- tion, inveterate prejudice, a rough exterior, and a marked individuality, distinguished alike the artist and the author, and it is curious to note how spontaneously they fell into an antagonistic position when chance brought them together. Stuart, while a student in London, was accidentally intro- duced to Johnson, who, coolly expressing his surprise that an American should be so apt in his vernacular, asked the youth where he learned such good English. “Not in your dictionary, sir,” was the indignant reply. 8 American Artist Life. 1 14 Easily won by agreeable companionship, which formed his principal delight, and of a really kind disposition at heart, his self-esteem instantly resented the slightest wound. His pride of opinion and a sense of the dignity of his vocation, or rather of the geniys of which, in his best days, it was the exponent, caused him to resent summarily anything that might be construed into a personal affront. A family of distinction having ordered a portrait of one of its leading members, and capriciously delayed the promised remuneration, he had the picture fitted as a door to his pig- sty ; and when Cooke, the tragedian, fell asleep in his studio, he substituted an ass’s ears for those of the great aCtor in the likeness. The main obsta- cles against which Stuart had to contend throughout his career were his own perversity and imprudence. In every exigency in his affairs, the best- devised plans which friendship or benevolence undertook in his behalf, were contravened by the artist’s wilfulness, and thus many sincerely inte- rested in his welfare were alienated. While abroad, in early life, and espe- cially during a jovial sojourn in Ireland, he acquired convivial habits which sometimes interfered essentially with his professional success. If his vigorous intellect had been sustained by methodical industry, there would have been more equality in his efforts and less vicissitude in his fortunes. But the social man and the devotee of art were at frequent war, although perhaps there never was an instance where the one was so happily made subsidiary to the other. His talk “ drew the soul to the surface.” He was a proficient in knowledge of character ; and whether statesman or mariner, soldier or agriculturist occupied the chair, he discussed political affairs, dangers by flood and field, or the state of crops, with such zest and so many attractive illustrations from his store of anecdote, that each auditor in turn became perfectly at home, and exhibited his most characteristic appearance. Alternately residing in the principal cities of America, after a visit to Great Britain, he enjoyed familiar intercourse with the leading minds of the day, on both sides of the water. Obliged at one time to become an organist in London for bare subsistence, at another command- ing prices second only to Reynolds and Gainsborough, and overwhelmed with profitable commissions ; nobles sought him out in the debtors’ prison at Dublin ; with a strong physical organization, and that sharp, practical insight which distinguishes the Scotch character, a lingerer at the banquet and a keen student of art— his life abounds in the most skilful achieve- ments and the most eccentric irregularities. The personal anecdotes of Stuart are piquant and original ; Dunlap has recorded not a few ; many of them are familiar and traditional, and received a memorable emphasis when related by himself. In portrait-painting Stuart illustrated the most valuable principles, and in endeavoring to seize upon these, it must be remembered that he painted indifferent works enough to have ruined the credit of any artist whose ability had been less unequivocally manifested. His main idea was to in- terpret for himself, and represent according to his own free perception. “ I wish,” he said, “to find out what Nature is for myself, and see her Stuart. 1 15 with my own eyes. Nature may be seen through different mediums; Rembrandt saw with a different eye from Raphael, and yet they are both excellent — but for dissimilar qualities.” Upon this judicious and liberal view Stuart habitually worked. His best portraits are, therefore, glimpses of character. Even those heads which time has robbed of all intensity of expression, he seems to have restored without any sacrifice of truth — as in the case of the elder Adams. It was this feeling for the original — this loyalty to individual conviction as the source of excellence — that led him to prefer the unschooled criticism which his works received at home, where, he said, “they were compared with nature, of which they were diredl imitations, instead of being estimated, as abroad, by their approach to Titian and Vandyke.” Quick of apprehension, discriminating and rhetorical, Stuart, when he chose to exert the valuable quality, could exercise rare taCt, both in the labors of his art and the pleasures of society. He had great command of satire, and where he could not win by entertaining, found no difficulty in exciting a fear of ridicule which checked the machinations of enmity. This accounts for the different impression he created, according as the individual was fascinated or frightened. He possessed the hardihood rather than the susceptibility of genius, and effected his triumphs by the force of a comprehensive mind, which takes in all the relations of a sub- ject, and attains a complete, instead of a fragmentary, result. Allston said of him, that he could thoroughly distinguish the accidental from the permanent — no insignificant merit in portrait-painting. It is acknowledged that his likeness of Washington is the only just representation of a coun- tenance wherein the tranquillity of self-approval blends with wisdom and truth, so as to form a moral ideal in portraiture, as the character was in life. It is lamentable that such inadequate copies of this head have gone abroad, owing, in some instances, to the inability of engravers, and in others to the use of spurious originals. It was the last of his portraits of Washington with which Stuart expressed absolute satisfaction. He promised to present it to the family when finished ; and, with a humorous shrewdness in accordance with his character, left the head alone upon the broad can- vas, in order to retain what he justly deemed his most invaluable trophy. “ Gilbert Stuart’s* most cherished anticipation, when he left England for America, was that of executing a portrait of Washington, — cherishing, as he did, the greatest personal admiration of his character. His own na- ture was more remarkable for strength than refinement ; he was eminently fitted to appreciate practical talents and moral energy ; the brave truths of Nature, rather than her more delicate effeCts, were grasped and reproduced by his skill ; he might not have done justice to the ideal contour of Shelley, or the gentle features of Mary of Scotland, but could have perfectly reflected the dormant thunder of Mirabeau’s countenance, and the argumentative abstraction that knit the brows of Samuel Johnson. He was a votary of * From the Author’s Character and Portraits of Washington. American Artist Life . 1 1 6 truth in her boldest manifestations, and a delineator of character in its normal and sustained elements. The robust, the venerable, the moral picturesque, the mentally characteristic, he seized by intuition ; those lines of physiognomy which channelled by will the map of inward life, which years of consistent thought and aCtion trace upon the countenance ; the hue that, to an observant eye, indicates almost the daily vocation, the air suggestive of authority or obedience, firmness or vacillation ; the glance of the eye, which is the measure of natural intelligence and the temper of the soul, the expression of the mouth that infallibly betrays the disposition, the tint of hair and mould of features, not only attesting the period of life but revealing what that life has been, whether toilsome or inert, self-indulgent or adven- turous, careworn or pleasurable — these, and such as these records of hu- manity, Stuart transferred, in vivid colors and most trustworthy outlines, to the canvas. InstinCtive, therefore, was his zeal to delineate Washington ; a man, who, of all the sons of fame, most clearly and emphatically wrote his character in deeds upon the world's heart ; whose traits required no imagination to give them effeCfc, and no metaphysical insight to unravel their perplexity, but were brought out by the exigencies of the time in distinCt relief, as bold, fresh, and true as the verdure of spring and the lights of the firmament, equally recognized by the humblest peasant and the most gifted philosopher. “To trace the history of each of Stuart’s portraits of Washington would prove of curious interest. One of his letters to a relative, dated the second of November, 1794, enables us to fix the period of the earliest experiment. 4 The objecl of my journey,’ he says, 4 is only to secure a portrait of the President, and finish yours.’ One of the succeeding pictures was bought from the artist’s studio by Mr. Tayloe, of Washington, and is, at present, owned by his son, B. Ogle Tayloe, Esq. ; another was long in the posses- sion of Madison, and is now in that of Gov. E. Coles, of Philadelphia. The full-length, in the Presidential mansion, at the seat of Government, was saved through the foresight and care of the late Mrs. Madison, when the city was taken by the British in the last war. Stuart, however, always denied that the copy was by him. Another portrait of undoubted authenti- city was offered to and declined by Congress, a few years ago, and is owned by a Boston gentleman ; it once graced the hospitable dwelling of Samuel Williams, the London banker. For a long period artistic productions on this side of the water were subjects of ridicule. Tudor not inaptly called the New England country meeting-houses 44 wooden lanterns ; ” almost every town boasted an architectural monstrosity, popularly known as somebody’s 44 folly ; ” the rows of legs in Trumbull’s picture of the Signing of the Decla- ration, obtained for it the sarcastic name, generally ascribed to John Ran- dolph, of 44 the shin-piece ; ” and Stuart’s full-length, originally painted for Lord Lansdowne, with one arm resting on his sword hilt, and the other ex- tended, was distinguished among artists by the title of the 44 tea-pot por- trait,” from the resemblance of the outline to the handle and spout of that domestic utensil. The feature, usually exaggerated in poor copies, and the Stuart. 11/ least agreeable in the original, is the mouth, resulting from the want of support of those muscles consequent on the loss of teeth, a defect which Stuart vainly attempted to remedy by inserting cotton between the jaw and the lips ; and Wilson Peale more permanently, but not less ineffectually, sought to relieve by a set of artificial teeth. We have seen in western New York, a cabinet head of Washington which bears strong evidence of Stuart’s pencil, and is traced direCtly by its present owner to his hand, which was purchased of the artist and pre- sented to Mr. Gilbert, a member of Congress from Columbia county, New York, a gentleman who held the original in such veneration that he requested, on his death-bed, to have the picture exhibited to his fading gaze, as it was the last objeCt he desired to behold on earth. The remarks of the great artist indicate what a study he made of his illus- trious sitter : “ There were,” he said, “ features in his face totally different from what he had observed in any other human being ; the sockets of the eyes, for instance, were larger than what I ever met with before, and the upper part of the nose broader. All his features were indicative of the strongest passions ; yet, like Socrates, his judgment and great self-command made him appear a man of a different cast in the eyes of the world.” The color of his eyes was a light greyish blue, but according to Mr. Custis, Stuart painted them of a deeper blue, saying, “in a hundred years they will have faded to the right color.” While Congress was in session at Philadelphia, in 1794, Stuart went thither with a letter of introduction to Washington, from John Jay. He first met his illustrious subjeCt on a reception evening, and was spontane- ously accosted by him with a greeting of dignified urbanity. Familiar as was the painter with eminent men, he afterwards declared that no human beino: ever awakened in him the sentiment of reverence to such a decree. For a moment, he lost his self-possession — with him an experience quite unprecedented — and it was not until several interviews that he felt himself enough at home with his sitter to give the requisite concentration of mind to his work. This was owing not less to the personal impressive- ness of Washington — which all who came in contaCt with him felt and acknowledged — than to the profound respeCt and deep interest which the long anticipations of the artist had fostered in his own mind. He failed, probably from this cause, in his first experiment. No portrait-painter has left such a reputation for the faculty of eliciting expression by his social taCt, as Stuart. He would even defer his task upon any pretext until he succeeded in making the sitter, as he said, “look like himself.” To induce a natural, unconscious, and characteristic mood, was his initiative step in the execution of a portrait. Innumerable are the anecdotes of his inge- nuity and persistence in carrying out this habit. More or less conversant with every topic of general interest, and endowed with rare conversa- tional ability and knowledge of character, he seldom failed to excite the ruling passion, magnetize the prominent idiosyncrasy, or awaken the pro- fessional interest of the occupant of his throne, whether statesman, American Artist Life . 1 1 8 farmer, aCtor, judge, or merchant ; and his fund of good stories, narrated with dramatic effect, by enchaining the attention or enlisting the sympa- thies, usually made the delighted listener self-oblivious and demonstra- tive, when, with an alertness and precision like magic, the watchful limner transferred the vital identity of his preoccupied and fascinated subject, with almost breathing similitude. In Washington, however, he found a less flexible character upon which to scintillate his wit and open his anecdotical battery. Facility of adaptation seldom accompanies great individuality ; and a man whose entire life has been oppressed with re- sponsibility, and in whom the prevalent qualities are conscience and good sense, can scarcely be expeCted to possess humor and geniality in the same proportion as ‘self-control and reflection. On the professional themes of agriculture and military science, Washington was always ready to converse, if not with enthusiasm, at least in an attentive and intelli- gent strain ; but the artillery of repartee and the sallies of fancy made but a slight impression upon his grave and reserved nature. He was de- ficient in language — far more a man of aCtion than of words — and had been obliged to think too much on vast interests, to “ carry America in his brain,” as one of his eulogists has aptly said, to readily unbend in colloquial diversion. By degrees, however, the desirable relation was established between himself and the artist, who, of several portraits, justly gave the preference to the Lansdowne picture and the unfinished one now possessed by the Boston Athenaeum. They, doubtless, are the most perfect representations of Washington, as he looked at the time they were executed, and will ever be the standards and resource of subse- quent delineators. The latter, supposed by many to have been his original “ study,” engaged his attention for months. The freshness of color, the studious modelling of the brow, the mingling of clear purpose and benevolence in the eye, and a thorough nobleness and dignity in the whole head, realize all the most intelligent admirer of the original has imagined — not, indeed, when thinking of him as the intrepid leader of armies, but in the last analysis and complete image of the hero in retire- ment, in all the consciousness of a sublime career, unimpeachable fidelity to a national trust, and the eternal gratitude of a free people. It is this masterpiece of Stuart that has not only perpetuated, but distributed over the globe the resemblance of Washington. It has been sometimes la- mented that so popular a work does not represent him in the aspeCt of a successful warrior, or in the flush of ybuth ; but there seems to be a singu- lar harmony between this venerable image — so majestic, benignant, and serene — and the absolute character and peculiar example of Washington, separated from what was purely incidental and contingent in his life. Self-control, endurance, dauntless courage, loyalty to a just but sometimes desperate cause, hope through the most hopeless crisis, and a tone of feeling the most exalted, united to habits of candid simplicity, are better embodied in such a calm, magnanimous, mature image, full of dignity and sweetness, than if portrayed in battle array or melodramatic attitude. Let Stuart. 1 19 such piftures as David’s Napoleon — with prancing steed, flashing eye, and waving sword — represent the mere vidtor and military genius ; but he who spurned a crown, knew no watchword but duty, no goal but freedom and justice, and no reward but the approval of conscience and the grati- tude of a country, lives more appropriately, both to memory and in art, under the aspedt of a finished life, crowned with the harvest of honor and peace, and serene in the consummation of disinterested purpose. A letter of Stuart’s which appeared in the New York Evening Post, in 1853,* attested by three gentlemen of Boston, with one from Washington making the appointment for a sitting, proves the error long current in re- gard both to the dates and the number of this artist’s original portraits. He there distindtly states that he never executed but three from life, the first of which was so unsatisfadfcory that he destroyed it ; the second was the pidture for Lord Lansdowne ; and the third, the one now belonging to the Boston Athenaeum. Of these originals he made twenty-six copies. The finishing touches were put to the one in September, 1795, and to the other, at Philadelphia, in the spring of 1796. This last, it appears by a letter of Mr. Custis, which we have examined, was undertaken against the desire of Washington, and at the earnest solicitation of his wife, who wished a portrait from life of her illustrious husband, to be placed among * Extract from article in Evening Post , N. Y., March 15th, 1853 : — It may set this question at rest to state, that Stuart himself has given an account of all the por- traits of Washington that he painted. A gentleman of Philadelphia has in his possession the originals of the following documents. [Edit. Post.] — Sir : — I am under promise to Mrs. Bingham, to sit for you to-morrow at nine o’clock, and wishing to know if it be convenient to you that I should do so, and whether it shall be at your own house (as she talked of the State-House), I send this note to you to ask information. — I am, Sir, your obedient servt., GEO. WASHINGTON. Monday Evening, nth April , 1796. This letter was indorsed in Washington’s handwriting, — “ Mr. Stuart, Chestnut Street.” At the foot of the manuscript are the following certificates : — In looking over my papers to find one that had the signature of George Washington, I found this, asking me when he should sit for his portrait, which is now owned by Samuel Williams, of London. I have thought it proper it should be his, especially as he owns the only original painting I ever made of Washington, except one I own myself. I painted a third, but rubbed it out. I now pre- sent this to his brother, Timo Williams, for said Samuel. Boston, 9 th day of March, 1823. GT. STUART. Attest — J. P- Davis. W. Dutton, L. Baldwin. N. B. — Mr. Stuart painted in ye winter season his first portrait of Washington, but destroyed it. The next painting was ye one owned by S. Williams ; the third Mr. S. now has — two only remain as above stated. T. W.” The pidture alluded to in the above note of the late Timo Williams, as being then in Mr. Stuart’s possession, is the one now in the Boston Athen^um ; and that which belonged to the late Samuel Williams, Esq., alluded to in Mr. Stuart’s note above quoted, is yet extant, and owned by the son of an American gentleman [John D. Lewis , Esq.), who died in London some years since, where it still remains. Mr. Williams had paid for it at the sale of the personal effedts of the Marquis of Lansdowne, — to whom it was originally presented by Mr. Bingham, of Philadelphia, — two thousand guineas. It is this portrait, full length and life size, from which the bad engraving was made by Heath, so many copies of which are still to be seen in this country. 1 20 American Artist Life. the other family pictures at Mount Vernon. For this express purpose, and to gratify her, the artist commenced the work, and Washington agreed to sit once more. It was left, intentionally, unfinished, and when subsequently claimed by Mr. Custis, who offered a premium upon the original price, Stuart excused himself, much to the former’s dissatis- faction, on the plea that it was a requisite legacy for his children. Si- multaneously with the Lansdowne portrait, the artist executed for William Constable that now in the possession of his grandson, Henry E. Pierre- pont, Esq., of Brooklyn, L. I. Motives of personal friendship induced the artist to exert his best skill in this instance ; it is a fac-simile of its prototype, and the expression has been thought even more noble and of higher significance, more in accordance with the traditional character of the subjefit. than the Athenasum picture. It has the eyes looking off, and not at, the spectator, as in the latter. Mr. Constable, the original pro- prietor, was aide to General Washington ; and when Lafayette visited this country in 1824, upon entering the drawing-room at Brooklyn Heights, where the picture hangs, he exclaimed, ‘ That is my old friend, indeed ! ’ Colonel Nicholas Fish and General Van Rensselaer joined in attesting the superior correctness of the likeness.”* Various copies of his Washington by his own hand are claimed as authentic by their owners. One belongs to Joseph Harrison, of Philadel- phia, and was purchased of Wm. Vaughan, of London ; another belongs to W. D. Lewis, of the same city ; another to the Academy of Fine Arts there ; one is in the State House at Newport, R. I. ; and one was pur- chased at the Wolfe sale in New York, by J. W. Southmeyd, for $590. The usual objection to Stuart’s Washington is a certain feebleness about the lines of the mouth, which does not correspond with the distinCt outline of the frontal region, the benign yet resolved eye, and the harmonious dignity of the entire head ; but this defeCt was an inevitable result of the loss of teeth, and their imperfeCt substitution by a false set. In view of the state of the arts in this country at the period, and the age of Washington, we cannot but congratulate ourselves that we have so pleasing and satisfactory a portrait, and exclaim, with Leslie, a How fortunate it was that a painter existed in the time of Washington, who could hand him down looking like a gentleman ! ” * From the author’s Character and Portraits of Washington, M A L B O N E. HERE is an elevated slope on the Rhode Island coast near the outlet of Narragansett Bay, the highest point of which was the abode of Miantonomi, where his son long ruled as sachem of his tribe ; along the adjacent declivity is the farm and homestead of a late well-known hospitable New York lawyer ; the house is built of brown-stone, and that of its lower walls was brought, long before the Revolution, from Bristol, Eng- land, as material for the fine dwelling (long ago destroyed by fire) of God- frey Malbone, who was renowned in his day for elegant hospitality, priva- teering, and large wealth. A few old box and cedar trees, a fish pond, a subterranean passage to the water, and some other traces of his resi- dence still remain ; and many current anecdotes attest his generous, enter- prising, and reckless spirit. After the era of colonial prosperity the for- tunes of the family declined, but its name was honorably perpetuated, and is still cherished, through the endeared memory of a descendant in the collateral branch, of remarkable artistic gifts and social graces. This was Edward G. Malbone, who was born in Newport, R. I., August, 1777. While a boy, he haunted the theatre of his native town to watch the process of scene-painting ; and, at length, tried his hand therein, achieving what was deemed by the town’s-people a juvenile miracle of scenic art. He delighted in blowing soap-bubbles, in order to behold their prismatic hues in the sunlight ; disseCted toys to learn the secret of their mechanism ; made kites and fireworks, and collected, on the beach, what he called “paint-stones.” He would not join in the common sports of his school- fellows ; he was very abstracted for a child, and indulged in vivid presenti- ments of future success : refined, engaging, and ingenious, he was the delight of his family, and, at the age of sixteen, gave adequate proof of his vocation for art, by executing a portrait of rare merit, for a novice. The English consul at Providence, R. I., encouraged the young aspirant to devote his leisure to drawing heads in miniature, and, when but seventeen, we find him at work professionally in that town ; and in the spring of 1796, fairly established as a miniature painter in Boston. In the year 1800, he accompanied his friend Allston to Charleston, S. C. ; and the next year they embarked for Europe. He remained but a few months in London, 122 American Artist Life. although urged by West to fix his temporary abode there, with every pros- pect of ample employment. Upon returning to the United States, Malbone travelled and sojourned in the principal cities for several years, successfully devoted to his art. His miniatures are among the few pleasing and precious artistic associa- tions with the past, which exist in the country. I have seen an ancient lady, in an old-fashioned mansion, surrounded by furniture of an obsolete style, and her costume of the fashion which prevailed in a former genera- tion, and take from an antique casket a miniature of her husband, “ a gen- tleman of the old school,” by Malbone, and with a proud pathos, descant upon its truthful lineaments undimmed by time. A signal evidence of Malbone’s taCt and skill was afforded by a foreign artist recognising in the miniature of a beautiful girl of seventeen, the features of an old lady to whom he had been introduced a few days be- fore : the vital and characteristic expression of the original was thus pre- served intaCt, so as to appeal, at once, even to a stranger’s eye. In the “ House of the Seven Gables,” Hawthorne, with intuitive sagacity, makes Hepzibah contemplate her unfortunate brother’s miniature by Malbone. He had “an acute discernment of character,” and, what is remarkable, considering his limited instruction, knew how to draw with absolute cor- rectness ; his best miniatures are preferred by many artists to Isabey’s. Endowed by nature with the most graceful talents and manners, to appre- ciate his development we must recur to his early associations, to the auspicious local, domestic, and social relations of his life — to the studious habits, and love of beauty for its own sake, which inspired his career, and to the advantages of his birth-place and early home. Of late years few places of summer resort in the country, have proved more attractive than Newport, R. I. (the social advantages of which now- frequented resort, during the colonial era, we have noted in the suc- ceeding memoir), and its natural scenery and climate amply justify the preference which fashion has accorded. English visitors find something in the air like that of the Isle of Wight ; and its saline humidity, besides refreshing the languid frame in the sultry months, proves singularly effica- cious to a large class of invalids, and has so favorable an influence upon the complexion that the place has been long celebrated for the beauty of its women. The sportsman and lover of the picturesque find there more than ordinary gratification. The latter cannot fail to remember with pleasure the scene presented on fine summer evenings at those favorite spots, named “ Purgatory,” “ Paradise,” and especially the “ Glen.” The deep valley so called is as sweet a bit of inland scenery, in its way, as the country affords. In the afternoon, when the lateral sunshine plays through the surrounding foliage, the old mill and clear stream form an admirable study for the landscape painter. A foreign artist, who allowed us a short time since to inspeCt the contents of his portfolio, confirmed these impressions by the number of beautiful sketches of cliffs, inlets, and ledges of rock which he had gleaned in the vicinity, as material for com- Malbone . 123 position. Nor is Newport destitute of interesting associations. Berke- ley sojourned there a century ago; and it was there that George Fox challenged Roger Williams to meet him, and discuss their respective tenets. The ancient tower, about which so much speculative wisdom has been exercised, now lives in the polished numbers of Longfellow, having suggested the theme of one of his best poems. A synagogue and ceme- tery, that are kept in perfedt order, according to the testamentary pro- vision of a wealthy Israelite, though utterly abandoned, are striking memorials of the now extindt band of Jews who once lived and worship- ped there ; while a granite shaft rising from amid the funereal tablets of many generations in the old burying-ground, indicates to the stranger where the remains of the gallant Perry repose. It is easy to imagine how desirable a residence the town must have been to a man of contemplative habits, before the capricious tide of fashion dis- turbed its wonted quietude. Like many places on our eastern border, it became prosperous at the time commerce with the West Indies was at its height, and with the decay of that profitable branch of traffic its activ- ity decreased, and a sort of sleepy-hollow tranquillity settled upon the inhabitants. Perhaps the great charm of Newport is its famous beach. To watch the waves when lashed into fury by the storm, or as they come only to break into gay sparkles upon the warm sands, is a pastime of which no lover of the beautiful can weary. The briny coolness of the air, and the deep monotone of the lapsing waters, have in them something impres- sive to the most thoughtless. Dr. Channing, in his beautiful address at the dedication of a church in Newport, attributes the most salutary impres- sions of his early life to meditations on this very spot The best hours of his youth were those passed in the solitude of the Redwood Library, where sometimes for whole days his reading was uninterrupted by a single visi- tor ; and the musings in which he indulged in his lonely walks along the strand. At the distance of many years he thus vividly recalls his com- munion with the mysteries of nature. The sympathies of the everlasting sea, as they rose upon his youthful ear, dwelt like a perpetual anthem in his soul, and essentially sustained its consistent elevation. Another child of genius haunted this shore, whose fame was recalled a few summers since, by the circumstance of one of its trophies being offered for sale. Few works of art of the kind have enjoyed so wide a reputation as Mal- bone’s “ Hours,” and hundreds availed themselves of the opportunity to behold it, when it was announced in Newport that the gem would be raffled for. We are happy to record the fadt that the successful compe- titor proved to be one of the artist’s family, to whom it is endeared by the most tender remembrances, and whom necessity alone compelled to part with it. Thus they realized a handsome sum, and still retained the pre- cious legacy. This lovely work was executed by Malbone during his studi- ous visit to London. It presents the Hours in the shape of three beautiful females in the adt of moving in a circle, the one in front being the Present, and her companions, the Past and Future. The grace of the design it is 124 American Artist Life . not easy to describe. The sweet expression of the faces and the delicacy of the coloring are inimitable. A more charming emblem of Time we have never seen, excepting Guido’s celebrated picture. Instead of a grim old man with a scythe, we have three fair girls. They are emphatically the “ rosy hours,” such as poetry chronicles and love inspires, redolent of hope and overflowing with promise. It was impossible to dwell upon the work, and. trace the eloquent traits of a sensitive and gifted mind, without revert- ing to the brief yet memorable life of him who haunted the adjacent beach while a child, in search of colored pebbles, with which to paint ; and designed little pictures to hang round the necks of the prettiest girls in school. In later years, Malbone made frequent excursions in the neigh- borhood with his friend Aflston, who has left the warmest testimony to his generosity and intelligence. His predilection for art was at first discour- aged at home, and there was certainly but little around him to suggest any method of imitating the visible beauty so familiar to his childhood. He received, as we have seen, the hint at last from the scenic effedts of a thea- tre. These excited his boyish curiosity, and when the process was dis- covered, he found no difficulty in crudely trying an experiment for himself. The result was, that the intervals of his school occupations were devoted to scene-painting, to the great advantage of the manager, the wonder of his relatives, and his own perfect delight. This was a singular introduction to the department of art in which he was chiefly gifted. The broadest effedts obtained by the coarsest expedients, would seem but an inadequate initia- tion to the delicate touches of miniature ; and practice in wielding the whitewash brush, one would suppose, might unfit the hand for a camel’s- hair pencil. Malbone appears, however, to have passed from one to the other with wonderful facility ; for while yet a youth, finding no scope in his native town, he went to Providence, and, in a brief period, took his family by surprise in achieving quite a local reputation as a miniature-painter. Of his ultimate success in the art he had never felt the slightest distrust, confidently predicting to his jeering companions, from the first, his own future eminence. From this period it was pursued with consistent ardor and steadily progressive success. Malbone possessed a beautiful equa- nimity of soul, and manners of rare amenity. In the cultivated society of Charleston he found immediate recognition and sympathy, and in all the principal cities of his native land, are scattered the cherished tokens of his genial labors, associated with the most pleasing memories of his gentle and wise companionship. In the families of Bingham and Peters, of Phila- delphia ; of the Derbys, of Salem, Mass. ; of Ervingand Amory, of Boston, and, indeed, among the older families of all the Atlantic and Southern cities, are found precious exemplars of his skill and taste. In the department of art he selected, excellence is comparatively rare, and mediocrity insufferable. Malbone has best illustrated it in this coun- try, and the most judicious critics abroad and at home, unite in awarding the palm to his mature labors. His social tendencies never interfered with the assiduous exercise of his vocation, nor did success for a moment blind Malbone. 125 him to the claims of affeCtion or the behests of duty. He was a discrimi- nating cultivator of music and poetry. Sedentary life early deranged the springs of a naturally elastic constitution, and when he at length yielded his fascinating pursuit, and returned to the scenes of his boyhood, to idle away the summer in recruiting his exhausted strength, it proved too late. A southern climate was recommended, and he embarked for Jamaica. As all hope of recovery vanished, the desire to realize the eastern benedidtion and die among his kindred grew strong, and he rallied his feeble energies for a homeward voyage, but died in May, 1807, at the age of thirty-two, after reaching Savannah, two days after his passage had been taken for the north. There is no more common error than to estimate literature and art by the tangible space they fill. The point to which genuine taste is legiti- mately directed is quality. The world has had quite sufficient of merely voluminous authors and artists whose chief merit is their elaborate de- signs. A few masterly lyrics, the offspring of a felicitous and perhaps never-recurring mood, float upon the daily tide of life, while hundreds of ponderous epics are moored in stagnant obscurity. There are brief yet significant melodies that haunt the memory after every trace of long scientific compositions has vanished. A scimetar may do as much execu- tion as a battle-axe. Some poet has said that “gentleness is power;” the same is true of refinement in art. It is the peculiar charm of minia- tures that they are usually sacred to affeCtion, treasured in the casket, and not exposed on the wall. If as trophies of art they are less widely known, they are more deeply cherished. When wrought with great delicacy and truth, they are invaluable, and may be as characteristic as more ostenta- tious productions. What a perfeCt lyric is in poetry, the miniature is in painting. The unity of the design and the complete and exquisite finish of the execution, make it as truly the offspring of genius. It is art con- centrated and etherealized ; and when hallowed by the associations of love, the witness of secret tears, the talisman that opens the floodgates of memory, or kindles the torch of hope — a miniature is often the one price- less gem among the jewels of fortune. “ He had the happy talent,” writes Allston of Malbone, “ of elevating the character without impairing the likeness ; this was remarkable in his male heads ; no woman ever lost any beauty from his hand ; the fair would become still fairer under his pencil. To this he added a grace of execution all his own. He was amiable and generous, and wholly free from any taint of professional jealousy.” VANDERLYN. INGSTON, the capital of Ulster county, N. Y., is in date of settlement by the Dutch, but a few years later than Albany ; and in a dwelling of the town still designated to strangers, the first Constitution of the State of New York was framed and adopted. Although destroyed by the British in 1777, the local situation of Kingston has secured it more than average prosperity ; on the right bank of the Hud- son, ninety miles from the metropolis and fifty from the capital, its vicinity to the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson canal, its intersection of Esopus creek, and the plank-road which connects it with Rondout, have drawn thither the most extensive commerce on the river ; its trade with Delaware county is thriving, and it has a flourishing manufactory of flag- stones. Here John Vanderlyn was born in 1776, and here, impoverished, worn-out, and ill, he returned to die in the autumn of 1852. The inter- vening years were fraught with the greatest vicissitudes, crowned with success, and overshadowed by disappointment — full of adventure, rich in social experience, aCtive with artistic enterprise — embittered by contro- versy, and conflict with fortune ; through, and often above which experi- ences, the man and the artist, in all their individual^, rise intaCt. The apparently accidental circumstances, which, if they do not deter- mine, essentially modify individual destiny, are singularly manifest in American artist life. An incident often related with graphic emphasis, in the familiar talk of a famous political adventurer and a successful artist, seems to have been the turning-point in Vanderlyn’s life. A country boy in Ulster county, he engaged to work for six months for a blacksmith near Kingston ; one morning Aaron Burr’s horse cast a shoe, and he stopped at the forge to have it replaced ; walking about in the vicinity, he was struck with the spirit and truth of a charcoal sketch on a barn door ; turning to young Vanderlyn who stood by, he inquired who was the draughtsman ; “ I did it,” was the reply ; whereupon Colonel Burr ques- tioned him at some length, and, recognising his ability for a higher sphere of activity than the humble occupation he had adopted, gave him his town Vanderlyn. 127 address, and offered to advise and assist him if he should decide to study and practise art. “ Put a clean shirt in your pocket, come to New York, and call upon me,” said Burr. Some weeks later, while sitting at break- fast at his residence called “ Richmond Hill,” a brown paper parcel was handed him with a message that the bearer was at the door. It contained a coarse shirt and the address in the Colonel’s handwriting ; he called the boy in; invited him to remain in his family; little imagining that Van- derlyn would prove so renowned a protege, and in his days of fame and comparative fortune befriend his New York patron at the capital of France, when an indigent and avoided exile from his own country. Many and curious were the details of the relation thus commenced which the artist used to relate ; and the anecdote itself is one of the few re- deeming faCts of Burr’s exceptional career. It was at the age of sixteen that Vanderlyn went to New York, where his brother, a physician of that city, introduced him to an Englishman who dealt largely in prints and engravings, familiarity wherewith stimulated his latent love for art — to which pursuit he soon resolved to devote himself. He studied with Stuart and with Robertson ; he copied the former’s portrait of Aaron Burr, and for him he painted his beautiful, accomplished, and un- fortunate daughter, Theodosia ; and, through his aid, visited Paris, and remained five years. In 1803 he revisited Europe, and made several fine copies of the old masters, besides executing originals, such as “ The Mur- der of Jane McCrea by the Indians,” and the other historical pictures which established his fame. At Paris he was the companion of Allston ; in Rome he occupied Salvator Rosa’s house. His portraits of Madison, Monroe, Randolph, Clinton, Calhoun, and other eminent Americans, are authentic, and often the best likenesses extant ; his latest work of the kind was a portrait of President Taylor. Offended by the government patronage extended to Trumbull, the objeCt of vulgar attack, and deprived, as he thought, unjustly, of opportunities for national commissions, Vanderlyn suffered long and acutely from baffled projects and financial embarrassments incident to his panoramic enterprises in New York. The evening of his life was sad. The results of all professional toil should be judged according as they spring from necessity or will. It is one thing to write or paint, in order to meet a passing exigency, and cpfite another spontaneously to give “a local habitation and a name” to thought and feeling, that crave utterance for their own sake. Hence in all worthy criticism, it is absolutely necessary to discriminate between these two species of labor. In literature, the de- mands of occasion, however cleverly supplied, afford no scope to the man of genius. Compare a review of Sydney Smith’s with his sermons, a lyric of Campbell’s with one of his biographies, or a letter of Walpole’s with his romance. In the fine arts also, there are certain expedients to which the needs of the moment compel a resort ; and they inspire so little interest, that the artist seldom does himself any justice in the premises. It is on this account that almost every gifted devotee of liberal pursuits, deliberately selects certain themes to unfold in the spirit of individuality and love, and 128 Early Portrait Painters. consecrates his better moments to a few enterprises which enlist his best powers, and afford permanent trophies of renown. Thus Dante conceived his immortal epic ; and Collins his classic ode. A course like this is indispensable for the American artist. The call for masterpieces in the more elevated branches of painting and sculpture, is altogether too casual to afford the means of subsistence, even to the most patient industry. Recourse must be had to designing and portraiture, and only the intervals of such labor given to more exalted aims. If this be done with zeal and intelligence, enough may be accomplished to secure a heritage of fame, and yield the blissful consciousness of true success. Creations thus wrought out, apart from the mechanical routine of professional life, the offspring of lofty ambition and lonely self-devotion, have the life and soul of their authors in them, redeem their misfortunes, and perpetuate their names. Such are the Marius and Ariadne of Vanderlyn. It would be difficult to imagine two single figures more unlike in the impression they convey, or indicating greater versatility of genius. The one embodies the Roman character in its grandest phase, that of endurance ; and suggests its noblest association, that of patriotism. It is a type of manhood in its serious, re- sisting energy and indomitable courage, triumphant over thwarted ambi- tion,— a stern, heroic figure, self-sustained and calm, seated in meditation amid prostrate columns which symbolize his fallen fortunes, and an outward solitude which reflects the desolation of his exile ; the other an ideal of female beauty reposing upon the luxury of its own sensations, lost in a radi- ant sleep, and yielding with child-like self-abandonment to dreams of love : How like a vision of pure love she seems ! Her cheek just flushed with innocent repose, That folds her thoughts up in delicious dreams, Like dew-drops in the chalice of a rose ; Pillowed upon her arm and raven hair, How archly rests that bright and peaceful brow; Its rounded pearl defiance bids to care, While kisses on the lips seem melting now : Prone in unconscious loveliness she lies, And leaves around her delicately sway ; Veiled is the splendor of her beaming eyes, But o’er the limbs bewitching graces play ; Ere into Eden’s groves the serpent crept, Thus Eve within her leafy arbor slept ! “ I think,” writes a reminiscent critic, “ that the first pidlure I saw in New York was Vanderlyn’s Ariadne, and it must have been in 1822 or 1823. I went to the Rotunda in the Park to see his panorama, then on exhibition, and on coming out saw this picture in a small side room.” When these two works were originally exhibited in Boston, they were offered to the Athenaeum for five hundred dollars each, and declined ; Durand afterwards purchased the Ariadne to engrave, for six hundred dollars ; and, after having it in his possession twenty years, sold it to Mr. Joseph Harrison, of Philadelphia, for five thousand dollars ; it is still a prominent ornament of that gentle- Vanderlyn. 129 man’s fine collection ; while the Marius is now in San Francisco, in the possession of Bishop Kip. Of this work Vanderlyn thus writes : “ The picture was painted in Rome, during the second year of my stay there, — 1807. Rome was well adapted for the painting of such a subjebt, abounding in classical ruins, of which I endeavored to avail myself, and I think it also furnishes better models and specimens of the human form and charabler than our own country, or even France or England. And it is much more free from the fashion and frivolities of life than most other places. The reception Marius met in Rome, when exhibited, from the artists there from various parts of Europe, was full as flattering to me as the award of the Napoleon gold medal which it received the next year in Paris. It gave me reputation there, and from an impartial source, mostly strangers to me. I had the pleasure of having Washington Allston for a neighbor in Rome, — an excellent friend and companion, whose encourag- ing counsels I found useful to me, as in all my embarrassments he readily sympathized with me. We were the only American students of art in Rome at that time, and regretted not to have had a few more, as was the case with those from most other countries. In a stroll on the Campagna, between Rome, Albano, and Frascati, in the month of May, in company with a couple of other students, one a Russian, we came upon the old ruins of Roma Vecchia, where a fox was started from its hiding-place ; and this was the cause of my introducing one in the distance of my pibture, — too trifling a fact, perhaps, to mention.” Bishop Kip has recently given to the public some interesting personal reminiscences of Vanderlyn.* Of the pibture of Marius he says : “ The work is intended to represent Marius, when, after his defeat by Sylla, and the desertion of his friends, he had taken refuge in Africa. He had just landed, when an officer came and thus addressed him : ‘ Marius, I come from the Praetor Sextilius, to tell you that he forbids you to set foot in Africa. If you obey not, he will support the Senate’s decree, and treat you as the public enemy.’ Marius, struck dumb with indignation on hearing this, uttered not a word for some time, but regarded the officer with a menacing aspebt. At length, being asked what answer should be carried to the governor, ‘ Go and tell him,’ said he, ‘that thou hast seen Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage.’ Thus, in the happiest manner, he held up the fate of that city and his own as a warning to the Praetor. u He sits, after having delivered this answer, with his toga just falling off his shoulders, and leaning on his short Roman sword. His helmet is at his feet ; the ruins of Rome’s old rival are around him ; and at a distance, through the arches of the aquedubt, are seen the blue waters of the Medi- terranean. Under his left hand is the opening of one of those mighty sewers which now form the only remains of ancient Carthage, and at his right elbow is an overthrown Phoenician altar, on which we can trace the sculptured ram’s head and garlands. In the distance is a temple, with one * In the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1867. 9 130 American Artist Life : of its pillars fallen, while a fox is seen among the ruins in front of its portico. “ The figure of Marius was copied by Vanderlyn, in Rome, from one of the Pope’s guards, remarkable for his Herculean proportions, and the head was taken from a bust of Marius, bearing his name, which had been dug up in Italy. Any one familiar with the ruins in the south of Europe will at once recognize the composition of the different parts of the picture. The temple in the background is similar to the Parthenon at Athens ; the massive remains which tower over the head of Marius are like those of the villa of Hadrian, near Rome ; while the ruined aqueduct in the distance is copied from the Claudian aquedudt, which, with its broken arches, sweeps over the desolate Campagna, from the city to the distant Alban Hills.” Napoleon himself is s-aid to have been exceedingly struck with the grandeur of its design. He was anxious indeed to become the purchaser of the picture, and to have it placed permanently in the Louvre ; but Van- derlyn declined, as he wished to carry it to his own country. It is stated that the Emperor passed through the gallery, accompanied by the Baron Denon and his artistic staff, and inspected all the pictures. Then he walked quickly back to the “ Marius,” and bringing down his forefinger, as he pointed to it, said, in his usual rapid way, “Give the medal to that ! ” Twice the poor and proud artist was forced to pawn this trophy of his early success. “ My father,” says the same writer, “accidentally discovered that the Napoleon gold medal was pawned in New York for thirty dollars, and redeemed it. After keeping it some time, he returned it to Vanderlyn.” The Napoleon medals, executed under the direction of the Baron Denon, were celebrated in Europe. This one was the medal always used by the Emperor for rewarding civil services. On one side was a splendid head of Napoleon, and on the other a wreath of laurel, within which was the vacant space for engraving the name of the recipient, and the reason of the award. Vanderlyn’s medal had engraved on it, — Exposition au Salon de 1808. John Vanderlyn Peintre. Subsequently, when Bishop Kip was in Europe, he suspedted Vanderlyn had again parted with the medal, and seeking him at the Louvre, a long dialogue ensued, during which the artist, who was morbidly irate from temperament and repeated disappointments, attempted to evade a diredt reply to his friendly inquirer, but at length he said: “ The truth is, sir, that, being in want of funds, I was obliged to place it Vanderlyn. 1 3 1 in the hands of a friend. I shall keep the medal as long as I live, and then I don’t care what becomes of it.’’ Again the son took the medal out of pawn in Paris as his father had in New York. “ A few months afterwards,” he writes, “ Crawford, the sculptor, sent to me, in the name of a number of artists, to inquire whether they could redeem the medal, which they wished to present as a compliment to Van- derlyn. I declined, for it was the second time it had been in the posses- sion of my family, and, if returned to Vanderlyn, it would probably soon again pass out of his hands.” Having thus painted two great pictures in the prime of youthful zeal and strength, Vanderlyn’s first success made him intent only on great commissions, and, not obtaining these, he tried every expedient for sub- sistence and fortune, except methodical painting : panoramas, rotunda galleries, and occasional portraits were but precarious resources ; his likenesses were unequal, and slowly achieved. He also made several copies, — one of Stuart’s Washington, now in the United States House of Representatives ; and his copy of the Demoniac Boy in the “Transfigura- tion” of Raphael, is in the possession of James Lenox, Esq., of New York. His portrait of Governor Yates, and of Presidents Jackson, Monroe, and Taylor, and of Mayor Hone, are in the Governor’s room of the New York City Hall; that of D. B. Warden in the State Library at Albany. Contrasted with these casual performances his early prestige must have excited discouraging moods. In a letter from Paris, dated November, 1843, after alluding to the death of Allston, he says : “ When I look back, some five or six and thirty years since, when we were both in Rome together, and next door neighbors on the Trinita del Monte, and in the spring of life, full of enthusiasm for our art, and fancy- ing fair prospers awaiting us, in after years, it is painful to refleCt how far these hopes have been from being realized.” It is a striking coincidence, that among those who first appreciated his talents, and encouraged their development, were two individuals, remem- bered for very different qualities, but alike in possessing the insight and the sympathy which readily makes fellowship with genius, — the author of Hasty Pudding and the Columbiad, and the subtle lawyer and ambitious politi- cian, — Joel Barlow and Aaron Burr. Many years of Vanderlyn’s life were passed abroad. Paris was his favorite residence ; and his last work was there executed for one of the panels of the Capitol. It represents the “ Landing of Columbus,” and though excellent in parts, is a respectable, rather than a great picture. One of the many causes which rendered Vanderlyn morose in his later years, was the rumor that the reputed painter of two very fine and a great number of mediocre pictures, must have been aided in the execution of the tormer : and it is somewhat curious that Bishop Kip accounts for the inferiority of the “ Landing of Columbus,” by a like hypothesis : “ In 1844,” he observes, “ I was in Paris, and inquiring about the 132 American Artist Life. picture, found that it was advancing under the hand of a clever French artist whom Vanderlyn had employed. Of course, the conception and de- sign were his own, but I believe little of the actual work. In fact, no one familiar with Vanderlyn’s early style could ever imagine the ‘ Columbus’ to be his. Place it by the side of the ‘ Marius,’ and you see that they are evidently executed by different artists. The ‘ Marius’ has the dark, severe tone of the old masters ; the ‘ Landing of Columbus’ is a flashy modern French painting.” One reason, however, of the limited number of this artist’s works may be found in the faCt that much of his time was given to artistic enterprises wherein executive, rather than professional ability, was enlisted ; and ano- ther reason is, that he worked with extraordinary deliberation : on this sub- ject we are indebted to the^same interesting reminiscent sketch from which we have already quoted, for the following illustration : “ Vanderlyn painted very slowly and elaborately, as I know to my cost. Believing that Burr’s estimate of him was correct, and that he was our ablest American artist, I had always been very desirous to have him paint the portraits of my father and mother. In 1833, accidentally meeting him in New York, I proposed to him to undertake the work ; but he declined, alleging that he had no studio. I found him living at an obscure French boarding-house in Church street, and I proposed to him to come to my father’s house and use the library as a studio. So he came, blocked up the windows, except a square place in the top of one of them, and began his pictures. It was in the autumn when he commenced, and the winter was nearly over when he finished. I wanted to use the library for my studies, and tired enough I was at the long exclusion. My mother sat for a couple of hours in the morning, and my father in the afternoon, and each of them had about sixty sittings. In this way the whole winter was spent. He made fine pictures, of course, but the victimized sitters felt that the cost was too great.” There is what may be called a physiognomy in cities. Viewed from an eminence, the manner in which the houses cluster, and the streets diverge, the architecture of the towers which rise above the dense and monotonous buildings, the kind of country which surrounds, and sky which canopies the scene, are so many distinctive features which mark the picture. It is a pleasant thing to note observantly renowned sites in this expansive way. By so doing the memory is stored with impressive images, and possessed with what may be called the natural language of an interesting locality. In looking, for instance, from the top of the Capitol upon Rome, the time-worn monuments immediately below, and the range of broken aqueducts span- ning the far Campagna, instantly revive the associations of ancient Rome ; the lines of cypresses and firs that spring at intervals from palace and con- vent gardens, awaken Christian memories ; while the adjacent domes and houses assure the spectator that he is surrounded by modern civilization. Thus simultaneously he realizes the poetry of the scene, which, explored in detail, yielded food for curiosity, rather than sublime emotion. The Vandcrlyn. 133 prospect from the campanile of Venice also brings into effective contrast, the sea espoused in the clay of her prosperity, and associated with all her glory, the radiant heavens and transparent atmosphere which taught Vero- nese and Titiam the mysteries of color, and the oriental style of architec- ture, the most expressive trophy of her eastern triumphs. The verdant hills which embosom Florence, and the boundless plains which stretch in all directions around Milan, as seen from the cathedral, are features which eloquently illustrate the history of each, and whether alive with soldiery to the imagination, or green with luxuriant vegetation to the eye, are requisite to fill out the landscape for both. These scenic enjoyments have been widely disseminated by modern art, and panoramas of the famous cities and scenery of the world render them familiar to un travelled multitudes. The accuracy and illusions of these experiments are sometimes marvellous. We remember, several years since, at Paris, to have gazed upon a panorama of the Alps, for a long time, beneath which some goats were browsing on the line, as it were, of the rich valley over which the mountain pinnacles towered in the most perfect aerial perspective— in the vain attempt to distinguish the point of separation between the real and the portrayed. As exhibition works, panoramas are very desirable. They afford satisfactory though general ideas, gratify intelligent curiosity, and appeal most vividly to the imagina- tion. It is not surprising that those of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, attracted such crowds both here and abroad. When artistically designed, they are invaluable aids to the student of geography, and a source of infinite delight to the enthusiast for hallowed regions, which it is not in his power to visit. After having received the Napoleon gold medal for his Marius, at Paris, Vanderlyn conceived the idea of availing himself of the existent taste for panoramic exhibitions, by executing one on a grand scale, of the celebrated residence of the French Kings. He accordingly employed several months at Versailles in preparing the necessary sketches, and after the peace of 1815, returned with them to America. The result was satisfactory to such a degree, that he formed a projeCt for an institution in .New York, devoted to this and similar objeCts ; and views of Paris, Athens, Mexico, and Geneva, as well as three modern battle-pieces, were successively exhibited at the Rotunda, a building which the artist ereCted in conjunction with the city government. Like most alliances between men of totally diverse aims and feelings — this partnership was disastrous, especially as regards the artist ; who lived to see the structure he had dedicated to the fine arts, transformed into a criminal court. It would be a needless exercise of patience to enumerate the series of mortifying controversies and pecuniary troubles growing out of this unfortunate enterprise. Devoted to his art, and full of the sympa- thies inspired by the recognition he had enjoyed in Europe, the painter of Marius and Ariadne was made to realize in a painful manner, the antago- nism between an essentially practical community and the spirit of trade, and artistic enthusiasm. “A sense of impossibility quenches all will,” 134 American Artist Life. says an acute writer. Vanderlyn does not seem to have been fully aware, until sad experience forced the conviction upon his mind, that the stage of civilization, the history of the republic, and inevitable circumstances rendered it quite impossible for the cause of Art to find its just position, and the practical acknowledgment of its claims, at the period when he urged them upon his fellow-citizens. Utility, the basis of national growth, still demanded an exclusive regard ; the time had scarcely arrived when the superstructure of the beautiful could be reared. Meantime, the po- litical advantages, mechanical genius, and commercial activity of the United States were the source of universal wonder and congratulation. Yet we can easily forgive the ardent votary of a noble art, after successful competition for its highest foreign honors, for yielding to a feeling of disappointment, bitter in ‘proportion to his natural sensitiveness, at the indifference and calculation against which he so vainly strove in the land of his nativity. This distrust was increased by the charge of indelicacy somewhat grossly urged against his works, by ignorant prudery, which, destitute of the soul to perceive the essential beauty of the creator’s masterpieces, has yet the hardihood to impugn the motives of genius, and desecrate by vulgar comments, the most beautiful evidences of its truth. One who knew Vanderlyn in his latter days, has thus recorded their melancholy close : “ Alternately engaged in portrait-painting at Washington and visiting the scenes of his native place, one pleasant morning in the autumn of 1852, on his way from Rondout to Kingston, Vanderlyn fell in with a friend, and craved a shilling to pay for the transport of his baggage from the steamboat to the town. He was ill, and, on reaching the hotel, retired at once. His friend meanwhile, to whom was thus accidentally revealed the artist’s destitute condition, went about the neighborhood, to collect the means for his present relief. Vanderlyn requested to be left alone ; and, the ensuing morning, was found dead in bed, in a low room that looked out into a stable-yard, without even a curtain to shield his dying eyes from the sunlight. His left hand seemed as if grasping his palette, and a look of calm, heroic submission upon his face told how grandly he had passed. Upon the level plateau which crowns the eastern slope of the valley, they have laid out a cemetery, in all the hardness and stiffness of which angles are capable, underneath the low pines which grow as thick as canes in a brake. Here Vanderlyn lies buried, with nothing but the swelling sod which covers his breast to mark his grave. He sleeps in the arms of that sweet refuge, which follows the flying hopes of youth, the scattered long- ings of ambition, and the broken promises of fame.”* At a later period another thus speaks of a visit to his grave : “ The writer yesterday stood beside the grave of Vanderlyn, the artist. He is buried near the southern extremity of the beautiful village of the dead, called ‘ Wiltwyck Cemetery,’ at Kingston, N. Y. There is no stone, * Letter in the “ Crayon.” Vanderlyn. 135 nor even mound, to mark the spot : only a few vines twining and inter- twining, like the network of the life that was, but which now is for ever ended. Patches of snow lay on the ground, and the trees still stood dis- robed, save where, here and there, on the compact foliage of the cedars, the snow clung, making them seem like those twilight spectres which, in the old Norse legends, were said to haunt ruins.” As if to complete the melancholy coincidences of his destiny — the record of Vanderlyn’s experience, which would have explained and perhaps greatly excused his waywardness, and afforded a unique illustration of American artist-life, was lost. During his later years he freely and frankly communicated the fa<5ts of his life, in detail, to a friend, who kept careful notes of their conversations. After the artist’s death, this interest- ing MS. was sent to a New York publishing- house, whose edifice was soon after destroyed by fire, and among other works that perished, was this authentic biography of Vanderlyn. A L L S T O N. HE true significance of Painting is one of the most pleasing discoveries which an American of sensibility and good powers of observation, makes when sojourning in one of the old cities of Europe. He may have enjoyed pictures casually at home, and perhaps acquainted himself with the traits and the triumphs of eminent artists and schools ; but it is only when he grows familiar with the best collections, the permanent galleries abroad, that he distinctly feels what scope and interest belongs to piCtorial art as a specific development of humanity — an illustration of his- tory — a record of faith : at Rome and Madrid, Paris and Florence, it is upon canvas that he reads the most vivid ideas, sentiments, and skill of bygone generations. Art comes home to his perceptions as a language wherein is expressed the love of beauty, the struggle with fate, the power, puerility, hope, fear, trust, and triumph of his race. Reason as he may subsequently of the comparative merits of the “ old masters,” modified as may become his taste by the study of recent painters, — this impression remains, — that the executive perfection, the characteristic style, and the beautiful earnestness of pictorial art, three hundred years ago, was and is one of the most remarkable aesthetic phenomena, as well as one of the most interesting historical faCts in human history. A “ Painter ” in the fifteenth century meant something more than a clever draughtsman, an apt imitator, or a pleasant diletante : the vocation was intimately allied with Religion, with Government, and with Society in the highest phase and form. It was pursued with a zeal, honored with a consideration, and illustrated by a class of men, which, apart from its trophies, indicates that no profession achieved nobler estimation or influence. The lives and works of its vota- ries suggest a not less remarkable individuality and elevation : the biogra- phy of no Prince or Pope, Warrior or Poet conveys the idea of more seleCt intelligence or concentrated and consecrated feeling, thought, life, and renown, than that of the greatest of the “old masters.” That title pre- supposes not only a remarkable facility and power in the technicalities of art, but certain rich and rare endowments ; — poetical sympathies, philo- sophical insight, redtitude, aspiration, a hearty courtesy, faith in God and immortality, self-devotion, self-reliance, self-respect— graces and gran- Alls ton. 137 deur of soul. Not that the painter then, any more than now, was free from human error, nor that his record is devoid of low and cruel traits — jealousy, sensuality, and egotistic hardihood ; but, at the period when painting achieved its highest results, the ideal of the painter’s character was venerable, tender, exalted ; and the very names of Michel Angelo, Raphael, and Correggio are fragrant with the best gifts and graces of humanity : of which the grand and beautiful elements of their pictures were the legitimate offspring and evidence. To draw accurately and give expression — individual and absolute, through lines, contours, and light and shade, and to enhance such effects by that wonderful faculty called “a feeling for color ” — were but the artistic equipment ; the soul, the mind, the life irradiated and hallowed the fruits thereof, and make it to-day mar- vellous, dear, and sacred. It is a singular fact that the man among. modern painters, who, in tone of mind, spiritual sympathies, in scope, aptitude, habits of life, literary and social tastes, in character, artistic achievement, and even personal appear- ance, most nearly resembled our ideal of an old master, was born and bred in the New World, and developed, as it were intuitively, these tendencies and traits : the best evidence of this curious and interesting exception to a general rule, is, of course, to be found in his pictures ; but every anecdote, recorded conversation, personal reminiscence, and authentic portrait, every letter, sketch, and casual impression, of Washington Allston coincides with and confirms the testimony of his art. His gifted kinsman,* not less allied by intelledtual and moral ties than by relationship, who alone has the materials and the authority to fully describe and illustrate the career of our great painter — has postponed indefinitely his delicate and dutiful task : let us, at least, gather up the patent fadts, and glance at the high and pure significance of a life “to all the Muses dear.” Since the taste in pidtorial art has been so essentially modified by the triumphs of the modern school, a certain class of critics have denied the claims of Allston to the high rank and influence so ardently accorded him by cotemporary admirers : they declare his power of expression limited, accuse him of objedtionable mannerism, and indicate technical defedts in special works. But such critics are but partially acquainted with what Allston really accomplished, and apparently know nothing of the personal influence, the lofty aims, and the English reputation he en- joyed. That his place in the history of American art is one of singular honor and interest, and his career and charadter invested with a perma- nent charm to every lover of truth and beauty, is apparent to all candid inquirers. William Ware, whose “Zenobia,” “Probus,” and “Aurelian,” so well attest his classic knowledge, as well as his artistic sympathies, found in Allston a congenial subjedt for aesthetic discourse ; f and a lady accom- * R. H. Dana, Sen. t Lectures on the Works and Genius of Washington Allston. Boston : Ware, 1852. 138 American Artist Life. plished in the practice, as well as the study of art, thus indicates his mode of painting : “ The method of this artist was to suppress all the coarser beauties which make up the substance of common pictures. He was the least ad captan- dum of workers. He avoided bright eyes, curls, and contours, glancing lights, strong contrasts, and colors too crude for harmony. He reduced his beauty to elements, so that an inner beauty might play through her features. Like the Catholic discipline which pales the face of the novice with vigils, seclusion, and fasting, and thus makes room and clears the way for the movements of the spirit, so in these figures every vulgar grace is suppressed. No classic contours, no languishing attitudes, no asking for admiration, — but a severe and chaste restraint, a modest sweetness, a slumbering intellectual atmosphere, a graceful self-possession, eyes so sin- cere and pure that heaven’s light shines through them, and, beyond all, a hovering spiritual life that makes each form a presence.” * Washington Allstonf was born at Waccamaw, S. C., on the plantation of his father, Nov. 5, 1779, an d died at Cambridge, Mass., July 9, 1843. His temperament was highly nervous, his mind quick and aCtive, and his sensibility acute. As is usual under such conditions, his health was deli- cate, and it became evident in his youth that a more bracing climate than that of his native state was essential to his harmonious physical develop- ment, while a greater variety and scope than are afforded by the life of an isolated plantation, were requisite to inform and discipline his intellect. Physician and teacher thus united in advising the removal of the gifted boy to a northern school ; and the exigency proved auspicious to the future ar- tist, by introducing him to scenes and influences which gave new vigor to his frame, and impulse to his genius. At that period there was no town in New England that boasted a more cultivated and wealthy community than Newport, R. I. Trade had enriched many of its resident merchants. Dr. Waterhouse cites its laboratories as the best in the country; a tolerant spirit among the rival seCts, frequent intercourse with foreigners, and habits of colonial elegance and hospitality, combined to give a liberal spirit and attractive manner to the social life of this favorite rendezvous of our French allies during the war of independence. Allston was sent there, primarily with a view to health, at the age of seven ; but he remained ten years, and attended a very excellent private school kept by Robert Rogers. Slight as was the taste and unfrequent the praCtice of art at that time among us, Newport enjoyed an unusual share of the few associations connected with a pursuit so interesting to the Carolina boy, whose school-days were passed there. The first English painter of note who visited our shores, had ac- companied Dean Berkeley in 1728 011 his voyage to Rhode Island ; and we have the artist’s record of a visit with his clerical friend, to the Indians of Narragansett ; where also Gilbert Stuart was born in 1 757, and owed his first * Sarah Clarke on Allston’s Heads, in the Atlantic Monthly. February, 1865. t A part of this sketch was contributed by the author to the New American Encyclopedia. Allston. 139 encouragement as a painter to the kindness of Newport friends. While Allston was a schoolboy there, a manufacturer of quadrants and compasses, by the name of King, who had received a partial artistic education, some- times painted a portrait ; he recognised young Allston’s genius, and did all in his power, by correcting his early attempts and suggesting the best me- thods, to develop the ability and cheer the hopes of the novice. Long after- wards his casual pupil spoke of him with gratitude : “ It was a pleasant thing to me,” he wrote, “ to remind the old man of those kindnesses.” A portrait of this venerable friend — probably one of the earliest experiments of Allston in oil — still exists at Newport ; the head is noble in contour, and the expres- sion benign ; a discriminating eye can only perceive distinct indications of that mellow tone and felicity in coloring which subsequently distinguished Allston’s pictures. In addition, however, to this imperfeCt and incidental tuition, gained only at the intervals usually dedicated by boys to amuse- ment, at the critical time when childhood began to merge in youth, a new impulse was given to his artist’s instinCt, by the magnetism of sympathy. He formed the acquaintance of Edward Malbone, also a native of Newport, whose remarkable promise as a miniature-painter, was united to personal qualities and intellectual tastes singularly akin to those of Allston. It is easy to imagine how such an example and companionship, at a susceptible age, and a period when it was so difficult to meet with congeniality in an uncommon vocation, must have confirmed and expanded the love and study of art, in a mind ostensibly engaged in academic education. The walks, discussions, criticisms of each other’s drawings, and, above all, the mutual enthusiasm of these youths, alike gifted, candid, and earnest, seem to have been of great mutual advantage, as well as the source of the most pure enjoyment. Although Malbone removed to Providence, R. I., soon after his acquaintance with Allston, their intercourse was resumed in a few months, when the painter was at work in Boston, and the student a colle- gian at Harvard. After graduating in the year 1800, Allston went to Char- leston, S. C., where he again met his friend, and fairly commenced his artist- life. While an undergraduate pursuing his studies at the university, All- ston not only enjoyed the society but emulated the artistic skill of this charming friend ; he was, however, dissatisfied with his own attempts on ivory and in miniature, and soon abandoned the experiment. His leisure was assiduously given to sketching, copying, drawing, and the investigation of color. With the comparative absence both of sympathy and example in art, it is interesting to inquire what means the future painter discovered, at this early stage of his education, to foster and discipline his genius. Art was then in its infancy among us — chiefly represented by the elaborate but artificial portraits of Copley, the historical groups of Trumbull, and the fame of West, then at the height of reputation and courtly favor in Eng- land ; Stuart’s vigorous pencil was only appreciated by the judicious few ; and the visits of Smibert, Pine, Wright, and others, had left a few notable memorials of their skill in likenesses ; C. W. Peale was a respedted name in the Middle States, and that of Bembridge well known at the South ; the 140 American Aitist Life. latter had studied under Mengs and Romney, and gave promise of excel- lence, but Allston did not remember his works sufficiently in after life, “ to speak of their merits.” Yet, with so few and scattered illustrations of paint- ing, he arrived at a marvellous degree of knowledge and practical ability in the higher elements of the art ; thus indicating a positive and mature genius, before he had actually embraced it as a profession. “ In the color- ing of figures,” he writes, “ the pictures of Pine in the Columbian Museum in Boston, were my first masters.” One of his first works, a portrait of him- self in early youth, presented by him to his excellent friend, the late Mrs. Nathaniel Amory, of Newport, exhibits a vigor and grace of treatment, a finish of style and transparency of tint, which bespeak the future master. His own account of his studies at Newport and Cambridge refers to a practice of drawing from* prints — figures, scenery, and animals ; after this imitative exercise in regard to form and perspective, instinctively adopted in boyhood, he tells us that the two pictures which initiated him into the mysteries and art of color were an old landscape, either Italian or Spanish, that hung in the house of a friend who resided near the university ; and a head of Cardinal Bentivoglio in the college library, copied by Smibert from Vandyke, “which,” he adds, “ I obtained permission to copy one winter’s vacation ; ” in color (alluding to his obligations to Pine) I had a higher master. These inadequate hints stimulated the intuitive perception of color in which Allston so early excelled. One of his favorite pastimes when a child at the South prophesied the artist, and especially the delight in blending and harmonizing effective tints ; he used to convert fern stalks into men and women, by arraying them in colored yarn and making them hold pitchers of pomegranate flowers. No sooner was his academic career over, thus beguiled by the companionship of Malbone, the old landscape of southern Europe, and the fine head after Vandyke, into inci- dental studies akin to his genius, than he went to Charleston, S. C., and, among kindred and early friends, found Malbone and Charles Frazer both occupied there in the same way ; and he set up forthwith what he quaintly calls a “picture manufactory.” In a short time, with the former friend, he embarked for London, to enlarge his knowledge by art-studies in Europe. “ Up to this time,” he remarks, “ my favorite subjects, with occasional comic intermissions, were banditti, and I did not get over the mania until I had been more than a year in England.” He alludes, with humorous zest, in the same letter, to his delight when he succeeded in making a gashed throat look real. The charm of such themes was their tragic character, and especially the accessories of dark woods, picturesque disguises, and terrible solitude ; we can trace in such experiments the effecl of that favorite landscape and impressive cardinal’s head, as well as the imaginative promptings of a poetic and wild instinCt. Arriving in London in 1801, Allston immediately became a student of the Royal Academy, in the presidency of which institution our countryman, Benja- min West, had just succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds. The integrity and Alls ton. 141 benevolence of West won the confidence of Allston ; they soon became intimate, and were attached friends through life. The uniform kindness of the venerable president to his young and gifted compatriot, was ever a subjedl of grateful remark and remembrance on the part of Allston. The latter’s cultivated mind, delightful conversation, and refined manners, would have insured him a welcome in the artistic and literary circles of London, independent of the prestige of his genius as a painter. But while enjoying the highest social privileges of the British metropolis, and a singular favorite with his professional brethren, he devoted his best time and powers to the study of his art. For three years he sought, in assiduous practice and observation, for those principles and that facility which subsequently raised him to the highest rank among modern painters. Among his memorable friends, at this epoch, were Dr. Moore, the author of “ Zeluco,” and Fuseli ; but his range of association included the best minds and noblest characters of the time ; and his reminiscences of men, artists, and life in London, were always vivid and full of interest. In spite of constant practice at the Academy, innumerable studies at home, and many social engagements, such was his zeal and industry, that the very next year after his arrival, he exhibited three pictures at Somer- set House — a landscape begun while in college, a rocky coast with banditti, and a comic piece. In 1804 he visited Paris, in company with another American painter, afterwards celebrated, John Vanderlyn. The Louvre then contained the chief treasures of art from all parts of the continent, and Allston enjoyed a rare opportunity to examine and compare the chefs-d'oeuvre of every school. His partiality for the Venetian in- stantly declared itself ; there was in his genius a natural affinity with those masters of color, his successful emulation of whom obtained for him, at a subsequent period, the name of the “American Titian.” In the contemplation of this unrivalled series of pictures, and in study, a few months were occupied, when he repaired to Italy, and passed four years, chiefly at Rome, in the sedulous cultivation of his art. Here he became the intimate companion of Thorwaldsen and Coleridge ; and the latter fondly remembered, to the last, his intellectual obligations to Allston. The results of this long communion with the old masters, and this famili- arity with nature in Italy, may be distinctly traced in his paintings and writings, and were most attractively exhibited in his conversation. Allston returned to his native country in 1809, after this fruitful visit to Great Britain, France, and southern Europe. Having married a sister of the celebrated Unitarian divine of Boston, Dr. Channing, he again took up his abode in London. Although on the occasion of his first visit there, Fuseli, upon learning his purpose to devote himself to historical painting, said, “You have come a great way to starve ; ” he finished and exhibited, on his return, the earliest work of the kind, on a large scale, “ The Dead Man Revived,” a scriptural theme which gave ample scope both to his imaginative and executive powers. It may be considered as at once the presage and the pledge of his subsequent reputation, having instantly 142 American Artist Life. obtained the prize from the British Institution, of two hundred guineas, and being soon after purchased by the Pennsylvania academy of fine arts. His next important work was “ St. Peter liberated by the Angel,” ordered by Sir George Beaumont, and now in the church of Ashby de la Zouch ; this was followed by “ Uriel in the Sun,” now belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, and for which the British Institution awarded him a gratuity of one hundred and fifty guineas ; and “Jacob’s Dream,” now in the col- lection of Lord Egremont at Petworth. The intervals between these achievements were occupied with smaller, but not less characteristic paint- ings, all of which found eager and liberal purchasers. Those cognizant of the conditions for the development of art, both* as an individual pursuit and a national interest, and especially those who were familiar with Alls- ton’s character and organization, find cause for deep regret that he did not remain abroad, and follow the impulse and the success which, at this time, crowned his life. The intelligent sympathy, the external resources, the public encouragement, and the fellowship of great artists, all so important as stimulants to effort and guides to excellence, were there available ; whereas, on this side of the water, comparative isolation and public in- difference awaited our great painter. The contrast must have been unpro- pitious and discouraging ; and, when added to the want of health and habits of seclusion, undoubtedly lessened the zeal and limited the works of the only man in the country who gave undisputed evidence of genius in the highest sphere of painting, united to a discipline and finished style, which announced another “ old master,” as native of the western hemi- sphere. Unremitted toil, acquiescence in the English custom of late dinner, and thus many consecutive hours of work and fasting, together with a period of deep affliction on account of the death of his wife, combined to undermine the delicate constitution of this great artist, at this period of his most genial activity and eminent success. He re- turned home in 1 8 1 8 in feeble health, and with but one finished picture — “ Elijah in the Wilderness,” subsequently purchased and taken to Eng- land by the Hon. Mr. Labouchere. During the succeeding twelve years Allston resided in Boston ; but his name and works were cherished in his ancestral land, and, soon after his return, he received the compliment of an election to the Royal Academy. Among the productions of this period, interrupted as were his labors by inadequate health, the most celebrated are “ The Prophet Jeremiah,” originally belonging to Miss Gibbs, of New- port, and now at Yale College. “ Facing Washington, on the opposite wall,” says a recent critic, “is Allston’s ‘Jeremiah,’ recently purchased at a cost of $7,000, and presented to the Art Hall by Professor Morse. With a repu- tation as the greatest work of Allston, endorsed by so competent a judge as Professor Morse, it shows a sad want of artistic taste to confess that a first glance at the lamenting prophet suggests the idea of an astonished black- smith, surprised by the explosion of a petard in his smithy. But an examina- tion, even by an uneducated eye, discloses the great power of the artist in expressing the intense absorption of the prophet’s intellectual faculties in Allston. 143 the wonderful revelations presented to him. The other beauties of the painting disclose themselves the more closely it is studied, until it vindi- cates its claim to a high position as a work of art.” “ Saul and the Witch of Endor,” was purchased by the late Col. T. H. Perkins, of Boston ; and “ Miriam Singing the Song of Triumph,” is owned by Hon. David Sears, of the same city. Of minor works, the most memorable are “ Dante’s Beatrice,” and “ The Valentine,” female ideal portraits which exquisitely illustrate Allston’s extraordinary gifts as a colorist and in poetic expres- sion ; the former was the property of the late Hon. S. A. Eliot, and the latter belongs to George Ticknor, Esq., of Boston. A Mother and Child he would not have it called. “ Madonna” belongs to Mr. McMurtrie, of Philadelphia. In 1830 Allston married, for his second wife, a daughter of the late Chief-Justice Dana, of Cambridge, Mass. He there fixed his studio, and thenceforth led a life of great seclusion, enjoying the society of a few intimate friends and kindred, always receiving with cordiality visitors of his own profession and enlightened lovers of art, but avoiding, as far as practicable, the hospitalities of the neighboring city, and the encroachments of general intercourse. In the spirit of a true artist, modified by the habits of an invalid, he secluded himself from the world, to give his better moments to painting, and his leisure to contemplation. At this time many of his best, though less extensive pictures were exe- cuted, such as “ Spalatro’s Vision of the Bloody Hand,” painted for Mr. Ball, of South Carolina, and the beautiful “ Rosalie,” which belonged to the late Hon. Nathan Appleton, of Boston. The former picture illustrates one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s memorable scenes of superstitious terror. Schedoni, a monk, engages a fisherman — Spala- tro, a man of many crimes — to murder Ellena, the heroine of “The Ita- lian.” His courage fails him as the time draws near, and remorse for his previous villanies so overwhelms him that he refuses, at the last moment, to do the work of assassination — which the monk, after taunting him with cowardice, undertakes himself. Suspicious dread seizes on Spalatro as they hasten through the lonely and dim corridors. He suddenly seizes Schedoni’s arm, and starts back in terror, fancying he sees a bloody hand beckoning him on ! The monk in vain endeavors to reassure him, say- ing “This is very frenzy ; arouse yourself, and be a man.” “Would it were ! ” replies Spalatro, “ I see it now : it is there again ! ” This is the moment seized by the painter ; the tall, bald, stern monk — the dreary cor- ridor — the dilated eyes and horror-struck attitude of the remorseful and frightened wretch, are delineated with a dramatic truth, power, and indivi- duality, and a mellow, chiaro-scuro effeCt of light, shade, and color, which no artist can fail to admire, and no observer of sensibility witness, without a profound impression. The original owner of this picture was obliged by the exigencies incident to the war for the Union, to offer it for sale, and it is now in the collection of J. Taylor Johnston, of New York. Twenty plates, the largest about twenty inches by thirty, of outlines by 1 44 American Artist Life . Allston, were published a few years ago ; they were selected from com- positions hastily sketched in chalk, and outlines in amber. Their merits have been thus critically stated : “ They display a profound knowledge of the human form, with the power of artistically idealizing it ; they also ex- press refined ideas of beauty, grace, sublimity, and its youngest brother — romance ; above all, they exhibit that purity as well as loftiness of soul which belong to the highest department of art.” There is a picture of Allston in the possession of Col. Drayton’s family ; and a fine portrait of Benjamin West by him in the Boston Athenaeum. Congress, in 1836, invited him to fill one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol with an historical picture ; but his mind was now intent upon an extensive project, conceived and partially commenced in London, and he declined the national commission. The retired life, extensive fame, and recognized genius of Allston, united to raise the public anticipa- tions in regard to this promised work to the highest degree. The subject was u Belshazzar’s Feast ; ” and those acquainted with the painter’s taste and skill, his power of high and broad conception, his mastery of form and color, and his sense of moral grandeur and historical effects, at once beheld in the subject the most desirable scope and inspiration. A few of his friends had caught glimpses of a figure or an effeCt of light on the carefully-hidden canvas ; some had stood as models, and others had heard an eloquent exposition of the design from the lips of the artist ; the result was to awaken unreasonable expectation, and for years Allston’s “great picture” was one of the most interesting triumphs of American art, to which the future was destined to give birth. Meantime, although some progress had been made during the painter’s twelve years’ residence in Boston, the want of a proper studio caused the work to be laid aside ; and, when resumed at Cambridge, various circumstances were unpropi- tious — among them, pecuniary embarrassment (which had led at one time to the confiscation of the unfinished work) — the necessity of more lucra- tive employment, discouragement from the want of adequate models, fre- quent indisposition, change of plan, and dissatisfaction with what had been already achieved. It was perhaps too extensive an enterprise for the means and the strength of the artist, situated as he then was, and was therefore from time to time postponed ; doubtless the impatient and extravagant views of the public, as well as the painful associations con- nected with the work from the cause already mentioned, tended still more to retard the prosecution of his elaborate task. In its unfinished state, however, as left at his death, it is no inadequate memorial, to a discrimi- nating eye, of the genius of the great painter ; a sublime significance and a grandeur of design, as well as a splendid arrangement of light and color, foretell a wonderful picture ; and the noble piclorial fragment is the delight of artists. It is now the property of the Boston Athenaeum. His original view of the subjecl and his own design may be gathered from a letter he addressed to his friend, Washington Irving, on hearing of that Allston. 145 gentleman’s sudden resolution to embark for America. It is dated Lon- O don, May 9, 1817, and speaking of the plans upon which he had hoped to consult him, he says : “ One of these subjects (and the most important) is the large picture — the prophet Daniel interpreting the handwriting on the wall before Belshazzar. I have made a highly finished sketch of it. I think the composition the best I ever made. It contains a multitude of figures, and (if I may be allowed to say so) they are without confusion. Don’t you think it a fine subjedt ? I know not any that so happily unites the magnificent and the awful. A mighty sovereign, surrounded by his whole court, intoxicated with his own state, in the midst of his revelry, palsied in a moment, under the spell of a preternatural hand suddenly tracing his doom on the wall before him ; his powerless limbs, like a wounded spider’s, shrunk up to his body, while his heart, compressed to a point, is only kept from vanishing by the terrific suspense that animates it during the interpretation of his mysterious sentence. His less guilty but scarcely less agitated queen, the panic-struck courtiers and concu- bines, the splendid and deserted banquet table, the half arrogant, half astounded magicians, the holy vessels of the temple (shining as it were in triumph through the gloom), and the calm, solemn contrast of the prophet, standing, like an animated pillar, in the midst, breathing forth the oracu- lar destruction of the empire ! ” Allston was, at length — nearly forty years after this was written — advancing in this long-neglebted work, and, though physically no longer vigorous, as strong in intellectual force and elevated sentiment as in his youth and prime, — when his masterly hand was for ever stilled, and his eloquent speech for ever silenced. About mid- night, on a Saturday, after a week of steady labor on “ Belshazzar’s Feast,” having passed the evening with his family in thoughtful but pleasant dis- course, he suddenly but gently expired, from a renewed attack of disease of the heart, to which he had been for some time liable. He was in the 64th year of his age. Flis appearance was unchanged by death; his burial took place by torch-light ; and thus closed in tranquil beauty and wise self-possession of his transcendent faculties, the artist-life and the earthly being of Washington Allston. The literary claims of Allston have been thrown into the shade by the consideration of his artistic fame. He exhibited, however, a versatility, invention, and expressive power in language, quite as individual as that he so nobly manifested in lines and hues. With remarkable fluency, vivid imagination, and intense love of beauty and truth, he had also a peculiar sense of the awful and sublime, and a decided analytical perception. Accordingly, in the few of his writings which have been published, these essential gifts of authorship proclaim him capable of works of the pen not less effective than those he achieved with the pencil. But it was only to beguile a leisure hour, to gratify the demands of friendship, or give play to an importunate fancy, that he wrote. In 1813, during his second residence in London, he published “ The Sylphs of the Season,” a poem in which are pictured, with minute felicity, the natural phases of spring, summer, 10 146 American Artist Life. autumn, and winter, with especial reference to their respective influence on the mind. The poem evinces the most loving observation of nature, and introspective habits of mind. Several minor poems and occasional verses are distinguished for originality of idea and beauty of execution. “ The Two Painters ” is an excellent metrical satire, and the “ Paint- Kins:” weird and imaginative enough to have proceeded from the most fanciful of Ger- man bards. In 1821, when his brother-in-law, Richard H. Dana, was engaged in the publication of a serial work of eminent interest, “ The Idle Man,” Allston wrote for it an Italian romance. The periodical was sus- pended, and the tale not published until twenty years later. In “Monaldi,” his experience in Rome is vividly and gracefully embodied, as accessory to a tragic story of passion, interspersed with the most wise and beautiful comments on art and nature. The style, conception, and philosophic in- sight exhibited in this tale, its power as an exposition of the passions — especially of love and jealousy, and its grace as a narrative, indicate great constructive talent and literary aptitude. He prepared a course of lectures on Art, which were never delivered, but published after his death ; they prove the ardor of his devotion to painting, and the deep intelligence of one who had studied for himself the philosophy, history, and science of his profession. Indeed, the writings and paintings of Allston exquisitely illustrate each other. By their mutual contemplation we perceive the individuality of the artist, and the pure spirit of the man ; and realize that unity whereby the genius harmonizes all expression to a common and universal principle, making form and color, words and rhyme, express vividly and truly what exists in the artist’s nature. “ Rosalie,” for instance, the poem, is the reflection of “Rosalie,” the picture; and his letter describing a view among the Alps breathes the identical feeling that pervades his landscape depicting the scene. Such pictures of this great master as could be obtained on this side of the Atlantic, were collected for exhibition at Boston in the spring of 1839; and, although his largest and most celebrated works were not included, the variety, originality, artistic finish, and beauty — the mature skill and refined genius manifest in this gallery, made a deep and delightful impression upon all spectators versed in art, or endowed with a sense of the beautiful. The paintings numbered forty-two ; and they represented every department of pictorial art, and every excellence for which her most gifted votaries have been celebrated. The exhibition, limited as it unavoidably was, proved an epoch in the history of Art in the United States ; it illustrated the genius of a native painter by the most perfect productions ; nothing crude, un- skilful, insignificant, disturbed the harmony of the scene ; it was difficult for the visitor, acquainted with foreign galleries, to believe that he stood in the midst of American works on American soil, for, on all sides, he beheld the evidences of a master hand and an individual mind, worthy to take their permanent place by the side of works long since stamped with universal love and praise. The first impression conveyed by the Allston Gallery was that of the versatile range of the artist’s conceptions ; the next, Alls ton. 147 that of the individuality of his genius. We turned from the impressive figure of the “Reviving Dead,” slowly renewing vitality at the touch of the prophet’s bones, to the pensive beauty of “ Beatrice,” ineffably lovely and sad; the countenance of “ Rosalie ” seemed kindled like that of the maiden described by Wordsworth, as if music “born of murmuring sound had passed into her face ; ” aerial in her movement, and embodied grace in her attitude and drapery, “ Miriam ” sounded the timbrel ; the very foot of the scribe appeared to listen to Jeremiah — stern, venerable, and prophetic ; keenly glittered the Alpine summits, and sweetly fell the moonbeams, and darkly rose the forests in the landscapes, as if glimpses of real nature, in- stead of their reflex, made alive the canvas ; full of character and dignity were the portraits ; magnificent old Jews’ heads, and exquisite brows of maidens, and imposing forms of prophets, and marvellous light and shade, deep, lucent, mellow hues — all flitted before the senses of the visitor, while each picture formed an inexhaustible object of contemplation, and became a permanently beautiful and impressive reminiscence. A remarkable trait in the genius of Allston was his sensibility to the awful, the mysterious, and the grand. As a boy he tells us, “ I delighted in being terrified by the tales of witches and hags, which the negroes used to tell me.” This characteristic, in its more elevated affinities, drew him into the sphere of the spiritual, and was exhibited in a profound religious sensibility and faith, and an exaltation of mind and motive which excited the deepest veneration : in its more casual tendency, it made him alive to the super- natural, fond of speculating on the mysteries of life and the soul, and an eager recipient of tales of superstition and wonder. In this we recognize an element of the sublime. Allston indicated its prevalence in his fond- ness for such themes of art as “A Forest with Banditti,” “ The Witch of Endor,” “ The Dead Man Restored.” “ Spalatro’s Vision of the Bloody Hand,” and “Belshazzar’s Feast.” He has worked out a like vein in the description of the mysterious picture in “ Monaldi ; ” and he always excelled as a relator of ghost-stories. Incidental to this idiosyncrasy, was his deep sense of the principle of conscience in humanity, shadowed forth in more than one of his artistic conceptions. FI is own moral sensibility was extreme. Indeed, want of self-satisfaftion was a primary cause of the frequent interruption of his labors ; his ideal in art and in life was exalted, and he would have painted and written more had he been less self-exadt- ing. No painter ever cherished a more elevated view of the ministry and legitimate aims of his profession. On one occasion, when crippled in resources in London, having sold a picture for a considerable sum, as he sat alone at evening, the idea occurred to him that the subjedt, to a per- verted taste and prurient imagination, might have an immoral effect ; he instantly returned the money, and regained and destroyed the painting. He used to relate, with much solemnity, that, on one occasion of keen deprivation and discouragement, his prayer was answered as soon as uttered. But, perhaps, his convictions and sympathies in regard to Art were best exhibited, indiredtly, in his judgment of pictures, and in his 148 American Artist Life. relations to artists. He was a magnanimous critic, and a disinterested friend. His taste was comprehensive and catholic, recognizing every phase of merit and modification of genius, however diverse from his own. His letters and conversation evinced a remarkably appreciative mind. He called himself “ a wide liker” ; and proved himself such by the dis- crimination and geniality with which he pointed out and advocated the slightest token of excellence in pictures, books, and character. Perhaps it was this enlightened sympathy that drew so constantly to him artists and art-students of every age and degree of culture ; for the humblest he had a cheering word, or an invaluable counsel ; and the number who date their improvement or aspirations from an interview with Allston, vindicate his claim to be regarded literally, as they affectionately called him, “the Master,” in all the old genuine and personal significance of that title : many a youthful votary of sculpture and painting can echo the words of Horatio Greenough, in speaking of Allston, “ He was a father to me in what concerned my progress of every kind.” Besides the portrait by himself, in youth, to which we have alluded, there is an excellent bust of Allston, by Clevenger, from life ; another, taken after death, by Brackett ; a head, modelled by Paul Duggan for a medal struck by the American Art-Union, in 1847, and a portrait by Leslie, presented to the N. Y. Academy of Design, by Morse. The temperament of Allston was preeminently that of a man of genius ; it was highly nervous ; a fine fibrous texture made his frame elastic and susceptible, quick to receive and transmit impressions. To every aspedl of the beautiful he was keenly alive ; no effedl of nature, expression, and especially of color, escaped him. In the latter his endowment was most remarkable. Leslie compares the harmony of tint in “ Uriel seated in the Sun ” to the best pictures of Paul Veronese ; we have seen that in Rome he was called the American Titian ; and there is a mellow, rich, vital, and sometimes ineffable hue in his pictures unrivalled since the days of the old masters. But it was not mere negative or receptive traits which dis- tinguished Allston ; he was earnest, often to religious concentration, in his convictions and his tone of feeling. A man thus gifted and sensitive, thus noble and fluent, naturally attracted the most select companionship, and won the most sympathetic admiration. Accordingly we find that, notwithstanding his habits of intense application in Europe, and of invalid retirement in America, he was sought for, loved, and revered by the choicest men and women of his time. In youth, the chosen friend of the gentle and graceful painter, Malbone ; on first going abroad, the favorite companion of the best London artists and the most intelligent English noblemen ; in Rome, exploring the Campagna with Irving, and talking of the mysterious and the beautiful with Coleridge ; at his modest abode in Cambridge, discussing subjects for a picture with Lord Morpeth, or a principle of art with Mrs. Jameson, or of beauty with his poet brother-in-law, Dana; encouraging the young, sympathizing with the old. delighting in his pencil and palette to the last, full of reverence Alls ton. 149 for truth, of faith in God, — eloquent, profound, earnest, yet meek, gentle, and benign, living above the world, yet alive to all human interest and spiritual meaning, he realized the ideal of a Christian artist. “ How many there are,” wrote Vanderlyn, on hearing of his death, “who have not undergone half the fatigue, physical or mental, endured by him, not to mention the far greater amount of time and money expended in the acquisition of his profession than in most other pursuits — yet have secured to themselves the means to reach the decline of life, in a condition to assure ease and comfort.” Noble specimens of Art as are many of Allston’s pictures, to one who regards the tendencies and effect of his entire character, they serve rather as suggestions than a complete representation of the man. Yet, had we no other evidence of the spirit he was of, when rightly contemplated, all might be inferred. And perhaps no better proof of their superiority could be adduced than this very faCt, that they not only bear, but invite study, grow upon the imagination, and haunt the memory. There is sometimes a kind of beaming atmosphere radiated from the human countenance when fervent emotions warm its features. It is a kind of expressiveness which makes the halos around the saints and virgins of the old masters scarcely appear unnatural — the soulful intelligence to which the poet refers when he de- scribes spiritual elements as informing the body “till all be made immor- tal” ; the loveliness created by sentiment, that Wordsworth recognizes in the rustic heroine of whom he says, “ beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into her face.” In our view, this evanescent charm is the richest humanity can wear. An ordinary artist can imitate form, and give us the brow, eye and lip, which are symmetrical, but unvarying. It requires more profound sympathy with the mysteries of being, to appreciate the transitory and significant indications of the beautiful in expression — that which is the immediate offspring of moral and intellectual life. Men of reflection and sensibility are won by this alone, because it allies itself with permanent associations, is a revelation of the soul itself ; and if the hopeful speculations of Swedenborg in regard to a future world have any basis in truth, by it may we know, even there, the loved and lost. In seizing this magnetic principle, this divine glow, and, as it were, atmosphere of the countenance, Allston was remarkably successful. His Beatrice, Rosalie, and Spanish girl, seem kindled into beauty by the simple genuineness of their feelings. Wordsworth said of his portrait of Coleridge, “ It is the only likeness that ever gave me any pleasure.” It has lately been secured for the National Portrait Gallery of England. An engraving was executed from this pic- ture by Mr. Samuel Cousins a few years ago. The portrait was painted at Bristol, in 1814, for Mr. Joshua Wade, when Coleridge was in the forty- second year of his age. The artist’s own testimony, given in a letter to Prof. Henry Reed, of Philadelphia, is deserving of consideration. He says : “ So lar as I can judge of my own production, the likeness is a true one, but it is Coleridge in repose ; and, though not unstirred by the perpetual ground- swell of his ever-working intellect, and shadowing forth something of the American Artist Life. 150 deep philosopher, it is not Coleridge in his highest mood, the poetic state. When in that state, no face I ever saw was like to his ; it seemed almost spirit made visible, without a shadow of the visible upon it. Could I have then fixed it on canvas ! But it was beyond the reach of my art.” Certain objects and effects of Allston’s pictures — as seen when they were partially collected for exhibition several years since — have never passed from our minds. The transparent atmosphere of the Swiss landscape, so true to the peculiarities of Alpine scenery ; the moonlight reflected on the water beneath a bridge ; the love-warm tints that play around Lorenzo and Jessica ; the inimitable foot of the scribe in Jeremiah ; the keen gray eyes and speaking beards of the Israelites, and the eloquent figure of Miriam, are images that linger brightly to the inward vision, and thus prove them- selves a portion of the realities of Art. In the moral economy of life, sensibility to the beautiful must have a great purpose. If the Platonic doctrine of pre-existence be true, perhaps ideality is the surviving element of our primal life. Some individuals seem born to minister to this influence, which, under the name of beauty, senti- ment, or poetry, is the source of what is most exalting in our inmost ex- perience, and redeeming in our outward life. Does not the benign Provi- dence watch over their priests of nature ? They are not necessarily re- nowned. Their agency may be wholly social and private, yet none the less efficient. We confess that, to us, few arguments for the benevolent and infinite design of existence are more impressive than the fadt that such beings actually live, and wholly unfitted as they are to excel in, or even con- form to the Practical, bear evidence, not to be disputed, of the sandtity, the tranquil progress, and the serene faith that dwell in the Ideal. Allston was such a man. By profession he was a painter, and his works overflow with genius ; still it would be difficult to say whether his pen, his pencil, or his tongue chiefly made known that he was a prophet of the true and beautiful. He believed not in any exclusive development. It was the spirit of a man, and not his dexterity or success, by which he tested character. In paint- ing, reading, or writing, his mornings were occupied, and at night he was at the service of his friends. Beneath his humble roof, in his latter years, there was often a flow of wit, a community of mind, and a generous exercise of sympathy which kings might envy. To the eye of the multitude his life glided away in secluded contentment, yet a prevailing idea was the star of his being — the idea of beauty. For the high, the lovely, the perfect, he strove all his days. He sought them in the scenes of nature, in the master- pieces of literature and art, in habits of life, in social relations, and in love. Without pretence, without elation, in all meekness, his youthful enthusiasm chastened by suffering, he lived above the world. Gentleness he deemed true wisdom ; renunciation of all the trappings of life, a duty. He was calm, patient, occasionally sad, but for the most part, happy in the free exercise and guardianship of his varied powers. The inequality of Allston’s efforts, and his frequent concession from labor, have been the subjedt of no little reproach. The habits of no man, and especially a man of genius, can be Allston. 151 rightly judged when viewed objectively. To ascertain the strata of a geo- logical formation, and explain the workings of a mind, are two very different processes. Observation alone is required for the former, but sympathy is absolutely needed for the latter. It is astonishing that with the new light modern science has thrown upon physiology, it is so seldom taken into view when mental phenomena are discussed. There is no faCt better established than that the integrity of the nervous system is necessary to the felicitous exercise of mind. Yet biographers and critics seem blind to its influence. This delicate medium of intellectual activity is refined and sensitive in all rarely endowed beings, for vivid impressions are the source of their power, and to these a susceptible organization is essential. When our illustrious painter went to London, he threw himself ardently into the pursuit of his art. In order to work undisturbed, he adopted a common practice of the country, and took no refreshment between early morning and evening. The long intervals of abstinence, to which he was previously unaccustomed, combined with intense application and great mental excitement, produced a chronic derangement of the digestive organs, and when he retired to Cliff- ton in pursuit of health, his medical adviser prophesied that he would never again experience the blessing. Immediately subsequent, a domestic be- leavement still farther reduced his vital energy, and from this period he could only exercise his profession when temporary vigor nerved his frame. But his was a nature to which inactivity w r as unknown. When not osten- sibly employed, he was meditating subjedds upon which to engage his pencil, revolving a speculative theory, or pouring forth the treasures of his experi- ence for the advantage of others. There is a beautiful progression manifest in the taste and views of Alls- ton. His original turn was for comic scenes — a circumstance observable in the case of several religious painters. The sense of humor is developed before deeper feelings awaken. Art, like all things else, presents itself to the young fancy as a pastime rather than a mission. A certain love of the supernatural appears, however, as we before observed, to have been a lead- ing characteristic of Allston. It displayed itself at first in the numerous wild scenes he loved to depicf, of which the prominent figures were always banditti. Gradually this feeling assumed a higher scope, as his “ Witch of Endor ” and “ Spalatro ” evidence, and, at length, it seems to have become hallowed by more sacred emotions, until it aspired to embody those concep- tions of which prophets are the exponents, and holy reverence the motive. The great principle of his career was individuality, and this is one secret of his fame. He did not suffer the immediate to interfere with the essen- tial. He vowed allegiance to no school, and knew how to revere without servilely imitating. What surrounded never encroached upon what was within. That “ the only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself,” was one of his favorite maxims. With a spirit of generous appreciation, a truly catholic love of the beautiful, and an instinCtive recognition of merit, he yet felt that to be true to himself was his greatest privilege and highest duty. He estimated praise at its just value, and while its sincere expres- 152 American Artist Life. sion cheered, it never blinded him. There was an ideal in his soul, the least approach to which was more satisfactory than the most eloquent paneg)ric. He had ever in view a goal of excellence that grew more dis- tant as he approached. To the dexterity of the artist he united the aspira- tions of the poet. With a rare sensibility to pleasure, he combined an ar- dent love of truth. The law of progress is the charter of such a man, and faith in the unattained a ceaseless inspiration. The details of the career of an artist like this, fade before the harmonious influence of the man. The interest of his character renders the mere events of his life comparatively unattraCtive. His writings and pictures, by not a few individuals, are less cherished tokens of his existence than the impulse his communion gave to their minds, or the earnestness of aim his precepts and example awakened in their hearts. It is still a question what form of intellectual sway is most desirable. The press in modern times often exercises greater power than the pulpit ; and the silent eloquence of art sometimes grows tame before the almost inspired words of genius. The colloquial gifts of Allston were not the least remarkable of his endowments. What he had seen and felt — the truth gained by long wrestling with reality — the percep- tion born of intercourse with the grandeur of the universe — the love created by fond relations with the beautiful — the dramatic incident, the moral im- pression, the glorious faith ; all that life and nature, society and thought, had revealed to that wise and feeling soul, came forth, at the genial hour, from his lips, full of vitality and grace. His ready sympathy with the hum- blest brother in art, and the wise fertility of his conversation, rendered his society a source of improvement and pleasure such as it is the lot of few men to afford, and now memorable and endeared by the heritage of his fame. A visit to Italy is perhaps more of an epoch in the life of an American artist than in that of any other. The contrast between the new and old civilization, the diversity in modes of life, and especially the more kin- dling associations which the enchantment of distance and long anticipa- tion occasion, make his sojourn there an episode in life. The education and ideality of Allston rendered these influences peculiarly operative, and, accordingly, he was wont to revert to this period of his life with great interest. While in Rome, he was, as we have seen, the daily companion of Coleridge, and their intercourse was the subject of delightful remi- niscence to both ever after. We may easily imagine the iL feast of reason ” they enjoyed at sunset on the Pincian — in the calm grandeur of St. Peter’s — upon the deserted area of the Colieum, and amid the silent company that peoples with beauty the long corridors of the Vatican. What an infinity of subjects must there have been suggested ! The universality of the religious instinct ; the philosophy of art ; the destiny of man ; the progress of freedom ; the laws of beauty ; the immortality of the soul — these and kindred themes rise, as it were, spontaneously as one wanders over the wrecks of empires. The road once strewn with flowers to greet the coronation of Laura’s bard — the convent where Tasso died — the All st on. 153 cupola that Michael Angelo hung in air — the ivy-grown walls of Caesar’s palace — how must they have inspired in such men, deep colloquies over time and eternity ! Nor less to spirits of such poetic mould did the emblems of the beautiful appeal. Angelic features beaming from moulder- ing frescoes — the iris hovering over the fountain — the gay weed flaunting above the temple’s broken floor — the deep blue sky and violet haze rest- ing upon the distant mountain, a Magdalen’s golden hair or Madonna’s patient smile, and the soul-parted lips of the Apollo, were endless sources of grateful comment and sympathetic admiration. The Alps yielded yet another memorable lesson to the painter’s heart, and the choicest society of England ministered to his expanding intellect, while everywhere and always, the beautiful in nature caught his eye, and the attractive in hu- manity won his love. “ I first became acquainted with Washington Allston,” writes Wash- ington Irving, “early in the spring of 1805. Ele had just arrived from France, I from Sicily and Naples. I was then not quite twenty-two years of age, — he a little older. There was something, to me inexpressibly en- gaging in the appearance and manners of Allston. I do not think I have ever been more completely captivated on a first acquaintance. Ele was of a light and graceful form, with large, blue eyes, and black, silken hair, waving and curling round a pale, expressive countenance. Everything about him bespoke the man of intellect and refinement. His conversa- tion was copious, animated, and highly graphic ; warmed by a genial sensibility and benevolence, and enlivened at times by a chaste and gentle humor. A young men’s intimacy took place immediately between us, and we were much together during my brief sojourn at Rome. He was taking a general view of the place before settling himself down to his profes- sional studies. We visited together some of the finest collections of paintings, and he taught me how to visit them to the most advantage, guiding me always to the masterpieces, and passing by the others with- out notice. ‘ Never attempt to enjoy every picture in a great collection,’ he would say, ‘ unless you have a year to bestow upon it. You may as well attempt to enjoy every dish at a Lord Mayor’s feast. Both mind and palate get confounded by a great variety and rapid succession, even of delicacies. The mind can only take in a certain number of images and impressions distinctly ; by multiplying the number, you weaken each, and render the whole confused and vague. Study the choice pieces in each collection ; look upon none else, and you will afterwards find them hang- ing up in your memory.’ “He was exquisitely sensitive to the graceful and the beautiful, and took great delight in paintings which excelled in color ; yet he was strongly moved and roused by objeCts of grandeur. I well recolleCt the admiration with which he contemplated the sublime statue of Moses by Michael Angelo, and his mute awe and reverence on entering the stupendous pile of St. Peter’s. Indeed, the sentiment of veneration so characteristic of the elevated and poetic mind was continually manifested by him. His 154 American Artist Life. eyes would dilate ; his pale countenance would flush ; he would breathe quick, and almost gasp in expressing his feelings, when excited by any object of grandeur and sublimity. “We had delightful rambles together about Rome and its environs, one of which came near changing my whole course of life. We had been visiting a stately villa, with its gallery of paintings, its marble halls, its terraced gardens set out with statues and fountains, and were returning to Rome about sunset. The blandness of the air, the serenity of the sky, the transparent purity of the atmosphere, and that nameless charm which hangs about an Italian landscape, had derived additional effedt from being enjoyed in company with Allston, and pointed out by him with the enthu- siasm of an artist. As 'I listened to him, and gazed upon the landscape, I drew in my mind a contrast between our different pursuits and pros- pects. He was to reside among these delightful scenes, surrounded by masterpieces of art, by classic and historic monuments, by men of con- genial minds and tastes, engaged like him in the constant study of the sublime and beautiful. I was to return home to the dry study of the law, for which I had no relish, and, as I feared, but little talent. “ Suddenly the thought presented itself, ‘Why might I not remain here, and turn painter ? ’ I had taken lessons in drawing before leaving America, and had been thought to have some aptness, as I certainly had a strong inclination for it. I mentioned the idea to Allston, and he caught at it with eagerness. Nothing could be more feasible. We would take an apartment together. He would give me all the instrudtion and assistance in his power, and was sure I would succeed. “ For two or three days the idea took full possession of my mind ; but I believe it owed its main force to the lovely evening ramble in which I first conceived it, and to the romantic friendship I had formed with Allston. Whenever it recurred to mind, it was always connected with beautiful Italian scenery, palaces, and statues, and fountains, and terraced gardens, and Allston as the companion of my studio. I promised myself a world of enjoyment in his society, and in the society of several artists with whom he had made me acquainted, and pic- tured forth a scheme of life all tinted with the rainbow-hues of youthful promise. “ My lot in life, however, was differently cast. Doubts and fears gradu- ally clouded over my prospect ; the rainbow-tints faded away ; I began to apprehend a sterile reality, so I gave up the transient but delightful pros- pect of remaining in Rome with Allston and turning painter. a My next meeting with Allston was in America, after he had finished his studies in Italy ; but, as we resided in different cities, we saw each other only occasionally. Our intimacy was closer some years afterwards, when we were both in England. I then saw a great deal of him during my visits to London, where he and Leslie resided together. Allston was dejedted in spirits from the loss of his wife, but I thought a dash of melancholy had increased the amiable and winning graces of his character. Allston. 155 I used to pass long evenings with him and Leslie ; indeed Allston, if any one would keep him company, would sit up until cock-crowing, and it was hard to break away from the charms of his conversation. He was an admirable story-teller; for a ghost-story, none could surpass him. He aCted the story as well as told it “ Leslie, in a letter to me, speaks of the picture of ‘ Uriel seated in the Sun.’ ‘ The figure is co- lossal, the attitude and air very noble, and the form heroic, without being overcharged. In the color he has been equally successful, and, with a very rich and glowing tone, he has avoided positive colors, which would have made him too material. There is neither red, blue, nor yellow on the picture, and yet it possesses a harmony equal to the best pictures of Paul Veronese.’ The picture made what is called ‘a decided hit,’ and produced a great sensation, being pronounced worthy of the old masters. Attention was immediately called to the artist. The Earl of Egremont, a great connoisseur and patron of the arts, sought him in his studio, eager for any production from his pencil. He found an admirable picture there, of which he became the glad possessor Lord Egre- mont was equally well pleased with the artist as with his works, and in- vited him to his noble seat at Pet worth, where it was his delight to dispense his hospitalities to men of genius. The road to fame and fortune was now open to Allston ; he had but to remain in England, and follow up the signal impression he had made. u Unfortunately, previous to this recent success he had been disheartened by domestic affliction, and by the uncertainty of his pecuniary prospeCts, and had made arrangements to return to America. I arrived in London a few days before his departure, full of literary schemes, and delighted with the idea of our pursuing our several arts in fellowship. It was a sad blow to me to have this day-dream again dispelled. I urged him to remain and complete his grand painting of Belshazzar’s Feast, the study of which gave promise of the highest kind of excellence. Some of the best patrons of the art were equally urgent. He was not to be persuaded, and I saw him depart with still deeper and more painful regret than I had parted with him in our youthful days at Rome. I think our separation was a loss to both of us — to me a grievous one. The companionship of such a man is invaluable. For his own part, had he remained in England for a few years longer, surrounded by everything to encourage and stimulate him, I have no doubt he would have been at the head of his art. He appeared to me to possess more than any contemporary the spirit of the old mas- ters ; and his merits were becoming widely appreciated. After his depar- ture, he was unanimously eleCted a member of the Royal Academy. “ The next time I saw him was twelve years afterwards, on my return to America, when I visited him at his studio at Cambridge, in Massa- chusetts, and found him, in the gray evening of life, apparently much retired from the world; and his grand picture of Belshazzar’s Feast yet unfinished. To the last he appeared to retain all those elevated, refined, 156 American Artist Life. and gentle qualities which first endeared him to me. Such are a few par- ticulars of my intimacy with Allston ; a man whose memory I hold in reverence and affeCtion, as one of the purest, noblest, and most intellectual beings that ever honored me with his friendship.”* We have frequently alluded to the relation existing between color and language as a medium of expression. Allston exemplified their affinity in his productions. The fluency and aptitude of his conversation has been already noticed, and his literary productions display the same traits. Had he given equal attention to writing as to painting, his success in the former would doubtless have been eminent. His “ Monaldi,” numerous letters, and a few poems — all the offspring of occasional respite from the pursuit of art — are distinguished ’for graphic power, deep insight, and a tasteful style. In the tale, particularly, there are many passages wherein the painter reveals himself in a very pleasing way. The local descriptions and dialogues on art, indicate how much reflection he had bestowed upon his vocation. No slight acquaintance with the development of human passion and sentiment is evinced in the characters. His heroine reminds us irre- sistibly of his happiest female creations, overflowing with the spiritual warmth of his coloring and an ideal loveliness of expression. His son- nets are interesting as records of personal feeling. They eloquently breathe sentiments of intelligent admiration or sincere friendship ; while the longer poems show a great command of language and an exuberant fancy. On his return to America, the life of our illustrious painter was one of comparative seclusion. The state of his health, devotion to his art, and a distaste for promiscuous society and the bustle of the world, rendered this course the most judicious he could have pursued. His humble retire- ment was occasionally invaded by foreigners of distinction, to whom his name had become precious ; and sometimes a votary of letters or art entered his dwelling, to gratify admiration, or seek counsel- and encour- agement. To such, an unaffeCted and sincere welcome was always given, and they left his presence refreshed and happy. The instances of timely sympathy which he afforded young and baffled aspirants are innumer- able. Allston’s appearance and manners accorded perfectly with his character. His form was slight, and his movements quietly aCtive. The lines of his countenance, the breadth of the brow, the large and speaking eye, and the long white hair, made him an immediate objeCt of interest. If not engaged in conversation, there was a serene abstraction in his air. When death so tranquilly overtook him, for many hours it was difficult to believe that he was not sleeping, so perfectly did the usual expression remain. His torch-light burial at Cambridge harmonized, in its beautiful solemnity, with the lofty and sweet tenor of his life. * Cyclopaedia of American Literature, vol. ii., pp. 14-16. All stun. 157 The element of beauty which in thee Was a prevailing spirit, pure and high, And from all guile had made thy being free, Now seems to whisper thou canst never die ! For Nature’s priests we shed no idle tear, Their mantles on a noble lineage fall ; Though thy white locks at length have pressed the bier, Death could not fold thee in Oblivion’s pall : Majestic forms thy hand in grace arrayed, Eternal watch shall keep beside thy tomb, And hues aerial that thy pencil stayed, Its shades with Heaven’s radiance illume ; Art’s meek apostle, holy is thy sway, — From the heart’s records ne’er to pass away ! SULLY. HERE is a species of female beauty almost peculiar to this country. Perhaps it is best described as the very opposite of robust. Indeed, it is winsome partly from the sense of fragility it conveys. Lightness of figure, delicacy of fea- ture, and a transparent complexion are its essentials. It is suggestive at once of that quality which the French call spiri- tuelle ‘ and we can readily account for the partiality it excites in foreigners, from their having been accustomed to the hearty attractions of the Anglo- Saxons, or the noble outline and impassioned expression of the Southern Europeans. It is an acknowledged fact, that the physical development of American women is precocious, and the decay of their charms premature. The variability of our climate, the want of regular exercise in the open air, and the harassing responsibilities they so early assume, too often unrelieved by wholesome pastime, are some of the reasons assigned for this state of things. Explained as it may be, however, these characteristics of American beauty are visible all around us ; and to arrest graces so ethereal, and truly embody them, requires somewhat of poetry as well as skill in an artist. If ever there was a man specially endowed to delineate our countrywomen, particularly those of the Northern and Middle States — where the peculiarities we have noticed are chiefly observable, it is Thomas Sully. His organization fits him to sympathize with the fair and lovely, rather than the grand and comic. He is keenly alive to the more refined phases of life and nature. His pencil follows with instinc- tive truth the principles of genuine taste. He always seizes upon the redeeming element, and avails himself of the most felicitous combina- tions. Sully’s forte is the graceful. Whatever faults the critics may deteCt in his works, they are never those of awkwardness or constraint. He exhibits the freedom of touch and the airiness of outline which belong to spontaneous emanations. Indeed, his defeCt, comparatively speaking, lies in this fairy-like, unsubstantial manner. Many of his female portraits strike us as “ too wise and good,” too like “ creatures of the element,” to be loved and blamed. Some of them float before the gaze like spirits of the air, or peer from a shadowy canvas like enchanted ladies. They are half-celestial, and we tremble, lest they should disappear as we gaze. As a universal principle, we are far from advocating this style, but are there not Sully. T 59 subjebts to which it is exclusively adapted? Do we not meet human beings who make a similar impression on the mind ? Lucy Ashton is a representative of the species. Let us advert to Scott’s description: — “ Her exquisitely beautiful, but somewhat girlish features, were formed to express peace of mind, serenity, and indifference to the tinsel of worldly pleasure. The expression of the countenance was in the last degree gentle, soft, timid, and feminine, and seemed rather to shrink from the most casual look of a stranger than to court admiration. Something there was of a Madonna cast, perhaps the result of delicate health, and of resi- dence in a family, where the dispositions of the inmates were fiercer, more abtive and energetic than her own.” We cannot better designate Sully’s particular aptitude than by saying that he could realize upon canvas the mental as well as bodily portrait of such a heroine. One consequence of the fastidious taste and graceful perception of this artist is, that where the subjebt is unpromising, he is sure to catch the most desirable expres- sion. We often see coarsely-moulded faces apparently destitute, of all charms — faces that inspire respebt by the character they display, but offend ideality, and leave the affebtions untouched. Intimate acquaintance, how- ever, reveals a certain mood wherein a softness gleams in the eyes, or a smile flashes like some benign inspiration, throwing over every feature an interest and grace undreamed of before. To this casual expression Sully will apply himself. It seems a rule and habit with him never to send a disagreeable portrait from his easel. He has an extremely dexterous way of flattering, without seeming to do so ; of crystallizing better moments, and fixing happy attitudes. Ail his men, and especially his women, have an air of breeding, a high tone, and a genteel carriage. His taste in costume is excellent. One always feels at least in good society among his portraits. He seems to paint only ladies and gentlemen. Llowever his abtual power may be estimated, there are about his works the absolute traits of an artist’s spirit. There is sensibility in his delineations ; they are invariably modest, refined, and graceful. He never offends our sense of the appro- priate, or trenches on the self-respect of those he portrays, by the least approach to exaggeration. The series of illustrations of Shakspeare he commenced, are happily, but not forcibly conceived. Portia is fair and dignified, but not sufficiently vigorous ; Isabella is as chaste and nunlike as Shakspeare has made her, but her dormant and high enthusiasm does not enough appear ; Miranda, a charabler better adapted than either to Sully’s pencil, has an arch simplicity caught from Nature herself. Thomas Sully was born at Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, in June, 1783. His parents were ablors, and with them he came to America in 1792, and soon after began to study the art of painting in Charleston, S. C. In 1813 we find him in lucrative prabtice as a portrait-limner, in Rich- mond, Va. Removing to New York, a few years later, he also succeeded there in his profession, and finally settled in Philadelphia. Sully’s por- traits are widely scattered, and may be found in the principal cities of the United States. Few of our artists have attained eminence through a i6o American Artist Life. more severe ordeal of privation and discouragement ; and none main- tained a higher character in all domestic and social relations, or can look back upon an artist-life associated with more interesting periods and per- sons. His zeal to acquire skill in his profession at a time and in a country offering few facilities, may be inferred from his employing Trum- bull to paint his wife, that he might witness that artist’s method of work. He left Richmond for England to improve himself in his art, and was kindly aided by West; but returned to America to take care of the family of his brother Lawrence, who died during his absence, and whose widow he subsequently married. Thomas Cooper, the American trage- dian, was one of his earliest and most efficient friends ; he encouraged the artist to visit New York ; Stuart also cheered him at the outset of his career; and he, in turn, recognized and promoted the first efforts of Leslie. Indeed, Sully is the connecting link between the dawn and meri- dian of American art ; his reminiscences embrace all the salient phases of its early history. A universal favorite, on account of his modest, amia- ble, and intelligent nature, no painter among us has enjoyed more perma- nent social esteem and sympathy. He has delineated many celebrated people, having painted President Jefferson for West Point ; Commodore Decatur for the City of New York ; Oueen Victoria for the St. George’s Society of Philadelphia ; Cooke as Richard the Third ; Mrs. Wood as Amina ; Dr. Benjamin Rush, Lafayette, and many others. One of his latest works is a series of illustrations of Robinson Crusoe. His ‘‘Wash- ington Crossing the Delaware ” is in the possession of the Boston Mu- seum. His portrait of Lafayette is in Independence Hall, Philadelphia ; that of Decatur in the Governor’s room, New York City Hall. M. O. Roberts, Esq., of New York, has his “Woman at the Well,” and “Girl offering Flowers at the Shrine ; ” his Mrs. Wood as “ Amina,” in the opera of La Sonnambula, and his portraits of Cooke, the tragedian, of Bishop White, Charles Kemble, Mrs. Leslie, Fanny Kemble, E. L. Carey, and Benjamin West, after Leslie’s copy from Lawrence, are in the Philadel- phia Academy of Fine Arts ; Henry C. Carey, Esq., has his “Isabella” and Fanny Kemble as “Juliet.” At Baltimore are his portraits of J. B. and Mrs. Morris, Reverdy Johnson, and others ; his full-length of Charles Carroll belongs to the McTavish estate, in the same city. His present residence is a large old-fashioned brick mansion on Sixth street, just above Chestnut, in which he has lived during the last thirty- six years. “ The veteran was found,” says a recent visitor, “ working diligently at his easel, having just been engaged in copying a portrait of a young girl, recently completed, but spoiled by some fault in the canvas. During a half-hour’s conversation, Mr. Sully exhibited a wonderful richness of anecdote and observation, nor did his memory appear to be seriously im- paired. He began by deploring the fact that artists are so much at the mercy of the canvas-preparers, and stated that for a long time he had been in the habit of preparing his own. He stated the circumstance of Sully. 1 6 1 his endeavoring to beat into the head of an Englishman in this country the proper method of proceeding in this matter, on which occasion his kindly proffered information was disdainfully disregarded. This led to the narration of several incidents illustrative of the obstinacy of his countrymen, as he called the English, although himself an American for the last seventy-three years. The subject of his unusual health and activity at so advanced an age being referred to, Mr. Sully remarked that many .years ago, when painting the portrait of Charles Carroll, of Car- rollton, who was at that time ninety years of age, he asked him for a ‘ leaf from his book.’ ‘Temperance in all things,’ said Carroll, ‘is the secret of long life ; there must be as little friCtion as possible in any part, in order that the machine shall not wear itself out.’ Another gentleman subsequently gave the painter an additional hint with regard to comforta- ble old age : ‘ A man,’ said he, ‘ must have a hobby.’ Painting was Mr. Sully’s hobby, and he declared his intention of riding it until he should be taken away. When it was suggested that he had certainly, in the opinion of the world, ‘ridden his hobby well,’ Mr. Sully replied : ‘ I make no pretensions. The best that any of us now can do is feeble in comparison with that which has been done.’ “In adverting to the present high prices paid for everything, ‘except portraits,’ it was observed that this was caused in large part by the num- ber of inferior artists, who were willing to dispose of their portraits at inferior prices. Mr. Sully remarked, with a touch of sadness in his voice, that he hoped they would leave the old man enough to do for a little while longer. He spoke with considerable feeling of the kindness of the authorities in abstaining from tearing down the house in which he lived, in order to make way for a proposed street. He supposed they knew that ‘the old man could not live much longer, and were willing to spare him that pain.’ He did not, therefore, expeCt to leave the place until he should ‘be carried out feet foremost.’ The walls of a room adjoining Sully’s studio — a small piCture-gallery, in faCfc — are covered with his own works, of which one of the most interesting is that bearing the inscrip- tion : ‘ T. S., London, May 15, 1838. My original study of the Queen of England, Victoria, painted from life, Buckingham House.’” Sully is identified to an unusual extent with the ornaments of the stage. He is a discriminating lover of adling and music. His portraits of Cooke, Fanny Kemble, and Mrs. Wood, are among his most genial and successful efforts. Within a few years he has executed a very spirited portrait of Washington, in the aCt of reviewing the troops, at the time of the whiskey riots. There is a chivalrous dignity in the expression and gesture, rarely so effectively embodied. The war with Mexico broke off a negotiation whereby this picture would have been purchased by the government as a donation to a foreign potentate. Talent for the arts is natural to Sully’s family. His English parents were gifted with dramatic ability ; his brother, whom he soon out-rivalled, initiated him into practice, and his children excel in tasteful accomplishments. He mind is by no means exclusive in 1 1 1 62 American Artist Life. its appreciation, but readily perceives whatever of grace is discernible in the whole range of literature and art. His associations have favored this native insight, and a remarkably liberal and amiable disposition makes him cognizant of the least symptom of merit. His kindness to young artists is proverbial, and it is very difficult to induce him to play the critic, so prone is he to seize upon the hopeful aspebt — not only of the face he is depicting, but of the character or production submitted to his judgment. Sully was very early thrown upon his own resources, and his connections were de- pendent upon him at an age when other artists are usually free of all respon- sibility, but such as their vocation imposes. The manly and cheerful spirit in which he met the exigencies of his youth, is worthy of his generous heart. His voluntary sacrifices’ at this period, equal those of any of his noble com- peers. Many anecdotes are related, all significant of that elasticity which seems to belong to the artistic organization. Goldoni compares despond- ency to a fencer, and says, as long as one stands upon his guard, and parries the enemy’s attack, there is no danger ; but the moment a defensive attitude is resigned, the thrusts prove fatal. Upon this principle Sully abted at the discouraging opening of his career. At the South, where his labors as an artist commenced, for a long time they gained him a very precarious subsistence. His zeal for improvement led him to visit Europe with in- sufficient means, and the economy he practised for many months in Lon- don, would form a striking chapter in the annals of self-denial. Hare Powell, of Philadelphia, was an efficient friend at this crisis, and through his aid, several private galleries were opened to the young artist, and he was enabled to study the English school of portraiture under signal advantages. He has experienced to a remarkable degree the caprices of fortune. Taste has undergone a variety of flubtuations since he became known to fame. The branch of art he espoused, and even the peculiar excellences for which he has been distinguished, exposed him to a more than ordinary reliance on the fashion of the day. Sometimes he has been overwhelmed with orders, and at others, obliged to change his residence for the sake of em- ployment. For many years, however, he has prosecuted his art in Phila- delphia, where few men are so deservedly respebted and beloved. MORSE. ^SSfflRHEN Allston was painting his “ Dead Man restored to Life,’ : in London, he first modelled the figure in clay, and explain- ed to Morse, who was then his pupil, the advantages result- ing from a plan so frequently adopted by the old masters. His young countryman was at this time meditating his first composition, — a dying Hercules, — and proceeded at once to abt upon this suggestion. Having prepared a model that exhibited the upper part of the body, — which alone would be visible in the pibture, — he submitted it to Allston, who recognized so much truth in the anatomy and expression, that he urgently advised its completion. After six weeks, by careful labor, the statue was finished, and sent to West for inspebtion. That venerable artist, upon entering the room, put on his spectacles, and as he walked around the model, carefully examining its details and general efifebt, a look of genuine satisfabtion beamed from his face. He rang for an attendant, and bade him call his son. “Look here, Raphael,” he exclaimed, as the latter appeared ; “ did I not always tell you that every painter could be a sculptor?” We may imagine the delight of the student at such commendation. The same day one of his fellow-pupils called his attention to a notice issued by the Adelphi Society of Arts, offering a prize for the best single figure, to be modelled and sent to the rooms of the association within a certain period. The time fixed would expire in three days. Morse profited by the occasion, and placed his “Dying Hercules” with the thirteen other specimens already entered. He was consequently invited to the meeting of the society on the evening when the decision was to be an- nounced ; and received from the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, the pre- siding officer, and in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, the gold medal. Perhaps no American ever started in the career of an artist under more flattering auspices ; and we cannot wonder that a beginning so suc- cessful encouraged the young painter to devote himself assiduously to study, with a view of returning to his own country fully prepared to illustrate the historical department of the art. An illustrious aspirant had been assured, but a few years previous, when he announced a similar purpose to the President of the Royal Academy, that he had come a great way to learn how to starve. Indeed, so limited was the number of individuals who at that period felt any true interest in the fine arts on this side of the Atlantic, and so completely were the 164 American Artist Life. energies of our young nation absorbed in trade and politics, that an enter- prise like that which unfolded itself to the sanguine hopes of Morse, might well be deemed chimerical. But he was then breathing an atmosphere of sympathy; he enjoyed the friendship and instruction of men distinguished for their knowledge and ability, and who had reached in England the eminence at which he aimed. His application was not, therefore, chilled by any painful doubts of future success, might he but live to prove him- self worthy of the high service to which he thus earnestly dedicated his life.* A striking evidence of the waywardness of destiny is afforded by the experience of this artist, if we pass at once from this early and hopeful moment to a more recent incident. He then aimed at renown through de- votion to the beautiful ; but it would seem as if the genius of his country, in spite of himself, led him to this objebt, by the less flowery path of utility. He desired to identify his name with art, but it has become far more widely associated with science. A series of bitter disappointments obliged him to “coin his mind for bread” — for a long period, by exclusive attention to portrait-painting — although, at rare intervals, he accomplished something more satisfactory. More than thirty years since, on a voyage from Europe, in a conversation with his fellow-passengers, the theme of discourse happened to be the eleCtro-magnet ; and one gentleman present related some experiments he had lately witnessed at Paris, which proved the almost incalculable rapidity of movement with which electricity was disseminated. The idea suggested itself to the aCtive mind of the artist, that this wonderful, and but partially explored agent, might be rendered subservient to that system of intercommunication which had become so important a principle of modern civilization. He brooded over the sub- ject as he walked the deck, or lay wakeful in his berth, and by the time he arrived at New York, had so far matured his invention as to have decided upon a telegraph of signs, which is essentially that now in use. After having sufficiently demonstrated his discovery to the scientific, a long period of toil, anxiety, and suspense intervened before he obtained the requisite facilities for the establishment of the Magnetic Telegraph. It is now in daily operation in the United .States, and its superiority over all similar inventions abroad, was confirmed by the testimony of Arago and the appropriation made for its ereCtion by the French government. By one of those coincidences, which would be thought appropriate for romance, but which are more common, in fa6t, than the unobservant are disposed to confess, these two most brilliant events in the painter’s life — his first successful work of art and the triumph of his scientific discovery —were brought together, as it were, in a manner singularly fitted to * “ The great feature of the Exhibition of the Royal Academy,” says the “ British Press,” of May 4th, 1813, “ is, that it presents several works of very high merit by artists with whose performances and even with whose names we were hitherto unacquainted. At the head of this class of Historical are Messrs. Monro and Morse. The prize of History may be contended by Mr. Northcote and Mr. Stothard. Hilton, Turner, Lane, Monro, and Morse follow in the same class.” Morse. 165 impress the imagination. Six copies of his “ Dying Hercules” had been made in London, and the mould was then destroyed. Four of these were distributed by the artist to academies, one he retained, and the last was given to Mr. Bulfinch, the architect of the Capitol — who was engaged at the time upon that building. After the lapse of many years, an accident ruined Morse’s own copy, and a similar fate had overtaken the others, at least in America. After vain endeavors to regain one of these trophies of his youthful career, he at length despaired of seeing again what could not fail to be endeared to his memory by the most interesting associations. One day he was superintending the preparations for the first establish- ment of his telegraph, in the room assigned at the Capitol. His per- severance and self-denying labor had at length met its just reward, and he was taking the first active step to obtain a substantial benefit from his invention. It became necessary in locating the wires, to de- scend into a vault beneath the apartment, which had not been opened for a long period. A man preceded the artist with a lamp. As they passed along the subterranean chamber, the latter’s attention was excited by something white glimmering through the darkness. In approaching the objebt, what was his surprise to find himself gazing upon his long-lost Hercules, which he had not seen for twenty years. A little reflection explained the apparent miracle. This was undoubtedly the copy given to his deceased friend, the architect, and temporarily deposited in the vault for safety, and undiscovered after his death. Samuel Finley Breese Morse, son of the Rev. Dr. Jedidiah Morse, a well-known Presbyterian clergyman and educational writer, of Charles- town, Mass., was -born there on the 27th of April, 1791 ; he graduated at Yale College in 1810, and the following year went to England with Allston to study painting ; returning to the United States in 1815, he organized a drawing association, whence sprang the New York Academy, in its re- newed form, of which he was the first president ; revisiting Europe in 1829, he passed three years on the continent ; and on his return was cho- sen Professor of the Arts of Design in the institution he originated. During the period from his first visit to England to his second return to America, he was an industrious limner, both at home and abroad, and his pencil was alternately occupied in landscape, composition, and portraiture. His mind, however, was not exclusively, perhaps not predominantly artistic ; he wrote fluently, was an habitual student and observer in the field of general knowledge, and had a decided scientific turn and execu- tive capacity ; of broad social instinbts and enterprising mental scope, there was less of the professional limner, and more of the liberal and philosophical inquirer about him, than is often discoverable among our artists. As early as when a student at Yale College, he had manifested strong interest in chemistry, as expounded by President Day ; and Pro- fessor Dana’s lebtures on Electro-Magnetism, alternated at the Athenaeum in 1826-7 with those of Professor Morse on the Fine Arts. The latter was present when the elebtro-magnet was first exhibited in this country ; American Artist Life . 1 66 and he never ceased to speculate upon the subject ; so that when, in the autumn of 1832, on board the Havre packet ship Sully, on her way to New York, he discussed the identity of magnetism with electricity, and the possibility of obtaining the eleCtric spark from the magnet, and its application to telegraphic science, — the direction of his inquiries was the result of long and familiar reflection, — a faCt which adds to the external testimony to his claim to originality and priority in recognizing the principle of his subsequent triumphant invention. As an artist Morse had enjoyed unusual social privileges ; but his scientific fame won him more honors of a foreign and public kind, than were ever before be- stowed on an American ; honorary gratuities from European govern- ments, orders, medals*, banquets, court fetes and civic compliments have been profusely awarded him ; and the story of his long-baffled efforts and final success is as remarkable, if not as romantic, as any in the annals of discovery. Those who are fond of localities attractive from having been the abodes of men whose names are enrolled on the scroll of human benefadfors, should not pass with indifference No. 8 Buckingham Place, Fitzroy Square, London. It was the residence of successive American painters for thirty years, and not long since the landlady preserved on the walls the portraits of Leslie and Morse. The friendship of these two painters is interesting, and helps to brighten the golden link which associates the name of the latter with the first dawn of Art in this republic — a period which we trust will one day have an importance in critical history, from the glory we are confident our nation will yet shed upon this sphere of culture. Morse went abroad under the care of Allsfon, and was the pupil of West and Copley. Hence he is naturally regarded by a later generation as the connecting bond that unites the present and the past in the brief annals of our artist-history. But his claim to such a recognition does not lie altogether in the faCt that he was a pioneer ; it has been worthily evidenced by his constant devotion to the great cause itself. Younger artists speak of him with affeCtion and respeCt, because he has ever been zealous in the promotion of a taste for, and a study of, the fine arts. Having entered the field at too early a period to realize the promise of his youth, and driven by circumstances from the high aims he cher- ished, misanthropy was never suffered to grow out of personal disap- pointment. He gazed reverently upon the goal it was not permitted him to reach ; and ardently encouraged the spirit which he felt was only to be developed, when wealth and leisure had given his countrymen opportuni- ties to cultivate those tastes upon the prevalence of which the advance- ment of his favorite pursuit depends. When, after the failure of one of his elaborate projects, he resolved to establish himself in New York, he was grieved to find that many petty dissensions kept the artists from each other. He made it his business to heal these wounds, and reconcile the animosities that thus retarded the progress of their common object. He sought out, and won the confidence of, his isolated brothers, and one Morse. 1 67 evening invited them all to his room, ostensibly to eat strawberries and cream, but really to beguile them into something like agreeable intercourse. He had experienced the good effedt of a drawing-club at Charleston, where many of the members were amateurs ; and on the occa- sion referred to, covered his table with prints, and scattered inviting casts around the apartment A very pleasant evening was the result ; a mutual understanding was established, and weekly meetings unanimously agreed upon. This auspicious gathering was the germ of the National Academy of Design, of which Morse became the first president, and before which he delivered the first course of ledtures on the Fine Arts ever given in this country. The question as to the comparative utility of associations of patrons and artists, has been discussed and tested by experiment suffi- ciently to satisfy every reasonable mind of the vast superiority of institu- tions managed by those best informed and most interested in any great public object. The prejudice and selfish motives which were brought to bear upon the new society, failed in the end, as they deservedly should. It would be an useless and ungrateful task to repeat the details of the controversy. Morse was in a great measure sacrificed by the prominent part he took in these transactions ; but the Academy has flourished, and is yet achieving its work bravely, while the artists look upon their cham- pion with pride and sympathy. This was clearly exhibited by their voluntary and fraternal attempt to console him for the marked negledt of his claims, when the original selection was made of painters to fill the vacant panels of the rotunda at Washington. Together with other friends, they formed an association, and gave Morse a commission to execute the painting. Owing to the non-payment of a portion of the instalments, and to the injudicious plan of the artist to carry out his de- sign on too grand and expensive a scale, and his consequent pecuniary embarrassment, he was obliged to abandon the attempt. By a course of rigid and patient economy, highly creditable to his integrity, he gradually refunded to each subscriber the sum advanced, with appropriate expres- sions of gratitude for the liberal intention ; and was thus eminently true to himself, in resolutely, and at great personal sacrifice, emancipating him- self from the degrading consciousness of pecuniary obligation. After four years of study in Europe, Morse had returned to the United States from lack of means to carry on his education abroad. Although he then deemed himself by no means a proficient, he hoped, while pursuing the course of improvement so auspiciously commenced, to obtain, at home, such employment, in the higher branches of his profession, as would give some adequate scope to his powers. In Boston, however, although he was flattered enough by social consideration, he received no orders, and was obliged, from sheer necessity, to travel through New England, and execute portraits at fifteen dollars each, and finally to set up his easel at Charleston, S. C., where he continued this employment for several years — emulating, however, the more artistic styles of portraiture with ample success and honor. To keep up his practice in composition, he often carried 1 68 American Artist Life. his heads to the North, where he passed every summer with his family, and there transferred them to larger canvas —introducing rich costume or tasteful accessories into his full-lengths, so that many of them did justice to his general ability as a painter. Stuart happened to see one of these, representing a young girl standing amid the ruins of an abbey beside a fawn. The conception and execution delighted him, and his praise spread its reputation so widely, that Morse was obliged to furnish several copies. Among other notable works by Morse are a portrait of Thorwaldsen, exe- cuted in Rome, a striking and pleasing likeness, sold at the recent dis- persion of the Wright collection for four hundred and forty dollars ; por- traits of Mayors Paulding and Allen, and of Lafayette, in the New York City Hall ; of Chancellor Kent, originally in the possession of Philip Hone, Esq. ; a Peasant Girl of Nettuno, and a portrait of Mrs. Breese, in the possession of T. R. Walker, Esq., of Utica, N. Y. ; and one of S. N. Dex- ter, belonging to Ward Hunt, Esq., of the same city. Huntington, Baker, and other of his fellow-artists have painted striking portraits of Morse, whose keen dark eye, and white hair and beard, as well as personal asso- ciations, make him a favorite subjedt. There is a Convent of Capuchins at Rome, which is visited by strangers on account of a very old fresco, representing Christ walking on the waves, and an excellent mosaic copy of Guido’s Michael triumphing over Satan, that adorn the walls. Those who have a taste for horrors, also view the cemetery beneath fantastically ornamented with the bones of deceased friars. But to the artist, the church is memorable for the fine arrangement of light, and the simple yet effective perspective. On this account the interior is often sketched and painted ; and when a few bearded monks of the order are judiciously placed about the altar and in the aisles, the scene becomes quite impressive, and the ocular illusion very pleasing. A French artist exhibited such a representation of this convent in the United States, and it attracted an extraordinary degree of attention. Morse had painted, when abroad, a similar picture of the Louvre, including the principal works of art in that famous gallery — in miniature, but faithful copies— and it was one of his most successful and interesting works. The idea naturally suggested itself to take advantage of the evident taste recently manifested for this species of painting. He had laid by sufficient to enable him to give the necessary time to the experiment, and selected for his subjeCt the interior of the House of Representatives of the United States. It might have been reasonably anticipated that so national a theme, if treated with any success, would be popular. The picture cost nearly two years’ severe labor, and was attended with considerable expense. When exhibited, how- ever — from what cause does not appear — it brought little profit to the artist, and he soon rolled up the huge canvas in disgust. In one of the poet Percival’s letters, dated at New Haven in 1823, he says to a friend: L ' I will tell you one thing, sub rosa. Morse’s pidture of Congress Hall has cost him one hundred and ten dollars to exhibit in New York. Tell it not in Gath ! He labored at it eighteen months, and spent many hundred dol- Morse. 169 Jars in its execution ; and now he has to pay the public for looking at it. Allston says it is a masterpiece of coloring and perspective. Who would write or paint any good thing for such a fashionable vulgar as ours ? For my part, I am tired of patting the dogs. I will now turn to kicking them.”* When sent to England, several political characters and men of taste among the nobility, expressed great admiration of the work, and were much interested in the portraits introduced, which were very cleverly arranged, and perfectly authentic. After this signal disappointment, Morse determined to visit Mexico, as an attache to the American Legation ; and it might prove a curious specu- lation to imagine what destiny his active disposition would have achieved in that fertile and unhappy country, had the design been carried into exe- cution ; but, after having made all needful preparations, taken leave of his family, and even embarked his stores, the minister was suddenly recalled almost ere his journey had begun, and the artist returned home, and event- ually abandoned the plan. In 1822-3, Morse was greatly encouraged in his pursuits by the friendly exertions of the poet Hillhouse, and received a public commission to paint a portrait of Lafayette, then on a visit to this country. Few pictures have ever been executed under more painful cir- cumstances. He was called away from his delightful task to attend the death-beds of his wife and parent, and watch over the illness of his chil- dren. In the beautiful cemetery of New Haven is a monument upon which he caused to be inscribed : — “ In memory of Lucretia Pickering, wife of Samuel F. B. Morse, who died Feb. 7, A. D. 1825, aged 25 years. Beautiful in form, features, and expression, bland in her manners, highly cultivated in mind ; dignified without haughtiness, amiable without tame- ness, firm without severity, cheerful without levity ; in suffering the most keen her serenity of mind never left her; though suddenly called from earth, eternity was no stranger to her thoughts, but a welcome theme of contemplation.” But through bereavement and “ hope deferred,” Morse struggled man- fully onward, loyal to his own convictions and the claims of his profession. A second marriage and a delightful rural home, with visits to Europe, have agreeably, of late years, relieved the care and monotony of lawsuits and other business incident to his telegraph patents. The artistic reputa- tion of Morse has long faded in the glow of his scientific fame ; and the vicissitudes of his artistic life are forgotten in the prosperity of his execu- tive career. He has put his artist fire into a locomotive shape, and writes with eleCtric fluid instead of painting in oil. His last picture hangs in the drawing-room of “ Locust-Grove,” his beautiful domain on the Pludson ; and while it indicates too much skill and feeling for the lover of art not to regret his withdrawal from the field, it also symbolizes the domestic enjoy- ment, which, with science and a great public economy, now more than fill the deserted sphere of his youth : it is an admirable full-length portrait * The Life and Letters of James Gates Percival, by J. R. Ward. American Artist Life. I/O of his daughter. His continued interest in American art and love of her worthy votaries was gracefully manifest in his reeledlion, after the lapse of years, to the presidency of the National Academy of Design, — a spon- taneous recognition of his early labors in its behalf, and of the permanent affection of the members ; and, although he held the position but for a brief interval, his presence and sympathy are always exhibited on every occasion of artistic, social, or professional interest. His latest indication of his regard for the artist-friend of his youth, and the welfare of his alma mater , was his recent purchase of Allston’s picture of ‘•'Jeremiah ” for seven thousand dollars, and his presentation thereof to Yale College. He never believed that anything really great or desirable could be attained save through obstacles. Courage and patience have been his watchwords ; and although the snows of time have bleached his hair, the same intelligent and enterprising spirit, the same urbane disposition that endeared him to the friends of his youth, still cause all who know him to rejoice in the honorable independence which his great invention has secured to his age. LESLIE. HE demise of this amiable man and accomplished artist on the 5th May, 1859, broke another of those pleasing ties whereby the intellectual associations of the Old World are blended with those of the New. Born of American parents, on English soil, London, OCt. 17, 1794, his early struggles in Art cheered on the one side of the ocean, and his best triumphs attained on the other, Leslie was one of the precious names whose renown is equally divided between the two great countries sacred to free- dom. His earliest sitters in London were Americans : his best patrons, when his genius was matured, were English noblemen ; at one time teacher of drawing at West Point, he died a Royal Academician. The life of an artist, in the abstract, would seem one of the most tran- quil, independent, and desirable. When adopted from love, and with the requisite capacity, and followed with reCtitude and aspiration, we should imagine it at once harmonious and elevated. Such, however, is often the sensitiveness of the artistic organization, the indifference of the multitude, and the conditions of practical success, that the record of no class of lives is more shadowed by misfortune, or marred by perversity, than those of the artists. Cellini’s skilful hand was as frequently employed in knock- ing down an enemy, as in carving a chalice ; Salvator’s name is associated with turbulence as often as with the picturesque ; the bitter controversy between the romantic and classic schools of France wrought as much woe as many theological or political strifes ; and the suicidal despair of Haydon finds its parallel in many an artist’s career. Moreover, jealousy, want of tact, improvidence, egotism, and moderate abilities are frequent and fruit- ful sources of error and privation. When, therefore, we meet with one who is true to himself and his vocation, who finds contentment in the love of beauty and the patient exercise of talent, and hallows his endowments by manliness, benignity, and faith, it is at once a duty and a pleasure to recognize his worth and analyze the causes of his success. The latter will be found to consist in elements of character by no means rare, in opportu- nities accessible to many, and in principles within the reach of all. It is delightful to contemplate such a life as Charles Robert Leslie’s, — so con- sistent, satisfactory, and complete. Endowed with exquisite perceptions 172 American Artist Life . and a happy temper, eager for improvement, patient both in study and under criticism, with a keen relish of the intellectual, a fine sense of the humor- ous, with high and loyal social instincts, — honorable, genial, and refined, — he thoroughly enjoyed the blessings, earnestly cultivated the powers, and nobly used the privileges of genius. His success was as much the result of character as of talent, as direCtly the fruit of good sense and good feeling as of fortunate circumstances. Hence his autobiography and correspond- ence * inculcate a precious lesson for the profit of others of like tastes and purposes. “ At a dinner,” writes one of his friends, “at which Allan Cunningham, the poet, danced with national glee round a haggis, which, as yet unpunc- tured, had not breathed forth its savory stream, the party were noisy, — but Leslie, always quiet and thoughtful, was lost in contemplation of the dark lustre and flashing brilliancy of a silver spoon. ‘ How much more value,’ said the studious painter, £ are these tints than those of gold plate ; how exquisite the simple, pure lustre, the pearliness, the quiet brilliancy.’ This anecdote shows us the very key-note of Leslie’s system of color, from ‘ Sancho and the Duchess’ down to the ‘ Oueen and Jeannie Deans,’ al- ways 1 the silver spoon, — it might have been his crest. In design and sub- ject he might have followed Smirke and Newton, but in color he was born with the silver spoon in his mouth.” He was eminently true to his convictions, — satisfied to do what he could do best. Few painters have wasted less time in vain attempts to work be- yond their sphere, to sacrifice their individual gifts at the shrine of fashion or ambition. He soon learned wherein to him peculiar excellence was attain- able. He thought and wrote in 1813, that, “ to insure a picture currency, it is necessary that it should tell either some Scriptural or classical story.” He believed then in Benjamin West more than in Raphael. Hogarth had initiated, and Wilkie had triumphed in, the then unrecognized field of the domestic and characteristic ; sympathy with the household literature of his vernacular suggested to Leslie a new phase of this negleCted branch. He had the sensibility to feel and the sense to follow its attractions. Having deliberately chosen the work best adapted to his powers, he sys- tematically cultivated all means of progress therein ; studying the elements of design, the laws of form, expression, and color, in the Elgin marbles, the cartoons of Raphael, the masters of the Flemish school, and other masters, like Paul Veronese ; seeking subjeCts in the favorite scenes and characters of standard literature, and inspiration from nature, the “ comedy of life,” and the graces and gifts of superior men. Leslie’s culture, as revealed in his life and letters, is singularly harmonious and complete ; indicating, with remarkable clearness, the mutual relation of the arts, — how they interfuse as mental resources, and mutually interpret each other, when studied with practical wisdom. It is true that specific branches * Autobiographical Recollections by the late Charles Robert Leslie, edited, with a Prefatory Essay on Leslie, the artist, and Selections from his Correspondence, by Tom Taylor, Esq., Boston, 1865. Leslie. 1 73 of painting demand peculiar kinds and degrees of discipline, — that each department obtains facilities from somewhat diverse resources, — and that the pictorial range most congenial to Leslie, derived advantage from tastes and habitudes not available to the same extent in other cases ; yet his methods and means furnish no common lesson, and commend themselves to the sense and the sentiment so essential to excellence in all art as a vo- cation. Expression is the constant aim, — the grand desideratum ; its scope in this instance was refined, human, familiar, — embracing the comic and the characteristic, rather than the sublime and ideal ; and for this the painter looked to society and the drama, — to literature and life, — not in their grandest, but in their most delicately significant phases. We can imagine no better school, therefore, than the stage at the period of Leslie’s early studies. His love of the drama was an affinity. When, a boy, in Phila- delphia, he stood absorbed on the “flies” to see Cooke perform, and won his employer’s cooperation in his project to become a painter, by the crude but faithful likeness he made of that great actor, he was unconsciously ex- hibiting both his claim and his endowment for his peculiar career. To him the theatre was a grand life-school ; fortunately, he enjoyed its palmy era. The dramatic element of his art was thus made familiar. His earliest let- ters from London are filled with descriptions of the Kembles, Mrs. Siddons, Kean, Elliston, Young, Downton, and the other living masters of dramatic art. Not a trait was lost upon him ; he sketched their faces, criticised their manner and costume, compared them with each other in different parts, and, by careful and sympathetic observation, became an adept in all the delicate shades of personation, the nice analogies of expression and sentiment. We are disposed to attribute no small degree of his aptitude in giving the right expression with his pencil to imaginary characters, to the faCts and principles he thus acquired. When we remember how mono- tonous is the dress, conventional the manner, and prosaic the aspeCt of every-day London people, it is easy to conceive what a refreshment to the fancy, and how suggestive to the painter, the English theatre must have been. The instinCt of genius led this artist in his youth to practise rigid economy, and undergo great personal inconvenience in order to witness the performance of the best aCtors. His reminiscences of them, by their preci- sion and vividness, testify to his intellectual obligations. Campbell, in his well-known tribute to John Kemble upon his retirement from the stage, has eloquently compared the dramatic and the fine arts ; and while he justly asserts that the former include the latter, he recognizes the law of compensation in the faCt that what the drama gains in completness, it loses in permanence. But the philosophical truth is, that these arts, if not mu - tually dependent, are at least mutually inspiring, in a manner and to an ex- tent rarely so distinctly shown as in Leslie’s experience. His artistic suc- cess is an impressive tribute to the practical value of the stage. Lamb renewed his humanity at that now desecrated shrine ; but Leslie obtained there the choicest materials of his graceful art. It was at the theatre that he realized the infinite possibilities of human expression, and intelligently 174 American Artist Life. traced the relation of thought and feeling, fancy and character, to the won- derful transitions of physiognomy, attitude, and gesture. Next to the stage, and more direCtly, Leslie was indebted to literature. The affinities between this pursuit and that of art, often recognized, have seldom been so exquisitely displayed as in his career. Indeed, his tone of mind, his scope of execution, the spirit he was of, seem almost identi- cal with those of a certain class of authors. Character and scenes were the subjects upon which he instinctively expatiated ; but they were of a special kind, and peculiar to English literature, and the popular master- pieces, in the same vein, of two foreign tongues. When we examine the more felicitous results of Leslie’s pencil, and read his favorite authors, it is easy to perceive that only an accidental difference in the mode of expression prevented the limner from being an author. He looked at nature and life with the same eyes. What the poets and romance-writers he loved translated into words, he embodied in outlines and color. We deteCt the dominance of his peculiar taste in art, in his choice of books while yet an art-student. Still later, the same tendency is evident in his social proclivities ; and his works bear testimony to his ability to repro- duce on canvas the characters so akin to his inventive faculty as to make them appear like original creations,- instead of suggested themes. His correspondence with Irving is a charming illustration of the possi- ble kindness between an author and an artist. Not only were his early sketches the pictures which his friend’s writings impressed upon his sym- pathetic fancy, but such was the normal affinity between them, that the companionship of each was apparently essential to the other. The bur- den of their letters, when separated, was to ascertain precisely how they were respectively employed. Irving, sensitive and reticent as he was by nature in all that regarded himself and his works, freely and fondly wrote and talked to Leslie of what he was doing, hoped to accomplish, or failed to realize. He longed for his presence, his counsel, and his sympathy, and reverts to their “ tea-kettle debauches,” their visits to fairs and the play, their conversations and excursions, with the partiality and the regrets, not of romantic friendship, but of an intellectual necessity and moral resource. On the other hand, the artist cannot see a fine landscape, or an odd scene, — the grace of nature under a novel aspeCt, or the comedy of life in the shape of a casual adventure, — without wishing his friend “partaker in his happiness,” that to the personal advantage thereof may be added that other rare and benign privilege, “division of the records of the mind.” One is glad his brother artist is “getting on so well with his picture ; ” the other hopes his dear absentee is “ in the mood for writing.” They suggest subjects for one another ; they indulge in playful badinage on their early privations ; they mutually condole, and cheer, and congratulate, with the frankness and fervor only possible to kindred spirits. One uses, to describe his forlorn consciousness when alone, the expressive phrase of feeling “lobsided ; ” the other begs for a letter as for mental sustenance. “ I not only owe to you,” writes Leslie Leslie. 1 75 to Irving, “some of the happiest social hours of my life, but you opened to me a new range of observation in my own art, and a perception of the qualities and character of things which painters do not always imbibe from each other.” How apt are some of the hints the author gives the limner, either for a new subject or an improved treatment of one already adopted ; and how cordial and wise are the words of praise, of criticism, or of encouragement, with which the latter reciprocates ! It was while detained at an inn at Oxford, with Leslie, that the subject of one of Irving’s best humorous sketches — “The Stout Gentleman” — was sug- gested, to be worked out when their journey was resumed in a “ pen- cilling by the way.” Doubtless the name of the bankrupt husband, in “The Wife,” was adopted from the painter’s, — then unknown to fame ; and how like an artist is the projedl of a composition, representing Shakespeare arraigned for deer-stealing, sketched in a letter from Geoffrey Crayon ; while no small secret of his own style is hinted when, in answer to Leslie’s matter-of-fa<5l corredlion of a passage in the “ Sketch Book,” he inquires if it will not injure the melody of the sentence ? “ I am delighted to find your labors are to be so interwoven with mine,” writes the author of the “ Sketch Book ” and “ Knickerbocker ” to the illustrator of those works. But it was not chiefly in mutual work that their early careers were thus identified. The aid which only genuine sympathy can give — the choicest inspiration of art and literature, as well as life — quickened and moulded their development. This process and principle is evident in a less degree, but continuous and efficient, through- out the artist-life of Leslie, and in his communion and companionship with Newton and Rogers, West and Constable, Scott, Allston, Coleridge, Wilkie, Turner, Stothart, Kenney, and many other eminent artists and authors. It is impossible to estimate either the impulse or the discipline for refined and admirable achievements, which Leslie thus realized. To the companionship and sympathy, the insight and example of these seledl intelligences, his conceptions and his executive skill owe much of their excellence, not on account of special teaching, but through the potent influence of a mental atmosphere which enriched and chastened the genius of the painter. In the case of Irving the intimate and genial rela- tion is more distinctly apparent, and its fruits better defined. It has also all the freshness and beauty of youthful associations ; and it is interesting to note its continued recognition when time, distance, and fame had sepa- rated the two friends. We can appreciate Irving’s declaration, — “ I find nothing to supply the place of that heart-felt fellowship ; ” and when we visited Leslie, four years before his death, the earnest and minute in- quiries he made about Irving, and the interest with which he listened to every detail of his welfare, showed, even to a stranger’s eye, the un- dimmed glow of that early love. It was natural that Leslie’s first success in his peculiar department of art should be in treating a dramatic subject, — the “ Death of Rutland,” from Henry VI. Thenceforth, with the exception of an occasional por- 176 American Artist Life . trait, a few Scripture scenes, and some historical pieces, popular literature furnished him with congenial subjects. With the instindt of genuine talent, he sought in that pleasant table-land of the Muses — where less impassioned phases of humanity find expression — the appropriate sub- jects for his pencil. There are vastly higher flights of imagination, deeper revelations of the soul, characters of more earnest and vital power, scenes grander and more tragic, than those he selected ; but none more adapted to the delicate triumphs of the limner’s art, more expressive of the pleasant and healthful side of human life, or better fitted to become household favorites. He gave a “local habitation” to some of the choicest creations of comic and domestic literature, made familiar to the eye what had long charmed the mind, and emphasized by delineation the wit and pathos which before haunted the fancy in vague and varying, instead of definite images. Think of the gallery of endeared ideal por- traits, for which we are thus indebted to Leslie — Sir Roger de Coverley, Master Slender, sweet Anne Page, Falstaff, Sir Toby Belch and Ague- cheek, Autolycus, the Merry Wives, Dame Quickly, Beatrice, Perdita, Don Quixote, Sophia Western, Viola, Hermione, Sancho and the Duchess, Uncle Toby, the Malade Imaginaire , Widow Wadman and Belinda, Jeannie Deans, Hotspur, and Lady Percy. Ruskin said : “ The more I learn of art, the more respeCt I feel for Mr. Leslie’s painting, as such ; and for the way in which it brings out the expressional result he requires. Given a certain quantity of oil color to to be laid with one touch of pencil, so as to produce at once the subtlest and largest expressional result possible, and there is no man now living who seems to me to come at all near Mr. Leslie, his work being in places equal to Hogarth for decision, and here and there a little lighter and more graceful.” To appreciate the success of an artist in such works it must be remem- bered that every one of these characters was and is an ideal favorite ; that all sympathetic readers of Shakespeare, Sterne, Fielding, Moliere, Cervantes, Addison, and Pope, cherish a personal feeling towards imaginary portraits of their favorites. The painter addressed exacting critics and fond spectators every time he essayed to embody these conceptions of the dramatist, the novelist, and the humorist. To say that he gave satisfaction, often high delight, always pleasure, is awarding no ordinary praise. To meet the demand of such an ordeal required not only the ability to give accurate expression, the conscientious study of costume and accessories, the har- monies of Art, as well as the truth of Nature, but a rare degree of judg- ment and taste was also requisite in order not to offend the preconceived standard of excellence, the moral verisimilitude present to the countless minds to which these subjects were “ familiar as household words.” How- ever inferior to sacred or historical art, therefore, his sphere may be, in the estimation of the ideal aspirant, the standard it was indispensable to reach, both as to technical merit and felicitous invention, made Leslie’s success a rare triumph. The period of his studies and first achievements was Leslie. 1 77 one of transition ; it was a new era in literature, art, and politics. The supremacy of West in historical painting was still undisputed. Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Hogarth represented the recognized victories of the English school, and their influence is obvious in the practice and the ideas destined to excel in a different department from that in which these con- summate artists gained renown. The precepts of Sir Joshua were author- itative with Leslie, and few artists better appreciated the great portrait- painter of the previous age. His latest work was a biographical tribute to Reynolds. The approbation of West was Leslie’s pride, his criticism a law ; while no one can examine the touches of nature in his most expres- sive figures without feeling how much Hogarth’s manner suggested. A new and remarkable school of English artists, at this time, simultaneously wrought marvels ; some of them — such as Flaxman, Martin Stothart, Fuseli, and Constable — with genius above and different from the current taste. Others, like Wilkie, by the most acute treatment of familiar scenes in common life, or, like Turner, by a fresh, bold, and masterly style in landscape, especially in aerial perspective, opened a new and popular field of pictorial art ; Etty in flesh-tints, Sir Thomas Lawrence by elaborate elegance in portraiture, and Chantrey in statuary, raised the character and fame of local art to a prominent though limited rank. The arrival of the Elgin marbles in England awakened in the better class of artists a new perception of the ancient ideals, and the grandest method of following the teachings of nature. Landseer’s marvellous skill in delineating animal life had made evident unimagined possibilities of meaning and merit in what had been deemed an inferior branch of art ; and the beauty and effeCt attained by the best painters in water colors, had established novel precedents. Another faCt singularly conspicuous was the great progress and increased popularity of engraving in England, — whereby popular pictures were multiplied. The pictures of Leslie were remarkably adapted to the burin, and thus became more valuable and famous. He advocated the admission of superior engravers to academic honors, from a grateful sense of his obligation to their skill. The stage had reached its acme of celebrity ; the novels of Miss Bur- ney, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Miss Porter had yielded to the historical romances of the Great Unknown, and the sensible narratives of Maria Edgeworth ; anew poem by Scott, Byron, or Moore, was the literary sensation of the day ; the tocsin of political reform had sounded ; Lord Brougham’s versa- tile powers and Horner's eloquence made an epoch in Parliamentary debates ; famous travellers and savans rendered the soirees of Sir Joseph Banks attractive ; the stage-coach had not been superseded by the rail- way ; the curfew was yet tolled in remote districts ; Napoleon’s meteoric career made foreign news a perpetual military drama ; it was the era of Percival's assassination and the war of 1812, of Waterloo and Trafalgar ; — and all these elements of civic and social life were more or less influen- tial in that education of circumstances, which, despite his comparative seclusion from the world of affairs, shape the mind of the artist. A call 12 *78 American Artist Life. from Scott to inspebt his unfinished pibture of “ Christmas in the Olden Time ; ” a sojourn at a noble domain, or a visit to an old castle ; a trip to Paris to explore the Louvre ; attendance at the theatre to witness Mrs. Siddons’ last appearance ; a breakfast with Rogers, to meet a literary or artistic celebrity ; a twelve-hours’ vigil in the Abbey to see Victoria crowned, or a more brief and sad attendance there to behold the obsequies of West, — these and such as these were the opportunities and the exigen- cies which Leslie’s times yielded ; — enough certainly of outward interest to recreate and enlighten the mind in the intervals of an absorbing vocation. How efficiently Leslie’s social developed and disciplined his artistic life ! In such memoirs as his we feel the blessedness of rare and true com- panionship. The “ che'erful, innocent, scrambling student-life ; ” the sub- sequent period of youthful and manly work, enlivened by mutual counsel and fun between “ Geoffrey Crayon,” “ the Childe,” and the “dear boy ; ” and the succeeding great social privileges which came with renown, — all contributed felicitously to the success as well as happiness of the painter. Among the incidental means of this kind to which he alludes with satis- faction, is the “ Sketch Club,” whose meetings were held at stated periods at the residence of each member, in succession. Two hours were assidu- ously devoted to sketching a subjebt only announced at the moment ; and the compositions became the property of the host of the evening. We had the pleasure of examining one set of these impromptu sketches, executed at Leslie’s house, and sent by him to relatives in America. The subject was “ Night,” and it was marvellous how varied and complete were the results of the brief pastime. One artist treated Night for its sentiment, and drew lovers by moonlight ; another made a picturesque effebt of cliff, tree, and shadow ; Stanfield had a fine sea-view in a midnight storm ; a humorous sketch delineated a court-yard, with cats fighting, and an old fellow in his nightcap ludicrously expostulating from a high window ; in short, the nobturnal in nature and life was exhibited under every aspebt, fiom the most romantic to the most natural ; and the cleverness of design, the degree of finish and individuality of each sketch, gave one a pleasant idea of the facility of execution attained by the artists. Leslie believed in mastery of ideas in art, more than imitative or technical skill. Even in portraiture he often gave the most expressive touches from memory, and commanded, to a singular extent, the requisites of facile execution in his chosen sphere. At Vibtoria’s coronation, very desirable seats were given to academicians. During Sully’s last visit to London, Leslie one day was describing the spebtacle to him with an artist’s enthusiasm ; and dwelt especially upon the manner in which the central figure struck his vision, as a gleam of sun- shine played upon the ermine of the peers, and the diamond wheat in the hair of the maids of honor, until it fell, like a halo, around the head of the fair young queen, kneeling to receive the sacrament. Sully, with his usual consideration, suggested to Leslie to paint what so obviously haunted his imagination ; and a few days after, he found the artist brooding over the Leslie. 179 subject, for it was one of his peculiar habits to complete a picture in his mind before touching the canvas. Accordingly, after long deliberation, the light, shade, and grouping were arranged to his satisfaction. The princi- pal persons present on the occasion agreed to sit for their portraits, and her Majesty cordially favored the design. The beautiful scene was thus commemorated with exquisite skill and taste. It served to renew Leslie’s popularity, and will ever be a charming evidence of his tasteful ability and artistic power. To be moved by gentle excitements and won by quiet charms, proves refinement of feeling and alacrity of mind. It is one of the most striking tokens of advancing civilization, that popular amusements gradually lose all coarseness. The sports of the arena give way to the drama ; buffoonery and horrors are succeeded by classic dialogue and inspiring arias. Paint- ing exemplifies the same transition ; and from martyrdoms and heathen divinities, by degrees, turns to domestic scenes and glimpses of humor and sentiment. The school of modern English art is the legitimate offspring of her high civilization. As in science cognizance is now taken of minutiae on account of the spread of general knowledge, in art, the details of life awaken an interest, and furnish a resource unavailable in earlier times, when a few leading ideas moved society. The change is less favorable to the grand than the graceful development of talent. Still there is a whole- some principle in quiet gratification, and taste is no uncertain guide to truth. Our sympathies would soon lapse from pure exhaustion, had we only Lady Macbeths and Othellos ; and Shakspeare’s genuine humanity is no less effectively displayed in his Violas and Mercutios. Leslie’s first successful attempt was a likeness of Cooke, the tragedian, taken at the theatre, while apprentice to a Philadelphia bookseller. He soon copied admirably, and became, like most of his fraternity, early occupied with portraits. After teaching drawing a short time at West Point, he resigned the appointment, returned to England, and enjoyed the liberal encouragement which no other country is so well adapted to yield the kind of genius by which he is dis- tinguished. She claims him as her own, but although born there, his parents were American, and his first lessons in art received on this side of the water. It has been well said that habit alone prevents us from recognizing a miracle every day. Were our sensibilities always keen, and our observa- tion ever aCtive, the most familiar phenomena would excite wonder. A pampered taste, and feelings blunted by custom that “ makes dotards of us all,” rear the most formidable barrier between what is really interesting and the mind. It is on this account that writers continually seek in the extra- ordinary, aliment for public curiosity ; and for the same reason, inferior artists often address themselves to very odd or sublime themes, with a view of winning admiration. Experiment has proved, however, that there is a vast and but partially explored domain around us, neither supernatural nor melodramatic, which may be vividly illustrated, if wisely used. Per- haps there is no sphere either of art or literature which yields such per- i So American Artist Life. fectly healthful results, and which so abounds in “ human nature’s daily food.” The poet from whom this phrase is quoted is an instance in point. He has succeeded in imparting an ideal interest to the common aspects of Nature. Some of the British essayists achieved the same result by their clever treatment of social and local traits, which, in themselves, appeared utterly devoid of what is called effeCt ; and judicious readers welcome an element so wholly free from morbid excitement and artificial appliances. In the world of art there also exists a kind of table-land, equally distant from mountain grandeur and flowery vales, where a cheerful tone and quiet harmony refresh the senses, and gratify, without disturbing, the heart. In an age like the present, those who thus minister to the more tranquil plea- sures of imagination exercise a benign vocation. They may not thrill, but they often charm. Their labors create no epochs of inward life, yet they often cheer and solace. The lesson conveyed may be calm, but it is not the less refreshing ; and the associations enkindled, like a bland atmosphere, yield a pastime none the less desirable, because it is unmarked either by tears or laughter, and is indicated only through an unconscious smile or. placid reverie. We designate the principle in view, when socially manifested, by such humble epithets as agreeable. As humor differs from wit, peace from rap- ture, satisfaction from delight, the appropriate from the impressive, this quiet aim and peculiar grace is distinguishable from more exciting influ- ences. As exhibited in painting, it is as far removed from Dutch homeli- ness as from Italian exaltation, and partakes as little of grotesque caricature as of lofty sentiment. It is domestic, natural, unpretending, yet true and attractive. It is the neutral tint in color, the undulating in movement, the gentle in sound, and the pleasant in experience, appealing not to high vene- ration or deep love, but gratefully allying itself to ready and home-bred sympathies. Of all our painters, Leslie excelled in this department. His “Sir Roger de Coverley,” “ Sancho Panzaand the Duchess,” “ Sterne at the Glove Shop,” “Anne Page and Master Slender,” are gems of their kind. He w 7 as such a limner of manners as was Steele in language. His subjects are chiefly drawn from life, not in its extremes, but its refinements. His pic- tures are caught from family associations and household literature. They embellish the scenes of domestic taste. He follows nature in her choicest mood. To few artists may be more justly applied the term intellectual. His style is elegant, hi s sentiment and humor delicate, and his strength lies in the fine proof rather than the massiveness of his arms. As a gentle- man’s example raises the tone of breeding, Leslie’s genius redeems art from coarseness. His women are not heroines, but they are winsome and ac- complished. He distilled poetry from the common-place, and throws a fanciful charm around the familiar. He was judicious, penetrating, and graceful, and hence tells a very intelligible anecdote on canvas, in a simple, vet beautiful way. It is these characteristics that made him so apt and satisfactory an interpreter of the Spectator, and Uncle Toby, Irving, and the more' airy passages of Shakspeare’s comedy. Leslie. 1 8 1 Among the few portraits from his pencil in this country, is a cabinet likeness of Sir Walter Scott, belonging to George Ticknor, Esq., of Boston, and one of Dr. J. W. Francis, of New York, executed fifty years ago, and in the possession of his family. A few months before his death the artist wrote this venerable friend, reminding him of those days in London when they used to attend the reunions of Sir Joseph Banks, and discuss the merits of Cooke, after the play. Leslie’s spirited and accurate draw- ings of this great adtor, in his best characters, were sketched in the pit of the Philadelphia Theatre, and sent to London to be engraved. They first called attention to the young painter’s rare skill in expression. His picture of “Catharine, the Shrew” belongs to Hon. John P. Kennedy, of Balti- more, Md. ; that illustrating the passage in Macbeth — “And withered mur- der alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf” — belongs to the estate of William Gilmore, Esq., of the same city ; his “ Farnese Plercules,” “ Musidora,” after West, his portraits of Lancaster, of educational fame, of “Cooke as Richard III.” in water colors, and the “Murder of Rutland by Clifford,” are in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts ; “ Touchstone, Audrey, and the Clown ; ” “ Olivia ” in Twelfth Night ; “ Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman ; ” a portrait of himself, and one of Henry C. Carey, are in the possession of the latter gentleman at Philadelphia ; James Lenox, Esq , of New York, has his portrait of Washington Irving, and his pictures of “ Oui Saviour teaching his Disciples the lesson of Plumility,” “ The Pharisee and the Publican,” “ Our Saviour,” “Mary and Martha,” “ The Mother’s return from a Party,” and “ A Mother and Child,” after Raphael. His picture of “ Slender and Anne Page” belonged to Philip Hone, Esq., of New York, who obtained it from the artist ; and another of his Scenes from Shake- speare was sold with the Wolfe Collection in that city, sent to London, and, after Leslie’s death, is said to have been disposed of for a thousand guineas. To an American reader few portions of Leslie’s Recollections and Cor- respondence will have a more speculative interest than those which illus- trate the patronage of Art in England. The kind of dependence upon noblemen, habitual among first-class painters, has been regarded by many of our intelligent countrymen as inimical to self-respeCt and unfavorable to originality. It has been thought to involve a deference in matters of taste, and a conformity to arbitrary conditions, inconsistent with the freedom of genius and the dignity of manhood. The faCt that, in many instances, aristocratic hospitality is extended to the artist alone, while his family are ostracized from the circles where he is a favorite guest, has also seemed irreconcilable with our republican and domestic notions. That, in specific instances, there is ground for these prejudices against Art-patronage in England, — that artists of distinguished ability have heen meanly subser- vient to rank, and compromised the independence of their vocation and character, that “ thrift might follow fawning,” — it is useless to deny. But there is another and a better side to this phase of artist-life in Great Britain, which is one of the most auspicious and creditable aspects of her 182 American Artist Life. social life. Elaborate works of art require not only time, but a free mind and a confident mood, for their execution ; — both of which conditions are liable to be forfeited through the limited means and domestic necessities of the artist. Hence the most desirable, nay, essential encouragement for him is a liberal friend, who, by securing him ample remuneration, enables him to work without anxiety or haste, and whose knowledge of and inte- rest in art make his sympathy not less inspiring than his patronage. There are many and beautiful examples of such a relation between the nobleman of fortune and the painter of genius. Leslie himself was eminently for- tunate in this regard. The friendship of Lord Egremont, so spontaneous in its origin, considerate in its manifestation, and constant in its exercise, is one of the most pleasing episodes in the artist-life of Leslie. Lord Egremont’s first commission to Leslie, his generous offer when the latter hesitated whether to abandon his vague prospers in England for a certain but limited employment in America, the annual visits of the artist and his family to Petworth, the facilities for study and recreation there so unosten- tatiously afforded him, and especially the warm, unwavering sympathy in his art, and interest in his welfare, which this kindly and endeared noble- man exhibited, make the record a charming exception to all that is deroga- tory in patronage ; for that equivocal term was superseded by the more genial relation of mutual respecl, taste, confidence, and affeCtion. The patronage was of that rare kind which is the offspring of appreciation, — the consequence of an affinity of mind. The love of Art and her worthy votaries is, indeed, a delightful trait of the cultivated and the munificent ; it often redeems rank from commonplace and selfish associations, and ele- vates its possessor into a minister at the altar of humanity. It is more or less characteristic of the English aristocracy. Lord Carlisle’s first objeCt, after landing in Boston, was to find Allston’s studio ; and Lord Ellesmere signalized his visit to America by liberal commissions to our best landscape- painters. No unprejudiced reader of Leslie’s Autobiography, who is cogni- zant of the obstacles to success in historical and genre painting, can fail to realize how much his talent was fostered, his taste improved, his labors cheered, and his efforts inspired, by the generous, intelligent, and sympa- thetic patronage he received from royalty, rank, and men of fortune. De- void of this, at that period and under his circumstances, it is difficult to imagine how he could have worked auspiciously in a sphere so dependent upon individual appreciation and encouragement. It is not surprising that he loved England and felt at home there, both as regards society, art, and congenial influences. He lived to witness a surprising change in the resources of artist-life ; for there is no more striking fa< 5 t in regard to this subject than the munificent patronage which the wealthy manufacturers of Great Britain now extend to Art. Some of the choicest works of modern painters are to be found in Manchester ; as if by the law of compensation the scene of the most exclusive material labor should be hallowed by the love and presence of the beautiful. “Almost every day,” writes Leslie in 1851, “ I hear of some man of fortune whose name is unknown to me, who Leslie. 183 is forming a collection of pictures ; and they are all either men of business, or men who have retired from business with a fortune.” Through popular criticism, engravings, local exhibitions, and the facilities of travel, Art is becoming more and more a vast social interest, losing its exclusive char- acter, and growing into and out of the economy and the taste of modern life. Ere long its lover and student will not depend, as did Leslie at the outset of his career, upon private favor to study masterpieces. Already the Cartoons of Raphael, the best antique models and specimens of the Venetian, Roman, and Flemish schools, are accessible to the humblest seeker after truth and beauty ; and the most graceful works of the living English and Continental painters may be seen on the walls of tradesmen, or in the exhibition-rooms of New York and London. The alacrity and earnestness with which Leslie cultivated the society of those whom he thought his superiors in mind, — the habit of appre- ciating excellence. — in no small degree account for his progressive in- telligence and sympathy. Nor was this entirely owing to his refined and intellectual taste, but in a measure to the abeyance of self-love in his na- ture. He was an aspirant, not alone in Art, but in character and culture. He justly regarded the companionship of original and accomplished men and women as the chief privilege of his life. Not too sensitive or com- placent to be happy with those who, in some quality or gift, excelled him, he was receptive of the good and tolerant of the objectionable in charac- ter to a singular degree. Like his friend Allston, he was a “ wide liker ; ” and consequently among the first to recognize the early triumphs of that artist. His youthful reminisences of Coleridge give us a most vivid and pleasing idea of that remarkable man in his prime. With Rogers he enjoyed constant and improving intercourse. For Constable his love and admiration were deep. His visits to Newton, at the Insane Asylum, are noted with discrimination and feeling, and his written portrait of this and many other eminent friends betrays the the liberal as well as sagacious observer. Rare and abundant, indeed, were Leslie’s social resources. The artists and authors, the wits and heroes of his time, in Britain, have found few such appreciative companions. Always his estimate of character is tem- pered by humanity, and his chronicle of society chastened by taste. Many have heard Moore sing, Sydney Smith joke, Coleridge improvise, Rogers tell anecdotes, Irving indulge his humorous vein, and Wilkie, Turner, Haydon, Landseer, Fuseli, and Stothardt talk about Art; but no one has done more catholic justice to them all, as men, than Leslie. He reached a high point of independence in his judgment, and seems to praise negleCted merit with the emphasis of conviction. He did not, like the mass, “see with ears,” nor wait for fame to canonize what he felt to be intrinsically great. Although a social epicure, he was impatient of fault- finders. He could relish a bon mot as well as a felicitous tint, and delight in the picturesque in character as well as in costume. He reverts to his early struggles with the same manly candor with which he alludes to his prosperous days ; and the contrast between the time when he economized 184 American Artist Life . letter-postage, and waited weeks for his turn to read the new poem from the library, and that when he was the favored guest at Petworth, lunched at Windsor, and dined at Holland House, never seems to have unduly depressed or elated one whose “blood and judgment were so well com- mingled.” He named a son for his earliest friend, — the Philadelphia bookseller who furnished the means for his visit and studies in England : his affectionate interest in his kindred never abated ; his friendships were long and loyal ; and, if his eyes grew dim with tears to see the young Oueen partake of the holy communion, the same sensibility was exhibited in practical kindness towards impoverished talent or humble worth. To a generous lover of beauty, one in whom the aesthetic element is pervasive, there is something almost frivolous in the extreme opinions that exist in regard to Art. It seems incompatible with an earnest sensibility to and appreciation of the world of interest which that term, in its broad acceptation, signifies, that any school should be utterly repudiated, or that any diversity of taste should lead to differences and controversies almost fanatical. Plow absurd, in the retrospect, appear the violent discussions which alienated artists from one another, to the extent of becoming actual enemies, when the fierce contest reigned in France between the votaries of the Romantic and Classic schools. And now what perversity in Rus- kin and his disciples to decry the old masters in the same degree that they exalt certain modern painters, and carry the “return to nature,” which is the desirable principle of Pre-Raphaelitism, to the extent of pedantic puerility ! A catholic taste in Art embraces all kinds, forms, and schools wherein there is anything genuine ; and a liberal mind of ideal aptitude can find somewhat in sacred, historical, Italian, Flemish, Spanish, French, English, American, and German pictures to delight in and admire, when- ever either is informed by truth, genius, sentiment, grace, beauty, or tech- nical skill. The limitations of the English school are self-evident. The life of a London artist is essentially different from that of one whose home is at Dusseldorf or Rome. Each place and style has its advantages and its drawbacks ; we find no obstacle in recognizing them all, though, of course, there must be strong preferences. With all its niceties of execu- tion, household sentiment, refined and pleasing influences, the school of pidtorial art which Leslie illustrated, the system under which he studied and prospered, lack scope, earnestness and glow, wide relations, and high significance. His deference for and reliance on the Royal Academy, and indifference to many spheres and phases of artistic interest and know- ledge, are results of that conventional dogmatism and routine which more or less invade and narrow human development in England. It is for what he did excel in, for the manner in which he worked out the truth and the cjuality that he grasped, both in art and charadter, that we honor Leslie, and deem his example valuable and his life attradlive. In exhibiting the literary affinities of Art in their more delicate manifestations, his genius was peculiar ; his social and professional obligations to authors were re- markable, and suggest vast possibilities in that direction. The truth is, Leslie. 185 his relish of character was dramatic ; Murray’s shop and Sterne’s Calais hotel had attractions for him almost equal to a piCture-gallery. His ideal of Art and life was modified by the English standard of respectability. He loved the beautiful in minute and casual, rather than in grand and abstract forms ; and the single flower he delighted to put in a glass every morning to brighten his studio, his fastidious taste in companionship, his habit of noting his social experience, his provident, harmonious, and well- ordered life, are in striking contrast with the vagaries of German and the ardor of Italian painters. His patient, unimpassioned temperament and well-balanced mind suggest altogether a different being from those Vasari has chronicled, or such as are met at an Ostia picnic or sketching on the Rhine ; and equally diverse from theirs are his productions, refined ex- pression, finish, and taste, far exceeding creative and ideal power, or pro- found sentiment. “ The interest with which the pursuit of art has always been invested, to my mind, became unusually vivid, as I passed rapidly, one, April-like morning, along the Edgeware road, toward the domicil of Leslie, for whom I had been intrusted with a missive from one of his dearest rela- tives at home. As the cab rattled by many an old dwelling with ivy twined about its base, and through lines of teams and butchers’ carts, I could not but acknowledge once more the force of that instinCt which, in the midst of so much bustle, and in the heart of such material life, can bind a man to his easel, and concentrate his mind upon the worship of beauty, while all around him swells the vast tide of conventional affairs. We drew up, at length, in the region called St. John’s park, before a modern house with a villa-like entrance, and, in a few moments, I was cordially welcomed to the studio of Leslie. He was engaged upon a picture that struck me as remarkably adapted to his genius ; the subject: is the festive scene so minutely described in the £ Rape of the Lock.’ I wondered so fertile a theme had never before seized upon the fancy of a painter, and felt, as 1 gazed, that it was fortunately reserved for the grace- ful delineator of ‘ Slender and Anne Page,’ 1 Victoria’s Coronation,’ and so many other gems of the same description. The consummate tact with which such an array of figures was grouped on the canvas — all of cabi- net size — the variety of expression and costume, and the compaCt signifi- cance and authenticity of the whole, not only as an illustration of Pope’s conception, but of the age it embodies, assured me that it would prove a felicitous masterpiece. I have never seen a picture of Leslie’s so radiant and, at the same time, well toned ; as a study of color, as well as social life, it was exquisite ; and the figure and face of Belinda were all imagina- tion could desire ; not a trait was overlooked, not a charm negleCted ; and I saw, with delight, that — ‘ On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, That Jews might kiss and infidels adore.’ Leslie threw open the window just as a gleam of sunshine fell on the 1 86 American Artist Life. distant hills, lightly veiled with pearly mist, over which it is his custom to wander on summer mornings, and designated the church-spire in whose shadow Constable is buried. The landscape was thoroughly English. I had lately perused the beautiful letters, and not less beautiful life of Consta- ble written by Leslie, and now listened with peculiar satisfaction to his glowing description and his tender regrets as he spoke of his friend. No other painter so truly caught the vernal life and living clouds such as, at this moment, expanded to our vision ; and I blessed the poetic justice which thus located his sepulchre amid the scenes he loved to depiCt, and within the habitual ken of his brother-artist. I had often traced the analogy that exists between the individual phases of genius as exhibited in literature and art ; and now again realized the intimate relation be- tween the English humorists and such painters as Newton and Leslie ; the sympathy the latter manifested in his inquiries about Irving confirmed the idea. Their artistic spheres are essentially alike ; they both have charmed ,the world with the most genial and effective cabinet pictures, drawn from the more refined aspects of life, and finished to the highest point of grace and harmony.” * * From the Author’s “ Month in England.” DURAND. HOEVER has sailed across one of our immense lakes — the inland seas of this vast continent — at the close of a day when summer was verging into autumn, and the keen wind swept over the broad waters as they glowed with crimson or saffron in the magnificent sunset, cannot easily forget a scene unequalled in any part of the world. The expanse of water spreading to the horizon seems kindled into transparency by the warm and deepening hues as they flash unobstructed upon the waves ; as twilight comes on, the view grows sublime, and when the vivid tints gradu- ally vanish in darkness, a deep and almost sacred impression is left upon the mind. Durand gives, in one of his landscapes called a “ Lake Scene,” a remarkably happy idea of a prospebl like this. We know not where his view is located, but if we had encountered it in any gallery abroad, we should have instantly recognized one of the most characteristic phases of nature in America. It is in musing upon subjects of this kind — upon the remark- able natural features of our native land — that we realize what a grand field is here presented to the landscape-painter, and a feeling of impatience steals over us that comparatively so little has been accomplished. The inferio- rity of the old masters in this department of art is generally acknowledged. While Claude’s skies, and the dexterous management of Salvator’s pictures continue to retain the admiration they have ever excited, numerous modern artists are distinguished by a feeling for nature which has made landscape, instead of of mere imitation, a vehicle of great moral impressions. As modern poets have struck latent chords in the heart from a deeper sym- pathy with humanity, recent limners have depicted scenes of natural beauty, not so much in the spirit of copyists as in that of lovers and worshippers ; and accordingly, however, unsurpassed the older painters are in historical, they are now confessedly outvied in landscape. And where should this kind of painting advance, if not in this country ? Our scenery is the great object which attracts foreign tourists to our shores. No blind adherence to authority here checks the hand or chills the heart of the artist. It is only requisite to possess the technical skill, to be versed in the alphabet of painting, and then, under the inspiration of a genuine love of nature “to hold communion with her visible forms,” in order to achieve signal triumphs i S3 American Artist Life. in landscape, from the varied material so lavishly displayed in our moun- tains, rivers, lakes, and forests — each possessing characteristic traits of beauty, and all cast in a grander mould, and wearing a fresher aspect than in any other civilized land. Among those who have turned their attention in the right spirit to this subject, and given happy illustrations of its fertility, Durand occupies a prominent rank. Asher Brown Durand was born in Jefferson, New Jersey, August 21, 1796. No class of early emigrants to America brought with them, or more sturdily maintained, the probity, frugal habits, and enlightened industry which are the basis of civic virtue, than the Huguenots ; from the religious artisan to the consistent statesman, their character exerted a wide and auspicious influence upon colonial manners, well illustrated in the pure reCtitude and self-respeCt which endear the memory of John Jay. The ancestors of Durand were among the French protestants, who found a re- fuge in the United States after the repeal of the EdiCt of Nantes. His father was a watchmaker, and in his shop the future artist learned to cut cyphers on spoons, whence the transition to engraving was, with his artistic aptitudes, a natural process. While a boy he exhibited a love of trees, and acquired practice in drawing foliage. HI is first attempts in the execution of prints were made on plates hammered out of copper coins, and with in- struments of his own invention. A French gentleman was so much im- pressed with his skill that he commissioned him to copy, in this primitive style, a portrait on the lid of a snuff-box ; and his success in this experi- ment determined him to adopt the profession of an engraver. In 1812 he became an apprentice to Peter Maverick, one of the few adepts in the art at that period among us ; and in 1817 Durand was his partner. His first extensive work was the long celebrated engraving of Trumbull’s “ Declara- tion of Independence this established his reputation, and led to his con- stant employment ; he was soon after engaged upon the National Portrait Gallery, engraving fine heads of Jay, Decatur, Marshall, Jackson, Cass, Kent, Clinton, and Adams ; “ Musidora,” and Vanderlyn’s “ Ariadne,” in- creased and confirmed his fame as a master of the burin. Greenough handed the latter print around in a conclave of foreign artists at a cafe in Florence, and with difficulty persuaded them of its American origin, so greatly were they all impressed with its mature skill. After ten years of prosperous labor upon small figures and portraits, Durand, partly through the liberal encouragement of his friend, Luman Reed, in 1835 abandoned engraving for portrait and landscape-painting; among his early portraits in oil are the heads of Kent, Jackson, Bryant, and Governeur Kemble : for landscape art he had always cherished a fondness, having its source in the earnest love of nature which has ever characterized his works. The honesty of his purpose and fidelity of his habits, increased by so long a practice in the imitation and minute labors of an engraver, were carried into his new vocation ; and with these technical facilities, a scope and senti- ment which redeemed them from mere mechanical excellence ; elaborated with care, they were not less idylic in spirit than faithful in detail. At first Durand. 189 he inclined to figure pieces, of which “ Harvey Birch and Washington,” “The Capture of Andre,” “ The Dance on the Battery,” and “The Wrath of Peter Stuyvesant,” became widely familiar through popular engravings, executed or finished by himself ; the latest of these joint productions of the two arts he practiced, was the admiral portrait of Bryant, engraved under his supervision, and the finishing touches bestowed by his own hand. But the full power of his taste and talent, and especially his feeling for nature found memorable expression in a series of American Landscapes, some of which have an allegorical as well as intrinsic significance : — such as the “ Morning and Evening of Life,” and “ Kindred Spirits ” — the last a gorge and rocky plateau of the Catskills, whereon Bryant and Cole are represent- ed as standing in rapt survey of the glorious Forest Scenes. Lake Scenes, The Franconia Mountains, Wood Scenes, our Primeval Forest, Sunset, The Rainbow, Sunday Morning, The Catskills from Plillsdale, and other similar subjects illustrated, year by year, the growing beauty of his concep- tions, and his devoted study of our native scenery. In pastoral landscape his fame was early achieved. Among many other pictures which remain sweetly impressed upon our recollection, there is one representing a sum- mer tempest. Whoever has watched the advent and discharge of a thunder cloud, in summer, among the White Mountains or the Hudson Highlands, will appreciate the perfeCt truth to nature, in the impending shadow of the portentous mass of vapor, as it falls on tree, rock, sward, and stream ; and the contrasted brilliancy of the sunshine playing on the high ridge above ; the strata of the latter, as well as the foliage and foreground of the whole landscape, are thoroughly and minutely American in their character. This we have long been accustomed to note and to admire in Durand ; but sel- dom has he gone so near the atmospheric peculiarities of his native land. We can hear the rustling of the leaves before the pattering of the shower, scent the loamy breath of the earth, and feel the exhausted air that pre- cedes the lightning, and quells nervous organizations. It is a masterly work ; in breadth, freedom, and vital truth, equal to the artist’s best efforts. He has the greatest feeling for Nature ; others may have as good an eye and as skilful a touch, but for the sentiment, there are few like Durand. His affinity with nature is akin to that of Wordsworth and Bryant; and with his usual practical sympathy, he has made this scene, caught fresh and true from an evanescent phase of nature, illustrate Goldsmith’s favorite metaphor of the “tall cliff that lifts its awful form.” Another of these remembered treasures is a group of forest trees, stand- ing in their individuality, and unassisted by any of those devices which are usually introduced to set off so exclusive a theme. Only the great skill and truth of their execution would atone for the paucity of objeCts in such