White
Mountain Art & Artists
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Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists XXI . NORTH Conway and the neighborhood of Artists' Brook at one time became almost as famous as Barbison and the Forest of Fontainbleau after Millet, Rousseau and Diaz had set the fash-ion. Dozens of umbrellas were dotted about under which sat artists from all sections of the country. But fashions change, and fads and whims come along to turn the current to the seashore, where the greatest simplicity of form prevails. Subjects for pictures almost vacuous and void of interest are seized upon with avidity, huge canvases, covered with barren wastes of straggling rocks and seaweed, with no rolling breakers to change the monotony. This is all very well when painted by a master hand, but transcribed in an unappreciative way is most dreary. Picknell has done some strong work at Annisquam, and made the most unpromising bits very interesting by his powerful and realistic rendering of them. Others have done much in the same school with success. I do not say that simple subjects are not worth being painted, but it seems to me that there is a great choice, that lines and contrasts in composition are always desirable. I think as a rule the more thoughtful and considerate of the artists do think of harmonious lines in their sketching, but are hardly willing to acknowledge it, and pretend that anything will do. I mean the more modern men. I think with the older school that there is a choice, and that contrasting harmonious lines conspire to give a subject more picturesqueness, poetry and beauty. It is well that we do not all think alike, or all love the same scenes. It would become too monotonous,-and I love Artists' Brook and sylvan wood scenes, while many others love flat bits and stretches of white sand in an out-of-the-way corner of Cape Ann. Water-colors, within quite a few years, have come to occupy a great share of public attention, and the advance the artists have made in that direction has been very great, until now some very creditable work is being done. But the impression idea crops out a little glaringly in some cases, though not in a very dangerous way. I have in my mind many very thoughtful and well considered works showing not only great skill in the use of this medium but fine feeling and knowledge of nature. I love art, no matter in what shape or guise it may be. One rose painted in a truthful loving way claims my admiration, and I can love almost an infinite variety of subjects well presented from the simple, well-studied rose up to the grandest historical canvas. An exhibition in recent years of Monet's work at the St. Botolph was to me exceedingly interesting, and shows an immense amount of knowledge of the subtleties of Nature's tints and tones of glowing sunlight, as well as a power of rendering the true contrasts of opposing colors. He could not do this unless he had made a profound study of the science of art-of drawing, and the true relation of light and shade. It does not matter how he does it. Another way would be the same to him with his power and his knowledge of nature. Another man with equally profound study of nature and knowledge of the rules and limitations of art might produce equally brilliant results in a totally different way. But let the unfledged young artist beware how he attempts to emulate such works for he will make a most woful failure, without the underlying knowledge born of experience and years of careful study. I have seen the works of many such imitators, and all without exception have been monstrous failures. Imitators never get up to the imitated, and nothing great can be accomplished without training, and the most painstaking study of Nature's secrets. Most of the young men in whose company I began the study of art so many years ago-some of whom have achieved distinction and a proud name in the history of art-are no longer living, and I can almost count upon the fingers of one hand, the names of the survivors. Kensett, Hicks, Rossiter, Hubbard, Fuller, Harding, Hoit, Hunt, Baker, H. K. Brown, Page, Gerry and a host of others have all passed on, and I feel that I am one of the very few links between the older generation of artists, and the school of the present, connecting the days of Allston and Vanderlyn, Thomas Cole, Stuart, Francis Alexander, Fisher, Doughty and others with our time. The many reproductions not only of old masters, but of popular modern ones, is most astounding and almost nauseates the beholder. What is a rich feast of all that is tempting to the palate, to a person already satiated with sweets? it is only a few days to Paris or Florence or Rome, where all the great works of the masters may be seen and studied. Today, here in America, something startling and new must be done in art to attract attention. The quiet, the unpretending, will receive but faint recognition. The solid and unpretending in art must patiently wait its time. New manners of working, new methods, new thoughts, can not be commanded even by the greatest minds in art New poets, however well they may sing, bow to the genius of Shakespeare, and artists however well they may paint must bow to the genius of the great masters of pictorial art of Italy, Spain and Holland, for with all the modern seeking for new light, wehave not surpassed them. Great truths are inimitable; the laws of nature and art unchangeable. I remember well, that in the first years of my stay in Paris, the annual " Salon " was held in the galleries or the Louvre. A framework of timbers was placed before the old masters, work, and this was covered with the modern work of the day. The framework did not occupy the whole length of the long gallery, and a portiere screened the remaining portion of the great Italians from view. But raise the portiere-enter, and you pass into an atmosphere, almost divine. The glow and warmth from these immortal canvases were most ravishing. But come out once more-the chalky things beyond were almost revolting. But enough of these reflections and reasonings, and I desist. |