}

THE LIBRARY
OF THE
REGENTS
SITY OF
UNIVERSIT
OMNIBUS ARTIBUS
MINNESOTA
70973
B43

PHOTO-END CON
W.H. Beard.
OUR
AMERICAN ARTISTS
BY
S. G. W. BENJAMIN
WITH
PORTRAITS, studios, anD ENGRAVINGS
OF PAINTINGS
UNIVERSITY OF
MINNESOTA
LIBRARY
BOSTON
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEy Streets
COPYRIGHT, 1886,
BY D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY.
PRESS OF HENRY H. CLARK & CO., BOSTON.
709.73
U of M Bindery di 18 56
دا
потро
1
B43
OUR AMERICAN ARTISTS.
Τ
I. - WILLIAM H. BEARD.
HE painter whose name and portrait accompany
This
this article claims our attention both as an ex-
cellent artist and as one who gives us many enter-
taining pictures of animal life. No branch of art
requires a more earnest interest in the subject than
that of animal painting, or more early displays itself
in the dawning genius of the destined artist. This
is one of the most recent fields of art. Sneyders,
Weenix, and Wouverman, who were Dutch painters.
of the seventeenth century, are the first noted animal
painters. In our time there are many artists in
Europe who have studied the forms and habits of
7
APR 21 '26
8
Our American Artists.
animals, especially the horse and the dog. Many of
the readers of this volume are doubtless familiar
with the horses of Schreyer, the German painter, and
Herring the Englishman, and the noble dogs and
sheep and deer of Sir Edwin Landseer, who made
the animals he painted seem so human that they
excite our sympathy or mirth as if they were like
ourselves.
In our own country our best artists have generally
been landscape painters, but we have, however,
some very good artists who devote their talents to
painting animals; generally they are specialists, that
is, each chooses one particular class of animals.
Mr. Walter Brackett, for example, has made a
careful study of fish. He has a fascinating custom,
which he has pursued for over twenty years, of going
into the mountains with his son and camping out,
fishing in the roaring brooks and painting the salmon
and speckled trout as they quiver on the end of the
line. Hinckley paints lifelike foxes; Robinson,
James Hart and young Inness show us the ox or
the cow wading in the stream on a warm day by
the green meadow-lands, or drawing heavy carts with
infinite patience. Bispham, of Boston, paints horses,
and Rogers, who is still very young, has a passion
for representing retrievers and spaniels on canvas.
William H. Beard.
9
with great freshness and vigor. He has a dog which
is trained to take a position when his master wishes
to paint him. Tait paints game-birds in a way that
almost whets one's appetite for roast duck.
These are all American artists. But there is no
one in the country who has more carefully studied
and painted the habits and character of a large
variety of animals than Mr. Beard. He was born
at Painesville, Ohio, in 1825, and comes from an
artistic family. His mother was a woman of large
intelligence and excellent taste, and his elder brother,
James H. Beard, is a skillful artist, of national
reputation as a portrait-painter, and an admirable
delineator of dogs and cats, which he paints with
lifelike truth, while his three sons are also artists.
William showed a love for animals from infancy,
and says that he cannot remember when he first took
to drawing, he began so early to wield a pencil and
brush. In those days people in America cared less
for art than they do now, and young Beard did not
receive encouragement to take it up as a profession.
It was thought by his neighbors and family that
one artist in the family was enough, his brother
James having already set up as a portrait painter.
But the lad, urged by a strong impulse, persisted in
drawing animals, determined that art should be his
10
Our American Artists.
profession. His advantages were very small for
learning, but that perhaps helped him by forcing
him to depend more upon his own resources and
especially to study carefully the objects he wished to
paint. All the knowledge that a master can give
cannot take the place of ardent and persistent study
of nature. It is from nature that our best lessons
are learned, and the artist of ability who most studies
nature will tell us most that is worth knowing. In
the days when William Beard was young there were
no art schools in the country, and although we had
produced a few good painters, they had come up by
dint of strong original talent and perseverance. One
has a high respect for the artists like Cole, or
Stuart, or Doughty, or Durand, who did so much
good work while only self-taught. And to that class
of artists Mr. Beard most certainly belongs, for few
painters have been more self-taught than he. From
such an example the boy or girl who feels desirous
of drawing can take encouragement to begin at any
time, the secret of art being to study nature with
earnestness and enthusiasm, and to draw things as
they look to the observer. Of course practice of the
eye and hand are like a growing fortune. Each year
they add to the excellence reached in rendering
nature, and one may become better able thoroughly
William H. Beard.
II
to gain advantage from the lessons of those who
have become masters in art.
Mr. Beard went to New York city after he had
been painting for awhile, and took a few lessons from
his brother James. He then settled in Buffalo for
ten years, where he gained a solid local reputation.
During that time he painted his picture of a cat with
her kittens, the first work he had on the line in the
exhibition of the National Academy. It is one of his
best pictures. The old cat which served as a model
was very restless, having no notion of sitting for her
portrait, and Mrs. Beard had to hold her while the
artist sketched the outline or laid on the color. It
was during his residence in Buffalo that Mr. Beard
went to Italy, where he spent two years amid the
inspiring influence of Italian art.
Two years after his return Mr. Beard settled in
New York, where he has remained ever since,
painting many works of merit and celebrity, and
becoming a member of the National Academy, which
entitles him to add N. A. to his name.
Some years
ago he took a long tour in the South and West,
spending several months among the savage Indians
of Colorado, without losing his scalp.
His studio is in the old Studio Building in 10th
Street, where so many noted artists are gathered in a
12
Our American Artists.
cluster of somewhat dim apartments resembling
cells in a convent. These studios are filled with
canvases turned face to the wall, studies for paintings,
plaster casts, bits of faded tapestry, ship models and
artificial skeletons, easels, old armor and antique
furniture, and all sorts of odds and ends of old
drapery and knick-knacks picked up in auction-
rooms, thrown about in tangled, picturesque confusion,
which a thrifty housekeeper would like to invade with
ruthless broom and duster. But there is at least one
place on this earth where the dominion of the ever-
busy and tidy housewife cannot hold sway, and that
is the studio of the artist. A certain degree of
studied untidiness seems essential to his dreams.
The studio of Mr. Beard is an epitome of his
artistic career. It abounds in deer's horns, old
armor, rusty firelocks, stuffed owls, bear-skins, Indian
arrows and what not besides. And as he sits at
his easel, he is thus surrounded by the mementoes of
the scenes he has painted, which have given delight
to so many; for each of these objects has aided him,
in turn, in putting his compositions on canvas, by
appearing in this or that painting. Mr. Beard is an
artist of large versatility; that is, he is able to repre-
sent almost anything he chooses to paint. He is an
excellent draughtsman. He generally makes careful

MR. BEARD'S STUDIO.
15.2.
William H. Beard.
15
drawings on the canvas first, so that the finished
work is thus more correct and clear. There is
nothing slovenly or hasty in his pictures. His color
is not laid on as heavily as in the paintings of many
European artists, but it does not on that account
give the impression of feebleness. He uses the
primary colors chiefly, depending on the use of few
pigments. He paints portraits as well as animals,
and the landscape portion of his paintings is natural
and effective.
But it is in the rendering of animal life that Mr.
Beard is most widely known, and there his genius is
seen to best advantage. In such subjects a double
purpose appears in his pictures: one is to give
expression to his natural love for animals; the other
is to take off or satirize the oddities and moral
weaknesses of his fellow-men. Thus a group of apes
dressed in clothes and assembled in a lawyer's office
are transformed by his skillful brush into caricatures
of rustics going to law. Or, in his famous painting
called "The Dance of Silenus," which represents a
bear and goats engaged in a tipsy dance, the artist
gives us a most vivid idea of the supreme silliness of
human beings when they so far forget the lofty
character of man as to take too much whisky or
wine. It would be impossible to convey this
16
Our American Artists.
idea more powerfully than Mr. Beard has done in
this painting.
It was,
Another of his notable works is the "Dance of
the Bears," which is now owned in Boston.
unfortunately, injured in the great fire in that city.
Mr. Beard has been especially successful in painting
bears, in fact he might almost be styled court painter
to the King of the Bears, for no artist has ever given
more attention to this branch of natural history.
Mr. Beard's appreciation of the comical and grotesque
has placed him in sympathy with that most comical
of all animals except the monkey, the brown bear.
Not only is this bear amusing in his appearance and
movements, but he has a great love for fun himself,
and nature seems to have aided him in this by giving
him a flexible nose which he wrinkles and twists in
the most entertaining manner when he is engaged in
sport or in playing off a practical joke. No mis-
chievous school-boy ever more enjoyed getting off
tricks on his school-fellows. Sometimes the bear is
rather rough in his jokes, but this is because of the
lack in his early education rather than because he
wishes to hurt those on whom he plays his tricks,
Mr. Beard, among many anecdotes he has to tell
about bears, relates one showing the bear's love of
fun. When he was travelling on the Mississippi

BEARS IN A MELON-PATCH. (From a painting owned by Prof. F. N. Otis.)
William H. Beard.
19
River there was a large bear cub on the steamer
which belonged to the captain, and was a great pet.
He was quite tame, but loved a joke as well as a
freshman. They kept him on the hurricane-deck,
attached to a long chain, abaft of the wheel-house.
When they wished to feed him a ladder was placed
against the edge of the deck, up which his feeder
climbed from the lower deck with the dish of food.
One day it occurred to Bruin that he might have
some fun out of the man who brought him his dinner.
So when he saw the ladder planted in its place, the
upper ends reaching two or three feet above the
deck, he stood by it in eager expectation until the
head of the man appeared near the upper rounds.
Then in a twinkling he raised his paw and, hitting
the ladder a smart rap, threw ladder and man and
dinner flat on the deck below. Having accomplished
this feat Bruin scampered off with a rollicking, rolling
gallop, wrinkling his nose, showing his shining teeth.
and shaking all over with silent laughter. But he
paid dearly for this practical joke, for the captain
gave him a severe drubbing, which made poor Bruin
sit in the corner and suck his paws with mortification
and disgust.
"Bears on a Bender" is one of Mr. Beard's
happiest efforts to delineate the fun in the ursine
20
Our American Artists.
character, and the same may be said of the painting
of which a copy is given in our illustration, which
was kindly loaned for this purpose by Prof. F. N.
Otis, the owner. It is evident that these bears are
where, a good many boys would like to be, in a
melon-patch near a corn-field, stuffing themselves
with watermelons. Although watermelons are not
intoxicating, they sometimes bring on a colic, and
these comical poachers seem to be doing all they
can to get a stomach-ache. The painting is rich in
color, and the pink-red of the broken melons gives
it a pleasing effect.
Mr. Beard has given much attention to the study
of the language by which animals talk to each other.
There is no doubt that by certain mysterious signs of
which, as yet, we have little knowledge, animals are
able actually to tell each other stories, to give
warning, advice and instruction. One of the most
interesting sights I ever saw was an old pussy-cat
giving her kittens a lesson in catching rats. She
talked to them by purring and growling, and enforced
her precepts by whipping one or two of the kittens
who were afraid to follow her instructions lest, the
rat should bite them.
Mr. Beard has a large and interesting painting
now on his easel which is full of variety and life.
William H. Beard.
21
(6
It is called "Bulls and Bears." It is intented to
represent, in a comical way, the brokers of Wall
Street, New York, who are called "Bulls," or
'Bears," as they may happen to wish to send stocks.
up or down. In this painting a disorderly crowd of
bulls and bears are seen bellowing and roaring,
goring, tearing, plunging and tumbling over each
other in the wildest turmoil and confusion.
satire it suggests is severe but just.
The
22
Our American Artists.
II. - ALBERT F. BELLOWS.
HE life and artistic career of Mr. Bellows is
TH
one of the most satisfactory in the history of
American art. While offering no thrilling tales of
adventure or startling episodes, his life is one of
rounded completeness, of effort properly directed
and aims successfully achieved, and always distin-
guished by high moral character.
This artist is of English descent, and his ancestors
came in the ship Hopewell to this country in the
year 1635. It was in the old town of Milford, in
Massachusetts, that he was born about fifty years
ago. His father was a physician who acquired repu-
tation for several valuable works on health; but as
Milford was then, as now, a boot and shoe manufact-
uring place, and as young Bellows showed no incli-
Albert F. Bellows.
23
nation to study medicine, it seemed only natural that
he should grow up to the business which gave em-
ployment to so many in his native town.
But nothing was less to his taste than business,
although he has always been methodical and careful.
At a very early age the lad showed a remarkable
love for art, and tried to draw pictures almost as
soon as his hand could hold a slate pencil. In those
days, and even in our day by some, it was considered
in this country that the art career was one to be
avoided, because it offered little money, much hard
ship and disappointment, and but scanty honor.
It was not considered that there are compensations
or rewards which amply atone for many of the rough
experiences which every artist must encounter,
whether he is successful or no. These early strug-
gles tend to strengthen the character, and force the
artist to work harder and do better work; while the
joy he receives in dwelling in the fairyland of his
dreams, and expressing his passion for the beautiful,
cannot be estimated in dollars and cents, and finds
abundant reward in itself.
As a sort of compromise between art and business,
it was at length decided that young Bellows should
take up the profession of architecture, a pursuit.
which requires not only a feeling of beauty, but strong
24
Our American Artists.
practical business common-sense and mathematical
knowledge.
Although this was not altogether agreeable to him,
Albert Bellows spent three years, laboriously and
conscientiously, in the office of Mr. A. B. Young, of
Boston, learning to design and build good houses.
But, at the same time, his thirst for art was so intense
that every spare moment, every opportunity, was seized
for adding to his stock of art ideas. As we look back
to those years of patient, unremitting toil, we can
see that the habits formed then must have been
of great value in preventing Mr. Bellows from acquir-
ing the shiftlessness which too often adds sorrow to
the artistic and literary life.
At the age of twenty the student of architecture
had made such progress in his profession that he
was able to enter into partnership with I. D. Toule,
an architect of established reputation. A year of
steady application in this independent position was
attended by more satisfaction to the patrons of the
new firm than to the young architect, who was every
day urged by a growing art enthusiasm and impatience
to abandon all half-way measures, and boldly take
up the pursuit for which he longed.
And thus it came about that, at the end of the
year, being then just twenty-one, Mr. Bellows

A. F. Bellows
Albert F. Bellows.
27
"burned his ships behind him," as the phrase goes,
when one decides to cut loose from the past and
begin anew with a sole regard for the future.
Fortune, fickle as she seems, still has a special lik-
ing for the daring and the bold. She cannot be
successfully wooed by the timid. She seems to have
been particularly pleased with the determined spirit
shown by the young artist; for, no sooner had he
decided to devote himself to art, than he was offered
the position of principal of the New England School
of Design, which he at once accepted, and held until
his twenty-seventh year.
In that year Mr. Bellows decided to go to Europe,
and therefore resigned his principalship. He had
already matured his character and habits of observa-
tion, and gained a grounding in the first principles of
art; so that he was thus prepared better to accept or
reject what he saw in the art-schools of the old world
than if he had gone there at an earlier age.
Mr. Bellows arrived at Paris during the first great
Exposition, and must naturally have been almost over-
whelmed by the wealth of the art treasures which he
saw on every hand. In the galleries of the Louvre
and the Luxembourg were many of the master-pieces
of the art of other ages, where they still are to inter-
est and elevate the rising generations. In the Expo-
28
Our American Artists.
sition, on the other hand, the glory of English,
French, Belgian, German and Spanish contemporary
art dazzled the gaze and kindled the rapture of the
beholder.
The writer himself, a mere youth at the time, was
also present at that Exposition; and as he recalls the
indelible impressions, the rapturous enthusiasm which
moved him when he walked through those magnifi-
cent collections of art; as the pictures which made
such an impression on his boyish fancy pass, one by
one, before his eyes again while he pens these lines,
he can easily understand the impression that must
have been made on the more matured and experi-
enced mind of the young American artist, who, from
the comparative art scarcity of his native land, had
just passed to the study of such an astonishing treas-
ure of art.
After carefully considering the different methods
and schools of art, Mr. Bellows finally decided to en-
ter a course of study at the Royal Academy of Ant-
werp; and there he passed several years in that
grand, quaint old Flemish town, where the peaked
roofs, the narrow streets, the curious costumes, the
'rustic, picturesque wagons, and the singular market-
places and gray antique towers fill the artist's soul
with joy
Albert F. Bellows.
29
There is the magnificent cathedral whose spire, the
most beautiful in Europe, an arrow pointing ever
more to heaven, a fairy-like shaft of stone lace-work,
sustains, high up in the air, the far-famed chimes
whose silvery melodious jangling seems to float down
from the skies.
There, too, are gathered many of the master-pieces
of Rubens, one of the greatest artists of all the ages.
There he painted, there he died, and there is his
house to this day. And Van Dyke and Jordaens,
and many another celebrated genius lived, and toiled,
and won immortal fame in that old city. Could an
artist find a more inspiring spot than Antwerp to gain
enthusiasm and knowledge?
And there the art student from the New World,
the only American then studying in the Netherlands,
pursued his studies with such success that, in 1858,
he was elected an honorary member of the Royal
Society of Painters of Belgium.
After finishing his studies at Antwerp, Mr. Bellows
returned to America and settled in New York. In
1858 he was elected an associate of the National
Academy of Design, and in 1861 he became an
Academician. In 1867 he revisited Europe, giving
at that time especial attention to the water-color
art of England and France, and taking many care-
390
Our American Artists.
ful studies and sketches, especially in the former
country, with whose scenery his talents are singularly
in harmony.
Many of these charming studies of the land of
our ancestors he has since elaborated into finished
paintings. Two of Mr. Bellows' works, one in oil,
the other in water color, were selected for exhibition
in the American department of the last French Ex
position.
Among many artistic trips which he has taken may
be mentioned a visit to Hot Springs, Arkansas, last
year,
for the health of Mrs. Bellows. While there he
built a temporary studio, which was nearly destroyed
by the disastrous fire which swept over that resort.
At the time of the great fire in Boston, where he had
been painting for a year or two, his things were
stored preparatory to moving when the fire consumed
the building, and with it the paintings, studies and li-
brary which had been confided to its safe keeping.
After that catastrophe Mr. Bellows returned to
New York, and is now situated in the fine new Studio
Building, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and
Twenty-Fifth Street. He has two spacious studios,
one leading out of the other, intended respectively
for oil and water-color painting. The illustration
represents the former.

MR. BELLOWS' STUDIC.
Albert F. Bellows.
33
These studios are elegantly and tastefully fur-
nished; and while sufficiently artistic in their appear-
ance, are kept in perfect order, thus reflecting the sys-
tematic mental traits and the quiet temperament of
an artist who has been able to give us so many ad-
mirable works, and whose life has, at the same time
been as even, methodical, and uninterruptedly suc-
cessful as that of a prosperous East India merchant.
Mr. Bellows has one son who is now a practising phy-
sician.
In coming to a consideration of the art of this ar-
tist we find that his ability is marked by versatility,
or a capacity to succeed in more than one branch of
art. Many people suppose he is only a landscape
painter. This is a mistake. His early career was
devoted to figure and portrait painting, to which his
studies were largely directed at Antwerp; and he has
given much attention to genre, that is, groups repre-
senting familiar, every-day scenes of domestic life.
This skill in drawing figures has enabled Mr. Bellows
to give greater interest to his landscapes. In the ac-
companying illustration of his work, the clever group-
ing of men and horses adds attractiveness to a very
pleasing and well-treated subject.
Gradually his great love of nature and out-of-door
life led Mr. Bellows to devote himself, more and
34
Our American Artists.
more, to painting the grace and freshness of the quiet,
undulating meadow-lands, rustic lanes, and quaint
thatched farm-houses of the Isle of Wight, and the
noble, vividly-tinted landscapes of our own country.
Every one, who loves the stately beauty of the ave-
nues of elms which give such an indescribable charm
to the towns and hamlets of New England, owes a
debt of gratitude to Mr. Bellows for the interest he
has shown, and the success he has achieved in paint-
ing these scenes, which are so dear to every native
American heart and especially to all New Englanders.
Of all the trees which beautify this world there are
two which are especially fitted to adorn the abodes
of man; these are the plane tree and the elm. The
former grows in America, but never reaches to such
wide-spreading magnificence as in Asia. Many an
ancient town of the East owes its attractiveness to
its groups of plane trees, haunted by the nightingale
and overshadowing silvery fountains.
But we, on this side of the Atlantic, can take es-
pecial pride in the elm. Nowhere else as in Amer-
ica does it throw out such long, grateful arms, such
exquisite curves in the massing of its foliage, or rear
its crest of green on such gracefully majestic stems.
No farm-house is complete without one such venera-
ble guardian to shield it from the storms, and to af
Albert Albert
35
F. Bellows.
ford a grateful shade under which the children can
sport in the summer days. Both in water and oil-
colors Mr. Bellows has been equally successful in
representing the imperial beauty of the elm.
This artist, as you may have already perceived, has
painted both in oil and water-color. The former
was the medium he first employed, and to which he
still gives much attention. Like some artists who
have great facility and know clearly what they intend
to do, he often paints a picture wholly with the knife,
without using a brush.
This knife, or spatula, is made of steel, very thin
and flexible; and to use it in laying on color is to
give greater purity to the tints; for the less colors are
mixed and worked over the, more clear and atmos-
pheric is the painting. But one cannot work with
the palette-knife unless he knows what he is about ;
for as the color is laid so it must stay, and if not
skillfully done the picture is liable to look painty.
But for the last few years Mr. Bellows has given
much attention to aquarelle or water-color painting,
being one of the pioneers in this branch of art in
America, and one of the most successful water-color
painters of the age.
To paint with water-colors was the rule for many
36
Our American Artists.
ages before the process of using colors mixed with oil
was invented, or, at least, much employed. The
paintings of the ancients, such as the wall-paintings
or frescoes of Pompeii, and even the works of
Michael Angelo, were done with water-colors or pig-
ments, laid on with wax applied hot. The ancients
knew something about oil-colors, but it was not until
the time of John and Hubert Van Eyck of Holland,
in the fifteenth century, that painting in oil-colors
became general.
After that time water-colors almost fell into disuse
until their use was revived early in this century by
the fresco or wall-painters of Munich, and a school of
very brilliant artists in England, who employed aqua-
relle in painting what are called easel or small paintings.
Among the most noted of these English water-
color painters were Girtin, Turner, David Cox, Sam-
uel Prout and Copley Fielding. Some of the effects
of nature which they succeeded in reproducing were
wonderfully well done. These English artists worked
entirely without opaque or body color. And this
leads me to tell you that there are two kinds of wa-
ter-color painting. One, of the earliest school, de-
pends, for the whites or strong lights in the picture,
entirely on the white color of the paper on which the

STAGE-COACHING IN NEW ENGLAND. (From n Painting by A. F. Bellows.)
Albert F. Bellows.
39
picture is painted. This is done either by leaving
certain parts untouched by color or by scratching off
the color where a bright light is needed. Great skill
and readiness is necessary in this kind of water-color,
but the effect is to give a rich, transparent, atmos-
pheric effect, such as it is very difficult to obtain with
oil-colors.
The other and later school of water-colorists de-
pend for their high lights on the use of white lead or
Chinese white, which is the most opaque of all pig-
ments; and, therefore, when laid over any other
color it conceals it, and comes out so prominently as
to represent light. This school also mixes white or
body color with the other colors, in order to give the
solid appearance of oil painting. But, while many
pleasing pictures are painted by the latter method,
the richness of oil-color is not wholly reached, while
the exquisite airiness of simple water-color, unaided
by the addition of opaque color, is almost entirely
lost.
Mr. Bellows works almost entirely in the style of
the old school, very rarely using white, and then only
to give force to some small point, perhaps a distant
sail, or a far-away farm-house on a hillside.
The reader should try to study the difference be-
"
40
Our American Artists.
tween oil and water-colors, and between the two
methods of water-color painting, and he will be sur-
prised to find how much he will thus learn of differ-
cnt art processes and of many effects in nature which,
perhaps, he has never seen before.

โย
WI
R. Fmain Riffer
Robert Swain Gifford.
43
T
III. - ROBERT SWAIN GIFFORD.
HE boy or girl who will turn to the map of
New England will see on the southern coast of
Massachusetts a gulf, called Buzzard's Bay. The
southern or seaward side of this bay is formed by
a picturesque group called the Elizabeth Islands.
Tufted with wild, weather-beaten cedars, and lashed
by the terrible surges of the Atlantic storms, these
gray, granite isles have seen many a shipwreck since
the Pilgrims first landed on the shores of old Massa-
chusetts.
One of these islands bears the Indian name of
Naushan; and there, some forty years ago, was born
the landscape and marine painter, R. S. Gifford.
While he was still very young his father moved to
New Bedford, famous as a whaling port; and in
those days its wharves were thronged with whalers
5
44
Our American Artists.
returning from far off seas or fitting out for long
cruises in arctic regions. Everything about the
water-side of the old town was adapted to stimulate
a love for the sea in the boy who rambled about the
docks and jostled against burly tars who had strange,
wild, and often incredible yarns to spin of adventures
by land and sea. Young Gifford's father owned a
sailboat, and the lad passed many exciting hours
sailing about the bay, until he began to have a long-
ing to express his feelings with a pencil.
About that time the marine painter Van Beest,
who was a bluff, hearty, outspoken Dutchman, came
to New Bedford and put up a studio. But this artist
knew little about the rig and build of American
ships, and therefore sometimes employed Mr. Brad-
ford, who has since become famous for painting ice-
bergs, to draw the ships for him. After Mr. Brad-
ford left, Van Beest asked young Gifford to become
his ship-builder, if we may so use the phrase. The
youth had already found his way to the studio of the
Dutch artist and taken lessons from him in draw-
ing and painting. This was done at first in the
face of much opposition from his friends, although
they relented when they saw how bent he was to
become an artist, and what ability he seemed to
have for such a pursuit.

MR GIFFORD'S STUDIO.
Robert Swain Gifford.
47
{
After a while Van Beest returned to New York and
proposed to his assistant to accompany him, offering
him a proportionate share of the sales from his
paintings, if he would continue to work with him as
before.
This arrangement lasted for several years, until
the young artist, feeling that he was now able to
work better alone, settled in Boston in 1864, where
he soon achieved a decided success; although it
must be added that, while he gained reputation in
Boston, he sold most of his pictures in New York and
elsewhere. In 1866 Mr. Gifford returned again to
New York, where he has since resided, except when
abroad, and has been elected an Associate of the
National Academy, and become professor at the Art
School of the Cooper Institute.
During the first half of his art life Mr. Gifford con-
fined himself to the painting of marine and coast
scenes; among others a scene from the great ocean
yacht race sailed by the famous yachts Henrietta,
Vesta and Fleetwing.
Anxious to enlarge his field of observation and
experience, he made a trip through Oregon and
California in 1869, where the scenery so attracted
him that he took many interesting sketches which
led him, if not altogether to abandon marine art, at
>
48
Our American Artists.
least to devote his attention chiefly to landscape
painting.
A year or two later Mr. Gifford went to Europe,
and gave himelf up to romantic wanderings through
the South of Europe; and, crossing the Mediterra-
nean, allowed his fancy to revel in the wonderfully
interesting and picturesque cities and wilds of Egypt
and Morocco, which resulted in some very interest-
ing works and had a very decided influence on the
aims and methods of his art.
In 1874 Mr. Gifford again visited the Old World
with Mrs. Gifford, who accompanied her husband
through the grandly savage mountain passes of Cor-
sica, the island where Napoleon was born. Herself
a spirited artist, Mrs. Gifford was able to appreciate
the romantic beauty of the bare, lion-haunted moun-
tain crags of Algeria, where they next passed sev-
eral fascinating months, studying the oriental customs
and architecture of Algiers, and the swarthy Arab
tribes who dwelt in goats'-hair tents on the edge of
the desert, or in grim fortresses on the pinnacles
of the Atlas mountains.
Although the French have been masters of Algeria
ever since the long warfare which ended in the cap-
ture of the heroic Abdel Kader, who for long years
só bravely resisted the invaders in vain at the head
Robert Swain Gifford.
49
of his mounted warriors, the country is still much as
it was of old. The people are allowed to follow their
own customs, and so long as they do not resist
the authority of the French, are left very much to
themselves. They are mostly descended from the
Mauritanians, of whom some of you have read in
Roman history. They were fierce horsemen who,
under Jugurtha, gave the Roman legions much
trouble before they could be conquered.
They are Mohammedans. Their women go veiled
in the street, and in the cities live in houses whose
windows are carefully screened with lattices to pre-
vent anyone from looking in. The men are tall,
handsome, massively built, and stern and warlike;
and the laws, as with all Eastern people, are
bloody.
The scenery of Algeria is half tropical, and the cli-
mate dry and hot. Camels are employed to carry
merchandise, and here and there a graceful cluster
of palms, outlined against the cloudless sky, indicate
where wells may be found to slake the thirst of the
passing caravan. Overhead the buzzard watches for
his prey; or the vulture, circling a mere speck in the
sky, wheels his long flight over the solitude, ever
waiting to dart on a dying camel or a wounded
jackal.
50
Our American Artists.
Amid these strangely attractive and romantic
scenes Mr. and Mrs. Gifford lingered several months,
enriching their portfolios with vivid pictures of the
people, the wild birds, and the wilder scenery about
them.
At one time they halted for the night in the house
of an Arab chieftain, where they were very hos-
pitably entertained with pilaff, made of rice, a whole
roast lamb, and tropical fruits. Around the recep-
tion-hall niches were seen in the thick wall, in which
the retainers of the chief slept at night. Their long
guns and spears were hung here and there on the
walls. Some weeks before the travellers were there,
a dozen men, who were supposed to have formed a
conspiracy against the chief, had been treacherously
seized and beheaded without trial in that very hall,
and their heads were arranged about the room.
Some of Mr. Gifford's most interesting paintings
are from scenes suggested by his travels in Algeria.
One of his largest works, that was exhibited at the
Centennial, is a painting of the famous Rock of
Gibralter, which looks southward towards the opposite
coast of Africa and the land of the Moor.
Another result of his last trip to Europe is also
evident in a gradual change in the style of this artist.
His earlier art was executed in a very finished way;

LITTLE RIVER, DARTMOUTH, MASS. (From painting by R. Swain Gifford.)
Robert Swain Gifford.
53
but his observations of French art have led him to
adopt a bolder method of using colors.
The tendency of art at present, in Europe and
with the younger and newer American artists, is to
treat a subject broadly. This term does not refer
to the size of the picture but the way in which a sub-
ject is treated. Some painters finish their work with
great delicacy and very careful reproduction of every
detail. The most remarkable instance of this kind of
treatment is shown in the portraits painted two hundred
years ago by Denner, a German artist, who actually
reproduced every hair, and seemed even to represent
the down and pores of the skin of the face. This is
an extreme instance of painting carried to the last
degree of finish.
The danger of this sort of art is, that the general
effect, which is after all the chief thing in a picture,
is in danger of being sacrificed to details. Amer-
ican landscape art has never approached such a
degree of laborious finish; but it has sometimes
showed too much regard for details. Another fault
of which it might be accused is, that it has too often
been weak because the pigments were laid on too
thinly. This is not always a fault, as it is a matter
which depends very much on the subject. Still, it is
perhaps better to err on the other side, after the
Q
54
Our American Artists.
methods followed by the old Dutch painters, and
now adopted by most of the leading artists of the
age; that is, to lay on the colors solidly, thus gain-
ing more force and freshness in the representation
of nature.
Now, to paint the reverse of the extremely finished
style I have been describing, is called painting
broadly. A landscape painting or a portrait in
which many of the details are entirely omitted or
merely suggested, and in which the general effect is
always the prominent idea of the work, is said to
have breadth.
It is the latter style that Mr. Gifford has gradually
adopted, keeping the light and shades, and the
objects of a painting well massed, and thus gaining
a grand effect. There is no uncertainty in the way
in which he handles his brush; he knows what he
wishes to do, and does it. Painting in water-colors
has doubtless been of value to him in producing the
desired effect in his oil paintings, for the certainty
required in using water-colors leads to readiness in
knowledge, and thus one is able to lay on his colors
in such a way that he does not need to work over
them too much. Some of the water-color paintings
of Mr. Gifford are remarkably fresh, pure and lumi-
nous in their effect. He paints much out-of-doors
Robert Swain Gifford.
55
during the season, and his most recent trips after
studies have been to the coast around Buzzard's Bay
and to the lovely, palm-encircled shores of Fort
George Island on the coast of Florida.
It is an interesting fact in the art-life of this artist,
that after wandering from California to Algeria for
studies, he has at last returned to the haunts of his
boyhood as the field which offers him the most
congenial subjects for his brush. Many of you have
doubtless often seen along our New England coast.
brown, ragged clumps of solemn weird cedars, whose
gnarled and singularly twisted branches spread like
deers' antlers. Tufted with tough, spiky foliage,
they sway and moan drearily in the gales which scourge
the shores, as if they were ancient, age-withered
Indian sachems left there alone to wail for their long
departed race. These wild cedars, these gray shores,
the russet grass which sighs in the autumnal winds
on the bare rocks and lonely moors, fading off into
the far-off horizon, and canopied by cool gray masses
of clouds through which a gleam of light steals here
and there, these are what Mr. Gifford has chosen as
fit subjects from which to gather inspiration for his
versatile talents. With these his nature is in entire
sympathy, and one who studies his later paintings
carefully, will perhaps thus discover much in the
܀
56
Our American Artists.
scenery of his native land which he never before
observed, until the artist taught him how. It is thus
we should consider good works of art, not only to
criticise them, but also to find out if we can learn
from them something we have not seen before in the
wonderful and glorious world in which we live.
Mr. Gifford's studio is in the building of the
Young Men's Christian Association in Twenty-third
Street, New York, whose two upper stories are occu-
pied exclusively by artists. The studio is adorned
with many very interesting objects collected in the
east, and a glance around it carries one far away to
the sunny, dreamy shores of the blue Mediterranean.

ный
Well Chass
(Drawn by himself.)
William M. Chase.
59
IV. - WILLIAM M. CHASE.
HE artist whose name is at the head of this
THE
Traits born
article was born in the state of Indiana, and
is still comparatively a young man.
He early
showed a very decided turn for art, manifesting a dis-
position to draw almost as soon as he could handle a
slate and pencil. But, although his parents were in
excellent circumstances, he met with some opposi-
tion when he first spoke of becoming a painter.
It is the most common thing in the world for boys
who show an inclination to follow painting to be
opposed in their wishes; but if they have a real
genius for such a life no opposition can prevent them
from succeeding, but will rather strengthen their charac-
ter, and the opportunity comes sooner or later which
they desire. And so it proved in the case of the
young Hoosier lad. His father finally permitted him
to take lessons in painting, and placed him with an
60
Our American Artists.
artist in his native place, who soon declared that
William was destined to succeed in the pursuit he so
ardently loved.
But, after a year with his first master, young Chase
was seized by the war fever which inspired so many
with a love of arms at the breaking out of our great
civil war, and partly, also, from a love of adventure
and an idea that he should like the sea, he entered
the school-ship at the Naval Academy of Annapolis.
There he had rather a severe experience, which took
away whatever ambition he may have had at one
time for a sea life. One of the petty officers under
whose charge he was seemed to employ every way
he could think of to worry and abuse the boys of
the school-ship, and took an especial spite to young
Chase because he appeared above the position in
which he was placed. It was therefore a matter of
sober exultation among the young sailors when this
tyrant lost his foothold one day while they were cat-
ting or getting the anchor on board and, falling into
the sea, was drowned. To the boys whom he had
so cruelly treated this dreadful fate seemed only a
just retribution.
This rough experience soon took away from Wil-
liam whatever fancy he might have had for a sea
life; and his desire to return to his palette and

MR. CHASE'S STUD.O. (rown by himself.)
чист
1/2
William M. Chase.
63
brushes again was greatly increased by seeing one of
the officers, who was something of an artist, employ-
ing his leisure moments in painting on deck. The
boy-artist would steal up behind the long-boat and
snatch a glimpse of the artist at his easel.
After being three months under the discipline of
the school-ship, William Chase gave up all idea of
becoming a sailor and went back to his brush with
more enthusiasm than ever. After a year in Indian-
apolis he came to New York and studied awhile, and
then resided two years in St. Louis, where he chiefly
painted still life, that is, fruit pieces and game.
Returning again to New York, and after painting and
teaching there until 1872, he decided in that year to
gratify his yearning for larger opportunities for study
and improvement than seemed to offer in his native
land, and embarked for Europe, whose galleries,
teeming with the works of old masters, and whose
studios, thronged with the students of all lands, are
a perpetual fascination to the enthusiastic art-stu-
dent.
It was in the old city of Munich, in the heart of
Germany, that William Chase decided to settle and
study art for several years. Munich is the capital
of Bavaria. The name means the "City of the Little
Monk." It lies by the river Iser, of which you may
64
Our American Artists.
have read in Campbell's ode on the "Battle ot
Hohenlinden." The river there divides into many
channels, and rushes with great speed through one
of the most beautiful parks in the world, called
the English Garden; it was laid out by an American
scientist named Thompson, who became prime minis-
ter to the King of Bavaria, and was ennobled by
him under the title of Count Rumford.
Munich is a beautiful city, laid out in broad streets
and adorned with many splendid buildings — pal-
aces, picture-galleries, triumphal arches, and churches.
which are very handsome and often highly artistic.
The late King of Bavaria was an eccentric man ;
but he had a great love of art and did all in his
power to encourage artists to settle in Munich. It
became, therefore, more a city of artists than any
other place, in proportion to its population. Fine
art-schools were established, and the best painters
and sculptors in Germany were invited to become
professors in the Royal Academy of Art.
When the young
American artist arrived in
Munich he found quite a colony of his fellow-coun-
trymen already studying art there; and the number
increased from year to year while he remained at the
Bavarian capital. Soon these American art-students
became sufficiently numerous to establish among

VENUGO
MELACA
THE APPRENTICE-BOY. (From painting by Wm. M. Chase.)
William M. Chase.
67
themselves an association for the encouragement of
art progress. Meetings were held weekly, at which
papers were read on art subjects and afterwards dis-
cussed in a friendly but earnest manner.
There is no question about which there is room for
greater difference of opinion than art, or more oppor-
tunity for individual expression and improvement.
For what art undertakes to do is to reproduce
nature with such material substances as paints,
crayon or marble. But as these means for doing so
are at best very imperfect, the most that can often
be done is to suggest nature, and in this way, also,
to suggest what is called the ideal; that is, to reprc-
sent scenes as they appear to the fancy or imagina-
tion.
But there are many things in nature. It would be
impossible to give in any one work of art everything
that may be actually seen in any particular scene, or
any imaginary composition if it resembled nature.
Therefore some artists, either deliberately or because
their talents lie in one direction, undertake to repre-
sent one or two of the objects in nature which
most interest and impress them; while others attempt
to reproduce another class of objects or impressions.
Thus one artist is most interested in light and
shade, and gives more attention to that than to color.
68
Our American Artists.
Another painter, like Titian or Rubens, may be more
moved by color than anything else in nature; while a
third artist may care most for form, and devotes
his attention to sculpture or to every careful draw-
ing. Each artist of original ability also tries to
express his thoughts in a style of his own; and, as
there are many truths in nature and many artists
to express them there must be many different styles.
Every age and every country also has a class of
subjects or methods distinct from others. Some
are better, others inferior; while others, which
may be equal in value may not be equally liked by all.
This diversity naturally causes great variety of opin-
ions and often very earnest talk among artists and
art-lovers, each being anxious to find the best style,
or thinking that the style he follows or prefers is, by
far, the best.
It is by talking of a thing that we often learn how
to understand it. But every one should try to be
modest about his own opinions and tolerant of the
opinions of others, and not be too sure that he is the
only one who knows the question thoroughly. While
this is true about everything, it is especially so
regarding art matters.
Mr. Chase entered the government Art School at
Munich, and became a pupil of Piloty, who is one of
William M. Chase.
69
the great German historical painters of this century.
Many art-students have studied with him, some of
them men of genius who have in turn worked in
styles more fresh and original than that of their mas-
ter. Among these able artists are Leibl, Diez,
Defregger and Lembach. While studying with
Piloty these painters also carefully examined the time-
mellowed paintings of Rembrandt, Franz Hals,
Velasquez, and other great Flemish and Spanish
artists, which were hung in the royal galleries at
Munich artists who, in strength, boldness and
beauty of style, were among the first painters of mod-
ern times.
While studying with Piloty and having a great
respect for him, Mr. Chase found his inclination
leading him rather to follow the guidance of the
later painters of Munich, and to prefer simple subjects,
carefully and harmoniously composed, with a strong
method of laying on color. He had his studio in the
upper story of the royal Art School, which is a vast,
ancient building that was in olden time a convent,
and stands next to a church. The monks have left it
and now the artists fill its cells and halls, and with the
brilliant tints of their canvasses give life to the
gloom of the mouldering pile. Duveneck, who is
A
70
Our American Artists.
one of the most talented American artists now in
Europe, had a studio in the same corridor.
Besides gaining decided success in painting some
vigorous and interesting pictures, before leaving
Munich, Mr. Chase also won the approval not only
of his countrymen but also of the German artists
themselves. His master, Piloty, paid a very high
compliment to his abilities by asking him to paint the
portraits of his family, which the young American
artist did with much credit.
Among the later works Mr. Chase executed during
his residence at Munich were two or three of marked
excellence which have attracted much attention.
One of them is called the "Court Jester." It rep-
resents a humpbacked clown with cap and bells,
such a character as used to entertain kings and nobles
in old time with comical wit. He is clad in scarlet
coat and hose, and is pouring out a glass of wine.
The general effect of color is superb.
Another picture called "Waiting for the Ride," is
a most complete contrast to the "Jester." It is
extremely simple but none the less effective. A
young lady of a delicate complexion and a réfined
style of beauty appears before us dressed in a black
riding-habit, and wearing a picturesque, broad-
William M. Chase.
71
brimmed, bell-crowned hat. She holds a whip in
her hand and is in the act of drawing on her glove.
Mr. Chase uses color with freshness and vigor.
He has given very careful study to the many tints of
flesh, and is equally successful in giving the soft
complexion of a young girl or the rough, highly-col-
ored features of a veteran or an apprentice-boy.
His handling or style is what would be called broad;
because everything is sacrificed or made to contribute
in his paintings to the general effect. The danger
of such a style lies in the unfinished appearance to
which a painting is liable if left off too soon.
In the summer of 1878 Mr. Chase accepted a posi-
tion as a professor in the new art school of New
York, called the Art Students' League. His studio
is in that city, in the Tenth Street Studio Building.
It is one of the most artistic in the country; for the
artist brought home with him a great variety of curi-
ous and interesting objects which he picked up
abroad, especially during a visit which he made to
Venice. There he collected wonderful bits of old
bronze and beautifully carved oaken chests, like the
one in which Genevra hid herself on her bridal day
when the lock sprung and the falling lid closed her
in forever.
Faded tapestries that might tell strange stories,
72
Our American Artists.
quaint decorated stools, damaskeened blades and gro-
tesque flint-locks, and elaborately carved mugs and
salvers, are picturesquely arranged around the studio
with a studied carelessness, together with choice
specimens of the works of several of the leading
German artists of the day. It is altogether a nook,
rich in attractions which carry the fancy back to
other climes and the romance of bygone ages.

5 Klifford
Sandford R. Gifford.
75
T
V. SANDFORD R. GIFFORD.
HERE are two rivers which, above all others,
have become famous for the beauty of their
scenery, the Rhine and the Hudson. The former
has the charm of romantic castles and legends to
add to the loveliness of its shores. But if the Hud-
son lacks these attractions, it has no less natural
beauty, and, in some places, more grandeur than its
rival. Each river has every element that makes it
attractive to the artistic mind; and nothing seems
more natural than that a boy or girl whose child-
hood is spent on its magical shores should be
inspired with poetic fervor, and become a poet or a
painter.
It was under such genial influences that Sandford
R. Gifford spent his boyhood. He was born in Sara-
toga county, N. Y.; but went very early to live at Hud-
son, which is one of the delightful towns that fringe
2
76
Our American Artists.
the shores of the river. Opposite are the won-
derfully beautiful ranges of the Catskill Mount-
ains, pencilled with bold yet graceful outline against
the sunset sky, crowned by the evening star and
the crescent moon, and sweeping up from the glassy
river with majestic slopes, clad in green, and studded
with quiet farms.
It was among these mountains that Washington
Irving laid the scene of his weird story of Rip Van
Winkle; and there Thomas Cole, one of the greatest
of American painters, lived, and caught the inspi-
ration for some of his most effective works.
It is at Hudson that F. E. Church lives, who is
one of our leading landscape painters; and Arthur
and Ernest Parton, two well-known artists in the
same line of art, are natives of Hudson. Thus, it
almost seems as if this little town has been truly a
source of art feeling and an aid to American land-
scape art.
Young Gifford's father was the proprietor of some
iron works, and the youth was not, therefore, in such
humble and needy circumstances as often fall to the
lot of the artist in early life. When he became old
enough to enter college he was sent to Brown Uni-
versity, where he remained until the close of his
sophomore year. His father then asked him what
Sandford R. Gifford.
77
profession he intended to follow. This was a ques-
tion that had not occurred to him before. When he
deliberated upon it, he began by thinking first of
what occupations he did not wish to take up, and
was surprised to find there was nothing that was
attractive to him except being a painter.
Having come to the conclusion that there was
only one pursuit that he cared to undertake, young
Gifford made it known to his father, who showed
him the difficulties he would have to encounter in
the pursuit of success in art. But when he found
his son resolute in his purpose, Mr. Gifford wisely
yielded to his wish, and also aided him in a kind and
judicious manner.
Leaving college and going to New York, Sandford
Gifford cast about him to see how he could obtain the
art instruction he needed and desired. He applied,
first, at the studio of a well-known portrait-painter,
whose manner was so distant that he called next at
the rooms of another artist, who said:
"I would gladly give you all the instruction in my
power, but you need first to become master of draw-
ing and perspective; and there is no man in the city
more capable of teaching you those branches than
Mr. John Smith."
So to Mr. Smith, who was the son of a noted steel
78
Our American Artists.
engraver, the young art aspirant now betook himself,
and found, at last, exactly the instruction he sought.
This is the only regular art education that Mr.
Gifford has had. He early visited the studios of
Europe, it is true, and carefully looked at the meth-
ods of the foreign masters; but he followed none,
conscious that, after one has learned certain princi-
ples and a technical knowledge of colors and draw-
ing, he should then study nature with great love and
fidelity, and try to represent it in his own way.
For an artist like Mr. Gifford, who has sufficient
ability, this is the best path to follow in art. Of
course, an artist who keeps his eyes about him will
often gather useful hints, or correct mistakes in his
style, by observing reflectively other art styles as he
goes through life, without necessarily borrowing either
ideas or methods.
In 1850 Mr. Gifford was made an Associate of the
National Academy of Design, and in 1854 a full
Academician. In the year 1868 he took a delightful
trip to Egypt, Constantinople and Athens, all of
which offered attractions of the highest sort to one
of his rich fancy and exquisite feeling for light and
color. Some of his most superb effects of sunset
were inspired by the splendor of the oriental skies;
and few artists have entered more into the spirit of
Sandford R. Gifford.
79
the dreamy and gorgeous East, with its waving
palms and gilded domes and minarets soaring over
gray, crumbling, battlemented walls, overarched by
cloudless skies. The solemn majesty of the ruined
temples of Egypt, the grandest antiquities in the
world, brooding by the tawny waters of the Nile,
made a lasting impression on the imagination of this
great artist.
During the war of the Rebellion, Mr. Gifford, who
was a member of the famous Seventh Regiment of
New York, was twice called to do duty for his coun-
try, and several of his works were suggested by the
scenes of camp life. One of them represents a bas-
tion and a tall sentinel standing by a cannon, against
the glow of a ruddy sunset. It is a portrait of the
artist himself. Another interesting picture repre-
sents a bivouac at morning among the hills of Mary-
land.
Some years later, Mr. Gifford took a tour over the
plains of the great West and the stupendous ranges
of the Rocky Mountains, whose bare, brilliantly-
tinted precipices, and cathedral-like pinnacles of
basalt gave him subjects that he has treated with
much poetic feeling.
Among other art tours this artist has also visited
the lakes of the Northwest, and once had a very nar-
80
Our American Artists.
row escape on Lake Michigan. He was with a party
that were coasting along its rugged shores in a small
half-decked sloop. At night they used to put in to
some cove and make a lee until daybreak. But the
craft was old and proved leaky, and they were caught
out in this crazy boat in a gale of wind. The sea
ran high; and what with the water coming over, and
that which came through the yawning seams, they
saw little hope of living out the storm. But, late in
the afternoon, they came in sight of a narrow inlet,
and made for it as their last chance; although they
would have to meet a high cross sea in bringing the
head of the sloop to the land, and thus run a great
risk of being swamped. To add to their danger, the
man at the helm managed it clumsily just at the crit-
ical moment. The boat shipped an enormous wave
and all but went over. The next instant they shot
through the rollers and slid into the calm water of a
sheltered cove, and, drenched and exhausted, were
glad enough to find themselves in a safe place.
There is no contrast more remarkable than to
glide into a peaceful haven directly after battling
with a storm on the water. Many a time, in my sea-
life, have I experienced the wonderful relief and the
restful repose that comes over one, as he passes, sud-
denly, from the severe labor and anxiety of fighting

Sandford R. Gifford.
81
with the fury of the gale into safety and calm. The
supper the travellers enjoyed that night in the shel-
tered nook amid the rocks of Lake Michigan, must
MR. S. R. GIFFORD'S STUDIO.
have been, indeed, one of unusual delight, and well-
seasoned with Spartan sauce.
As an artist, Mr. Gifford may be classed with the
best landscape painters of America. Our art has
S2
Our American Artists.
produced its most successful efforts in landscape and
marine. We have had several excellent portrait and
figure painters, and the number of such is increasing.
But, up to within a few years, the distinctive feature
of American art has been landscape painting.
The grandeur and variety of our scenery, the noble
mountains clothed with verdure, the lovely forest-
skirted streams, the broad meadow lands and sub-
lime solitude of endless woods, have inspired our
poets and artists; while the events of our history
have been generally so recent as to appeal, as yet,
only feebly to the fancy. Thus we see that, among
our poets, Bryant and Longfellow, Whittier and
Street, and others who have achieved fame, have
done much, if not all, of their best work in describ-
ing the scenery of their native land; and, by far,
the largest number of our most noted artists are land-
scape painters.
Our school of landscape art was founded by such
men as Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand. They
have been succeeded by a number of artists who have
often shown much ability and originality, and have
worked in a style that has been full of poetic feeling
and quite distinctively American.
Of these artists, Bierstadt and Hill and Thomas
Moran have given their attention to the representa

LE
PALLANZA-LAGO MAGGIORE. From painting by S. R. Gifford.
Sandford R. Gifford.
85
tion of the vast cañons and sublime mountain peaks
of California, Oregon and Colorado. Some of these
works have been very striking for their art qualities;
while they have all been valuable in giving the
world an idea of the magnificent scenery of America
of which we were entirely ignorant until, with great
enterprise and perseverance, these artists went out
there and explored the abode of the grizzly bear, the
grim monarch of the West, and wrested from his
jealous guard the secrets of the Rocky Mountains.
Thomas Hill's painting of the Yosemite Valley
and Moran's painting of the Cañon of the Colorado
River, which is now in the Capitol at Washington,
are among the most remarkable landscapes yet sug-
gested by our Western scenery.
Some of our artists, like Church and Mignot, have
been to South America, and won fame by their mag-
nificent paintings of the wild and gorgeous land-
scape of that, as yet, little known continent. Others,
again, like the Harts, McEntee, Inness, Whittredge,
Cropsey, Hubbard, Gerry, Robbins, Bristol, Bricher
and Bellows, have been contented to paint the more
quiet and familiar but none the less beautiful scenes
about home, often with fascinating success.
The late John F. Kensett was one who belonged
to this class. He was an artist who has been
86
Our American Artists.
·
equalled by very few of our landscape painters. He
excelled in the refined beauty of his pictures. Quiet
and subdued in tone, they were always harmonious
and full of suggestion, showing that he worked from
a full mind, and was thus able to select and give us
the best. Many of his scenes were studies of coast
effects. Others represented a placid lake, with a
cool gray sky, a woodland waterfall, or a quiet moon-
light. The masterly way in which Kensett employed
colors was also shown in his autumn scenes; in
which the gorgeousness of our autumnal foliage is so
exquisitely rendered as not to seem gaudy and
unnatural, which is too often the case.
If there has been a fault in this school of Amer-
ican landscape art, it has been, perhaps, in endeavor-
ing to get too much in a picture, in trying to be too
literal; so that the great attention given to the
details has excited wonder rather than stimulated
the imagination, and has marred the impression of
general effect which should be the chief idea in a
work of art. For the materials an artist has at his
command are, at best, so weak compared with, nature,
which is ever toned and harmonized by the atmos-
phere, that it is very easy to lose sight of the lead-.
ing idea of the painting.
Our later artists, as I have explained in previous
Sandford R. Gifford.
87
Q
papers, are painting in a broader style. Mr. Ken-
sett, although in most respects belonging to the old
school of American landscape art, treated his sub-
jects more broadly than many, and the same may be
said of Mr. Sandford R. Gifford. The main effect in
his works is atmospheric. None have surpassed him.
in rendering the splendor of sunset skies, and the
tender sheen of light reflected on still water.
But Mr. Gifford has not only been successful in
giving us the glowing, golden haze of a calm sunset;
he has also painted, as well, the gray of the storm-
cloud brooding over a lake or shrouding the mount-
ain top, or the lazy mist veiling the trees of the
woodland. His painting of Echo Lake is a very
successful attempt to combine cloud, water, forest
and mountain scenery in a harmonious whole.
In the art of Mr. Gifford there is the highest kind
of art. That which indicates sound knowledge of
art principles, entire absence of slovenly, unfinished
work, and, at the same time, such mastery of what
he has to paint, that the art is concealed which pro-
duces such charming results.
Mr. Gifford's studio is in the Tenth Street Studio
Building, described in the article about Mr. Beard.
88
Our American Artists.
W
VI.-WALTER SHIRLAW.
ALTER SHIRLAW was born at Paisley, in
Scotland; but he came with his parents to
America when he was three years old. As most of
his life has been spent in this country, he can, there-
fore, be considered an American artist.
The boyhood of young Walter was passed in New
York City, without being varied by any eventful inci-
dents. After the usual amount of schooling, with
more or less snow-balling, coasting, and other sports.
added to make up the round of a boy's life who has
plenty of health to spare, Walter was placed with the
American Bank Note Company, which engraves the
steel plates for the United States' currency, and also
for the banks of Canada and some of the States of
South America.
The green color of these notes was invented by
an Armenian, who was sent to this country from
Walter Shirlaw.
89
Turkey by the missionaries, and studied at Yale col-
lege. The chemical ingredients of this green are a
great secret; because it is excessively difficult to pho-
tograph a note printed on paper tinted with this prep-
aration of green.
The notes of the Bank Note Company have always
been celebrated for the excellent quality of the
engraving, but the names of the engravers are never
cut on the plate. Mr. Shirlaw may be credited, how-
ever, with engraving, among other pictures on these
notes, the one representing Columbus discovering
America, which is on the upper left hand corner of
the face of the five dollar United States' note.
After remaining nearly 'ten years with this com-
pany, Mr. Shirlaw was invited to join a new associa-
tion situated in Chicago, and called the Western
Note Engraving Company. He remained in this
position for six years, when his desire to become a
painter grew so strong that he no longer resisted it,
but returned to New York and began the life of a
professional artist.
The following year he took a trip to the Rocky
Mountains. It was attended with many interesting
incidents; although nothing of a blood-curdling char-
acter occurred, such as travellers in those rugged
wilds often encounter to disturb the enjoyment of
the trip.
90
Our American Artists.
In the year 1870 Mr. Shirlaw, feeling the want of
art advantages such as he could not find here, sailed
for Europe and settled in Munich, of which city I
have already spoken in the remarks about Mr.
Chase. There he took a studio in the old monas-
tery which has been used for many years as a rook-
ery for the artists of Munich; and he continued to
paint in that building until the last year of his resi-
dence there, when he took a room in a rambling
old house situated on a rather dilapidated but pict-
uresque courtyard.
Mr. Shirlaw studied art successively with four of
the leading contemporary artists of Germany, Rabb,
Wagner, who painted the famous picture of the
Chariot Race in the Coliseum, Ramberg and Lin-
denschmidt. One taught him form, another color,
another light and shade or composition. During the
summers Mr. Shirlaw often went into the neighboring
villages and took studies of the rustic costumes and
sun-burned features of the peasantry.
The peasants of Bavaria often appear very inter-
esting in a painting, with their singularly quaint and
richly-colored garb, their rude thatched cottages and
rough wagons, or carts, and still rougher cattle bear-
ing huge uncouth yokes. It is not unusual to see an
ox and a horse yoked together; and, even in
Munich, it is very common for such a curious equi-

Yours The
Walter Shirlaw.
93
page to be seen, or, still more frequently, a wagon
with a tongue supported and drawn only by one horse,
as if the other horse had become disabled on the road
and been left behind.
One of the villages often visited by Mr. Shirlaw,
and a great resort for American art students in
search of the picturesque, is Pohling. There the
olden customs are still preserved, and the sheep-
shearing and the harvest are occasions of much mer-
riment and festivity.
The people of Bavaria have not nearly so fair a
complexion as those of other parts of Germany.
They belong to Southern Germany like the Austrians,
and, like them, often have warm, rich brown skin,
showing that they are descended from the ancient
Romans, who, in the days of the Cæsars, carried the
arms of Rome to those parts and planted colonies
there. This fact is especially evident among the
Bavarian peasants; and it is brought out with much
effect in the finely-colored representations of German
rustic life which Mr. Shirlaw has brought to this
country.
Among his most important works is one entitled
"The Sheep Shearing." It is a large painting, and
has been exhibited both in this country and at the
last exposition at Paris, and has attracted much favor-
.
94
Our American Artists.
able comment. It represents the peasants collected
to rob the poor sheep of their wool. On one side of
the painting we see the cattle in their stalls, and on
the other the groups of young men and maidens
busily engaged in handling the wool, or love-making
with many a quip and prank. Over them arches the
mouldering, vaulted roof of the old barn. The effect
is striking and original, and it is broadly painted,
and treated with much vigor.
Mr. Shirlaw belongs to the latest school of modern
art, which handles a subject with an eye to the main
effect, sacrificing all details which might disturb the
central idea of the composition without mercy.
Another notable work by this artist is called "Ton-
ing the Bell." It represents a new church bell just
after it has been founded, and while they are putting
the quality of its metal to the test.
Still another interesting painting by Mr. Shirlaw,
is entitled "Morning." The sun has arisen and a
ruddy, plump-armed maiden has just thrown open
the barn door and is scattering grain from her apron,
to a flock of hurrying fluttering geese, that are has-
tening forth to the bright meadow land. This is a
very attractive and original work, and well represents
Mr. Shirlaw's pleasant fancy for painting geese, and
the skill he shows in drawing fowls and animals.

A CORNER OF
MR. SHIRLAW'S STUDIO,
UNIVERSITY BUILDING, WASHINGTON SQUARE, NEW YORK.
Walter Shirlaw.
97
The difficulties with which he has had to contend in
painting these noisy and uneasy birds, illustrates
well the earnest perseverance and ingenuity which
artists have to employ who paint animals and ships in
motion; for neither of these will stand still like a
human being, and must, therefore, be literally seized
on the wing.
Mr. Shirlaw sometimes gets some one to startle
and chase a flock of geese for him, and, as they rush
on pell-mell, half-flying, half-running, mental photo-
graphs of the action of the geese are impressed on
his memory, and are then recalled at the beck of his
fancy when he wishes to paint. He has also some-
times kept several geese in his studio a number of
days, and watched their habits when painting them.
Often the movements of animals and their habits
will unexpectedly show some trait that one looks for
in vain when deliberately searching for it, while every-
day familiarity with a subject by one who is keenly
interested in it may enable one to interpret it on can-
vas with ease and truth to nature. All the study in
the world about ships will not make one a marine
painter if he does not naturally love ships, and has
not been often to sea in them and helped to sail
them.
Rosa Bonheur, the great animal painter of France,
98
Our American Artists.
engravings of whose "Herse Fair" you may have
seen, has often kept a sheep in her studio for weeks
and studied its habits, and thus gained that knowledge.
of it which has enabled her to paint sheep so well.
Mr. Shirlaw has also been quite successful in the
painting of dogs, for which he seems to have a liking
almost equal to that for geese. But he is even more
fortunate in painting the human figure, to which he
has given much study. There is a buoyancy, a glow
of health, a rich, attractive beauty, a robust coloring,
and a vigorous action in the manner in which he ren-
ders a young peasant boy or girl which shows that
there is nothing morbid in his art, that he works with
a mind stored with ideas, and that he has carefully
studied the principles of art. In rendering the deli-
cate grays of the skin, also, this painter often shows
much feeling and refinement for the more delicate
effects of color.
After spending nearly eight years in Munich, and
taking a trip to Venice where he collected some curi-
ous old cabinets and other quaint relics of the past for
his studio work, Mr. Shirlaw returned to the United
States and once more settled in New York.
He soon received the appointment of professor
of the Art Students' League. This is an art associa-
tion formed in 1877 by a number of enthusiastic

YA HO! (Painting by Walter Shirlaw.)
Walter Shirlaw.
IOI
young artists who had studied abroad and who, on
returning to this country, concluded that they could
not receive justice in exhibiting their works at the
National Academy, while at the same time their theo-
ries and methods in art were different from those of
many members of the Academy.
The National Academy of Design was founded
early in the century, and has been a very useful insti-
tution. Most of our noted artists are members of it,
or associates, for there are two degrees of member-
ship. One is first elected an associate and adds A. N.
A. to his name. As he increases in age and reputa-
tion he may be elected after a while to full member-
ship, and then becomes an N. A., or Național Acade-
mician. There are several art associations in the
country, but the Academy of New York has up to this
time been the most important. Its headquarters are
in a handsome building on the corner of Twenty-
third Street and Fourth Avenue. It is built of white
and gray marble, in the Venetian or Lombard Gothic
style of architecture. A general exhibition is held
there every spring, and remains open for two months.
It is the great art event of the year.
But for the last few years the Academicians, hav-
ing had things pretty much their own way for a long
time, and many of them having reached the time of
102
Our American Artists.
life when men find it difficult to change their opin-
ions, it has been rather difficult, sometimes, for artists
practicing later methods of art to gain either member-
ship or admission for their paintings at the exhibitions.
This has caused some ill-feeling, and some of those
who had studied in Paris and Munich, and formed
their styles on those of foreign artists finally decided
they would establish an art association of their own.
The Art Students' League was the result of this
movement. It has already become very flourishing,
and has held important exhibitions at the Kurz
Gallery, in New York. The rooms of the Association
are on Fifth Avenue. A corps of professors give
instruction there in drawing, painting and modelling,
and already a respectable number of students of both
sexes have enrolled themselves there for instruction.
The studio which is now occupied by Mr. Shirlaw
is in the University Building on Washington Square.
It is a grand old structure, solidly built of granite in
Gothic style with towers at each corner and battlements
and lancet-shaped windows. It has a labyrinth of
winding corridors and halls, and is altogether, quite.
like some rambling historic building in the old
world. As its name denotes, it is used as a college
for instruction in law and science. But of late years
the lodging-rooms have not been occupied by the
Walter Shirlaw.
103
students, and they have therefore been rented to
single gentlemen for lodgings, or turned into studios.
In the centre of the building, and rising above the
main roof, was the chapel, which was one of the
handsomest halls in New York; it was arched after
the style of what is called the Flamboyant Gothic,
with painted, heavily-mullioned windows, whose
mouldings were supported by angels, and from the
ceiling, frescoed with blue and gold, hung massive
pendants, ornamented with grotesque lion faces.
This chapel has at last given way to the de-
mands of a corporation that needed money, and
has been cut up into rooms. But the ceiling and
windows have been left untouched, and thus the
upper tier of rooms is roofed by a massive and highly
picturesque ceiling that carries the imagination back
to medieval times. These apartments have been
recently finished, and form three attractive studios, ad-
mirably adapted for drapery, and rich in Rembrant-
like effects of light and shade which are dear to the
artist. It is in one of these studios that Mr. Shirlaw
is now engaged in painting compositions which shall
give pleasure in years to come to those who are still
boys and girls, just beginning to take an interest in
the art of their native land.
T
VII.-JOHN J. ENNEKING.
HIS artist was born in Minster, Ohio, in 1841,
and was the son of a farmer of German
descent, whose tastes were naturally opposed to the
early inclination shown by his boy for drawing.
One day John sketched an ambitious outline with
a bit of charcoal on his father's newly painted barn,
and was soundly thrashed by his indignant father,
who, it must be confessed, had some reason for his
wrath in this case. The village school-master also
failed to take a proper interest in the rude but vigor-
ous scrawls with which the lad covered his slate and
school-books; and, instead of seeing in them the
promise of artistic beauty, often kept John in after
school hours as a penalty for drawing them.
But John's mother rather encouraged his early
efforts, discerning a talent which others failed to
appreciate, and might have been of great assistance
to him by her advice if she had not died while he
104

Jm J. Snusking
John F. Enneking.
107
was still a boy. Mrs. Enneking seems to have been
naturally a woman of artistic taste, and was highly re-
spected in the neighborhood in which she lived. His
father did not long survive her.
Left thus early an orphan, and also bereft of broth-
ers and sisters, John was brought up by his relations.
In his sixteenth year he first saw an oil painting of
good quality. He was visiting a friend in Cincin-
nati, and by accident stumbled into an art exhibition.
The impression made upon him was immediate and
lasting. Such was the reverence for art which it
aroused in his mind that he hardly dared to enter an
artist's studio, although he resolved that at some
time he himself would become a painter. Soon after
he was sent to Mt. St. Mary's College, where he was
taught the rudiments of drawing.
On the breaking out of the civil war John enlisted
in a Western regiment, and served for a little over a
year. He was in the thickest of the fight and had
many a hair-breadth escape. But he did not always
get off so easily; for he was several times wounded,
and carries with him to this day the scars won in
that most interesting period of his checkered life.
In the year 1864 Mr. Enneking, having done his
share in preserving the nation, went to New York to
take art lessons, and drifted thence to Boston where
108
Our American Artists.
he sought instruction from Professor Richardson. By
his advice he now learned to draw on stone, and fol-
lowed lithography until he found it weakened his
eyes. Supposing that the same result would also be
caused by painting, and now quite discouraged in the
prospect of making art a life profession, Mr. Ennek-
ing returned to the business he had learned before
the breaking out of the war the manufacture of tin-
ware.
He did so well in this pursuit that he was soon
able to become a partner in a wholesale establishment.
But reverses followed, and he not only lost every cent
but was also plunged deep in debt. No circumstances
could seem more adverse to success in art. But now
it was that, by the advice of his wife, who seemed to
understand what was really his vocation, Mr. Ennek-
ing returned to the pursuit of art as a life profession;
although it was only after many struggles that he at
last began to see success looming ahead.
For several years he worked in pastel or colored
crayons; but, finally, betook himself to oil painting.
His business experience now stood him in good
stead and enabled him to find a good sale for his
work, and he settled in Hyde Park near Boston, and´
built himself a house there.
Soon after, taking his wife and two children with
John F. Enneking.
109
him, Mr. Enneking went to Europe, travelling
through France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany,
and studying the art of those countries. In Munich
he spent seven months in the studios of two of the
leading landscape painters there, Schleich and Lier;
while in Paris he not only studied landscape with the
great painter Daubigny, but also became a pupil of
the celebrated figure painter, Bonnât, under whose
instruction Mr. Enneking gained much vigor and
freshness in his art, and learned to aid his landscapes.
by the addition of genre and cattle.
In 1878 Mr. Enneking again went abroad, spend-
ing six months sketching in Holland and renewing
his impressions of foreign art. Considering the time
he has spent in painting, he has been one of our most
successful painters, both in the quality of his works
and the favor they have received. His style is fresh
and vigorous, and he excels in producing effects of
light. Some of the scenes suggested by his life in
Paris are very luminous and true in color.
Mr. Enneking is also successful in drawing and
painting the figure from living models, a method of
which I will tell you more in another paper; while
the cattle he introduces into some of his pictures add
much to their interest.
It would be very natural if such a varied career as
IIO
Our American Artists.
that of Mr. Enneking's were attended with incident
and adventure; and such has been the case, not only
in the war but also in his art experience. Among
other stories we might relate what happened to him
one day when he was sketching in Switzerland. Per-
haps it is better to let him tell it in his own words.
"One fine morning I took my traps and ascended
a steep mountain path, and followed it for some three
miles, when I came to a level clearing which afforded
me a splendid view of the surrounding snow-capped
mountain peaks. After enjoying the glorious scene
for a short time I chose my subject, and then set to
work with a will to transfer it to canvas. In a few
hours, when the sketch was about finished, the effect
changed, clouds covering the mountains. In the
hope that the clouds would soon lift again, I took my
sketch book and went up a little way on a hillside, in
order to take a hasty outline of another view.
"I was scarcely twenty minutes about it, and then
returned to my easel and oil sketch which I had left
standing below.
"But you can imagine my surprise and con-
sternation to find my sketch completely rubbed out
and, on examining it, it seemed as though a large
brush had been used to accomplish the ruin. My
brushes were strewn in all directions, and my palette
was almost all cleaned of paint.

MR. ENNEKING'S STUDIO, HYDE PARK, MASS.
(Drawn by himself)
John F. Enneking.
113
"I looked in all directions but could not discover
any living thing. I was completely dumbfounded.
It could not have been a wild animal, for I was in
full sight of the place the whole time. What could it
have been? Who could it have been? I puzzled
my brain over the mystery for some time and was
at last ready to believe there might be something in
spiritualism.
"The loss of that sketch provoked me in spite
of the mystery; for I had succeeded in securing such
cloud effect as it had seldom been my luck to witness.
I repaired the mischief as well as I could; but for the
first time since my boyhood felt uneasy, as though
there were unseen dangers surrounding me. I did
not make a whole day of it, but by the middle of
the afternoon was on my way down the valley again.
"Judge of my surprise, when, after I had descended
about half a mile, I came across a flock of goats with
the most brilliant whiskers, and faces will tattooed
with all the colors of the rainbow. They eyed me as
innocently as though they were my best friends, and
had not been up in the clearing raising Ned. I had
seen them near the place when I ascended in the
morning, but never suspected them, and can hardly
see now how they could do so much mischief so
quickly and in such a quiet way.
"The ludicrous sight they presented put me in
114
Our American Artists.
such good spirits that, half-way down the mountain,
I halted and made one of the best sketches of the
season."
•
Mr. Enneking met with another amusing adventure
when he was at Venice, where he has taken the
studies for some of his most effective paintings.
There is something about the dreamy atmosphere, the
picturesquely decorated sails of the fishing craft lazily
floating on the blue waters of the lagoons, and the
superb out-lines of the crumbling palaces and domes
and towers of the queen city of the Adriatic, haunted
with the romantic stories and the memory of the
pageants of other days, which seems to have had a
congenial influence over the fancy of this Western
artist, who had wandered hither from the newly-settled
and unhistoric prairies of Ohio. The poetic elements
of his nature have never found a more congenial theme
than Venice, which has inspired the pen and the
brush of many another poet and painter.
After sketching several months in the City of the
Doges, Mr. Enneking took a trip down the Adriatic
coast as far as Chiogga, forty miles south of Venice,
now a fishing port, but celebrated in olden time for a
famous strife called the War of Chiogga. There he
took a fishing boat and sailed towards Aquiloja,
along a bold and rugged shore. At last he came to
a headland which seemed to offer a good prospect,

WINTER TWILIGHT NEAR HYDE PARK
(From charcoal drawing by Mr. Enneking.)
John F. Enneking.
117
and so, leaving the boat with the fishermen, he
sprung on land and started up a winding ravine that
led him among some exceedingly barren and deso-
late but picturesque rocks which overhung the sea.
After climbing briskly some distance, he was sud-
denly surprised by a brace of rough-looking men
who sprung upon him from behind a sharp ledge,
rushing rapidly towards him, violently gesticulating
and yelling together in a rough jargon he could not
understand.
When he discovered a third man springing after
them, fiercely brandishing a club, Mr. Enneking nat-
urally supposed, as a matter of course, that these
men were ruffians, perhaps brigands, such as abound
in some parts of Italy, and that they intended to rob
or perhaps murder him. Impressed by this idea he
hurled his sketching stool at one of them, who
dodged it and tumbled head foremost into a bramble
bush. The bewildered artist then dealt the other
man a terrible blow with his umbrella. Instead of
resisting him the two men fled down the hill; but he
now had the third one to deal with, for he attacked
Mr. Enneking in a manner that soon brought them
to close quarters. Clenching each other by the
throat, the two men were in a minute struggling for
life and death on the ground.
It was a very serious and critical moment. But, at
118
Our American Artists.
}
that instant, the mystery was solved and the fight
checked by a fearful explosion that shook the earth,
while a shower of stones fell around them. It was a
blast going off close at hand, and these seeming
robbers were simply honest laborers, who had been
trying to keep him from rushing into a peril that
might have cost him his life. Before leaving he gave
the men a few pence each, to indemnify them for his
rather rough resistance to their well-meant violence.
Mr. Enneking is now settled in the village of
Hyde Park near Boston, where he has both his dwell-
ing-house and his studio. Reaping the benefits of care-
ful observation, both in the studio and the open air,
his works show a loving and reverent appreciation of
the beautiful world in which we live.

I. W. Wood-
Thomas W. Wood.
121
O
VIII.-THOMAS W. WOOD.
NE realizes the size of the United States and
of teach state, as the cond
the various character of each state, as he con-
siders from what widely separated regions our artists
have come; now, from the sunny South, then, fromⓇ
the bleak shores of New England, or the vast, ocean-
like prairies of the great West. Some have been
cradled by the roar of the turbulent Atlantic, others
where limitless billows of waving grain carry the eye
away to the setting sun; and yet all, wherever born
and under whatever influences educated, acknowl-
edge the great bond of a common love for the beau-
tiful, and a yearning to express their thoughts in the
universal language of art.
Yes, this is the one language that all can under-
stand, however different their mother tongues, and
however sundered by age and clime. The Greek,
Latin, Japanese, Saxon, or East Indian may have
each a different tongue, but they all understand
122
Our American Artists.
the poetry of color. They are all alike moved by the
subtle harmony of lines, and each can take pleasure
in each other's methods of art expression.
In the case of the artist who heads this paper, we
find ourselves taken to the Green Mountains of Ver-
mont. He was born at Montpelier, the state capital,
about fifty years ago. It is evident, that some
descendant of the French had something to do with
naming both the state and the capital. The latter
name is borrowed from a famous and beautiful city,
in the south of France, celebrated for its medical
university which was established by the Moors.
It is the old familiar story, that we find in the
opening history of almost every artist, which greets
us also in the case of Thomas Wood. He met with
strong opposition from his father in following his art
inclinations. This parental opposition is, however,
perfectly natural; because those who have never
themselves had art aspirations know not the reward
it sometimes brings to such as earnestly devote
themselves to it; while no profession is more liable
at the outset to yield hardship and pecuniary neces-
sity. It is natural, therefore, that a father, who
thinks of the welfare of his child, should desire for
him a more certain if less distinguished mode of
obtaining a livelihood.
Thomas W. Wood.
123
But young Wood's father allowed him to draw dur-
ing his leisure hours; and this he did until he was
eighteen, never having seen colors, and having,
hitherto, had no instruction whatever. But, at that
time, a friend of his, who had been studying in Bos-
ton, returned to Montpelier with some oil colors and
imparted some of his imperfect knowledge to the
would-be artist.
Soon after this, Mr. Wood set up in the neighbor-
hood as a portrait painter, and was able to seize a
likeness, although, of course, but an indifferent
painter as yet. Having thus scraped together a lit-›
tle money, he made his way to Boston in search of
further instruction.
In those days, the facilities for studying art in Bos-
ton were not quite what they are to-day. Neither
Normal Art School, nor Museum of Fine Arts, nor
the studios of such masters in art instruction as Mr.
William M. Hunt, were then open to the young art
student. He had to pick up his art knowledge in
a rough and ready way, a few hints here, or a few
suggestions there, or sometimes a few lessons from
some kind-hearted artist who sympathized with the
efforts of the young beginner. It was in this way,
chiefly, from being permitted to paint a short time
124
Our American Artists.
in the studio of Chester Harding, that Mr. Wood
profited by his residence in Boston.
Harding, who was noted in his day as one of
the best portrait painters in the country, is another
instance of the difficulties with which our artists
have had to contend, before the art facilities of our time
made it comparatively easy to obtain art knowledge
and education. First a peddler, then a chair-maker,
and after that a sign-painter, all the education he
had in art when he took to painting was, in
watching a wandering artist paint the portrait of Mrs.
Harding. Yet, with this slender stock of knowledge,
Chester Harding set up as a portrait painter; and
when by thrift and industry he was able to lay by a
little money, he went to England and took lessons
there. He became an excellent painter, and some of
his portraits will long possess value for those who
are interested in the progress of Art in America.
Mr. Harding was a man of kindly disposition, and
cheerfully imparted some of his art-knowledge to the
young student from Vermont; and before long Mr.
Wood began to produce successful portraits, gener-
ally of small size. About this time he executed a por-
trait of the government printer of Canada, or printer
to the Queen as he is called. It proved so satis-
factory, that the artist received an invitation to go to
Thomas W. Wood.
125
Montreal and paint fifteen more portraits, including
such gentleman as the premier, Sir Andrew McNab,
and Lord Bury.
After a successful art tour in Canada, Mr. Wood,
feeling much encouraged by the favor awarded to his
art efforts, settled in Baltimore for a while, devoting
himself to portraiture. It was while in that city that
he attempted his first genre picture.
Genre is a word borrowed from the French, and
means people. The term is applied in art to simple
domestic scenes, including one or more figures, sug-
gested by every day life, as distinguished from elab-
orate pictures of fashionable life or history.
We have not, until recent years, had many genre
painters in our art. William H. Mount was one of
the first. He was a man of great natural ability, but
his advantages were few. Eastman Johnson, Rich-
ard M. Staigg, F. A. Meyer, I. G. Brown and
James M. Champney are among some of the clever
genre artists we have had since the time of Mount.
Among this number Mr. Wood holds an honorable
position as one who forcibly represents the humble
life of the poor with pathos and humor.
His success in this direction was determined
by the favor with which his first genre picture.
was received. It represented an old negro, and
>
126
Our American Artists.
was sent to the annual exhibition of the National
Academy of Design, where it was purchased at
once. But meantime a gentleman who had seen
it in Baltimore, sent on word that he had already
determined to buy it, and had so informed the artist.
It became a rather difficult question to decide who
was the owner, and a law-suit was the result, in which
each claimant fought hard to maintain his own right
to the picture. The Baltimore purchaser was finally
decided to be the rightful owner, but meantime the
New York buyer, who had previously taken the paint-
ing from the Academy at the close of the exhibition,
had slyly caused a very clever copy of it to be made
by another artist. Of course this lawsuit helped the
reputation of Mr. Wood by attracting increased at-
tention to his art.
From Baltimore, Mr. Wood went to Europe and
wandered among the studios and galleries of the con-
tinent as far as Italy, improving his mind by a faith-
ful study of the old masters. On his return from Eu-
rope Mr. Wood went to Tennessee, where he spent
several months painting portraits and gathering mate-
rial for genre pictures. He was in Nashville at the
opening of the war, and remained there until the fall
of Fort Donaldson. Several times it was proposed to
force him to enlist in the ranks of the Southern army,

14
MR. WOOD'S STUDIO, TENTH ST., STUDIO BUILDING, NEW YORK, WITH TWO OF HIS MODELS.
Thomas W. Wood.
129
and as he is of large and massive stature there is no
doubt he would have made a good fighter. But he
was not only Northern born but also Northern in soul,
and used every expedient to avoid serving against
his country. In this he was aided by one of the re-
cruiting surgeons, whose portrait he was painting,
and who justly saw the absurdity and wickedness of
forcing a man to serve on the side to which he was
opposed. Learning secretly of the advance of the
Federal army on Nashville, and knowing that this
would produce a panic that would affect the banks,
Mr. Wood shrewdly and quietly changed all his
bank-notes into money available elsewhere, and
speedily left for the North.
Since that time Mr. Wood has resided in New
York, and has become an academician, as well as
one of the most prominent members of the American
Water Color Society. In 1878 he was elected presi-
dent of the society, and the first exhibition since then
has been one of the most successful they have held.
Mr. Wood's studio is in the Tenth Street Studio
Building. It is a quiet, cosy apartment, always neat
and attractive, the walls colored maroon and an old-
fashioned clock ticking in the corner. Both in the
drawing of the studio and the picture illustrating his
style, you see representations of some of his models.
ご
​130
Our American Artists.
The latter is a young Italian newsboy, who has not
yet quite learned to read and speak the language of
his adopted country. In both these pictures we
notice in a striking manner the strong points of Mr.
Wood's style as a painter. Although he employs
both oil and water colors, he is most at home in
effects of light and shade, and in this department
sometimes obtains very vigorous results. He is also
a keen observer of character. Mr. Wood makes
careful studies from living models, whom he often
picks up in the streets and hires for his studio.
The artist who draws and paints the human figure,
however talented he may be, must also draw much
from the life, as it is called, in order to know how to
give truth and character to his figures. Although he
may be aided by a strong imagination in the composi-
tion of his pictures, yet it is only by the careful study
of the delicate tints of flesh, and the graceful outlines
of the body, that he can give a natural effect to his
composition. For this purpose the artist must often
study the human form. Sometimes he gains assist-
ance from the use of what is called a lay figure, which
is very ingeniously constructed of wood or papier
marche with all the joints that would enable the artist
to give it any desirable position; but such lay figures
are used chiefly to arrange drapery upon, as in portrait

TW Woon
SPELLING IT OUT. (From the painting in possession of Thomas Ried, Esq.)
100
Thomas W. Wood.
133
painting. A lady who is having her portrait taken,
may not care to sit for more than the likeness of her
face, and the rich folds of her silks and laces are
then painted in her absence from a lay figure on
which they are arranged.
Some people, who are in poor circumstances, make
a living entirely by posing for the artists, and they are
then called models. They have to keep in one posi-
tion sometimes for many minutes together, and must
learn to pose gracefully and naturally; but their faces.
often appear on the canvasses of great artists, who
make them a means for expressing the visions of
their own imagination. Many a pretty Italian peas-
ant girl or picturesque old goat-herd with massive
gray beard, or a weather-beaten veteran, or a scarred
and sinewy negro has thus wrested a living from the
necessities of art, and woven his humble and perhaps
prosaic existence into the poesy of an artist's dreams.
134
Our American Artists.
THE
IX-SAMUEL COLMAN.
HE state of Maine has given us the artist who
is the subject of this paper. Samuel Colman
was born in Portland about forty-seven years ago.
His father was a bookseller of that city by the sea,
in comfortable circumstances. While the lad was
still quite young his father moved to New York, and
opened a publishing house on Broadway, where he
issued the poems of Willis and Longfellow in ele-
gant style, and introduced choice engravings to the
public, which had an important influence in cultiva-
ting a taste for art in America. The place became a
resort of authors and, more especially, of artists, and
it is not unlikely that this had some effect in direct-
ing the dawning talents of the boy, who often
an hour out of school in his father's store.
spent
Young Colman's turn for painting showed itself at
an early age, and he became a pupil of Asher B.
Durand, one of the founders of American landscape
painting, who still survives at the age of eighty-
three. Under the instruction of this able artist the

Даше Совшин
Samuel Colman.
137
youth made rapid progress, and exhibited a painting
at the New York Academy of Design when only
eighteen, which was received with decided favor.
Lake George now became the chosen resort of the
young artist. The exquisitely beautiful scenes which
cluster around that enchanted sheet of water offer
an endless range of attractions to the artistic and
poetic mind, and the earliest successes of this artist
were gained on its shores.
In the year 1860 Mr. Colman made his first visit
to Europe. A trip to the old world is one of the
first aspirations of the American artist. The dearth
of art treasures in this country, which, happily, is
growing less every year, serves as a powerful incen-
tive to influence one to go abroad, to study the
wealth of art which has been accumulating in Europe
for so many ages.
Before returning home Mr. Colman went to Spain
and Morocco, two of the most picturesque countries
that have filled the painter's soul with rapture. The
former attracts by the alternate wildness and allur-
ing beauty of its craggy mountains and lovely val-
leys. Noble cathedrals adorn the narrow winding
streets of its cities, and the peaks and precipices of
its sierras are crowned by old Moorish watch-towers
and feudal castles, where the battle cry of Christian
138
Our American Artists.
and of Moor rang in the long past days of chivalry,
or where, in times of peace, the tinkle of the Saracen
maiden's guitar was heard at eventide.
The romance of Spain is woven over every citadel
and plain of that fascinating land; for never was
there, since history began, a more thrilling tale than
the story of the long warfare between the Spaniards
and the Moors, which, after a conflict of a thousand
years, ended in the final overthrow and expulsion of
the Moor from Spain.
Many a stirring ballad, many a romantic legend,
many a weird and moving chronicle has been written
or sung about those immortal scenes of other days,
such as we who live in this age and country can but
faintly imagine. Among others who have written.
about that period in a very charming style is Wash-
ington Irving, whose "Conquest of Grenada" and
Tales of the Alhambra " you may have already read.
Mr. Colman found a congenial field for his talents
in Spain, and took many interesting studies there,
which have since been elaborated into finished paint-
ings. He found there especially the architectural
subjects which he renders with peculiar success — old
battlemented towers and spires overlooking quaint
market-places and squares, gay with the brilliant cos-
fumes of the southern climes.

THE PORT OF MARSEILLES. (Drawing by Samuel Colman.)
Samuel Colman.
141
One of Mr. Colman's most successful works is a
painting of Gibraltar. This is a very lofty rock
which stands out entirely alone on the southern
coast of Spain, and is all but an island; for it is
joined to the mainland only by a low narrow isthmus
on which the city of Gibraltar is built. The side
of the rock facing the sea is nearly fifteen hundred
feet high, and almost as perpendicular as a wall.
As a natural fortification it is the strongest in the
world, and has been held by England for over a
century, although several times besieged.
The interior of the rock abounds in caves, which
have been used to mount cannon, their sides having
been perforated with embrasures; and there are to
be seen the only monkeys in Europe, except such as
are kept in menageries. How they came there is a
mystery that has thus far baffled the most careful
search. The Straits of Gibraltar are, in this place,
only sixteen miles wide, and it is supposed that there
must be a submarine passage known only to these
apes, by which they come and go at will between Eu-
rope and the opposite coast of Africa.
This grand and effective object Mr. Colman
painted as it appears at noonday, with the broad
sunlight of the southern sea flooding its majestic
precipices, while at the base of the tremendous cliff
142
Our American Artists.
the calm waters of the Mediterranean reposes, beau-
tifully blue, and reflecting the white lateen-sails of
the picturesque craft that give animation to the scene.
Crossing over to Tangiers, in Morocco, Mr. Col-
man found himself in a country whose people are
Mohammedans of the most fanatical sort, who make
it dangerous for Christians to penetrate far from the
coast. Mystery and seclusion keep Morocco almost
as remote as if it were in the heart of Africa instead
of a few miles from Europe. At Tangiers, however,
our artist found abundant material to occupy his
pencil, and very soon became greatly fascinated with
the curious and picturesque buildings and people of
that city.
On his return to the United States Mr. Colman
was elected an academician. In 1871 Mr. Colman
made another trip across the Atlantic, directing his
steps this time rather to the north of Europe. Hol-
land, the Rhine, Normandy, Brittany and England,
each has charms of its own, and has been in turn
illustrated by the facile brush of this painter.
Mr. Louis C. Tiffany is another of our artists who
has chosen and very happily rendered a class of
subjects similar to those painted by Mr. Colman, and
has shown the same love and appreciation for color.
Like him, too, he has wrought with equal effect in oil
Samuel Colman.
143
and water-colors. In the year 1866 Mr. Colman, who
had previously been elected an academician at the
age of thirty, was made the first president of the
American Water Color Society. This important branch
of art, although long practiced in Europe with great
success, and by here and there a miniature painter in
America, had never been much followed by our ar-
tists until some twelve years ago, when an interesting
exhibition of foreign water-colors which was held in
New York in 1865 attracted much attention, and
also led to the formation of a society devoted alto-
gether to the encouragement of water-color painting.
Mr. Colman held the office of president of the
society for five years, and it soon reached a position
of dignity and importance. Many of our leading
artists have taken up the practice of water-colors,
and a steady improvement has been noticed every
year in the quality of their work.
In the paper about Mr. Bellows, who has been one
of our principal water-colorists, I gave a few details
of the peculiar qualities to this art. The new institu-
tion has held its annual exhibitions in the building of
the Academy of Design, and the opening of the spring
exhibition has at last become second in importance
only to the annual exhibition of the academy. The
one of 1879 was not only the best ever held in this
144
Our American Artists.
country, but compared most favorably in variety of
style and quality of work with the London exhibitions.
Besides Mr. Colman, some of our best known
water-colorists are Mr. R. Swain Gifford, and Messrs.
James and George Smillie. The former of the brothers
was third president of the society. Miss Brydges
and Miss Dillon have also done some admirable com-
positions of birds and flowers in this medium, and Mr.
Muhrmann, a young artist of much promise, has
shown considerable skill in so using water-colors as
to give the richness of oil painting both in figure,
drapery and landscape. Among our coast-painters
who have executed admirable pictures with water-
colors, Messrs. W. T. Richards and J. C. Nicholl
have no superiors on this side of the Atlantic.
The style of Mr. Colman, both in oil and water-
colors has been broad and effective; he has painted
some very strong effects of light and shade, and his
coloring has a brilliance that is so harmonious as to
influence one like a strain of music. But it is in his
off-hand sketches in color that he shows to best
advantage, as in his more finished paintings he some-
times loses the vague, dreamy, poetic tone which
seems to inspire him when he first takes hold of a
subject.
'The studio of Mr. Colman is in the new and
1

KILBURN
A GLIMPSE OF MR. COLMAN'S STUDIO (Drawn by himself.)
Samuel Colman.
147
elegant building erected for artists on the corner of
Twenty-Fifth Street and Fourth Avenue, New York,
of which his residence forms a part, and the studio
can thus be entered either from his house or from
the main corridor of the building. It is richly deco-
rated with studies, curious bits of Chinese pottery,
rare tapestries and oriental stuffs, including the very
elaborate and fierce-looking suit of Japanese armor
which you see in the corner of the accompanying
engraving. The various character of the objects col-
lected in his studio fairly indicates the impartiality of
Mr. Colman's art opinions, for we have no artist who
is more willing than he to see the good in different
styles of art. If we had more like him, it seems as if
the progress of art in this country would not only
be more harmonious but also more rapid and much
more instructive.
148
Our American Artists.
X. — WORDSWORTH THOMPSON.
-
EW of our artists have enjoyed a more pict-
FEW
uresque and varied experience than the painter
who is the subject of this article. He was born in
Maryland, and early showed a taste for handling a
pencil and brushes, which was increased when on a
visit to the White Mountains, by seeing an artist
painting from nature. Nothing would do after that,
but to give full vent to his enthusiasm for art. But
the father of young Wordsworth took quite another
view of the question, and insisted in his taking up the
study of law.
But after two years with the dry, sheep-bound tomes
of the law, Wordsworth Thompson suddenly found
an occasion for expressing his art impulses in a most
unexpected way. The fall of Fort Sumter and the
breaking out of the Rebellion threw everything for
the time into confusion, and the march of the troops.
to the battlefields of the South suggested to him the

Wordsworth Thompson
Wordsworth Thompson.
151
opportunity of becoming an illustrator of the stirring
events that were about to shake the Continent.
Mr. Thompson succeeded in obtaining engagements
to draw for "Harper's Weekly" and the "London
Illustrated News ;" and many of the war pictures
which appeared in those periodicals for the first year
of the conflict were from his pencil. This naturally
brought him into many adventurous scenes and added
many thrilling incidents to the experience of the
young artist.
But in the year 1862 he had had enough of cam-
paigning and was anxious to gain a more thorough
instruction in art. Accordingly he sailed for France,
and settled in Paris for several years, enjoying the
instruction of some of the ablest artists there. Gleyre,
who has taught many of the best painters now living,
received him into his studio, and taught him to draw
the figure from the antique and the living model.
Mr. Thompson also took lessons in landscape from
Pasini, who has painted some very brilliant oriental
scenes; he also studied the anatomy of the horse
with Barrye, the greatest animal sculptor of modern
times. It is evident that the young American artist
had a most thorough training in the principles of his
profession, at Paris; while by studying with such
different artists he was less likely to become as
152
Our American Artists.
narrow and prejudiced in his opinions as many of our
art students abroad.
So successful were his efforts that in 1865 one of
his paintings was admitted to the Salon. This is the
name given to the great annual art exhibition of
Paris, which is held under the direction of the Gov-
ernment. Many works are annually refused admis-
sion, and it is considered an honor when a young
artist succeeds in having one of his pictures hung on
its walls.
The first commission Mr. Thompson received was
from an eccentric English gentleman, Sir William
Ardley, whom he met at Imhof, in Switzerland. It
was for a painting of the great Gauli glacier. Accom-
panied by three mountaineers to carry his traps and
provisions for a fortnight, he climbed to the scene of
action, a desolate spot ten thousand feet above the
sea, and surrounded by snow and ice. The weather
was fine, although the nights were very keen; but he
slept comfortably at night, under the shelter of a
large rock.
One thing that impressed the artist at that savage
and dreary elevation and solitude was the profound.
stillness; the place seemed absolutely dead; not a
bird nor an insect was to be seen. The silence at
last became so painful that he arranged a tin plate
Wordsworth Thompson.
153
under the edge of a rock so that a drop of water
might fall upon it at intervals, making a slight noise
when the midday sunshine slightly thawed the surface
of the ice. Owing to the same cause, sometimes in
the middle of the afternoon the stillness was rudely
broken by the frightful thunder of avalanches of ice
falling from the opposite cliffs; but when the echoes
had died away among the distant peaks and gorges
the silence became more oppressive than ever.
After this Mr. Thompson made some extensive
and most enjoyable tours on foot through the Eifel-
wald, in Germany, and along the banks of the Rhine
and the Danube, and through the rugged regions of
the Tyrol and Bohemia, and often visiting out-of-the-
way nooks little travelled by tourists. One of his
most interesting trips was a six months' walk with a
knapsack on his back, and with a single companion.
It extended from Heidelberg to Calabria in the
extreme south of Italy.
In the wild land of the Abruzzi, south of Naples,
he met with some exciting adventures, one of which
is of especial interest. The country is very rugged ;
old castles crown the bold crags along the sea, and here
and there are the mouldering columns of a ruin that
reminds one of the splendor of the old Roman times.
But in our day the land is occupied chiefly by rude
154
Our American Artists.
peasants tending flocks of goats, or making shift to
till the soil. Many of them are a villainous set who,
it not themselves brigands, are in league with the
robbers who infest the mountains prepared to plunder
or murder at every favorable opportunity, and giving
the Italian Government much trouble in trying to
exterminate them. Like the brigands of Sicily and
Greece, these picturesque ruffians have a habit of
entrapping unwary travellers whenever they think
they are rich, and hold them until a heavy ransom is
paid; or kill them if the money does not come on
the set day. I have known several gentlemen who,
have been thus waylaid and captured; and have seen
and heard much about brigands myself, in wandering
about Greece and Asia Minor.
Well, one night our travellers arrived footsore and
weary, at a wretched little inn far up among the
mountains. While they were trying to snatch a little
rest in an upper room, they were aroused by a dis-
turbance in the street, and a strange gabble of voices
in the lower part of the house. The landlord soon
entered the apartment and earnestly begged the trav-
ellers on
no account to show themselves at the
window, or venture down-stairs, for the place was
full of robbers, and, if their attention were attracted
to the foreigners, it might lead to serious trouble.

MR. THOMPSON'S STUDIO. (Drawn by himself.)
Wordsworth Thompson.
157
The uproar continued, and it was evident that the
desperadoes were drinking themselves merry below.
Mr. Thompson's companion could not resist the
desire to gratify his curiosity by the sight of real live
brigands; and in spite of all remonstrance descend-
ed to the street. He was gone so long that Mr.
Thompson, fearing he had got into difficulty, felt it his
duty to go down also, to look after him. He found him-
self at once among a motley and boisterous gang of
vagabonds armed to the teeth, and drinking hard and
spending money freely. His fellow-traveller, who
spoke Italian fluently, had meantime been conversing
with one of the most desperate of their number.
Evidently the brigands did not suspect the travellers
of being anything else than impoverished tramps,
whom it was useless to seize. But had a suspicion
crossed the minds of the robbers, of the real character
of these gentlemen, our travellers would have paid
dearly for their temerity.
The brigands left as suddenly as they had arrived;
but Mr. Thompson and his friend were not allowed
to leave until it could be ascertained what road they
had taken. The day was wet and dreary, and at
nightfall the excitement of the previous evening was
renewed; but this time it was a detachment of sol-
diers that arrived, bringing with them as prisoners,
158
Our American Artists.
twelve of the very brigands who had caroused there
the night before. Several were badly wounded, and
soon after one of them was shot dead while trying to es-
cape. After this adventure Mr. Thompson walked
through the island of Sicily, and ascended to the top
of Mt. Etna, the famous volcano. His wanderings.
for the time then terminated by his return to the
United States, and settling in New York, which has
been his home ever since. But he has made several
visits since then to Europe, and quite lately took a
delightful tour through Corsica and Sardinia, islands
celebrated for the beauty and grandeur of their
scenery. The former you may remember as the
birth-place of Napoleon I.. Mr. Thompson travelled
over the island on a mule which he purchased at the
port of Bastia, and stayed nights at the wayside
houses of the generous and hospitable inhabitants.
Naturally, Mr. Thompson has collected many inter-
esting studies of the numerous attractive scenes he
has visited. The vivid tints of sea and sky, or of
vineyards and mountains, the picturesque villages.
and fishing-boats and motley groups of peasants, he
has painted with charming effect. His style is poetic,
broad, without being slovenly, and finished, without
losing its spirit. But since his return to America,
Mr. Thompson has found subjects in his native land

GEN, WASHINGTON REVIEWING THE CONTINENTAL ARMY. (Painting by Wordsworth Thompson.)
Wordsworth Thompson.
161
that are congenial to his talents. He has effectively
rendered scenes of country-life, such as a steamboat
landing in Chesapeake Bay, with its groups of car-
riages and horses, mules, cattle, negroes, babies
planters and dogs, in picturesque confusion.
But the paintings in which Mr. Thompson has
shown the most originality and strength have been
historical compositions suggested partly by the late
civil war, but more especial by scenes of the Revolu-
tion. Up to this time the two pictures of the "Battle
of Bunker Hill," and the "Death of General Mont-
gomery," painted by Colonel Trumbull, in the last
century, have been the most effective works painted
by an American artist from subjects suggested by our
national history. You have doubtless seen engravings
of those admirable compositions, of which the originals
are in the Academy of Design at New Haven. But
in carefully executed paintings like that of the accom-
panying engraving, Mr. Thompson has fairly earned.
a place by Trumbull. The picture, which represents
Washington and his Staff reviewing the Continental
army at Philadelphia, before the battle of German-
town, is one that gives satisfaction alike to the artist
and the patriot, and ranks with the best works of the
sort produced on this side of the Atlantic. The
painting is not a large one, the figures being what is
162
Our American Artists.
called cabinet size; but observe how carefully and
correctly the group of horses in the foreground is
drawn. Few of our painters have equalled this artist
in the drawing of the horse.
Mr. Thompson is an academician. His studio is
on the north side of the building of the Young Men's
Christian Association, and is decorated with many
picturesque trophies he has picked up in his travels.
George Loring Brown.
163
GEORGE LORING BROWN.
WHEN
HEN we consider the career of this artist, we
are carried back to the early days of Ameri-
can landscape painting, when Thomas Cole, A. B.
Durand and Thomas Dougherty were introducing our
people to the study of nature. Cole was one of the
greatest artists we have had in this country. His
opportunities for learning how to paint were few, and
he was forced to struggle with many difficulties, but he
was a man of great talents and excellent aims and
character. Some of you have probably seen engrav
ings of his "Voyage of Life,” a series of allegorical
paintings, which are not so good, however, as his
"Course of Empire." Mr. Durand is still living,
although well past eighty. He has been a good
engraver and portrait painter, but has been better
known for admirable paintings of our forest scenery.
Beginning to paint nearly fifty years ago, Mr. Brown
was associated with the founders of American land-
164
Our American Artists.
scape art, and few have contributed more than he to
make it what it is, a school which has done much
to please and educate the people and gratify the
patriotic interest we should take in the growth of our
national art.
While we find in the life of Mr. Brown less of the
adventure that some of our artists have met, it does
not yield in thrilling interest to that of any, for his
early efforts in art were attended with severe hard-
ships. At the same time he overcame them by great
energy and perseverance and boundless enthusiasm
for the chosen pursuit of his life, thus offering a
noble example to others who encounter disappoint-
ment or adversity in youth. Fortune, however grim
at first, smiles at last on those who modestly believe
in their ability to succeed, and having made a choice
of a profession diligently pursue it to the end.
George Loring Brown was born in Boston in the year
1814. He was the son of a carpenter who opposed the
turn for art which the lad displayed while yet scarcely
eight years of age. But the boy's mother was on his
side and encouraged the first feeble efforts to express
his fancies with the pencil.
George went to the Franklin School, and won the
silver medal, and at twelve he was apprenticed to Mr.
Hartwell, the artist and engraver, in order to learn

Geo L Brown
George Loring Brown.
167
engraving on wood. So far his father had relented
when he saw how earnest his son was to pursue art.
The boy's first attempts at colors were in painting
scenes for a dramatic club where the famous Char-
lotte Cushman first appeared as an amateur actress.
The experience George acquired in engraving, and
also in drawing designs of reptiles and flowers in his
fifteenth year for Peter Parley's natural history books,
was doubtless of great value in teaching him accuracy
in drawing. About this time an incident occurred
which proved a turning point in his life, and, like
such crises generally, came suddenly and unforeseen.
The young engraver received permission to copy
some old paintings by way of practice. One day Mr.
Healy, the well-known portrait painter, came in and
praised one of the landscapes; but young Brown,
conscious of his powers, said he thought he could
paint a better one. Scarcely had he sketched it
when a Mr. Davis came into his studio and liked the
composition so well that he at once paid the youth
the sum he asked for it— fifty dollars.
As soon as he felt the money in his pocket Brown
exclaimed that he must go to Europe to study. Sym-
pathizing with the enthusiasm of the young painter,
Mr. Davis mentioned him to Mr. Cushing, a merchant
of large wealth, and procured him an introduction.
168
Our American Artists.
"Are you not rather young to go to Europe?
asked the kindly old gentleman.
""
'No, sir; for I want to be an artist," the youth
replied without hesitation.
"Well," said Mr. Cushing, smiling blandly, "how
much do you need?”
"One hundred dollars," George answered promptly,
this moderate estimate showing how small experience
he had as yet with the world.
Immediately on receiving the promise that he
should have the money, Brown bounded home and
shouted excitedly through the house that he was
going to Europe. The undertaking at that time was
so much more rare and difficult than it is now, that
all the family laughed as if it was a good joke, except
his father, who thought him out of his mind and
threatened to put him under lock-and-key.
"But I am going to Europe!" cried the youth,
with a simple, hearty enthusiasm that makes one even
at this late day share with him the joy he felt.
(6
Going to grass!" answered his stern old father.
George, if you don't behave yourself, I'll shut you
up in prison."
Undaunted by such cold sympathy, the warm-
hearted boy, as soon as he had received the one
hundred dollars from his benefactor, sped to the

JEBA
MR. BROWN'S STUDIO. (Drawn by himself.)
George Loring Brown.
171
""
harbor-side and found that the brig "Hebe was to
sail in a few hours for Antwerp. He paid seventy-
five dollars for his passage, and had only twenty-five
left. Then returning home, he took a mattress, a
blanket and a pair of sheets on his back down to the
ship. The crew hoisted the topsails, the brig sailed
out of Boston Bay, and was soon heaving on the long
swell of the vast Atlantic.
Bound to Europe, to a land of strangers, thousands
of miles away, to learn how to paint, to aspire after
that great and arduous profession which takes so
many years to acquire, and which so few ever master,
and with only twenty-five dollars in his pocket!
Well might his father almost think his son insane.
And it would, indeed, have gone hard with the ardent
but improvident youth if a kind Providence had not
aided his fidelity to art, and come to his assistance
when the horizon seemed the most dark and forbidding.
After a voyage of twenty-five days, the brig at last
sighted the low sand dunes and dykes of the Nether-
lands; and gliding by the quaint old town of Flush-
ing, and up the tawny waters of the Scheldt, moored
by the wharves of Antwerp, under the shadow of that
matchless spire that seemed to me as I climbed to its
topmost pinnacle and gazed over the historical cities
and meadow-lands of the Low Countries, or listened
172
Our American Artists.
to the magical music of its silvery chimes, to be the
most beautiful and inspiring monument which the
glorious Middle Ages bequeathed to our time.
Fired with enthusiasm, young Brown stepped ashore
and wandered friendless and alone among the wind-
ing lanes of a city hallowed by the memory of
Rubens and Vandyke. But he was a stranger among
strangers, who spoke a tongue he could not under-
stand; and worse still, it was not many days before
the twenty-five dollars he brought with him had
dwindled down to nothing.
The "Descent from the Cross," by Rubens, one of
the greatest paintings of all ages, which is in the
Cathedral of Antwerp, at once impressed the young
American with an interest that he has never forgot-
ten, and so inspired him that for a few days he
almost forgot the utterly forlorn condition in which
he was placed. But the brig "Hebe" was about to
return, and then, at last, realizing his situation, his
heart failed him, and as the brig was weighing anchor,
he sat down and wept on the wharf. Then the
kindly captain of the "Hebe" came to him and
forced him to accept fifteen dollars.
This money, so opportunely granted, just sufficed
to carry young Brown across the English Channel to
London, where he found himself again with a people
George Loring Brown.
173
who spoke his language, and here kind fortune once.
more smiled upon him; for although he found him-
self without a cent in that vast city, he also found a
friend. He remembered in his extremity that John
Cheney, the American engraver, was then living in
London. Finding out where he lived, Mr. Brown
called on him, and was most kindly received, although
a stranger, and Mr. Cheney offered to lend him.
money sufficient to support him until he could hear
from Mr. Cushing. But through some mischance,
nearly ten months passed before letters arrived from
Mr. Cushing with money.
During all this time Mr. Cheney not only gen-
erously supplied the wants of young Brown, but also
took him to Paris, where he made a copy of one of
the sunset compositions of Claude Lorraine, the
famous landscape painter. On this copy Mr. Brown
bestowed such great care, that he learned from it
many of the secrets of his great profession; Allston,
the painter, declared it to be the best copy of Claude
he had seen, and when Mr. Brown afterwards showed
it in Boston it was the means of procuring him sev-
eral important commissions, although he was so dis-
satisfied with it himself that he had impatiently
slashed it into three pieces with a razor.
After two years of the closest application to self-
174
Our American Artists.
improvement in his cherished art, Mr. Brown returned
in 1834 to Boston, and opened a studio there. But
a few years in the United States convinced him that
he needed more foreign study, and he sailed for
Italy, and took up his residence in Rome, at that time
the great art centre of the world. The magical clime,
the noble scenery, the picturesque antiquities, the
innumerable associations of Italy at once inspired the
buoyant, ardent spirit of the young American painter,
and he threw himself into his art with redoubled
energy.
He found himself surrounded by the delightful com-
panionships of well-known artists at the celebrated
Café Greco and other noted resorts of artists and
literary men in the Eternal City, and made frequent
excursions into the neighborhood after studies. The
ruins and scenery of Italy were entirely congenial to
his nature, although born and bred on the bleak
shores of New England.
In one of his rambles over the vast solitudes of the
grass-grown desert of the Campagna outside of Rome,
Mr. Brown met with an entertaining but ticklish.
adventure which we will allow him to tell in his own
words. Having found the solitary tower he was to
paint, he says: "I at once commenced planting my
artist's sun umbrella, which covered my back, to keep

64
TERESA'S HOUSE,'
""
AMALFI, ITALY. (From a painting by Mr. Brown.)
George Loring Brown.
177
the rays and reflection of the sun from my picture.
After working an hour, drawing the tower very care-
fully, I fancied I heard a rumbling noise behind me.
I looked under my white umbrella, and lo and be-
hold! some dozen of those long-horned Roman cattle
were gradually approaching me, grazing, and every
now and then looking up at the strange white object
and shaking their heads and stamping their hoofs.
As I looked back a second time the leader a great
bull with magnificent horns as sharp as needles, each
above five feet long, began with flaming eyes to look
at me, sniff, paw the ground and put himself in a
fighting attitude. As he was evidently preparing to
make a plunge at me, I hastily gathered up my camp-
stool, canvas and paint-box, and made tracks for a
stone wall a few rods distant. As soon as I started,
the bull was after me, and I had barely time to climb
over before he reached it and stamped the ground
defiantly."
After a long residence abroad, Mr. Brown returned
to the United States in 1860, and since then his
studio has been for the most part in South Boston.
His long life in Italy has given him a reputation in
Europe as well as in his native land.
The subjects Mr. Brown has chosen have generally
been Italian, but some of his most successful paint-
178
Our American Artists.
ings have also been taken from American scenes.
He excels in brilliant effects of light, and in the
rendering of the delicate Italian skies. His pictures
are thoroughly poetical, inspired by a fine feeling.
for nature and a tender, dreamy fancy, and his
coloring is characterized by softness and splendor.
In reaching these effects this artist has made large
use of ultramarine, which is the most expensive of all
pigments and the most beautiful of blues, and of all
colors the most atmospheric and permanent. It is
made of powdered lapis lazuli, and is so costly that
few artists use it except in the most sparing manner;
while its permanence is such that it is the only color
as yet known which does not grow darker or lighter
with time. Thus in the paintings of past ages, the
works of such colorists as Titian or Rubens, we find
the blues are often as rich as when laid on centuries
ago, for they were chiefly done with ultramarine.
One of Mr. Brown's most noted paintings is the
"Crown of New England" representing Mt. Wash-
ington. Another is of the Bay of New York, which
was presented to the Prince of Wales when he was in
this country, by a number of gentlemen. The former
was purchased by him, and he also gave the artist a
diamond pin in token of his admiration of his works.
David Neal.
179
DAVID NEAL.
'HE art career of this painter has been passed in
THE
Europe; but he is an American by birth, most
of his paintings are owned in this country, and he
may justly be included among the leading artists.
America has produced.
David Neal was born in the manufacturing city of
Lowell, in the year 1838. His boyhood was unat-
tended by any striking incidents, and there was
nothing in the influences of the place to arouse in
him a turn for art. The dull routine of a factory
town would seem to be rather against the awakening
of art feeling in the boys and girls who played about
its streets. But contrary to what one might expect,
David showed a talent for drawing at an early age,
and earned the admiration of his school-fellows by
amusing them with sketches illustrating whatever
180
Our American Artists.
happened to strike his childish fancy.
"The thoughts
of youth are long, long thoughts," and a boy's eyes
often see far beyond the hills which surround his na-
tive town, catching faint visions of his after-life in the
dim distance fading away into the mists of the future.
This was the case with young Neal, who was
equipped with a good fund of energy and resolution.
Thus furnished with two of the most essential qualities
for winning a way in life, he determined, when only
fifteen, to go out into the world and seek his fortune.
He went first to New Orleans, where he found a
situation which gave him support, but at the same
time prevented him from devoting himself to the
study of art for which he longed. All he could do
was to give his few spare hours to imperfect attempts
at improving himself; but scarcely any assistance
could he get in his studies, for there were no art
schools or museums in the city from which he could
obtain hints in the pursuit which he had determined
to follow.
At length David Neal decided to go to San Fran-
cisco and see if he could improve his advantages.
there. He went by way of Central America and was
greatly impressed by the grandeur and luxuriant
splendor of the tropical scenery through which he
passed on his way to the Pacific. In San Francisco

Camell
FF
DAVID NEAL.
PHOTO ENG DO N
David Neal.
183
he soon found employment in making drawings on
wood, constantly keeping before him, however, the
purpose of going sometime to Europe to study art.
In the city of the Golden Gate young Neal passed
several years, not only designing on wood but also
painting an occasional portrait, and endeavoring to
save up enough to carry out his cherished plan. His
patience and perseverance found their reward at last.
In the year 1862 he made the acquaintance of a
generous-minded gentleman, S. P. Dewey, Esq., who
became interested in the success of the young en-
graver, and volunteered to aid him to obtain the art
education he so much desired. Mr. Dewey furnished
him with the funds necessary to take him to Europe
and support him there for several years.
Mr. Neal proceeded at once to Munich, the great
centre of German art at the present day. Although
ignorant of the language he did not lose a moment,
but began at once to take his first study from antique
models at the Royal Academy.
In the following year occurred an event of great
importance in his career. He married the daughter
of the Chevalier Ainmüller, an artist of note who was
also superintendent of the Royal Manufactory of
stained glass of Bavaria. As there was no school of
painting at that time in Munich which was exactly to
184
Our American Artists.
his taste, Mr. Neal entered the studio of his father-in-
law and there began his first regular lessons in oil-
painting.
With the advice of the Chevalier, Mr. Neal applied
himself first to the painting of interiors, chiefly of
ecclesiastical architecture. The thoroughness he had
given to learning how to draw correctly was now of
great use to him, for while he employed color in these
paintings with success, the perspective and drawing,
in which many painters are very weak, and the light
and shade, were rendered with excellent effect. These
works met with ready sale and soon established the
reputation of this rising artist.
One of the most effective of Mr. Neal's architectural
paintings was a study of part of Westminster Abbey
in London, which is among the most celebrated build-
ings of Europe. The kings and queens of England,
and many of her great soldiers and poets are buried
there. The chapel of Henry VII., which is at-
tached to this noble structure, is one of the most ex-
quisite specimens of the Gothic style of architecture
which remain in existence.
It is in one of the aisles leading to this chapel, with
tombs on either hand, surmounted by marble effigies
of the great departed, that Mr. Neal has laid the
scene of what is really a very fine piece of painting..

Darth Neste
Marcher 180
ALSATIAN PEASANT GIRL. (From painting by Lavid Neal.)
David Neal.
187
He has reproduced the details with remarkable truth,
but at the same time without sacrificing the grandeur
of the general effect; and such a sublime solemnity
pervades the painting that one gazes on it almost
with the awe that impresses him when he is actually
under the roof of the building itself. This paint-
ing was purchased by the Art School of Chicago..
But during all this time, while he was studying
and composing these works, Mr. Neal kept steadily
in view his original purpose of devoting himself to
the painting of the figure. The occasion at length
occurred when he made the acquaintance of Profess-
or Carl Piloty, in 1869, who advised him to delay
no longer study from the life, but to begin at once
with portrait painting.
Mr. Neal now entered the school of Professor
Wagner, who is celebrated for the great painting of
a Roman Chariot Race, and the following year he
became a pupil of Piloty himself, and was associa-
ted in his studies with Defregger, Grützner. and
others who have since become widely known as artists
of genius.
Piloty is one of the most celebrated German
painters of this century. He studied with the famous
Paul Delaroche at Paris, and after his return to
Munich was made Professor of painting in the Royal
188
Our American Artists.
Academy in that city. He is a fine colorist, and
his subjects are drawn from historical scenes. One
of his best works is the "Death of Wallenstein "
the celebrated imperial general of the Thirty Years'
War.
No better master could have been found for one
of Mr. Neal's talents and turn for historical painting.
In the studio of Piloty the American artist now
made rapid progress, and soon completed his first
elaborate figure composition. It represented James
Watt, the modern inventor of the power of steam — I
say the modern inventor, for the Romans knew some-
thing about it, but never put their knowledge to
practical use. Watt is sitting by the fireside when a
boy, and getting his first ideas on the subject while
watching the steam hissing out of his mother's tea-
kettle. This painting was exhibited at the Royal
Academy in London, and was purchased by Sir
B. Phillips, the Lord Mayor.
The most important painting by Mr. Neal, and
the one by which he is best known is entitled The
First Meeting of Mary Stuart and Rizzio," of which
an engraving accompanies these pages. It has estab
lished his reputation in Europe as well as in this
country; and even the leading critics of Germany
have pronounced it to be in its general qualities

FIRST MEETIN OF MARY STUART AND RIZZIO. (From painting by David Neal.;
David Neal.
191
equal to the best work of his master Piloty, and
perhaps superior in color. It received even yet
greater honor, for when it was first exhibited it
received the large silver medal, the highest reward
in the gift of the Royal Academy of Munich.
The painting was commenced in 1875, and repre-
sents the abilities of this artist at his best. Mr. Neal
is not a rapid worker, but his art shows careful
drawing, harmonious composition and superb color.
His style is broad without being slovenly and unfin-
ished, and the pigments are laid on with a solidity
and firmness that gives the massiveness and effect
of reality; in other words his colors are applied with
a good idea of textures, as artists say, and all that
he does shows earnest and thoughtful study of art
methods.
The subject of this admirable work is taken from
this history of the celebrated and unfortunate Mary
Queen of Scots. You have all heard about her
how extraordinary was her beauty, how romantic and
tragical her career; how she was driven from her
throne by her subjects and forced to fly for refuge to
England and ask the hospitality of Queen Elizabeth.
But for reasons of State the English queen was
obliged to treat her royal guest as a prisoner and
shut her up in a castle.
a castle. After nineteen years of
192
Our American Artists.
imprisonment, during which she made several useless.
attempts and plots to escape, the beautiful Mary
of Scotland was at last executed as one whom it
was dangerous either to release or to keep impris-
oned; and ever since the world has rung with the
story of her beauty and her doom.
Well, it is one of the most critical moments in
the life of Queen Mary which the artist has chosen
to represent in this beautiful painting. The meeting
of Mary with Rizzio was the turning-point in her
career. A strolling Italian musician, he arrived.
dusty and worn at the castle of Holyrood at Edin-
burgh. Being very weary he besought the porter to
let him have a bed on which to rest. This the surly
warden refused, but he said: "There is yonder chest ;
lie there if thou wilt."
The tired minstrel threw himself on the chest and
was soon lost in a heavy sleep. As he lay there
unconscious of what was passing around him, the
queen, accompanied by her maids of honor, came
down the marble stairway and saw the sleeping
wanderer resting there.
Interested by his attractive appearance, she gladly
permitted him at times to play his guitar and sing to
her, and thus he remained for a time at Holyrood.
Her enemies, for she had many, including probably
David Neal
193
her young husband, Lord Darniey, made her liking
for the playing of the Italian musician an excuse for
plotting against her royal power.
They began by assassinating Rizzio one evening
when he was at supper with the queen at Holyrood.
Without heeding her commands, her entreaties or her
frantic screams, they pierced him with their daggers
while he was clinging to her skirts for safety; and
when they dragged away his corpse tradition says it
was laid in its last slumber on the very oaken chest
on which he was sleeping when the Queen first saw
him. From that day misfortune never ceased to
pursue her until she ended her life on the scaffold.
In his painting Mr. Neal has represented the Queen
raising her hand with a slight graceful gesture as if
showing surprise perhaps at so suddenly discovering
the handsome young Italian; but the movement also
seems to indicate that she was touched in that fateful
moment by a presentiment of some unknown coming
misfortune, a foreboding of the sad years that even
then began to cast a shadow over her lovely brow.
Mr. Neal now resides at Munich with his family,
and his studio is at No. 6 in the street called the
Maximilian Strasse, one of the leading thoroughfares
of that magnificent art capital.

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65432
A4 Page 6543210
A4 Page 6543210
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65432
MEMORIAL DRIVE, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 14623
RIT ALPHANUMERIC RESOLUTION TEST OBJECT, RT-1-71
0123460
மய
6 E38
5 582
4 283
3 32E
10:
5326
7E28
8B3E
032E ▸
1253
223E
3 3EB
4 E25
5 523
6 2E5
17
分
​155自​杂
​14 E2 S
1323S
12E25
11ES2
10523
5836
835E
7832
0723
SBE 9
OEZE
1328
2 E32
3 235
4 538
5 EBS
6 EB
15853
TYWES
16 ELE
14532
13823
12ES2
11285
1053B
SBE6
8235
7523
◄ 2350
5 SER
10 EBS
8532
9538
7863
ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ONE LOMB
PRODUCED BY GRAPHIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER