Art in America: A Critical and Historial Sketch

8-1

d the Pacific slope; Fremont pointed out the pathway over the swelling ranges of the Sierras; and our painters revealed to us the matchless splendor of a scenery which shall arouse increasing astonishment and reverential awe and rapture in the hearts of generations yet to be. In the gratitude we owe to these landscape-painters who dared, discovered, and delineated for us the scenery of which we were hitherto the ignorant possessors, criticism is almost left in abeyance, for the service done the people has been a double one-in leading them to th

e accompanied the exploring expedition of General Lander that went over the plains in 1858. Fitz Hugh Ludlow, the well-known littérateur, was associated wi

ing a colossal painting of the gorge of the Yosemite Valley. All of them are characterized by boldness of treatment, but sometimes they are crude in color and out of tone. Of these we prefer, as least sensational and most artistically correct, the painting of a storm on Mount Rosalie. Bierstadt's smaller California scenes are generally more valuable than his large ones for artistic quality: one of the best compositions we have seen from his easel is a war sketch

KERN RIVER"-[

ver a painting the second time. But Mr. Hill is a good colorist, bold and massive in his effects, and a very careful, conscientious student of nature. He has been happy in the rendering of wood interiors, as, for example, bits from the Forest of Fontainebleau. One of his most remarkable New England landscapes represents the avalanche in the Notch of the White Mountains, which was attended with such disastrous results to the dwellers in the valley. But Mr. Hill will be identified in future with California, where he has become a resident, and has devoted his energies to painting some of the magnificent scenery of that marvellous region, where the roar of the whirlwind and the roll of the thunder reverberate like the tread of t

ITE."-[THO

RS."-[THOM

us those unrevealed wonders; and Thomas Moran, "taking his life in his hands," in the language of religious cant, aspired to capture the bouquet, the first bloom, from this newly-opened draught of inspiration. We all know the result. Who has not seen his splendid painting of the "Gorge of the Yellowstone," now in the Capitol at Washington? Granting the fitn

d inspired by a fervid imagination. But while conceding thus much to the talents of this artist-who belongs to an artistic family, two of his brothers being also well-known painters, one in marine, the other in cattle painting-we can not accord him great original powers. He has studied the technique of his calling most carefully, and

.-[JERVIS

and skies, in sere woods and lonely waters, and moorlands fading away into eternity-it is their symbolism and sympathy with the soul that an artist like Mr. Jervis M'Entee seeks to represent on canvas. This is, in a word, the subjective art to which we have already alluded. To him the voice of nature is an elegy; the fall of the leaves in October suggests the passing away of men to the grave in a countless and endless procession; and whenever he introduces the agency of man into his pictures, it is as if he were fighting with an unseen and remorseless destiny. Exquisite

igure was also one aim of his art, and it was in the combination of the two that he excelled. He also had an eye for color that has not been too common in our art; and, wholly untaught, expressed his moods and fancies with a force that, even in its immaturity, suggested the master. But the one point in which he surpassed most of our artists up to this time was in the singular and

RRY."-[A.

e manifold phases of a bit of waste land, or mountain glen, or sedgy brook-side, simple enough at first sight, but full of an infinitude of unobtrusive beauty, he works with the magic of a high-priest of nature; his style is broad in effect, without being slovenly and careless, and gives a multitude

ilight, the gray vapors of morning creeping over dank woodlands or the sublime pathos of lonely sands, haunted by wild fowl and beaten by the hollow seas. But we have no painter whose art is so unequal: in all his works there is absolute freedom, freshness, and originality; his scheme of color is altogether his own, full of luminousness and purity; but he is weak in technique,

s of nature, art is in a healthy and progressive condition. If further evidence of this were needed, we might cite the landscapes of J. Appleton Brown, who, after a rather discouraging servitude to Cor?t, is at last beginning to show us the reserve power of which he is capable when he is more concerned with nature than with imit

known by such works as "The Trout Brook Shower" and engravings of other paintings by him, as an artist of originalit

DACKS."-[HO

een abroad, we recognize in his treatment of masses, and the brilliance of his method of managing light and color, the pro

E.-[J. W.

of Boston have also executed some striking and beautiful works. I refer to John E. C. Petersen and William E. Norton. The former died young, in 1876. He was by birth a Dane, and in personal appearance a viking: tall, handsome, tawny-haired, with a clear, sharp blue eye, and a bearing that reminded one of an admiral on the quarter-deck of his frigate swooping down with flying sheets across the enemy's bow and pouring in a raking fire. Those who have seen him will never forget the grand figure of Petersen, the very impersonation of a son of the sea. When he first began to paint in Boston his pictures were weak in color and rude in drawing. But he improved w

an enthusiast for his art, and sometimes a happy inspiration enables him to turn off a painting that entitles him to a high rank among the marine painters of the age. He has been most happy in quiet effects and fog scenes, and a composition called the "Fog-Horn," representing two men in a dory blowing a horn to warn away a steamer that is stealthily approaching t

E."-[M. F.

olor and light, and we have at present few artists who equal him in painting still harbor scenes, marbled with reflections wavering on a glassy surface. Among our more clever coast painters we cannot omit the mention of A. T. Bricher, who renders certain familiar scenes of the Atlantic shore with much realistic force, but little feeling for the ideal. J. C. Nicoll seems to show more promise in this direction. The color and technique of his pictures are very clever and interesting, and well illustrate the sea as it looks to a landsman from terra firma. Both of these artists have painted extensively in aquarelle, in which

RNING."-[W.

s to follow the art of water-color painting seriously. A society, headed by such men as Messrs. Samuel Colman, G. Burling, well known notwithstanding his early death, as a painter of game birds, J. M. Falconer, and R. Swain Gifford, was formed within a year; Mr. Colman was the first president, and the first annual exhibition was held in the halls of the Academy of Design in 1867. Twelve exhibitions have now been held, and Messrs. James Smillie and T. W. Wood have in turn succeede

impetus to this department, with its many sad or comic situations, and the increasing immigration of the peasantry of Europe, and the growing variety of our national types and street scenes, have all contributed to attract and stimulate the artistic eye and fancy. To mention all the ar

"-[ARTHUR

ng to meet an artist so unbiassed by prejudice. His foreign studies have in no wise narrowed his intellectual sympathies. His small genre compositions, especially of child life, often together with landscape, have been carefully finished-latterly with an especial regard to the values. Professor John F. Weir, who comes of an artistic family, and is Superintendent of the Academy of Art at New Haven, has shown capacity and nerve in his well-known painting called "Forging the Shaft," forcibly representing one of the most striking incidents in a foundry; and A. W. Willard, of Cincinnati, has struck out in a similar vein. Energy of action, and an effort after effect verging on exaggeration and caricature, are the characteristics of the style with which he has attempted such novel compositions as "Yankee Doodle" and "Jim Bludsoe." They suggest in color the literature of Artemus Ward and Walt Whitman. At the same time, we recognize in such thorough individuality a very promising attempt to assert the possibilities of certain phases of

n as pictorial as if he were under the cliffs at Etretat. Fault is sometimes found with the fact that the street lads painted by Mr. Brown have always washed their faces before posing, which is according to the commands of St. Paul, but not of art canons, if we accept Mr. Ruskin's dictum regarding the artistic value of dir

heart, not merely by his choice of subjects, but by legitimately earned success in his art as well. Scenes of domestic life have also been treated sometimes very interestingly by Messrs. B. F. Reinhart, Ehninger, Blauvelt, Satterlee, Howland, Wilmarth, and Virgil Williams. Oliver J. Lay, although a slow, careful artist, has executed some thoughtful and refined in-door scenes, taken from domestic life, which

QUESTION."-

rtainty in his drawing sometimes, but his color and composition are generally excellent, and the choice of subjects are at the same time popular and artistic. We have had no painter since Mount who has done more to elevate the character of genre art in the community. Successful in portraiture and ideal heads, Mr. Johnson has achieved his best efforts in the homely scenes of rustic negro life, or from a thorough sympathy with the simplicity

orks-he is evidently striving after the unknown. But the key-note of his art seems to be a realistic endeavor to place man and nature, landscape and genre, in harmonious juxtaposition; never one alone, but both aiding each other, they are ever the themes of his brush. His figures are often stiff or posed in awkward attitudes, and yet they always arrest the attention, for they are inspired by an active, restless brain, that is undoubtedly moved by the impulse of genius. It is the values, or true relations of objects as they actually appear in n

personality, that is, of a genius striving for utterance. They are incomplete, rarely altogether satisfactory; but we feel, in the presence of such a subtle, suggestive, mysterious composition as the "Rommany Girl," vaguely thrill

E."-[D.

ated with rural life-a milkmaid, or a farmer. Naturally there is inequality in the results achieved, and sometimes manifest weakness. But we note a constant progress in the quality of his art, and an evidence of imagination which has been unfortunately too rare in American genre since the days of William Mou

ng artists who have studied in the ateliers of Paris and Munich, and who have returned here to work, complaining that they find no sources of inspiration here, no subjects to paint at home. This dearth of subjects certainly would be a very grave obstacle to the ultimate development of a great

ple things. There has never yet been such a state of society or such an order of scenery that the artist who was in sympathy with it could not find some poetry, some color, some form or light or shade in it that would stir the finer elements o

y, these various types of man, and the various structures he has erected here, and find in them no inspiration for his brush or his pen. What if there are no feluccas or painted sails in our harbor; one has but to cross the river on the fer

d delicately tones and softens the receding rows of buildings, he shall see effects almost as entrancing and poetic as those which charm the en

he street corners, especially when after dark they light their smoking torc

ADE."-[J.

treets to the horse-market. Untrimmed, unshorn, massively built, and marching in files by fours and fives with clanging tread, sometimes thirty or forty together, they present a stirring and powerful

E STORY."-

.-[EASTMAN

are wholly in sympathy with the influences of the land whose art they are aiding to establish. Those who are familiar with American art will easily recall a number of our

country, are at the same time most cosmopolitan, still it is, after all, not so much in the subjects as in the treatment that the individuality of a national art is best demonstrated. It is when the artist is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the institutions of his native land that it appears in his art, whatever be the subject-it is then that he is most national. We hear a great deal about the French school and the English school; but it is not because each school finds its subjects invariably at home that it poss

.-[WINSLO

e art, and native art founded on knowledge is therefore always the truest art; while the artist who is thus inspired wil

nt tendency to mannerism. Mrs. Henry Peters Grey has a faculty of making a pleasing likeness. She has executed some portrait plaques in majolica that are remarkable evidences of the progress ceramic art is now making in the United States. Mrs. Loop is one of our successful portrait-painters. Her works are not strikingly original, but they are harmonious in tone and color, and poetical in treatment. Henry A. Loop has also executed some pleasing portraits and ideal compositions; of the latter, his "Echo" is perhaps the most successful rendering of female beauty he has attempted. George H. Story should be included among the most important portrait-painters of this period. His work is characterized

numental art, portraiture, and the painting of religious compositions. We consider it a promising sign to see an artist of such energy seeking to exalt the character of his pursuit. His works seem,

"-[WORDSWOR

y successful in such paintings as "In the Cornfield at Antietam," representing a charge in that memorable battle, which belongs to a class of pictures of which we hope to have more in the future. There is a striving after originality in hi

SOD."-[WILLI

hod in the style of Mr. Thompson. He is an excellent draughtsman, his color is a happy medium between the high and low keys of different schools-fresh, cool, and crisp-and his work is thoroughly finished, and yet broad in effect. He evidently has no hobbi

NG."-[FIDEL

ting notable events of the Revolution. For pictures of this description Mr. Thompson seems to us to rank next to Trumbull, whose masterly paintings of the "Death of Montgomery" and the "Battle of Bunker Hill," now at New Haven, have hitherto been by far the most remarkable military paintings produced by an American artist. There is less action, fire, and brilliance of color i

DOG.-[FRA

We are at a loss to account for this, especially as the evidences of promise are also less prominent than in landscape and genre. Not only has the number of the artists

t for the past twelve years has made a specialty of introducing groups of cattle into his idyllic landscapes. They are often well drawn and carefully painted, and are in general effect commendable, although, like most of our animal painters, Mr. Hart does not seem to have got a

y, as well as capital art, in the method in which, with water-colors, she composes stalks of grain or wild-flowers in combination with field birds, meadow-la

fteen minutes at once. In the decided ability and success already shown by Mr. Rogers we can see that it is now possible for our artists, availing themselves of influences already at work here, combined with an intense love of nature and the ideal, to do strong original work without devoting half their lives t

E SNOW."-[A

Life" is the title of a weird, savage, and powerful composition by this artist, representing a flock of ravening wolves pursuing their victim over fields of frozen snow, behind which the low red sun is setting; and A. F. Tait has also devoted his life to rescuing from oblivion species which are rapidly becoming extinct, unless our game-laws are better enforced than they have been hitherto. There is often too finished a touch to the style of Mr. Tait, which deprives it of the force it m

cal vegetation. The ideal flower-painting of Mr. Lafarge we have already mentioned. Miss Robbins, of Boston, is at present one of the most prominent artists we have in this department. She composes with great taste, and lays on her colors with superb effect. Some of her paintings suggest the rich, massive coloring of Van Huysams. Messrs. Seavey, of Boston, Way, of Baltimore, and Lambdin, of Philadelphia, have

e apparent a deeper appreciation of the supreme importance of the ideal, and a gathering of forces for a new advance against the strongholds of the materialism that wars against the culture of the ideal, combined with a rapidly spreading consciousness on the part of the people of the ethical importance of art, and a dis