White
Mountain Art & Artists
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Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists XXIV . SINCE writing the preceding chapters, some six years since, I have not had cause to change my views in regard to the status of American art at the present time. I think there has been a great advance all along the line, during this comparatively short period. The impressionists have greatly modified their intense peculiarities, and we no longer see chrome Yellows and greens in Opposition to diabolical purples and blues, causing one to shudder and hold his breath. In fact I believe that the extreme fad has gone by, not to be resuscitated. That this impressionistic school has been Productive of great good, we are all willing to admit. It has taught the younger artists to look after simplicity and breadth, to attempt the luminous qualities seen in out-of-door study and which are so difficult to express. But why should all paintings be pitched upon the highest possible key? The gravity and freshness of Troyon are happily combined, and the eye is charmed with the healthy qualities he employed in his work. Others of the earlier French painters worked on similar lines, men like Jules Duprez, Marilhat, Flers and others. Speaking of Marilhat, two pictures of his made a strong impression upon me. One canvas showed a desert of almost unlimited space and nothingness, as it were. But the imagination could play all sorts of freaks in it, Across this almost interminable space, a camel and rider pursued their trackless way, and the beholder might never tell from whence they came or their destination. The other was a crepuscule on the Nile. This was a most poetic picture, full of the feeling of the hour, full of light and delicate gradation. The group of buffaloes entering the water added piquancy to the whole. Constable did not often work on a high key. most of his paintings (and I saw many of them at the Kensington Museum) were on a low key, and as rich in tone as the pictures of Troyon. It is said even that Troyon, Diaz and others visited London to study Constable's work. Constable was perhaps the first to cast off the shackles of the old school, and trust to the inspiration nature gave him. The British artist, however, is very insular, and, a few years ago, would not recognize anything outside of the island. Haydon, the high art painter, made a hasty trip to Paris, to see what was being done there. On his return he wrote a book on the result of his visit. Speaking of Horace Vernet, he said, his (Vernet's) canvases were miles long, and that he rode on fiery steed, slashing on paint as he galloped by. Horace Vernet had great facility. He studied an object intently but briefly. He had then mastered its detail, and he was able to keep it in his mind until called for. For instance, wishing to paint the skin of an Ox just slain, lie studied it carefully for a few moments, then went back to his canvas and completed it in a short time, with all its peculiarities of local color-and certainly it has all appearance of close study. This bit I have often noticed in one of his immense canvases at Versailles. Delaroche married a daughter of Vernet. One day Vernet said to a friend, speaking of his son-in-law " Delaroche fais ce quil veut-moi je fais ce que je peut. " This only showed the different mental qualities of two great painters. I am very often asked to say what I think of Sargent's paintings, not only by artists but by persons having no pretentions to art culture. These persons are evidently expecting an adverse opinion. Now it is not pleasant to find fault with the work of such a man as Sargent-one of the most facile and brilliant painters of his day. But perhaps the very brilliancy of his technique might lead him to do things which he might otherwise wish to avoid. Il a de l'audace, toujours de l'audace! And he can not bring himself to work with the painstaking care of a Vandyke or a Velasquez. But is it not possible to evolve strong character and strong modeling and rich color from careful work and fine drawing? I cannot but think so, and there are Vandyke's paintings today commanding the admiration of the world! The English nobles are proud to possess a canvas by him, as are all the sovereigns of Europe. If we could visit Antwerp today we could see one of the greatest exhibitions of portraiture ever seen together in one place. In three hundred years from this will the princes and kaisers of the time (if there are any) bring out their Sargents and honor them in the same enthusiastic way they do the Vandykes today ? I beg Mr. Sargent's pardon for these reflections but everyone has a right to his notions, and he may never see this. The critics accept his work and find nothing but praise for it. In fact he has but few competitors and perhaps no superiors today on either side of the Atlantic. The portraits of the older English school of portrait painters are in vogue at present, and are eagerly bought up by dealers and speculators for the American market, and some of them, notably portraits by Reynolds, Gainsboro, Raeburn, Opie and others, are truly splendid bits of character and show beautiful flesh tints and fine modeling. Stuart painted his great pictures on the same key, only perhaps with more suavity of manner and grace of handling. We are proud of him today, and look upon him as our greatest portrait painter. Elihu Vedder is, to my mind, one of the greatest American artists of today. He has an independent way all his own. He was not educated in France, nor in any especial school, but his thoughts are lofty and his imagination rare, and it is no wonder that he chooses to remain in Rome, surrounded, as he is there, by the classic atmosphere of the grand old city. One word for Francis Alexander and I will inflict no more on the readers who have followed me thus far. Alexander was a man gifted beyond most mortals. He began his career in a small country place with no idea of drawing, but with such pigments as he could find he produced heads of very remarkable qualities. After coming to Boston and seeing the works of Allston and Stuart, his ideas broadened and he became a brilliant and successful artist. A head of himself, painted many years ago, and exhibited in the old Atheneum gallery, in Pearl Street, when I was a boy, impressed me much. It is now in the Possession of William Willard the artist, and seeing it in later years has not caused me to change my opinion of it. I end my task here trusting some of my readers may have followed me with
interest, and found some good in what I have written. THE END. |