YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS OF GEORGE INNESS GEORGE INXESS (Painted by George Inncss, Jr.) LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS OF GEORGE INNESS BY GEORGE INNESS, Jr. ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY REPRODUCTIONS OF PAINTINGS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ELLIOTT DAINGERFIELD NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1917 Copyright, 1917, by The Century Co. Published, October, 1917 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY DEAR WIFE JULIA GOODRICH INNESS WHO HAS FILLED MY LIFE WITH HAPPINESS AND. WHOSE HELP AND COUNSEL HAVE MADE THIS WORK POSSIBLE PREFACE What I would like to give you is George Inness; as he was, as he talked, as he lived — not what I saw in him or how I interpreted him, but hiin — and hav ing given you all I can remember of what he said and did I want you to form your own opinion. My story shall be a simple rendering of facts — as I remember them; in other words, I will put the pig ment on the canvas and leave it to you to form the picture. George Inness, Jr. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the follow ing persons and institutions who have been of great assistance in furnishing me with the material for this book: Mrs. J. Scott Hartley, Mr. James W. Ells worth, Mr. Thomas B. Clarke, Mr. Victor Harris, Mr. Martin A. Ryerson and Mr. Ralph Cudney ; The Metropolitan Museum of Art and M. Knoedler & Co., New York City, The Art Institute of Chicago. I wish also to make acknowledgment of the services of my friend, Leize R. Godwin, whose wise counsel has made the task of writing this book a pleasure. INTRODUCTION Biography is always interesting when true, and valuable in the same degree. It takes on a new char acter when written by oneself in the form of mem oirs, yet is seldom fully successful, because of the hu man temptation to suppress real , and interesting facts, or, when sufficient effrontery or courage — if it be courage— exists to tell everything, the reader is likely to be offended, even if interested. In this way the memoirs of Cellini might have been more valuable, though less interesting, if another had set down the truths of this man's inner life and char acter. It is almost, if not quite, impossible for one to analyze one's own soul and write out for public gaze the secrets hidden there. It shocks the sensitive spirit and creates a wound not to be borne ; therefore, as it seems to me. all biography treads the broad high way of external facts and passing events, leaving the deep, still pools, which reflect all the spiritual and emotional being, untroubled. In this condition of things we must be content with what we can get, being assured that whatever we can preserve of the life and xi INTRODUCTION impulses of a great man will be of value to the world. It does not follow that intimacy gives one the privi lege of interpretation, but at least it assures us a measure of truth, which increases its richness in the proportion of sympathy brought to the task, because sympathy begets insight. Without sympathy vir tually all observation is blind, and no one quality in man's nature is so potent in removing the scales from true vision. We do not know what we should have had if George Inness had written his own biography. Ec centric it certainly would have been, with slight at tention paid to those externals which are of interest to the general reader ; for he was the most impersonal of men. He was never interested in himself as a man, though he was interested in the artistic man. He believed in himself as an artist very profoundly, and his mind, which was most alert, was ever delv ing into or solving problems connected with what he called the principles of painting. Of this sort of thing we should have had a great deal, more indeed than any of us could have understood, because he was not always coherent. To himself his reasoning was very clear; indeed, he valued the results of these men tal debates greatly, many times writing them down. What has become of these writings I do not know, but no doubt they were written in such a vagrant, dis- xii INTRODUCTION jointed way that they could not be pieced together by another. In speech his vocabulary was rapid, extensive, ex treme, not always well chosen as to meaning; but, when supplied with gesture and expression, words took on new meanings, and for the time were under standable. If reported verbatim, they would have failed of meaning. Just how they would have ap peared in any biography I do not know, for cold type is ever a cruel critic. He once expounded to me what he called the ascent of a fleck of soot to the pure diamond by the vortexical progress, and proved, to himself at least, divinity. Frankly, I could not follow either the thought or the reasoning, though it seemed intensely interesting, and I begged him to write it down. He said that he had spent the night doing so, but I have never heard of the writing, and inquiry did not reveal it. During the delivery of this exegesis his declamation was flam ing, very fierce, and assured. His eyes sparkled, and his mane-like hair was tossed about, and hands were as vigorously in motion as possible, the whole manner commanding attention; but once completed, once fully told, the fever passed, and he was silent and very quiet. After such struggles he returned to his paint ing with new spirit and new insight, and always one could see the growth in power in the work. Who xiii INTRODUCTION shall say what he saw within himself, what new realms or wide horizons were opened to his vision? He was a man of great energy, and with no great amount of strength otherwise, and always he drove himself to the utmost. His best work was ever ac complished at white heat and under great emotion. Watching him closely, I many times saw him at work with cold calculation, but without exception these pic tures endured only for a time, and were repainted when the fever was upon him. It was this consuming energy which burned up his vitality and brought his end. There was no other reason, no disease or insist ent illness sapping away his life, but rather a burning up. Many canvases which have come down to us in their beauty and glowing glory cost him days of ex quisite agony, so that we may truly say of them that they were painted with heart's blood. In his mind there was no particle of that quality which we have come to know as modern art. His own was cast in those channels the canons of which have been written in all ages by those great men whose genius has made their work endure. He knew that fashion in art is a theory and a vain bubble, of no account to those who blow it or those who think its colors of worth. During his working days there were as many isms abroad as there are to-day, but he would have none of them, realizing keenly, as most xiv INTRODUCTION thoughtful men do, that their lure is rather to the man who has no power of thought, of invention within himself ; that it is not, and, in its own nature, cannot be born of sincerity. Here alone is the rock upon which the true artist ever takes his stand. Our study of the great work of George Inness easily discovers its sincerity. It matters not if we are looking at the careful studies of early days or the more synthetic canvases of the last years, we read in them all knowledge. How like the name of a god the word comes in the midst of work based on crudity ! To Inness it was an essential thing, and always be hind the consciousness of knowledge was nature. In those works which express the man's message, there is never a servile copying of place or thing ; yet both are in place, both fully understood, and the beauty of the nature he wishes us to see is fully re vealed — revealed, too, in George Inness's way. And that again is one of the beauties of great landscape art — any art, for that matter, which claims to be fine art — it is always plus the man. There is little gain for art in the exquisite copying of things. Many have tried it, many have spent long hours and days in servile reproduction, and begotten in the end an emptiness, a thing which has the same relation to art that an inanimate has to an animate creature ; but in the study which produces understand- XV INTRODUCTION ing, in the loving observation which teaches, in the ab sorption of idea — in such ways men acquire the knowledge which gives them expression, which per mits them, within the silence of four blank walls, to see visions and to give gifts to men. It is through such works that we know and love the great men, and through such works that they uplift humanity and better civilization. They left for us a curtain, and eyes which have been dull before are illumined. A great work, indeed! It is because of this great inner vision that George Inness must take rank among the greatest landscape- painters, almost, we might say, himself the greatest of all, but for that American objection to the claims of any man in any walk of hfe to being acclaimed greatest. Yet a measure of his work is being taken by the passing years, and we begin to see what a genius has dwelt among us. No matter the carping voice of critic, no matter the contempt of little painters of painted things, this was his towering gift to us — this power to present the essence of things. Consider, the greatest of his pictures were painted out of what people fondly call his imagination, his memory — painted within the four walls of a room, away from and without reference to any particular nature; for he himself was nature. And it is not alone the beauty XVI INTRODUCTION of a great elm against a sunlit sky, it is not merely the chase of storm-driven clouds, it is not only the crash and thunder of mighty seas against the rock-ribbed shores of a continent, not morning, noon, or night; not one, but all were his, and all are George Inness. His versatility was enormous; the glow of it wrapped about him fike a flame. His eyes burned like fire when in coal and red-hot ; he looked through the blank canvas, through the besmeared paint, through the days and hours of work, to that vision which was within himself, and that alone was his goal, and no likeness of any place or thing tempted him aside. The impetuosity of it as he approached the goal was fike a storm, and to any but an understand ing eye the process was as devastating as a storm; but high above the trammels of technic, of form, of color, or pigment, his soul, eagle-like, soared to its aery, and the vision, wide of horizon, perfect in all its parts, was complete. Men do not paint so who have not the immortal spark. Tiresome drones who do their lit tle, and delude themselves — how easily are they scorched in such a fire ! Fire it was, but not always alight. No man had deeper moods of despondency, no man suffered more deeply under baffled aims, no man more ruthlessly destroyed in order to make new, than this painter; but like a grim warrior, against xvii INTRODUCTION whose striving the battle has gone badly, he would say, "I '11 do it to-morrow." The splendor of this courage never left him. To the last he knew and be lieved in his own gift, and seldom did it fail him. Time alone was needed, and the beautiful thing was sure of birth. There is no doubt that he died when his powers were at their full; he would not have been content to linger if they had waned, and he would have been keenly aware of it. Elsewhere I have tried to show that there was change: the early, exact, careful analysis; the mid dle, broader, fuller, more colored period; and the latest, synthetic style, which includes so many of his beautiful works. But always the power was there. It is perhaps interesting to note the difference in the artist who works in the way that I have here tried to indicate and in that more exact copyist, who, strong only in his eyes, and depending always upon them, grows blind and weak at the last. His is never the glory of departing in flame, like some grand old vik ing, who seeks his rest in the burning hour of inspira tion. A painter critic has spoken of Mr. Inness's technic as being "empirical." By technic he refers to the method of using his pigment to produce result. Such xvm INTRODUCTION an opinion is largely the voice of the schoolman, of one who in the schools was taught the precise method of mixing tints and conveying them to the canvas, each tint to represent a certain plane or value in the form. One does not want to quarrel with the schools, for their place and usefulness is clear, but it is quite possible to say that the student who stops with what he gains in a school does not go far. If he does not pursue, investigate, and experiment, he will never dis cover, and discovery is essential to any personal tech nical expression; and such development, when suc cessful, is apt to reveal not only the painter, but the artist. Also, one must be able to control this result of experiment until it becomes a servant, willing, plastic, ready at all times to the guiding will. This was colossally so with George Inness, and his technical power was so superior to what the intellectual school men accomplish that his work burns with the fire of genius and inspiration. He himself believed that his method was intensely scientific. Certainly the proof hes in his work. If there were times when it seemed to fail him, times when change and repainting were necessary, it may not rest a charge against the clarity of his method. Much goes into the use of pigment other than brush-work. An over-strained nervous system, a stomach out of order, a voice which persists will untune the finer forces and render a day's work xix INTRODUCTION wholly abortive; the humming of a fly or bee has robbed many a sensitive artist of his day's result. Inness knew truths of color that I have never known any one else even to glimpse. He knew great principles of color apphcation which lesser men could not grasp. He had no interest in details of color or in small, attentuated tints. His was the power of mass, the authority of tone upon tone, the concen tration of a tone in its base color, which lured you into consciousness of its presence. In another it would have been inconceivably dull and stagnant. For these reasons and more I believe he not only had a masterly technic, but I believe it more nearly equaled the strength and understanding of the great masters than any of our men have attained. He is certainly not like any one of the great galaxy; you may find kinship of energy and dynamic force in Tintoretto more than another. He was fond of thinking it was Titian he most resembled, and the spiritist mediums, finding this out, were forever telling him that Titian stood at his elbow. The impetuosity of Tintoretto was fully reflected in Inness : his swiftness in composi tion, his ease of expression with the brush in great masses without previous outlines reflects, also, some of the great Italian's characteristics, and each had the capacity for holding the wild, splendid force in leash until great tenderness was achieved. To say, then, XX INTRODUCTION that his technic was anything but suitable is to mis state, and to misunderstand the man. Among the younger painters of the day it is a habit to speak slightingly of Mr. Inness and his method of work. They say his technic was fumbling, uncertain, glazy, and lacking in directness; that he could not paint frankly or directly; that his effects were rather matters of chance than anything else. Oh, the wisdom of youth — youth whose smallest ut terance is axiomatic! Have they ever seriously looked upon the "Gray, Lowery Day," a canvas painted rapidly, with no hint of glaze or fumble, a canvas in which the goal is reached with the pre cision of the great master? And such a goal! Here is no simple sketch of uninteresting objects, but a mood of nature so subtle that thought of it even is intangible and enveloped within intricacies of form so elaborate that the rendering of them under most passive conditions would tax the powers of any tech nician; and yet this envelop of moist, rainy atmos phere is rendered with a direct touch, a transfer of pigment to canvas as direct and exact as a Franz Hals or a John Sargent, both the gods of direct paint ing; and in the finished result Mr. Inness has pro duced a work of unity and pure beauty, enough in it self to proclaim him a world master. Or, again, may I direct the attention of these im- xxi INTRODUCTION mature artists to that other well-known work and very noble example of direct painting, the "Summer Foliage," a picture in which the difficulties were enor mous and the details most elaborate, involving, also, a control over greens, which is a most trying color to manage, and the brush of George Inness moves with a sanity and joy that is fair necromancy? No jugr gier could have handled his material with more alert ness and conviction, and there has never for an in stant been the loss of the central vision of beauty. This was the creed of George Inness — beauty. Translated into all its forms, loved as spirit, rehgion, God, this he searched daily, hourly, and worshiped. Could he have had an early intellectual, even scien tific, training, he would have reached tremendous heights intellectually, for his mind was that of an in vestigator. If to-day the things we read of his are in coherent, they are so rather in form than substance. A careful analysis will discover the true center, the germ truth which he wished to convey, and nearly al ways it is a vision, a creation of an intense, yearning spirit. Intense, eager, often abandoned in his speech, there was the glow of idea behind all his thought ; and however abstruse the theme, he carried it back with unerring persistence to his work. There, he knew, was his chief hope of expression. Does' it matter if untrained minds can not read xxii INTRODUCTION these things in his works? Does it matter if a large element of the general public, or even the artistic pubhc, shall say these things are purely imaginary, no picture can contain such things, it is merely what it appears to be, and that ends it? The answer is, George Inness did not trouble himself to paint for this pubhc. First and foremost, he, the artist, not the man, was to be satisfied; he must be able to dis cern in the work that significance he sought to hand on, and when he found it in his picture, that moment the canvas was finished. Finished then for him was expression. Try him by no other laws. Complain not of roughness or smoothness, cavil not at incom plete or imperfectly rendered forms, at blemishes, or scratches, or unexplained spots. These may all be present, but behind all is the man, and his vision freely given and freely expressed. If we cannot see, the fault hes in ourselves. Just as truly all these things may be said of any of the masters : of Corot less perhaps than of Rous seau; of Dupre more than of Millet; of Velasquez; of Hals; of everybody who has been remembered in the great mill-race flood of painters through the ages. Few, alas ! can grapple with the mighty forces under lying a great work ; but none surely may be frivolous or contemptuous in its presence, unless, indeed, he be xxiii INTRODUCTION a Post-impressionist or Futurist. But, then, I am speaking of human beings. Can any sane man, however untrained, go into the presence of the great portrait of Innocent X by Velasquez and remain unmoved? Can any man of even partial culture remain unmoved in the presence of the great "Moonlight" recently shown by George Inness? These are of the essence of greatness, and it is this essence which George Inness distilled in the long years of his labor, until in the end the roll of his great achievements was very long. He often wished that he might be privileged to paint only one truly great work. Perhaps, in those halls where gather the great of all times and ages and peoples he has been welcomed with this assurance. That might well be heaven indeed to so striving a soul. Mr. Inness was most happily fortunate in his mar riage. To one of his impetuous, easily ruffled nature the lack of sympathy in his wife would have been. a constant irritation and impediment to his progress; but his wife was sensitive to his every mood, careful of his needs, keenly ahve to his hopes in his work, and to the last hour of his life his comfort and his friend. That last cry at the Bridge-of-Allan, when he knew the final moment had come, was not to God or man. xxiv INTRODUCTION "Take me to my wife," he said. She was then his refuge and his strength, and we, who have had so much from him, must remember her, with fullest gratitude. You will search far in his work to find an insincere canvas or an irreverent one. If there were times when he painted the uncongenial thing because it was ordered, it was done that he might be free to pursue those beacons which ever burned ahead of him. No man ever had a more bitter tongue for the thing which was untrue in art — "a sham," as he called it. No man could scold with sterner rebuke, and none was more generous in praise when it was de served. If we are to estimate him correctly or fully, we must see clearly and bring together all these quali ties, and then only may we discover the true worth of his work. It is not enough to say, "That 's a fine thing," of a work which contains so much. It is not enough to pass it with a slight comment, as we see so frequently done by our critics. A great work merits great at tention and deep consideration, and it is necessary to bring to such consideration ripe understanding. Also preconceived bias warps judgment. Mr. Inness was not always a good critic ; his own thoughts dominated him, forced him to see things in his own way; and to xxv INTRODUCTION yield to him palette and brushes was to unfold speed ily not a criticism, but an Inness. Perhaps this should be so, as a strong personality should not give up its own; but one would look elsewhere for criticism. For such reasons, no doubt, Mr. Inness had no pu pils. He had from time to time certain men near him, but with him to teach meant to control. I have always been glad that he was so violent. It is better to swallow one's spleen and learn than to chew the rag of discontent. Nowhere in his work will be found any picture with likeness to the art of another; they are his own, warp and woof, and no shred of anybody else creeps in, and this despite his avowed admiration for many others. Time after time I 've heard him say of some finished thing, when his enthusiasm was ripe, "It 's like a Claude," or a "Turner," and then slyly, "but it 's more like an Inness." For Claude and for Turner he had great admiration, but also ready criticism. He was hostile to anything that was "niggled." Breadth was essential, and for this qual ity many of his own works were obliterated, but his relentless courage brought the great work to comple tion in time. Much has been written of him as artist and man, much that savors merely of the reporter's comments, and some things so vague and wordy that nothing of xxvi INTRODUCTION an image remains. I, myself, have tried to set down in various places and ways my impressions gained in many years of close association, but I am aware of the futility of recreation. He has gone, and the wis est and best way to know George Inness is to sit before his works, to search them to their depths, to study each item of composition, its bearing upon the great mass, to find, if one may, the law by which he con structed his proportions and placements, to discover the reasons for color or tone choice, or that deeper significance, the impulse, artistic and religious, which created it. So we will come into closer touch with his great genius, so we will live with his spirit, and presently be able to understand why he should be ac corded that high place in landscape art which is sec ond to none, more dynamic than many, intenser than all, true as the best, and with a musical chord in his color that has never been approached. In the work before us his son, an artist of rich at tainments, has given us a picture of his father, the man and his habits, and with this has told to us, in in cident and story, many of them new to me as they will be to the public, all reflecting most clearly the in genuous nature of his father. With this he has com bined letters and opinions of great value, the letters being tender, sweet chords from that melody of per fect love which existed between the master and his xxvii INTRODUCTION wife, full of the faith and trust which made her pres ence his inspiration. In the writings, some of a purely scientific nature, it is necessary to acquaint oneself with his point of view, his trend of thought; once this is secured, the reasoning clarifies and be comes of greatest value. At a moment in our art when the young people and many of the public are being hoodwinked and blinded by the follies which followed the first on slaught of Impressionism, fike a procession of harle quins, gnomes, misshapen and weird things, the opin ion of George Inness is worth study and reflection. His was not a sight to be blinded by an eccentricity, his was not an experience to be misled, nor could he believe the message of the masters was to be ignored; therefore, brief as they are, and I would that the "mountains of writings" Mr. Inness often referred to had been given us entire, their value is ex treme. The picture is very clear; the man revisits us, and the wizardry of his work is our precious possession. Time, inexorable and vast, passes along the way; he reaps here and he reaps there, and the reapings fall and wither, but ever he stops with each passing year to lay a fresh leaf of imperishable laurel upon the calm brow of him who lives forever. Elliott Daingerfield. xxviii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Boyhood and Youth 3 Birth and early life. Opposition of his family to Art. Grocery store episode. Early aspiration. First in structions. Ogden Haggerty. II Early Influences ........ 20 Religious thought. Courtship and marriage. First trip to Europe. Influence of Old Masters. Financial struggles. Williams and Everett. Ill Medfield Period ....,., W) ,., [t.. . 36 Family life. Development of Art. IV Medfield Period II . . . ... , -,: . 48 Tom Barney. The diamond necklace. V The Eagleswood Period 58 Spiritual unfolding. William Page and the teaching of Swedenborg. Religious theories. Brooklyn. Elec tion to Academy of Design. VI Foreign Influence 75 Rome. Contempt for commercialism in Art. Paris. Return to America. Mr. Maynard's dinner. Doll and Richards. VII New York 96 Development of style. Financial stress. Poems. Wife's influence. Generosity. VIII New York II 117 Theories and manner of painting. The building of a picture. J. G. Brown. "The Lost Sheep." CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IX Letters 148 "The Old Man." Enthusiasm for figure painting. Im pressionism. X Success and Recognition 177 Montclair. The Famous Niagara. Benjamin Con stant. Thomas B. Clark. Prosperity. Writing and Spiritual Research. The Photographer. XI The Passing of George Inness . . . . . 209 XII The Art of George Inness . ..,,.- . . . 226 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACE George Inness Frontispiece George Inness, Jr 5 The Mill 16 A Water-Color Drawing of Trees ...... 26 Stone Pines 31 Light Triumphant 37 Medfield Meadows 44 Evening at Medfield 50 Some Family Portraits 59 Peace and Plenty 65 The Delaware Valley 72 The Catskill Mountains L. . 77 Olive Trees at Tivoli w 83 Barbarini Pines 90 Old Apple Trees 99 The Green Hillside ,.109 Twilight After the Shower 116 The Spring Blossoms 121 Autumn Morning 127 Dawn 134 Summer Silence 143 Midsummer 153 The Old Veteran 160 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Early Morning — Tarpon Springs 165 Georgia Pines 171 Niagara Falls . . 182 Home at Montclair .... . ... . . ,. 187 Indian Summer 193 Threatening . 204 The Bathers 213 The Hay Field , 223 Autumn Oaks 229 The Greenwood ............ 236 Etratet 242 Shower on the Delaware River 248 The Mill Pond 257 Moonlight on Passamaquoddy Bay 263 The Trout Brook 270 Moon Rise 279 Under the Greenwood 285 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS OF GEORGE INNESS "Let us believe in Art, not as something to gratify curiosity or suit commercial ends, but something to be loved and cherished because it is the Handmaid of the Spiritual Life of the age." > ¦ George Inness LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS OF GEORGE INNESS CHAPTER I BOYHOOD AND YOUTH MY first recollection of my father was watching him paint a wash-tub, and the impression then made has never left me. In my eyes he was a hero, a wizard, for there stood the tub, — it was a round one of white pine, bound with three brass hoops, and it had handles opposite each other that stood up above the sides, — and suddenly it began to assume another color, a green vivid enough to charm the soul of any child. The odor of oil and turpentine is still in my nostrils, and in my long ex perience of oil and turpentine, covering a period of more than fifty years, I have never since encountered just the same odor. I have watched many painters paint tubs, houses, wagons, and other things since then, but never have I seen a painter do it in quite the same way. Pop — I always called him Pop — drew the brush LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS along the tub, leaving a long green streak; then he stepped back several paces and held his hand above his eyes and looked at the effect, a gesture and a posi tion that were characteristic of my father through out his hfe. This was repeated after every few strokes of the brush until the whole was complete, and there stood the tub in all its glory of green. It was so beautiful that I was almost frightened. Pop took me by the hand and led me from the room. From that time until we moved to the country, Medfield, Massachusetts, most of my memory seems to be a blank. But before going into the Medfield period, which was one of the most important in my father's life, I want to go back and trace the early steps that led up to the achievements of those maturer years in Massa chusetts. Much has been written to give the impression that my father sprang from poor and humble folk, and that, like Benjamin West, the one-time president of the Royal Academy, and others, he had to resort to such measures as cutting off the cat's tail to obtain a paint-brush, and use the juice of huckleberry-pie and raspberry jam for colors with which to paint his mas terpieces. Such things teach a fine moral for the school reader, but the obstacles with which my father had to contend in his early hfe were not financial ones. 4 GEORGE INNESS, JR. BOYHOOD AND YOUTH His parents were well-to-do people and for the time in which they lived were considered rich. My grandfather was a prosperous merchant of Scotch descent. He was energetic and thrifty and was ambitious for his children's success. Having made his fortune early in hfe he retired from active business and bought a farm near Newburg, New York, more, I fancy, for recreation than for profit. It was there on May 1, 1825, that George Inness was born. He was the fifth of thirteen children. All his brothers entered mercantile hfe and became very successful business men. When George was only a few months old, and be fore the time of Hudson River boats, the elder In ness moved his family to New York in an antiquated vessel of some sort. George, being an infant, was laid in a basket so that the perilous journey might be more comfortably made. Four years later they moved to Newark, New Jersey, where my father's boyhood was spent. New ark was then a little country town, and the Inness residence was on top of a high hill overlooking rich farm lands. Later this land was laid out in streets. My grandfather's house stood where High Street and Nesbit Street, now Central Avenue, meet in the heart of the great manufacturing center of Newark. While in that city my father attended the acad- 7 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS emy. It soon became evident that he was making little progress with his studies ; and after repeated fail ure he was declared deficient, and it was decided that it was useless to keep him at school. That he was not dull or stupid is shown by the fact that his sisters, who are still living, testify to his clev erness and fun-loving propensities. One story they tell is that he made and operated a galvanic battery. What uses the battery was put to beyond giving shocks to the other children and the family cat I do not know. But that was sufficient to prove that it "worked." Among other pranks that come natural to the small boy, he modeled snakes and fierce reptiles from wax, painted them bright colors, and put them in the cup boards to frighten the maids and any one else who happened to have business there. Like many a genius before him, the tortured and provincial methods of schoolmasters cramped his imagination and forced him into more original developments. Of dehcate health, and endowed with a keenly sensitive nature, the boy was considered "different." He was a dreamer, an idealist from earliest child hood, and lived much in a world of his own imagin ings. In speaking of his aims and ambitions, my father once told me that his desires first began to crystallize when, as a very little chap, he saw a man 8 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH painting a picture out in a field. Immediately a responsive chord was struck, and his own nebulous groping for self-expression became at once a con crete idea. Then and there he made up his mind that when he grew up he would be a painter. He told me that he thought it the most wonderful thing in the world to make with paint the things that he saw around him, clouds, trees, sunsets, and storms, the very things that brought him fame in later years. He told me with what awe he viewed the difficulty of get ting a piece of paper big enough, for he thought that to paint a landscape one had to have a paper as large as the scene itself — a thought as naively conceived as it was expressed, which showed even then the breadth and largeness of his nature as manifested in feeling and expression in his canvases. Had his parents been of finer clay they would have seen that this boy with a vision was destined for some thing higher than the mercantile life into which they tried to force him; or had he been born on the other side of the water, his talent for art would have been fostered and encouraged not only by his family, but by the state, as was the case with Millet and others of the French school, who were sent to Paris to study at the expense of the communities in which they lived. But it must be remembered that in this country at the time of George Inness's birth there were virtually 9 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS no advantages to be had in art, and there were even less interest and appreciation in the development of it. In the building of our nation there had been ht tle time to explore the esthetic fields of art. There had been no time for pictures. A picture-painter was beyond the pale. An artist was little short of a dis grace. A painter of pictures! A ne'er-do-well! George Inness might as well have been a play-actor, a piano-player, or a poet. He was frankly a disap pointment. On one occasion — I remember so well how Pop would tell it with a chuckle — he met his brother Joe on the street. Joe was at that time a cash-boy in a dry-goods store, and a very important young person in his own eyes. When he saw my father he assumed a somewhat superior attitude ; in fact he did not have to assume it. It was more or less chronic with him, but he no doubt increased it. "Hello, George," he said, and rattled his coins in his pocket. "Made any money to-day painting pic tures? Why don't you go to work and do some thing? Make a living like I am doing, instead of wasting your time painting pictures. Who wants pictures?" Father didn't say much, but he seized him by the scruff of the neck, and when he got through with him, there was not enough left of Joe to listen to father's answer. 10 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH This attitude on the part of his family was of little moment to Pop. Fired with a passionate desire to put down on canvas what he saw in nature, the beau ties of the world around him, he kept his vision clear. Nor did he surrender for one moment that determina tion that carried him to the foremost ranks of Ameri can art. However, a faint hope lingered in the practical, paternal breast. There was yet time to make a man of the boy. His schooling had been a failure. The elder Inness conceded that, but he determined to try more practical methods ; so at the age of fourteen my father was ensconced in a httle grocery-store on the corner of Washington and New streets, Newark, as sole proprietor and owner. He used to love to tell about those days, of how he concealed a canvas, a few paints and brushes, and an easel behind the counter; and how he would sit there and paint by the hour amidst the odors of onions, soap, sulphur matches, and kindling wood ; and how, when custom ers came, he would duck behind the counter and wait until they left. By such methods business waned, and at the end of a month an episode occurred which brought the experiment to a close, and proved to be the turning-point in my father's career. After a day of unusual activity and many distractions a little girl entered the store. Father crouched behind the 11 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS counter as was his habit, hoping the child would leave when she found no one to wait upon her. But the little girl, equally determined to carry out her mis sion, stood on tiptoes, reached up, and jingled her pennies so persistently on the counter that the young painter's nerves gave way, and he sprang from his lair like a jack-in-the-box and yelled: "What in the name of all the devils do you want ?" Terrified, the little girl rushed from the store and down the street crying: "Candles! candles! candles!" Thoroughly exasperated, the boy gathered up his beloved canvases and all the tools of his chosen pro fession, and walked out of the store. He carefully locked the door, put up the heavy wooden shutters at the windows, and turned his back forever on com mercial life. Thus the greatest conquest of his hfe was won. At such a time when one does not have proper per spective on actions and conditions in life, a thing such as this grocery-store incident would seem a catas trophe ; no doubt it did to my father's family, but in the light of retrospection we see that just such a rad ical move was necessary to force the embryo artist to that point of exasperation which culminated in the actual turning-point in his career. It was the jolt that pushed him into his proper channel. 12 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH It was a wise decision on my grandfather's part, when realizing that it was quite impossible to fit a square peg into a round hole, he abandoned the hope of molding his son to his own desires, and placed him in the studio of a man named Barker, a teacher of drawing and painting in Newark, to learn the trade. For if his son persisted in being a vagabond painter, he wanted to make him as good a one as was in his power, and give him every advantage that he could. After a few months of instruction Barker declared that he could teach George no more, that the boy knew as much as he did. Later he worked in an engraver's office, but his health was poor and his inclinations weak, so he soon abandoned this branch of the arts and entered the studio of Regis Gignoux, a French artist of some local reputation, whose landscapes may be seen to-day among the older collections in New York. Gignoux had lived in Paris, and had been a pupil of Paul Dela- roche; therefore it was with a keen interest that my father took up his studies with one who seemed to him at that time eminent. He did not stay with Gignoux long but learned from him the handling of color and the theories of composition, but, as Alfred Trumble expresses it in his "Memorial of George In ness," "The pictures themselves did not satisfy him. He knew that he was groping in the dark. He was 13 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS painting as others around him were painting, not as he felt, as he wished to paint. These things, he ar gued with himself, were not nature. They had none of the spirit of nature in them. They were mere col ored drawings, inspired with none of the movement and vitality that he felt instinctively when he looked abroad at forest and farm land, mountain, river, and sky." "One afternoon," said Inness, "when I was com pletely dispirited and disgusted, I gave over work and went out for a walk. In a print-shop window I noticed an engraving after one of the old masters. ^ I do not remember what picture it was. I could not then analyze that which attracted me in it, but it fas cinated me. The print-seller showed me others, and they repeated the same sensation in me. There was a power of motive, a bigness of grasp, in them. They were nature, rendered grand instead of being belittled by trifling detail and puny execution. I began to take them out with me to compare them with nature as she really appeared, and the light began to dawn. I had no originals to study, but I found some of their qualities in Cole and Durand, to which I had access. There was a lofty striving in Cole, although he did not technically realize that for which he reached. There was in Durand a more intimate feeling of na- 14 THE MILL (Painted at sixteen) BOYHOOD AND YOUTH ture. 'If,' thought I, 'these two can only be com bined! I will try!"' The result is well known to all lovers of Inness. Not only did he succeed in combining those quahties that impressed him in the works of the masters that he studied assiduously, but he added that dominant quality of spirituality, or bigness of vision, that was the key-note of his life. I cannot express it better than by letting him speak direct. He said : "The true use of art is, first, to cultivate the artist's own spiritual nature, and, second, to enter as a factor in general civilization. And the increase of these effects depends on the purity of the artist's motive in the, pursuit of art. Every artist who, without refer ence to external circumstances, aims truly to repre sent the ideas and emotions which come to him when he is in the presence of nature is in process of his own spiritual development and is a benefactor of his race. Of course no man's motive can be absolutely pure and single. His environment affects him. But the true artistic impulse is divine." When he was scarcely more than a boy he married Delia Miller of Newark, who died a few months after ward. This marriage seems to have been of little importance ; it was apparently only an episode in his early life. 17 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS He now opened his first studio, and began to paint according to the new ideas he had obtained from the study of the old prints. Not only friends, but fellow- artists, so called, tried to persuade him that he could never paint that way. Set rules were laid down for painting landscapes, and they must not be violated by a mere upstart boy who would not paint his fore ground trees brown, and who persisted in leaving out the plant, the foreground plant, the key to the Hud son River school. In consequence his struggle for existence became more acute, until his brothers finally had to come to the rescue, and for several years kept his head above water by buying his pictures and re selling them when and where they could. His con tempt for the commercial aspect of life was profound, and he made no attempt to conceal it. He has ex pressed himself many times in tones that left no room for contradiction that business was obligated to sus tain art, and that merchants were created only to support artists. Despite the opposition against which he battled there were a few progressive souls dominant enough and wise enough to recognize and proclaim genius. One day when Inness was out in the open square sketching a crowd gathered around him and gazed with awe. Such things as artists painting in the parks were unheard of in those days. The crowd, 18 BOYHOOD AND YOUTH having satisfied its curiosity, melted away; but there remained one man whose interest was more than idle curiosity, for when the sketch was nearly complete he said to the young painter: "If you will bring the picture to my house, when you finish it, I will give you a hundred dollars for it." That man was Ogden Haggerty, a prominent auc tioneer in New York. He was the first to recognize my father's possibilities, and later became so con vinced of his genius that he sent him abroad to study, and was one of the main factors in his development as a painter. 19 CHAPTER II KAR.T.Y INFLUENCES NOT only was my father born in a period of the world's history when art was under going a very radical change, but coexistent with that change there was taking place a subtle renaissance of spiritual thought. Dissatisfied with the outworn forms and traditions of worship, indi vidual thinkers were asserting themselves, and now and then a powerful thought was projected, causing new impressions to rise to the surface of the sea of religious ideas, showing the undercurrent of a mighty change that was taking place in the world of mind. George Inness was just such a thinker, though he wandered through all phases of religious expression to find himself, and was well on towards middle hfe before he found that medium which satisfied him. Born into a family of various creeds and beliefs, the boy was brought up on religious discussion. His mother was a devout Methodist, his aunt, who later became his stepmother, was an equally devout Bap tist. His uncle, his mother's brother, was a stanch Universalist, and was as uncompromising in his be- 20 EARLY INFLUENCES liefs as the other members of the family; hence re ligious discussion became the principal topic of con versation, or, I should say, argument, in the home- circle. This state of affairs led to self -investigation, and being naturally introspective, the search for truth soon became a passion in the life of the young thinker. He joined first one church and then another, hoping thereby to find that which would satisfy his spiritual craving. There was something inspiring in the inten sity with which he searched and groped for light in his hfe. Deep spiritual concentration and true desire for illumination were ingrained in his very soul. There was no compromise; above all else he wanted that thing that would put God into his every-day life, and so he went from church to church, from creed to creed, trying conscientiously to reconcile each in turn to the truth as he saw it. In 1849 we have record that he joined the Baptist Church and was baptized in the North River. Although he was not rewarded in what he sought in that faith, the law of compensation inva riably operates, and perhaps, after all, it was fate which led him there. How often we have to wander in search of one thing to find that which we are not entirely aware of desiring! One Sunday morning while attending the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church he was listening to the sermon, no doubt a long-winded dissertation, when his attention became attracted to a 21 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS very beautiful young woman across the aisle. From that moment the discourse of the eminent divine had no further charms, and his eyes and attention were riveted on that beautiful face, which he has described to me often. He never tired of telling of that morn ing. "George," he would say, "it was a dream. The beauty of that face and the graceful pose of that head were something that even Raphael could not have caught." At the close of the service she hurried home. Close behind her followed the impetuous young lover, never losing sight of her for a moment until she disappeared into a little house on Varick Street. In telling me of her feelings, — for I later knew the lady very well, — she said that when she realized that she was being followed she became greatly perturbed, and felt a tremendous sense of relief when the front door closed behind her; but curiosity getting the bet ter of her, she peeped through the window-curtain and saw the dashing young stranger, with his long hair and flowing cloak, pace back and forth in front of the house. Then, to her astonishment, he mounted the steps. As she was alone in the house, she felt alarmed, but determined to respond to the call of the bell. 22 EARLY INFLUENCES As the door swung open Inness saw the beautiful object of his affections, and with a low bow said: "Pardon me ; can you tell me if Miss Mary Inness lives here?" Mary was his sister, whom he had left only a few hours before in their home on Broome Street. "No," she replied ; "she does not. I have heard of Miss Inness, but I do not know where she lives." With profuse thanks and another low bow, they parted. Pop was more enamored than ever. He rushed home and told his sister Mary that he had seen the most beautiful woman in the world and that he was going to marry her. After a brief, but no doubt vivid, description, Mary recognized the young woman as Elizabeth Hart, and through the pleading of George and the cooperation of a friend who knew Miss Hart, a party was arranged, and Miss Hart invited. Still in ignorance of the identity of the handsome stranger of the Sunday before and not connecting him with the party, Miss Hart accepted Miss Inness's invitation, and to her intense surprise found herself placed next to the mysterious gentleman at supper. That evening he escorted her home, and when he re turned his father, who had been equally impressed with the beauty and charm of their new guest said : "George, I 'd like you to marry that young lady." LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS "I 'm going to," replied Pop, and with the same im petuosity and passionate intensity which character ized everything he did in his life he lost no time in his courtship. In the supreme awakening of a great love all petty convention and all obstacles melted away, and these two stood face to face with a devotion as deep and true as life itself. There was much opposition to this match on the part of her family. Her father had been lost at sea many years before, and her brothers, who were all older than she, opposed it vigorously because this pre sumptuous young upstart was an artist, and to marry an artist — well, one might as well marry a vagabond or a tramp and be done with it. Inness was forbidden the house. But that was of small consequence, as they were married a few weeks later, and throughout the forty-odd years of their hfe together the love that had so adventurously brought them together led them through the storms of life, sustaining them through evil days and good, growing deeper and more beauti ful with each experience and each added year. The date of their marriage was 1850. She was seventeen, and he twenty-five. Ogden Haggerty now proposed to my father to go abroad to study, defraying all the expenses, and soon after their marriage my mother and father sailed on their first ocean voyage. Father's health had been 24 Owned by Mrs. J. Scott Hartley A WATER-COLOR DRAWING OF TREES EARLY INFLUENCES very poor, and the doctors recommended a long sea- voyage; so they went on a saihng-vessel. The jour ney took many weeks, and mother was the only woman on board. Not being a very good sailor, she was ill most of the way, and when they carried her up on deck as the ship was entering the Mediterranean, she said it seemed as though she had come out of a frightful dream and was entering paradise. They stayed in Italy for two years. Father studied and painted eagerly, searching and studying the mas ters with an intensity and an eagerness which almost consumed him. While in Florence their first child, Ehzabeth, was born. In 1852 they returned to this country, where another daughter was born, whom they named Rosa Bonheur, after the painter whom my father admired. In 1854 they crossed the ocean again, this time going to Paris, where they took up their residence in the Latin Quarter. After the limited opportunities that my father had had in America these two trips to the art centers of the world, Italy and France, were a revelation, and of untold benefit to him. He came into immediate and close touch with the masters of the world through their works. It was at this time the Barbison school, having emerged victorious from the revolution of art and its threadbare traditions, was making itself felt in France, and my father came under its influence. To 27 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS say that he was directly influenced by any one of the men of 1830 would not be true, but he was undoubt edly deeply impressed by all of them. He studied their methods and technic with great interest and culled the best from each. But the point that I want to make is that the genius expressed in my father's pictures came from within, as direct inspiration, as must the work of all true genius, and whatever influ ence there was in his art hfe served only to awaken his own dormant emotions, which brought forth an ex pression entirely individualized. I honestly believe that my father thought that he could surpass any artist that ever lived. He has been accused of conceit, but was it really that in the common acceptance of the word? For, after all, he was a relentless critic of his own work. Was it not rather that high form of con ceit, or lofty conviction, that he was called to a mighty destiny which he was in honor bound to fulfil? Was it not that sense of duty which some one has so beau tifully expressed: Our wishes, it is said, do measure just Our capabilities. Who with his might Aspires unto the mountain's upper height, Holds in that aspiration a great trust To be fulfilled, a warrant that he must Not disregard, a strength to reach the height To which his hopes have taken flight. What influence these immortal men of France and 28 EARLY INFLUENCES England may or may not have had, they opened up new fields of vision and new avenues of thought. They took him out of the narrow confines of the Hud son River school, and placed him in the rarer atmos phere of the masters of the world. That indomitable spirit which burst through the bonds of commercial hfe into which my father's life seemed destined caused him to break away from the beaten track and blaze his own trail of hght. He sought ever to interpret nature in its highest sense. Art with him was life itself; it was his religion. There was nothing in his life apart from it, and that supreme aspiration colored every thing in his whole existence and gave his life an ex quisite tone. It was the destiny for which he was cre ated, and that destiny was never for the fraction of a moment lost sight of. It was the impulse that knows no denial. Art was with him the expression of the inner life of the spirit. He said: "The consciousness of immortality is wrapped up in all the experiences of my life, and this to me is the end of the argument. Man's unhappiness arises from dis obedience to the monitions within him. The principles that underlie art are spiritual principles — the principle of unity and the principle of harmony. "Christ never uttered a word that forbade the creat ing or the enjoying of sensuous form. The funda- 29 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS mental necessity of the artist's hfe is the cultivation of his moral powers, and the loss of those powers is the loss of artistic power. The efforts of the Catholic Church to excite the imagination of worshipers are admirable, because the imagination is the hfe of the soul. Art is an essence as subtle as the humanity of God, and, like it, is personal only to love — a stranger to the worldly minded, a myth to the mere intellect. I would not give a fig for art ideas except as they repre sent what I, in common with all men, need most — the good of our practice in the art of life. Rivers, streams, the rippling brook, hillsides, sky, and clouds, all things that we see, will convey the sentiment of the highest art if we are in the love of God and the desire of truth." It is difficult to say which of all the men of Barbison ranked first in my father's estimation, for he said: "As landscape-painters I consider Rousseau, Dau- bigny, and Corot among the very best. Daubigny particularly and Corot have mastered the relation of things in nature one to another, and have obtained the greatest works, representations more or less nearly perfect, though in their day the science underlying impression was not fully known. The advance al ready made is that science, united to the knowledge of the principles underlying the attempt made by those artists, will, we may hope, soon bring the art of land- 30 Owned by Mra. J. Scott Hartley STONE PINES (Sepia drawing) EARLY INFLUENCES scape-painting to perfection. Rousseau was perhaps the greatest French landscape-painter, but I have seen in this country some of the smaller things of Corot which appeared to me to be truly and thor oughly spontaneous representations of nature, al though weak in their key of color, as Corot always is. But his idea was a pure one and he had long been a hard student. Daubigny also had a pure idea, and so had Rousseau. There was no affectation in these men, there were no tricks of color. But the trouble with Rousseau was that he has too much detail. He 's httle, he 's twopenny. He 's little with detail, and that takes away from his artistic worth." My father was not over-enthusiastic about Corot, but thought he was a poet and a tonist. The man, I beheve, who had the greatest influence on him (was the English artist Constable, about whom he was very enthusiastic. I believe more of Constable shows in Inness's works than any of the French school. \ He was a great admirer of Turner, but on one occa sion when he attended an exhibition in a house in Fourteenth Street, New York, which formed the nu cleus of the Metropolitan Museum, he saw the famous "Slave Ship" by Turner. My father looked at it, and with a gesture of disgust said : / "That is the most infernal piece of claptrap ever 33 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS painted. There is nothing in it. It has as much to do with human affections and thought as a ghost. It is not even a bouquet of color. The color is harsh, dis agreeable, and discordant." During this sojourn of my parents in Paris, I was born, and from that day it was decreed that I, too, should be a painter. In that year, 1854, we returned to America and located in Brooklyn, father taking a studio in New York and thus launching himself on his American career. As I have already said in a previous chapter, in my father's boyhood he did not have to contend with finan cial difficulties, and the greatest obstacle in his way was the opposition of his family. Now, added to that opposition, which was by no means limited to his fam ily, came financial troubles. The years were lean, and there was a growing family to support. At that time he was producing some of the pictures that have brought many thousands of dollars in recent sales in New York ; but how glad he would have been to receive even one hundred then, in fact, to have sold them at all! For several years he struggled for recognition, but New York still held to the old school and would have none of him; so we moved to Boston, where, again through the help of Ogden Haggerty, Williams & Everett, prominent picture-dealers, took over the management of his pictures. We then took up our 34 EARLY INFLUENCES residence in Medfield, a suburb of Boston, and times became better. After our return to America a third daughter was born, whom they called Louise, and two years later my sister Helen was born, who became the wife of J. Scott Hartley, the sculptor. The sixth child, a boy, died in infancy. 35 CHAPTER III MEDFIELD PERIOD THE Medfield period lasted from 1859 to 1864. From the point of view of artistic achievements it was one of great impor tance in my father's hfe. The ideas which he had absorbed were now beginning to show in his work, and his own individual style was developing. In other words George Inness was beginning to be George Inness. I do not remember how we got to Medfield, but I remember smelling wild flowers and fields for the first time. I remember also a quarrel with my sister Rose in which I came out victor. My father took me to the wood-shed and told me that any man who would strike a woman ought to be thrashed, and that he was going to whip me ; and he did. He picked up a little twig, — it looked like the trunk of a tree, — and switched me well. I howled, and lay on the floor crying that he had hurt me ; when I looked up I saw dear old Pop, sitting on a saw-horse crying, too. I could not understand. I am wiser now. His tenderness and love for his family were beauti- 36 Owned by Mr. James W. Kllsworth LIGHT TRIUMPHANT MEDFIELD PERIOD ful. He sought to understand his children and to en ter into our games and pleasures, and he would spend hours making kites and jackstraws for us. Again he would be in a different world, an entirely different man, and I would not know my father. As I review my childhood, a little incident flashes back to me of his tenderness. Father was very fond of roast pig, and I think he had been reading Charles Lamb. He would try anything he read about; when he read "The Count of Monte Christo" he tried hashish. I am glad to say he did not follow up the practice. But to the pig ! Pop gave me a dollar to buy the runt from a farmer near by. To possess a runt had been my ambition, and for one dollar the farmer said he would give me one. That is pretty cheap for a pig. A runt is the smallest pig in a litter, but in my eyes this fellow was the finest little white pet in the world. I brought the httle squealer home, and built a pen for him only be cause my mother would not let me have him for a bed fellow. I taught him to drink milk by letting him suck my finger as the farmer had shown me, and I washed him every day, and tucked him in a straw bed at night. He got so he would follow me like a dog, and I loved that pig; but I got chills and fever, and it was decreed that I should go to my aunt's in Tenafly, New Jersey, for a change. After I had shivered my poor httle body almost to 89 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS pieces and consumed quarts of "Cohgog," I came home cured. After the usual family embraces were over, I hurried to the abode of my pet and found it deserted. I rushed to my father and cried : "Oh, Pop, my runt is gone !" Pop looked very shy and embarrassed, then said : "Why, Georgie, he became a nuisance. We could not keep him in his pen, — I put him back a dozen times, — and then we had to eat him." "Oh, why, why, did you eat my pig? Could n't you have nailed another slat on his pen?" I cried, and, leaving the room broken-hearted, went up in the attic, where I always took refuge when in trouble. Before long I heard father trudging up-stairs. He called me to him and said : "You poor little chap ! Of course I should have nailed another slat on his pen, but I never thought of it. Dry your eyes and come down-stairs, and I will get you a dog, and I promise you I will not eat him." I was getting to be what my mother called a big boy, and father began to realize that I might be useful, so he showed me how to wash his brushes. I was a proud boy that day, but later sometimes felt that edu cation has its drawbacks. Then Mark Fisher came. Mark Fisher was a young fellow father found in a carriage-painter's shop in Boston. Mark was clever, and drew things, so 40 MEDFIELD PERIOD father brought him to live with us, and to learn to paint pictures. Mark did learn, and later became well known in England as an artist. The coming of Mark was an event in my life, as it gave me more leisure to drill and march with our com pany, which was preparing for the war. You see, Mark washed the brushes. Speaking of the war, my father had some wooden guns made for our company, and I was to be captain; but discretion is the better part of valor, and I took second place and became a private, deferring to Foster Bush, our minister's son, who later became a distinguished physician of Boston. He was bigger than I. I always looked up to Mark Fisher as a great man. He used to draw funny pic tures much better than father could. Mark had tend encies that might have led him to the drama. One night he produced a play in our dining-room. He hung a sheet across one end of the room, and invited the neighbors in to see him, Pop, and Mama play "Bombastes Furioso." My father was the King, of course, Mark was Bom bastes, and mama was Distaffena. I think an artist by name of Cass was Fusbos. My father was dressed in gorgeous clothes, and had a gold crown on his head. He was very fat. I saw him tie a pillow over his stom ach before he put on his coat, which was made of a piece of carpet and some gold paper. Mark had a 41 LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS sword with a blade about a foot broad, and when he stuck it "clean through" Pop, I let out a yell that nearly broke up the entire theater party. A sport that my father loved was skating and we had many parties on the Charles River in winter. When Pop skated he wore a shawl — in fact, nearly all men wore shawls in those days — and with his long, black hair and plaid shawl floating in the breeze, he cut a figure that in my young eyes was the quintessence of grace. On our place in Medfield there was an old barn which was converted into a studio. My father's stu dios were nearly always old barns ; there was none of the poseur or dilettante about him. He was per fectly content with one chair, an easel, and his tubes of paint. He never had such things as attractive rugs or broken plates or bits of rags and silk about bis place. He never could do clever tricks with his pen cil to amuse, and never was attracted by the so-called artistic room with Oriental hangings, and used to ridi cule old plates and cups and saucers and canopied di vans and Japanese umbrellas. There was nothing luxurious about his studio ; it was his workroom, and was simplicity almost to bareness. In this old Medfield barn some of father's most rep resentative pictures were painted; there he painted many of the magnificent sunsets and elms and those 42 MEDFIELD MEADOWS MEDFIELD PERIOD dramatic storms which characterize George Inness. The original sketch of one of the finest examples of his work was done there. It was called "Medfield Meadows," and later was a wedding present from him to my wife and me. Those were wonderful years for me. I used to sit there in his studio for hours at a time watching him paint, pictures now, not wash-tubs, while I, with a white canvas before me, a large brush, and a pail of water, imitated his movements. When he painted he put all the force of his^ nature into it. Full of vim and vigor, he was like a dynamo. It was punch here and dab there. He was indefatigable. He was a totally different man in his studio from what he was out of doors. Out of doors he was quiet, rational, and absorbed. I have seen him sit in the same spot every day for a week or more studying carefully and minutely the contours of trees and the composition of the clouds and grass, drawing very carefully with painstaking exactness. But in his studio he was hke a madman. He seldom painted di rect fromnature. He would study for days, then with a sudden inspiration would go at a canvas with the most dynamic energy, creating the composition from his own brain, but with so thorough an underlying knowledge of nature that the key-note of his land scapes was always truth and sincerity and absolute m LIFE, ART, AND LETTERS fidelity to nature.) It was his honesty and simplicity that made him great. "Never put anything on your canvas that is n't of use," he would say ; "never use a detail unless it means something." He would start a marine or shipwreck, and with a gesture of impatience would say, "Oh, con found it! that does n't look like water," and with a few swift strokes would put in some grass and trees, and more than hkely, before he got through, it would be a snow-scene. It was in the old barn studio that my father painted a large canvas called "The Sign of Promise." It makes me shudder to think how near this canvas came to being lost to the world. Some of it was, but, owing to the peculiar tendency to repaint canvases, some of the original, with more added, has been immortalized under the name of "Peace and Plenty." It now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was a wheat-field, as I remember it, with a rainbow in the sky. Well, this canvas, "The Sign of Promise," got Pop and me into a good deal of trouble one day, especially Pop. I was working in a little garden where I had planted beans, — was just digging the beans up to see if they were growing, — when I heard the most terrible, muffled noise coming from the studio that sounded like "George" ; but the voice was so strange and weird that I was frightened, and ran 46 MEDFIELD PERIOD into the house, and hid my face in the folds of my grandmother's apron. My mother was out at the time. I told between my sobs that there was some thing awful in the studio. While grandmother was trying to get her wits together, Pop appeared at the kitchen door, calling for me. Grandmother said: "Oh, George, don't punish him!" said my grand mother. "He 's so frightened." Father answered : "I shall not punish him, but I want to show him what his cowardice has caused me." When I looked up, there stood my father, his face streaked with color. We went hand in hand to the studio ; there on the floor, face down, lay "The Sign of Promise." Pop ex plained to me that if I had not been such a httle cow ard I could have removed the chair that, as he tried to kick it out of the way, had caused him to fall with his canvas, his face down, and into the palette, which he had no time to remove from his thumb. As he crawled from under the canvas a great deal of "The Sign of Promise" had come off on Pop's clothes. Not being able to dispose of this canvas, which has since become famous, in any other way, it was given in part payment for a house in New Jersey. I fancy that "Peace and Plenty" would now bring a good many houses like that one in New Jersey. 47 CHAPTER IV MEDFIELD PERIOD II THE Medfield days were war-times ; the Civil War had just begun. My father was all enthusiasm. He was not fit for service, as he was not strong. I remember our fears when he went to be examined for enlistment, and the joy with which we received the news that he did not pass. But he worked hard in other ways. He raised money and men; he made speeches in front of the meeting-house nearly every night, and old Tom Barney, who kept the village store, and whom I met fifteen years later, told me my father went to Boston, borrowed one hundred dollars from an art dealer, rushed back to Medfield, and said: "Tom, they've killed all our men. Take this, and send the poor fellows stockings." Tom added : "I done it conscientious ; but I 've always won dered how they wore 'em." Pop was a good fellow with the boys who hung around the village store and used to joke with them. Tom Barney was a quaint character, and in after years I spent many an hour listening to him as he drawled 48 «W- :¦'.*<*-. vT '¦¦ '¦ ..' .'"¦ . ¦' :* £' i BP^f^rj 1 i -. 1 j / / l ¦ ¦ 1 HP i- v *: * * . ¦ V : mi: ma ; r~— r ¦ / : fcrr:. . (SIJ^SI^WS^WP^^ :fr 1 " | ."< ,> : i t