USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 51
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As the artist left it, -unfinished in many parts, with traces of the former design half obliterated by the new, - the picture was exhibited in the Athe-
TITANIA'S COURT, BY ALLSTON.
næum Gallery. It is now in the Museum of Fine Arts. There are things in it as fine as anything the master ever painted; but, as a whole, it is in- congruous and incomplete. Those who can see what might and would have been from what partly is, may study it with pleasure and profit; but it is a disappointment to those who love pictures, but have made no study of art. The work was one to which his genius was adequate perhaps, but his habits of mind and thought were entirely unsuited to it. Such a task needed a hand of more vigor and resolution, - not his rare delicacy of touch, and nature too sensitive for contact with the rough side of life. It was carving granite with a razor; and the blade broke.
This excess of finer qualities in his nature stood in his way in many of his pictures, which bear marks of over-work. He was too fastidious at all times. "Let well enough alone " was a phrase often on his lips, but seldom remembered at the right moment. Secluded in his studio, he kept
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THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
a picture before him, touching and re-touching it, unwilling to let it go from his hand, until the life was sometimes worked out of it. After his death some of the sketches found in his studio were published in a vol- ume, through the liberality of Mr. Stephen H. Perkins. They give, in some respects, a higher idea of the painter's genius than his pictures themselves. The golden color, rival of the Venetians', is of course want- ing. But, united with the delicacy of everything he touched, there is here a freshness and vigor, a firmness and certainty which his finished works often lack.
In 1839 a collection of more than forty of his pictures had been exhib- ited in Harding's gallery in School Street; and in the summer of 1881 the Museum of Fine Arts afforded to the present generation their first oppor- tunity of seeing the wide and firm foundation on which Allston's reputation is built, by gathering together about fifty of his works, principally from the houses of Boston families, who possess most of the pictures painted after his return from England.
Although his retiring nature kept him far from the crowd, and only a chosen few came near him; though he founded no school, and there was no troop of admiring disciples to follow his footsteps in life, and spread his fame when he had gone, - his name is still a spell. When we speak of the great artists of the world, who are of no age or country, who lived for art alone, and will never die while art lives, Allston's name rises to our lips with those of the great of old. It is not only that we place him higher than other American artists; he stands apart from them,-the only Old Master of modern times.
Contemporary with Allston, though younger, was Stuart Newton; a painter with that rarest of gifts, - an exquisite eye for color. "Ah, sir, Newton's color is magical," Allston often said. His drawing was sometimes faulty ; but his pictures, generally small and of the kind known as genre, are full of refinement; and his command of delicate humor and simple pathos is remarkable. His works were not very numerous; and on the rare occa- sions when one is offered for sale here, it is eagerly secured as a treasure. He was a charming companion, and a great favorite in society. He was born in 1793, at Halifax, N. S., where his father was collector of customs ; his mother was a sister of Gilbert Stuart. In 1803, after his father's death, he was brought to Boston by her, and the talent he already showed for painting led to his becoming a pupil of his uncle. As neither of them had a very patient temper, the connection was a brief one. About 1815 he went to study in Italy; and two years later, through the advice of the Countess of Albany, he settled in London, where he was intimate with Leslie and Morse. He began by painting portraits, but soon found out that his talent lay more in small pictures of familiar life. In October, 1831, he came to this country for rest and a change of air; and in the next year he married Miss Sullivan, of Boston, and returned with her to England, where he died at Chelsea, in 1835.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Turning to engraving, in order to keep something of a chronological order in our survey, it must be said at the outset that there has never been anything like a school of copperplate engravers in America. Unfortunately for the cultivation of this art, we have surpassed the world in bank-note work; and many who might have reached eminence have been drawn aside to the more mechanical branch, where minute work is the great thing de- manded, and artistic qualities are of less moment. In Boston the brothers John and Seth Cheney are almost the only names of importance in the past. Born in South Manchester, Connecticut, in 1801 and 1810, they began to work without the benefit of instruction and with home-made tools. After some years' practice of their profession in Boston, they went to London, where they engraved some of the plates for Parker's Boston edition of the Waverley Novels. On returning to this country John soon moved to Phila- delphia, where he lived until he gave up engraving, in middle life. The younger brother Seth, after a second voyage to Europe, during which he studied in Paris with Delaroche, and in Italy, came back to Boston, and began to take portraits in crayon. This branch of art he followed with great success, beginning about 1840, and, with one brief absence in Europe, continuing its pursuit until his death in 1856. In 1850 the publication of the outlines by Washington Allston, already mentioned, was undertaken by Mr. Stephen H. Perkins; and the two brothers, who had abandoned their former profession, took up the graver again to do honor to the dead master. It was no speculation or business enterprise, and never paid for its cost. It was a labor of love with the liberal projector and the artists. These brought to the task an exquisite delicacy of touch, and such a rever- ent accuracy that, as one of them said, he would not presume to choose between the two sides of one of Allston's lines, but gave with three fine lines the middle and each edge of the outline. The result was a volume of perfect execution. The plates and stock were burned in the great fire of 1872, and the book is now 'rare.1
The art of wood-engraving has of late years reached a high degree of perfection in America. Many books and periodicals have been published with illustrations surpassing in excellence anything of the kind produced in Europe. Encouraged by the liberality of the publishers, engravers have come forward, ambitious to lift the art out of the condition into which it had sunk, - where fineness, or rather minuteness, of work was sought at the ex- pense of more artistic qualities. Fac-simile work is less valued, the engraver aspiring to a place by the side of the artist, using his graver as a drawing- instrument, and seeking by proper direction and character of his lines to give texture and quality as well as the values or "color" of the original. Boston is now the home of some of the best living engravers on wood; but in the past we have had but one whose work was worthy to rank with the best, and who helped to advance the art to its present state.
1 The plates of "Jacob's Dream," "The "The Faries," and "Titania's Court," by the two brothers, jointly: all the others by Seth Cheney.
Ship," "The Prodigal Son," and "Prometheus " were engraved by John Cheney; " The Sibyl,"
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THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
John Andrew, born in England in 1815, came to America in 1848, and to Boston two years after, where he lived until his death in 1870. He was one of the most widely known artists in the country, and his work may be found in the most important books and periodicals of his time on both sides of the Atlantic.1
Returning to painters, we must mention James Frothingham, born in Charlestown in 1786, who was for years the best portrait painter in Boston, and yet never had the success or reputation which he deserved.2 Some of his portraits were excellent in color; and Stuart, after having once advised him to stick to his father's business of chaise-painting, changed his opinion entirely, and said of one of his pictures, "No man in Boston but myself can paint so good a head." Chester Harding, too, born in Conway, Mass., in 1792, although never more than a respectable artist, was, by a strange freak of fashion and for a season, more employed than Stuart himself. Harding wondered at it as much as we must, confessing that he could ac- count for it only by the fact that he was a backwoodsman newly caught and trumpeted forth as a self-taught man. A belief in the superiority of such seems to be one of our national weaknesses. We may learn in time that a self-taught man is apt to turn out a second-rate article. The number of Harding's pictures (mostly portraits) is very large; they are hard as sign-boards, though often good likenesses. Joseph Ames, born in Rox- bury, N.H., in 1817, was for some years a popular artist here, principally as a portrait painter. Some of his pictures are excellent in color. His many likenesses of Webster became, like Stuart's Washington, the popular type of the original. After several years' absence from Boston, he died in New York, in 1872.
This was a period in which our artists were, perhaps, as good as those of other cities, yet they have little claim to be mentioned as exercising any influence on art among us beyond keeping it alive. A backward glance over these years is not caught by any figure rising above the crowd and arresting the attention. Our interest in art continued to be of a respectable but rather languid kind, until stirred afresh by the arrival among us of one whose genius gave him authority to speak, while his enthusiasm compelled all to listen, - William Morris Hunt.
He came of an old New-England family, and his father was for many years a member of Congress. He was born in Brattleboro', Vermont, in 1824, and entered Harvard College in 1840, but did not complete the full term of instruction. He was not a hard student, and gave a good deal of his time to the art for which he was born, painting and modelling with a natural facility which left no doubt of the wisdom of his choice when he determined to make art the business of his life, and quitted college to go to Europe. For a year or two he was at Düsseldorf, and then went to Paris, where Cou- ture, at the height of his fame, was his master, and at once recognized his
1 [See W. J. Linton's "History of Wood En-
graving in America," in Am. Art.Rev., i. - En.]
2 [His portrait of Samuel Dexter hangs in Memorial Hall, Cambridge. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
great powers. Hunt was tremendously in earnest in whatever he did; and from the days of his student life to the day of his death, his art was the one thing he thought worth living for. After painting for some years with Couture, he became a follower of Millet. But there was no imitation of either master in his work; he judged both, taking what his ripening taste approved, and no more, and combining this with the fruits of a constant observation and intense love of Nature, and an absolute devotion to his art.
In 1855 he came to America, and fixed himself at Newport. Many who had seen his pictures in Paris had come home with high praises of them ; and a reputation awaited him which he justified, taking a position as one of the leading artists of America by the side of men twice his age. In 1862 he moved to Boston, and here was his home for the rest of his life. More work than he could do was pressed upon him, especially in portraits, so that he had less time than he wished for other branches of his art; and
THE DISCOVERER.
in summer he often ran away from the crowd to some out-of-the-way nook in the country, and made studies from Nature. The great fire of 1872 1 de- stroyed his studio, with almost all his drawings and sketches, - the work of more than twenty years. But his energy and industry were unchecked ; and in 1877 he gave a private exhibition in his new studio of a large collec- tion of pictures and studies produced in the five years since the fire, -a col- lection even more remarkable for the variety of subjects and of manners than for its size. It may be doubted if any painter ever lived who could show power in such varied walks of art. It was hard to believe that one mind and one hand had conceived and executed the works which covered the walls.
In the spring of 1878 he spent some time at Niagara, and made several large views of the Falls. Though painted with great freedom, and so hastily as to be rather studies than finished pictures, they were wonderful exhibi-
1 [Mr. A. T. Perkins communicated to the statement regarding the loss of collections and N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., October, 1873, a objects of art in this fire. - ED.]
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THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
tions of power. The rush of the mass of water, the mist rising from below · and half concealing the opposite shore, all the varieties of color and acci- dents of light and shade were shown with a truth and poetry unapproached in more elaborate pictures of the same subject. Viewed at a proper distance, they were as good representations of the scene as can be imagined; while artists were loud in praise of their technical qualities.
Hunt's bodily strength had never been great, and he overtasked himself at this work. He was called from it to Albany, to undertake the filling of two large spaces above the windows of the Senate chamber in the new State capitol. After some hesitation whether he was strong enough for the work, he accepted the commission, and spent the summer in Boston making the cartoons. He began the work on the last day of October; and, once en- gaged on it, he found it so congenial to his taste that he was unconscious of
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THE FLIGHT OF NIGHT.
fatigue, and his health and spirits improved; but when the task was ac- complished, in the end of December, he found how much the labor had told on him, and went to Vermont for rest. . Although not suffering from positive disease, he did not regain his strength. He had been offered the work of adorning the lower walls of the Senate chamber, and had planned a journey to Venice in company with the architect of the capitol to study the great mural works of Tintoretto, which he hoped to rival; but he began to fear that his strength had finally abandoned him when he most needed it to carry out the crowning effort of his life. In July he went to the Isles of Shoals ; but he did not improve as fast as he had hoped ; his spirits sank, and he was at times greatly depressed. On the morning of July 8 he was missing for a short time. A search revealed his lifeless body floating in a small reservoir among the low hills. At once the news was telegraphed to the press in all directions that he had committed suicide. There was no proof of this; and common charity might have stayed the hand which spread with indecent haste a report which was only a conjecture.
VOL. IV. - 51.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In November, 1879, a large number of his pictures was placed in the gallery of the Art Museum. The collection embraced the whole period of his artist-life, from the time he was a student in Paris; but while it bore the strongest testimony to the power and variety of his genius, it did not show anything like a steady advance in merit, or, indeed, regular progress of any sort. Studied chronologically, the collection showed that in all periods of his career he had from time to time made sudden changes in manner, as if conscious of a wealth of resources to be drawn on at will. He plainly had more ways than one of reaching his aim, and chose that which pleased him best at the moment. The sense of power thus conveyed was accompanied by a conviction that Hunt had not reached the height he would surely at- tain when he had determined in what path he could best walk. The car- toons of the Albany paintings - his latest works - were also his greatest achievements, fullest of thought, the mature work of his genius. They promised success on a higher plane than he had reached before, - and the hand that traced them was still forever !
After coming to live in Boston, Hunt had opened classes for instruction in painting with a success that made him a power in the community of art. Nothing was ever seen here like the hold he gained on his pupils, and the zeal with which he inspired them. His enthusiasm was magnetic, inducing a like zeal in his scholars, who worked under his inspiration as no classes in our practical, unimaginative community ever worked for a master. And yet it is hard to say how great or how lasting an influence his teaching will have on our future art. It will be less than his followers expect. With all his genius and power, Hunt had no fixed manner of his own. To the last his efforts were tentative. His works give the impression of great power in varied directions, rather than of any such digested knowledge and fixed principles as fit a man to be an instructor in art. He loved originality so much that he hesitated to attempt to teach pupils how to do anything, and only urged them to work with all their might. He roused their enthusiasm more than he instructed them. What has been published of his talks to his scholars,1 interesting and suggestive as it is, shows how little he chose to teach them how to paint. Naturally, too many of them caught up only the trick of imitating his superficial manner, which does not and cannot supply the want of a thorough education in drawing and model- ling, and in the principles of color. Hunt himself had acquired these by long years of hard labor; and his teachings presumed that his pupils possessed the knowledge which can only be thus acquired, and which should have preceded his instruction. The consequence is that most of them are imitators of their master's mannerisms, and little more; and imitation is not art.
1 [William M. Hunt's Talks on Art, edited by H. M. Knowlton, was published in 1877. A memoir of Hunt, by F. P. Vinton, was printed in the American Art Review, i. An exhibition of Hunt's pictures was given in the Museum of Fine
Arts in 1879-80; the catalogue was prefaced by a sketch by John C. Dalton. He fitted up the upper part of the building on the corner of Boyls- ton Street and Park Square for his studio. - ED.]
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THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
Sculpture was later than painting in getting a foothold in Boston, and was for a long time represented only by portrait busts. Frazee, a native of New Jersey, and Clevenger, of Ohio, lived here for a time; and they have perpetuated in marble the heads of many prominent citizens of the last generation. Ball Hughes, a Scotchman of great talent, also resided here, producing many familiar subjects, and modelling a life-like figure of Dr. Bowditch, which stands, cast in bronze, at Mount Auburn. Most of our sculptors have taken advantage of the greater facilities afforded by Italy for practising the art; and Rome and Florence have each long had a number of young Americans seeking inspiration from the antique, and profiting by the cheapness of continental life and the propensity of the average travel- ling American to bring a statue or two back with him. It is an easy thing now for one of our countrymen to go to Italy and be a sculptor; but it was a far more serious step, not likely to be taken unless by one who felt a real zeal in the cause of art, when Horatio Greenough left home, the pio- neer and first founder of the colony of American sculptors in Italy.1
He was born in Boston in 1805. He showed a propensity for art from early boyhood, using his knife to carve flowers on the handles of his toys, and making little bas-reliefs of his playmates, and coming tardy to school because he had loitered to admire a wooden eagle over a doorway, and dream how glorious it would be if he could carve such things. At Harvard he lived with Edmund Dana, to whose house Allston came every Saturday evening; and the young student always cut short his weekly holiday and hastened home to listen reverently to the great painter, who recognized in him a true artistic feeling, and encouraged him to choose art as his pro- fession. While in college Greenough offered a design for the Bunker Hill Monument, which was adopted and substantially followed in form and pro- portion.2 Without waiting to obtain his degree he set off for Europe, and there spent most of his life, residing principally in Florence, and laboring hard at his profession. His best known works are the "Washington," and the group of "The Rescue,"-both executed for the Government, and placed
at the Capitol. Much fault has been found with the first, - a semi-nude figure, more like an antique Roman than the hero of the Revolution; but in justice to the artist it should be remembered that it was intended for the rotunda, and that he was much displeased at its removal to the open air, declaring that for such a position he would have made a purely historical statue of Washington on horseback and in his usual dress, and feeling that his poetical treatment of the subject unfitted it for direct and flagrant
1 [H. T. Tuckerman published in 1853 A Memorial of Horatio Greenough ; and it is portions of this book which constitute the chapter on Greenough in his Book of the Artists. For this col- ony of American sculptors in Italy, see a paper in Harper's Monthly, vol. xli, and chapter xvi in J. J. Jarves's Art Idea, whose views are much controverted. See the paper, "Sculpture in America," in Harper's Monthly, April, 1879, one
of a series of articles by S. G. W. Benjamin, pub- lished separately as Art in America, N. Y., 1880. - ED.]
2 [It is given in G. W. Warren's History of the Bunker Hill Monument Association. See also Frothingham's Siege of Boston. Some of his papers connected with this study are in the manuscript collections of Mellen Chamber- lain .- ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
contrast with every-day life. Greenough had a versatile and highly culti- vated mind; he thought and spoke much on all subjects connected with his profession, and especially of the philosophy of art in its relations to the institutions and development of this country. Returning to America in 1851, full of high hopes of our artistic future, he impressed all who met him by the generous zeal with which he advocated many projects of taste and utility. Had he lived, his influence in the community of art might have been great; but his hopes were cut short by death within a year.
One of the earliest and best ideal statues in Boston, the " Orpheus," now at the Art Museum, and the "Beethoven" in the Music Hall, are the work of Thomas Crawford. Though he was not a native of our city, and never had a studio here, these give him the right of citizenship, so far at least as to be inscribed on our art-roll. He was born in New York, in 1813, and worked in the same marble-yard where Frazee had been employed. As soon as he could pay for his passage he went to Rome, where he lived a life of hard work and privation for some years. One evening he found he had but one paul (dime) in the world ; he spent that for a ticket to the pit of the theatre, and woke the next morning not knowing where to get a breakfast. When he entered the Caffè Greco as usual, the landlord handed him a letter: it was from Charles Sumner, and contained a portion of a sum raised by subscription in Boston, -an order for the "Orpheus." It was the beginning of success. In 1851 Mr. Charles C. Perkins determined to present to the Music Hall Association a bronze statue of Beethoven, and commissioned Crawford to make it. The sculptor eagerly accepted the offer; but, moved alike by personal friendship for the donor and gratitude to the city whence had come his first commission, he declined to accept any payment for his own work. Mr. Perkins assumed all the expense of casting, founding, and transporting the statue to the spot where it is now so appropriately placed, above the stage where the great composer's works are heard, - a monu- ment of the artist's genius and faithful memory, and of the liberality of a citizen to whom Boston owes much for his zeal in the promotion of all forms of art. It is a grand and impressive figure, draped in a cloak brought together in front in rich folds by the hands, which hold a pen and scroll. The head is bent forward on the breast. Simple in treatment and noble in sentiment, the "Beethoven" is one of the best statues we can show as the work of an American hand. Some years later Crawford received an order for the monument to Washington erected in Richmond. It involved im- mense labor, to which his strength proved inadequate. He lived to com- plete the central equestrian figure and the statues surrounding the base ; but before his task was done he had felt the approach of disease, and after a painful illness he died in London in 1857.
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