USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 39
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Mrs. Townsend's work to them have but a very imperfect idea of the scope of her genius. Even among her earlier poems there are a number which, tried by the severer standards of literary excellence, are superior to them, but in the sixty-nine sonnets that form the contents of her latest volume, "Distaff and Spindle," we have the ripened, full-flavored fruit of which those others were but buds of promise. These sonnets, so strongly wrought, so nobly keyed, so steeped in love and prayer and praise, ought to set Mrs. Townsend's name among the foremost singers of the country.
M. E. M. DAVIS is a writer whose fame is steadily increasing. Mrs. Davis is the daughter of Dr. John Moore, and was born at Talladega, Ala., but her childhood and early youth were passed in Texas, where her father was engaged in the occupation of a planter. Mrs. Davis began to rhyme while still in short skirts, and her first book of poems, "Minding the Gap, and Other Poems," was published before she was out of her teens. In 1874 Miss (Mary Evelyn) Moore was married to Major Thomas E. Davis, associate editor of the Houston Post. Shortly afterward the Post changed hands, and Major Davis and his wife removed to New Orleans, where he became engaged on the staff of the Picayune. Mrs. Davis now began to write prose as well as verse, her first attempts in this new line being a series of local sktches published in the Sunday Picayune, under the catching title of the "Keren-happoch Papers." As her touch became surer, and the Northern public began to show an interest in pictures of Southern life painted by those best fitted to describe it, she found herself writing for the wider circle of readers opened up to her by the Harper periodicals, and since 1885-86 her name has graced the pages of all the leading magazines. "In War Times at La Rose Blanche" is a volume of sketches in which are set forth the author's recollections of the bitter strife between the States, and probably Mrs. Davis will never write anything that will strike so deep a chord of sympathy in the hearts of her readers. It has that poignant charm, half pain, half pleasure, which invests the experiences of child- hood when seen through the softening vista of intervening years. In "An Ele- phant's Track, and Other Stories," and in her two novels, "Under the Man-Fig" and "The Wire Cutters," Mrs. Davis has utilized her knowledge of West Texas life. "A Masque of St. Roche, and Other Poems," contains, besides the poetic pageant, "Père Dagobert" and "Throwing the Wanga," two of her most unique and widely known poems. Mrs. Davis' verse is always musical, and covers a wide range of thought, feeling and fancy. A new novel just from the press bears the attractive title of "The Queen's Garden." The scene is laid in New Orleans, with whose topography and social life the author is thoroughly familiar.
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GRACE ELIZABETH KING is a writer whose talent New Orleans may claim as purely indigenous. Not only is she a native of the city, but it is there that she received her education and has so far passed her life. During her school- days and carlier years her residence was in that region of the city known as the "Creole Quarter," and the intimate knowledge of Creole life and character shown in her short stories and novels is inwrought among the indelible impressions of child- hood. Even the Creoles do not dispute the accuracy of her presentation, and one young lady of that race has been heard to declare that the pictures of convent school-life are perfect, and to admit having "rolled on the floor" in spasms of laughter over the story of the girl who "lost her sins." Unsolicited testimony of this sort from one to the "manner born" is worth more than columns of formal criticism from persons who know nothing of the matter. For the last few years Miss King has been devoting herself to historical writing. In addition to the school "History of Louisiana," of which she is joint-author with Prof. Ficklen, she has written a "Life of Bienville," "New Orleans, the Place and the People," and "De Soto and His Men in the Land of Florida." Her works of fiction are: "Bon Maman," "Monsieur Motte," "Earthlings," "Tales of. Time and Place," and "Balcony Stories."
RUTH MCENERY STUART has obtained wide and rapid success as a writer of dialect stories. Mrs. Stuart's life on plantations, first as a child in Avoyelles Parish, where she was born, and later in Arkansas, where her married life was spent, gave her opportunities for studying the negro under circumstances in which his native characteristics have been least modified by contact with white influence. Her Africans are the genuine "darkies" of the sugar belt and the cotton regions, and are noticeably different from those of Mr. Page and Joel Chandler Harris. Mrs. Stuart did not begin to write until after the death of her husband, when she took up her residence in New Orleans with her mother and sisters. In 1892 she removed to New York in order to be nearer the "market," and also for the purpose of availing herself of better educational advantages for her only son. She sup- plied Mrs. Margaret Sangster's place as editor of Harper's Bazaar during that lady's absence in Europe, and has done much of her best work for the Harper publi- cations. Her collected stories are comprised in five volumes : "A Golden Wedding, and Other Tales," "Carlotta's Intended, and Other Stories," "The Story of Babette," "Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Others," and "In Simpkin- ville."
CECELIA VIETS JAMISON (née Dakin) is a native of Yarmouth, Can-
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ada. She was married to Samuel Jamison, of New Orleans, in 1879, since which time she has resided in the Crescent City. Her novel, "The Enthusiast," was the first to attract general attention. "Lady Jane," "Toinette's Philip," and "Seraph, the Little Violinist," are tales of child life in New Orleans, which were first pub- lished serially in the St. Nicholas Magazine. Her other works are: "Woven of Many Threads," "Crown From the Spear," "Ropes of Sand," and "Lilly of San Miniato." She has also contributed many short stories to Harper's and other magazines.
JULIE K. WETHERILL BAKER is known in literary circles, north and south, as an essayist, critic, and poet of much ability. Mrs. Baker was born in Woodville, Miss., but educated in Philadelphia, her father's native city. Her literary tendency manifested itself very early, and even as a school-girl she was in the habit of writing romances and tales, which were often accepted by the papers to which they were sent. As her years increased poctry became her favorite forni of expression, though she still wrote occasional stories and sketches. In 1885 she became the wife of Mr. M. A. Baker, literary editor of the New Orleans Times- Democrat, and since that time her pen has been chiefly occupied with critical and literary work for that journal. In addition to the fine natural taste and the sensi- tiveness to literary effect so essential to the critic, Mrs. Baker possesses the wide acquaintance with the best literatures, ancient and modern, which alone can furnish a proper standard of judgment. Her criticism is not, therefore, a mere expression of personal preference, but a reasoncd opinion, based upon an understanding of the principles that underlie every composition which can justly lay claim to the title of literaturc. Her prose and her poctry express opposite sides of a richly gifted and finely balanced nature. While the latter, full of melody, fancy and exquisite im- agery, breathes almost always a pensive strain, the former, direct and explicit, almost to severity, is often penetrated with a vein of subtle humor or of quiet irony that sends little thrills of merriment along the nerves and keeps a smile upon the lips. It is a subject of regret among Mrs. Baker's friends that she has never thought it worth while to collect either her pocms or a selection from her essays into book form.
ELIZA J. NICHOLSON (née Poitevent) made her debut before the New Or- leans reading public under the nom-de-plume of "Pearl Rivers." Her first efforts in metrical composition appeared in the New Orleans Picayune, whose editor, Mr. Holbrook, she subsequently married. After Mr. Holbrook's death she married in second nuptials Mr. George Nicholson, business manager of the Picayune, in con-
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junction with whom she conducted the paper until her death in 1897. Mrs. Nicholson wrote a good deal of verse, but, except for one volume-"Lyrics"-pub- lished in 1873, none of it has ever been collected. Her longest and best known poem, "Hagar," appeared in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, November, 1893.
MARTHA R. FIELD, (née Smallwood) was for many years connected with the New Orleans Picayune as creator and conductor of the Woman's Department. She wrote on many topics, and in a bright and pleasing style that attracted many readers. Mrs. Field made several trips to Europe, and her lively descriptions of what she saw and how she saw it added much to the interest of the Picayune's Sun- day issuc. A few years before her death, which occurred in the fall of 1898, Mrs. Field became connected with the New Orleans Times-Democrat, for which journal her last work was done. A selection from her voluminous writings, edited by Mrs. M. E. M. Davis, has been published under the title of "Catherine Cole's Book."
(Mrs.) A. G. Durno has been for years connected with the Times-Democrat, con- ducting with ability and characteristic modesty an anonymous weekly column of book reviews for that journal. Mrs. Durno is distinguished alike for the power of her intellect and the purity and delicacy of her imaginative faculty. She has written verses of singular sweetness and melody, while her prose is clear, strong and picturesque. Some of Mrs. Durno's best work has been in the shape of literary editorials, written for the regular Sunday columns of the Times-Democrat, during the absence or illness of Julia K. Wetherill (Mrs. Marion A. Baker). Much of Mrs. Durno's writing has been under the name of "Felix Gray." Mrs. Durno is a native of Ohio, but came to New Orleans when young .- Ed.
ART.
The history of art in New Orleans is neither long nor complicated. Indeed, the historian who sets out to inquire into the art conditions of the earlier years of the city will find growing up in his mind a dire suspicion that his intended chapter will furnish a parallel to the famous chapter on snakes in Ireland. The contention of some writers that the supremacy of the ancient Greeks in the liberal arts was due to the leisure afforded the upper classes by the institution of slavery is hardly sustained by the record of art in the South. While it is true that our country as a whole has been very backward in developing anything worthy of the name of native art, it cannot be denied that the South has lagged far behind even the snail-like progress of the North. In the case of New Orleans this appears all the more singular when it is reflected that the ties of race which affiliated so large and
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influential a elass of her population with France brought about a eloser intercourse between her eitizens and Paris, the great modern eenter of art, than obtained in any other section of the Union. As has been noted in the case of Dr. Mercier, the Rouquette brothers and Charles Gayarre, it was quite the eustom among wealthy Creoles to send their sons to France to be edueated, or for the young men to betake themselves thither of their own volition, yet the atmosphere of Paris and the con- templation of the masterpieces that line the walls of the great galleries of the Louvre, the Luxembourg and Versailles, do not seem to have awakened in any of these youths an ambition to become the pioneer of art in their own State.
The chronicles of the colonial period yield the names of three legendary ar- tists, all Spanish, who are said to have sojourned in New Orleans an indefinite period of time something like a hundred and thirty years ago. The first of these bore the name of Salazar, and in 1769, it is said, painted the portraits of Mr. Charles Trudeau, surveyor of Louisiana, and of Madam Trudeau, his wife. Another, whose name was Romegar, is said to have done some "landseape work," for which he was awarded a bronze medal in Paris. After these eame one whose name has not been preserved, but who painted several portraits, notably a "very fine" one of a Mr. Regio, but finding that he could not compete with Salazar, returned to his native land. This eloses the record for the eighteenth century, and the next artistie inci- dent of sufficient importanee to deserve mention brings us down into the third decade of the nineteenth. It is of another nameless Spaniard, who had "been traveling in Mexieo," and who had painted a large landscape, 8x6 feet, "representing the seene of a famous murder," for which the St. Louis Exchange presented him with a bronze medal. After this date the names multiply rapidly. There were Lanseau, Vaude Champ, Leon Pomarede, who painted the three large altar pieees still to be seen in St. Patrick's Church; Julian Hudson, a very light colored man who painted portraits which were mueh esteemed; Catlin, the Indian painter, who re- mained but a short time; and A. G. Powers, who came about 1848-9, and resided here many years, painting portraits of a number of the most distinguished citizens. A full length portrait of General Taylor, which he made in 1848 at Baton Rouge, hangs at present in the mayor's parlor at the City Hall. Powers had his studio at No. 102 Canal street.
Bernard was a portrait painter of mueh talent who came to New Orleans about 1850 and did some very good work. His style was similar to that of Julien and of Healy, the latter of whom also made a short sojourn on the banks of the Missis- sippi.
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Mr. George D. Coulon is an old resident of New Orleans, where he has won considerable reputation, both as a landscape and portrait painter and teacher.
Theodore S. Moise was a South Carolinian who painted many portraits in New Orleans and its environs in ante-bellum days. Among the specimens of his work which are accessible to the public arc an equestrian portrait of General Jackson, which hangs in the City Hall; a portrait of Governor P. I. Herbert, which is in the State Library, and a piece known as "Life on Metarie," which contains likenesses of forty-four prominent turf men.
Ciceri was a French artist of established reputation in his own country, whose government had intrusted him with a commission to Egypt in the interest of art. He came to New Orleans by invitation of the Opera House Association about 1859- 60, to decorate the interior of the opera house, then in process of building. Ciceri made friends in his new home, and remained there to practice his art. He painted many small pastels and guaches, which are highly prized by their owners, and had also much success as a teacher.
Julio, a native of St. Helena, who came to New Orleans shortly after the war, was a painter of some pretensions. He painted the famous "Last Meeting of Gen- erals Lcc and Jackson," which has been so widely circulated by means of engravings and photographs, and of which the original hangs in Washington Artillery Hall. His best works are "An Ox-team," and "A Cypress Swamp." His crayons and char- coal sketches are considered better than his work in colors. Julio died some years ago.
Richard Claguc was another Frenchman of recognized ability in his own coun- try who made his home in New Orleans. Clague was a landscape painter, and made a specialty of Louisiana landscapes, of which he painted a great number. He died in 1873, since which event his pictures have more than doubled in value.
Paul Poincy is a native of New Orleans, who received his art education in Paris at the Beaux Arts and in the studios of Gleyre and Leon Cogniet. Mr. Poincy is chiefly a painter of portraits and of children, though he has produced some landscapes and street scenes which are highly esteemed. Among his best work in portraiture is a speaking likeness of the late beloved Archbishop Perché In the City Hall hangs an enormous canvas whereon is depicted a parade of the old volun- teer Fire Department passing on Canal street, which is the joint work of Mr. Poincy and Mr. Moise. This piece contains sixty-four portraits of prominent mem- bers of the old Fire Department, and possesses a certain historic interest as a memento of departed glories. Mr. Poincy has also painted a number of pictures
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on saered subjeets, and it is perhaps toward this branch of art that his natural bent, could he follow it with profit, would most incline him. A well-known local con- noisseur says of him : "Poiney ought to have lived in the days of Raphael, when art was eonseerated to the church. His genius is not appreciated in these modern times." His representations of saered seenes are distributed among various relig- ious institutions of the city, and Marshall J. Smith is the owner of an unfinished sketeh of Christ on the way to Calvary which is spoken of as a eoneeption of strik- ing originality and power.
Andres Molinary is a native of Gibraltar, a British subjeet, therefore, though of Italian aneestry, and speaking Spanish as his mother tongue. He was educated at the Fine Art Academy of Seville, and at Lueca's Academy in Rome under such masters as Valles and Alvarey. After quitting the school he traveled extensively in Europe and in Africa with the famous artists Fortuny and Reynold. Mr. Molinary has resided for many years in New Orleans, where his reputation, both as a painter and teacher, has steadily increased. As a portrait painter he has no superior, per- haps no equal, in the South, and his fame is rapidly spreading to other eities. In the room of the Louisiana Supreme Court hang portraits of Judges Rost, Buchanan, Marr, Merrick and Poche, and in the Charity Hospital those of Drs. Miles and Pieard, all examples of Mr. Molinary's work, and in the gallery of the Neweomb Art Building, loaned by the owner, Mr. P. M. Westfeltd, may be seen a most life- like presentation of Achille Perelli, the sculptor, who died in 1896.
Achille Peretti, a native of Piedemonte, Italy, and a member of the third gen- eration of a family of artists, eame to New Orleans in 1885. Mr. Peretti is a pupil of the Milan Reale Academia di Belle Arte, and a winner of diplomas and medals, both at the academy and at Rome. Sinee his advent in New Orleans he has deeo- rated several churches, notably the interior of the Church of St. John the Baptist and that of St. Stephen, where he reproduced as a eenter piece the Stephen of Ra- phael in Genoa. Some eight or nine years ago Mr. Peretti was engaged to deeorate the Church of St. Columbkill in Chicago, a work which elieited the highest enco- miums from the press of that eity. Mr. Peretti is a painter of landscapes, as well as of the human figure, and is besides an expert wood-earver.
About fourteen years ago, that is, in 1886, the little band of professional ar- tists in New Orleans was reinforced by the arrival of Mr. B. A. Wikstrom, a native of Norway, and a pupil of the finest art schools of Europe. As seems quite natu- ral in one of his nationality, Mr. Wikstrom's chosen métier is that of the marine painter. For years he followed the sea in order to study it in all its moods and
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phases, and his painted images of ships racing before a spanking breeze or ploughing heavily across the tossing heights and hollows of mid-ocean have for the beholder much of the exhilaration and solemn fascination of the sea itself. Mr. Wikstrom, however, does not confine himself altogether to marine painting, and his landscapes and interiors form no mean second to his sea pieces. An industrious worker during his season of production, Mr. Wikstrom keeps himself fresh and au courant with the great world of art by a yearly pilgrimage to Europe, whence he returns with renewed inspiration.
The first symptom of the awakening of anything like a general interest in art matters among the people of New Orleans was shown in the organization of "The Southern Art Union" in 1883. The Union owed its existence to Molinary, who, with the assistance of Edward Livingston and Marshall J. Smith, undertook to induct such of the members as felt an impulse toward artistic expression into the mysteries of line and color. The organization began life under flattering auspices. The mem- bership increased rapidly, reaching at one time the very respectable figure of five hundred, and the financial basis seemed all that could be desired. A collection of paintings from the North was secured for exhibition in its gallery, at first with the charge of a small admission fee, and afterward free, which resulted in the sale of a number of the pictures. But the road to success in art is no less difficult than that of any other of the more elevated lines of human endeavor, and presently sundry of the neophytes began to long for something at once easier of accomplishment and more showy in effect than the results of their efforts with brush and pencil. To sat- isfy these cravings, various forms of decorative work were introduced, at which the artist instructors complacently winked, but when it was proposed to add "art em- broidery" to the course of instruction, they packed up their brushes and colors, shouldered their easels, and incontinently abandoned the field to the false gods pre- ferred by so many to the severe divinity of "high art." The Union lingered on through some months of slow degeneration and disintegration, but finally gave up the ghost in 1886. "Too many cooks" was the verdict of the jury of experts who informally "sat upon" the remains.
The same year saw the inception of another art society which, although it can hardly be said to have sprung, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the defunct Union, certainly included some of its former members. The new organization, styled "The Artists' Association of New Orleans," was the happy thought of Mr. B. A. Wik- strom, then but newly arrived from lands where art has long flourished, and was accepted with enthusiasm by his brethren of the brush. The fraternity had but
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little spare cash, but they made up in abundant good will for the deficiencies of their exchequer. Every man was ready to put his hand to the work, and fingers that were accustomed to the delicate manipulation of palette colors now grasped the coarse brushes of the kalsominer and the house painter, and flourished other implements equally alien, but serviceable in the task of fitting up a home for their club. In order to increase their influence in the community, as well as to create a fund for the furtherance of art purposes, it was decided to formn classes in the various branches of painting, the artist members giving their services as teachers free of other charge than the initiation fee and annual dues. The corps of instruc- tors included B. A. Wikstrom, water colors and out-door sketching; Paul Poincy, cartoon and perspective ; Andres Molinary, oils; A. Perelli (sculptor), modelling. For a time the classes were full and the signs seemed bright with promise, but again the interest of the students died out, the classes dwindled, and finally, after three years of unremunerated labor, it was decided to discontinue them and to maintain the Association purely for the cultivation of good fellowship among the members, its relations with the public being confined to exhibits of original work and of such collections from other places as can be secured. In 1899 the directors of the Fisk Free and Public Library placed at the service of the Association a room adjoining the large reading room as a sort of gallery for the permanent exhibition of paintings.
The Association has held fourteen exhibitions, the last one in December, 1899, to which twenty-two artists contributed. Of these, sixteen are residents of New Or- leans, professional and amateur. Prominent among the non-resident artists represented by their work were Dodge McKnight, of Mystic, Conn., who has once before exhibited in New Orleans, and George H. Clements, a native of Louisiana and an artist of European reputation, now located at Flushing, L. I. The other non-residents are Walter Burridge and F. L. Linden, of Chicago, Ill., Miss L. L. Heustis, of New York, and Robert Koehler, of Minneapolis, Minn. Mr. Robert B. Mayfield, a local artist who was represented by a dozen canvases, has studied in Paris, where he spent three years in the ateliers of the best masters. He paints both figures and landscapes, though his time is chiefly given to illustrative work. Mr. Mayfield is the regular artist of the Times-Democrat. Among the amateur mem- bers of the Association who have achieved a very creditable degree of skill may be mentioned its president, Mr. P. M. Westfeltd, its vice-president, Mr. Frank Cox, and Mr. A. J. Drysdale. The Association numbers among its members several ladies, who are also among its most zealous workers. Mrs. Gertrude Roberts Smith and Miss Mary G. Shecrer are artists by profession, and are actively engaged as
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