USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 52
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The foundation of the Museum of Fine Arts was the most important step ever taken in Boston for the promotion of art. In 1869, when Colonel T. B. Lawrence bequeathed to the Athenæum his valuable collection of arms and
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armor, it was plain that the time had come when a new building was neces- sary for the Art Gallery. Mrs. Lawrence at once offered to contribute $25,000 towards it; Harvard College agreed to place temporarily in it the Gray collection of engravings; and the trustees of the Public Library, the Insti- tute of Technology, and the Lowell Institute offered assistance. An act of incorporation was procured, and trustees appointed early in 1870. A lot of land had some years before been given by the Water Power Company to the city for a Fine Arts Institute or Public Square, which the city now presented to the trustees, with the condition that the building. should be open to all on four days in each month. The public responded generously to the call for funds, so that before the summer of 1871 $250,000 were promised, - Mrs. Lawrence, T. G. Appleton,1 and Nathaniel Thayer being the largest contributors. Rich and poor joined in the work, the sums rang- ing from $25,000 to the modest offering of less than one dollar. A plan prepared by Sturgis & Brigham was selected by competition out of four- teen offered; the centre and one wing, being a sixth part of the proposed design, were at once erected, and the Museum was formally opened to the public on July 3, 1876.
Although the Lawrence armor had meanwhile been destroyed in the great fire, the insurance money was used to buy a collection of embroideries and carvings; Mrs. Lawrence had given a room of rare old English panel- ling; valuable Egyptian antiquities had been received from Mr. Lowell and Mr. Way; and other generous individuals had contributed so many works of art, that, including those belonging to the Athenæum, the whole formed a gallery such as never had been seen in Boston, and promised well for the future. In 1878 more space had become necessary. A new appeal to the public was liberally answered; $125,000, in sums from $5,000 to $1, were promptly contributed. H. P. Kidder, J. M. Sears, Q. A. Shaw, and Martin Brimmer headed the list. The front of the building was now com- pleted. Built of brick, with ornaments of terra cotta, in Venetian Gothic style, it is a beautiful and most characteristic edifice, well described as one which no intelligent person, seeing it for the first time, could possibly take for anything but a museum.2
The undertaking has steadily prospered. The gallery of casts is one of the best in the world, embracing late discoveries at Olympia, and a large collection from the Technological Museum. A cast of the Pandroseum is the only full-sized reproduction of a Greek monument ever brought to the United States. It is justly claimed that the first floor of the Museum illus- trates all the phases of sculpture in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. Donations of works of art have been numerous; and many others have been temporarily placed in the rooms, where they are available for pur-
1 [Mr. Appleton had been a benefactor of the city, when he bought and gave (in 1869) to the Public Library the large collection of en- gravings which had been formed in Rome by Cardinal Tosti, - of which a catalogue has been
printed by the library. It is particularly rich in portraits, - ED.]
2 [A heliotype of the Museum is given in the chapter on " Architecture in Boston," in the pres- ent volume .- ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
poses of study. Artists are by courtesy allowed free admittance to the gal- leries, and copying is permitted of any work, unless the owner objects. The Japanese objects belonging to Dr. W. Sturgis Bigelow form for this country an almost unrivalled collection. Special exhibitions are frequently placed on the walls. Hunt's works were brought together in large numbers soon after his death. Over a hundred portraits by Stuart, -the largest number ever collected, - drawings and paintings by the late Dr. Rimmer, works of living American artists, drawings by Blake, a series of designs by Ruskin, a collection of etchings, and an exhibition of Allston's pictures have been in turn opened to the public.
Saturday has been a free day at the Museum from the beginning; and since 1878 the doors have been open to all on Sunday afternoons, with the happiest results. Crowds of people who have no leisure to visit such places on week-days are present on Sundays, and the good order which prevails shows the wisdom of the plan. The total number of visitors in 1880 was one hundred and seventy thousand. The good influence exerted on the community through such a number of visitors cannot be over-esti- mated. The Museum becomes a constant educator, supplementing by silent and necessarily unknown processes the work of its classes of instruction.
The most important of these is the School of Drawing and Painting. In July, 1876, the trustees of the Museum voted to grant the use of certain rooms for a school of drawing. A scheme to found such a school was al- ready under way, and at once took a definite shape, funds being provided by public subscription, and a committee chosen to make all arrangements. Mr. Otto Gruntmann, of Antwerp, came over to take charge of the school, and Dr. William Rimmer was named instructor in anatomy, and continued until his death, in 1879, to fill the office for which his remarkable knowl- edge of anatomical art peculiarly qualified him.1 The school has been carried on with success, under the supervision of a committee who have brought much thought and experience to their task, and obtained excellent results. The complete scheme of training for the professional student and the amateur is thus described by Mr. Crowninshield, instructor in painting. There are three divisions of the school. In the elementary the pupil learns to handle his materials, in representing the cast, drapery, and, towards the end, life; to this class the pupil is admitted on application. In the middle class he devotes himself to the life, the portrait, drapery, still-life, the an- tique, etc., in any materials save oils; an examination is the test for admis- sion to this class; a series of lectures on anatomy, shades and shadows, perspective, architecture, color, history of art and costume accompanies the
1 The Museum possesses the cast of a very remarkable statue by Dr. Rimmer, representing a Gladiator falling backward from a blow on his head. The action is indicated with great vividness; and the wonderful exactness of the modelling, while it excited the admiration of an- atomists here, led the best judges in Paris to
suppose it was a deception, and cast from a liv- ing figure. A striking head of St. Stephen, also by Dr. Rimmer, was cut directly from the gran- ite block, without being first modelled in clay. [See a paper on Dr. Rimmer, by T. H. Bartlett, in the American Art Review, i. His " Hamil- ton " is given in Vol. III. of this History. - ED.]
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daily instruction in drawing. The third and highest class, reached only by examination, is for painters.
With the co-operation afforded to it by the Institute of Technology, the Society of Decorative Art, and the Lowell Institute,1 this school offers greater advantages than any in the United States. To prove its success, it should not be held to producing any great number of professional artists ·who shall reach high excellence: not one such can be looked for in a generation ; but it may be expected to raise the general level of art; and if it creates a body of intelligent and instructed amateurs, whose judgment, founded on principles and developed by study, is something besides an ex- pression of individual fancy, and who are capable of guiding and influenc- ing the public taste, the value of its work is very great. The erection of a higher and a more fixed standard of art is a thing much needed in our community, which is too self-confident and inclined to insist on being a law unto itself.
. Connected with the Museum there is a school of carving and modelling ; its main purpose being to make its pupils sufficiently skilful to earn their own livelihood. It has been in successful operation for four years; and though rather an industrial school in its design, it is so surrounded by artistic influences and advantages, that its teachings cannot fail to promote a knowledge and love of art among us.
The Society of Decorative Art has a double purpose. Its charitable, or rather its benevolent, object is to enable persons of culture and talent to turn their gifts to account by disposing of their work, which is examined by a committee, and, if found worthy, placed for sale in the Society's rooms. At the same time the criticisms made by the committee, when requested, and the opportunities of comparison, and the competition afforded by exhibition in the rooms, have during the three years of the Society's exist- ence greatly improved the quality of the work offered, and thus practically raised the standard of taste in decorative as distinguished from high art. Schools of painting on porcelain and of art-needlework, connected with the Society, are doing good work in the same direction.
Instruction in drawing in the Boston public schools has taken a new de- parture within ten years. Under the old system the attempts were feeble and directed to a wrong end. It would be no more absurd to try to make poets out of all the pupils than to try to turn them all into picture-makers, which is what the old system did ; but with so little success that the School Committee, in their report for 1870, described drawing as the feeblest of all the studies. By an act of the Legislature passed in May, 1870, drawing was included in the branches to be taught in the public schools; and special courses of industrial and mechanical drawing were imposed upon all towns of ten thousand inhabitants, while smaller towns were authorized to establish
1 [See the account of the Lowell Institute in Mr. Dillaway's chapter on " Education," in this volume. - ED.]
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them if they saw fit. Boston was the first to carry out this law; and the first steps were fortunately made in the right direction.
Mr. Charles C. Perkins had just returned from a long residence in Europe, during which he had given much attention to art in all its branches. The Committee on Drawing applied to him for advice. The history of England's experience was familiar to him. He had seen the mortifying testimony of her inferiority at the World's Fair, in 1852, which led to the formation of the South Kensington School; and he had observed the steady improvement in industrial art which that school had effected. The great lesson of that experience was this: that the first thing was to get some one to teach the teachers. At Mr. Perkins's request, the authorities of the Kensington School selected Mr. Walter Smith as the best man for the place. He was however at the head of several art-schools in England, giving him a larger salary than Boston could offer him; and we should have lost his valuable aid had not the State Board of Education, seeing the advantage of basing instruction throughout the State upon one plan, ap- pointed him agent-to assist the schools in carrying out the act of 1870. He accepted the joint appointment, and entered on his duties in the autumn of 1871. He had been connected with the present English plan of instruc- tion in drawing from the beginning, and felt a strong interest in aiding a new country to profit by the experience gained by twenty years of success- ful work at home. The creation of an entire new system was necessarily committed to his zeal and discretion, no formal specification of his duties being possible. To him and to Mr. Perkins, who, as Chairman of the Drawing Committee, has used all his influence to sustain him in carrying out his plans, the degree of success is due which has been reached in" ten years.1
In 1873 the State Board of Education appealed to the Legislature for aid, and the Normal Art School was established, whose primary object is to educate and train teachers of industrial drawing. The. graduates in- struct the teachers in the public schools, and supervise the lessons they give. The interest felt in the subject is shown by one fact. In 1880, of the teachers who had not previously earned certificates of competency, all but five had attended the classes provided for their instruction, and were teaching satisfactorily.
The Primary, Grammar, and High schools are viewed as general schools, and in them drawing should be taught, like the other branches of a com- mon education, by the regular teachers. In the Normal Art and Evening Drawing schools it becomes a specialty, needing special instructors. Ex- perience had convinced Mr. Smith that every one who can be taught to write can be taught to draw; and this maxim, the base of the system, has proved true here as it did in England. But to set the scheme in full opera-
1 For reasons which do not affect what is way's chapter on "Education " in the present here said, the School Committee of Boston did volume .- ED.] not re-elect Mr. Smith in 1881. [See Mr. Dilla-
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tion required a certain time; and when the system was extended to the High schools, in September, 1880, many of the committee doubted whether the time for the change had quite come.
Beginning in the Primary schools, with the simplest geometric forms drawn on a slate, the pupil goes through a course of skilfully-planned ex- ercises; and before he has left the Grammar School he has acquired a considerable power of designing. In the High School shading and drawing from simple objects are added; designing becomes industrial art, in its ap- plication to decoration; and machine drawing is taught. If the instruction stops here, and the pupil goes into active life, it would be hard to over- estimate the advantage of this art-knowledge.
Evening drawing schools are open thrice a week, from October to April, to all who will agree to attend regularly; this being the only condition of admission. The course is of two years: one of freehand and instrumental drawing; the second of either one or the other. An examination at the beginning of the second year determines the pupil's place. Professional instruction in studies like architecture or artistic subjects is not the busi- ness of these schools, which aim to teach practical branches, like building- construction, machine and ship draughting, etc. There were last year about six hundred students, with an average attendance of fifty per cent ; and each pupil, besides receiving class instruction with the blackboard, produced on the average seven elaborate drawings.
Nine tenths of the art exhibition of Massachusetts at the Centennial Ex- hibition came from Boston. The Normal Art School, therefore, although a State institution, forms a part of our city system of instruction. The teach- ers of drawing in the five normal schools of the State have all been students in the Art School; teachers in the lower schools are either graduates of the normal schools, or have come more directly in contact with the Art School ; so the force and direction of any impulse from this are felt through the whole structure. The full course of study comprises four years; and a thorough mastery of each year's studies, proved by the marks obtained during the year, drawings accepted and approved, and a strict examina- tion, are required. before the student receives a certificate in that class and can enter the next. Instrumental and freehand drawing and industrial designs form the first year's work. In the second, painting, theory of color, art-anatomy, ornament, and the various processes of engraving are added. The constructive arts come into the third year; and in the last sculpture, modelling, and casting. Broad as this programme seems, it is thoroughly carried out. The number of students who have completed a full course, - just half belonging to each sex, - is not large. The demand for such accomplished teachers is necessarily small; and many have accepted situations demanding only more moderate acquirements. A certificate of any class in the school is proof of thorough training in the studies em- braced therein; and a holder of a graduate's diploma is perhaps as well qualified an art teacher as the world can show.
VOL. IV .- 52.
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COLONEL WILLIAM PRESCOTT JUNE 17.1775
STORY'S PRESCOTT.1
The approval here expressed of our system of drawing-instruction is confirmed by the opinion of the French Commissioners on Education at the Centennial Exhibition. After pronouncing the Massachusetts exhibit to
1 Mr. William W. Story, in the execution of felt. The required sum was raised by sub- this statue, showed that his interest was heart- scription, and the statue modelled in Rome in
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be the most complete of all that were offered, they declared that if France would defend her pre-eminence in art, all teachers must be able to give first instructions in drawing to the entire school population. These words were written in 1876, only five years after the foundations of our system were laid. Considered in connection with improvement since made, they are a strong approval of the past and encouragement for the future.1
A great improvement has of late years been made in all our manu- factures in which design plays an important part, showing the influence of trained eyes and hands. Mr. John Low, of Chelsea, is making tiles superior to any of foreign make. His dry or dust tiles, with exquisite designs in relief, are unique; and beautiful effects are produced by a pro- cess of nature-printing, impressing the clay with leaf and flower forms. The tender hues and gradation of tint in the glaze are triumphs of decorative art. The plaques in very low relief, modelled by Mr. Arthur Osborne, are wonderful in the effect of perspective and distance. The excellent designs produced at the Chelsea Pottery also deserve mention.
The difficult problem of the proper treatment of modern costume in sculpture can be studied with advantage in Boston, where there are an un- usually large number of statues of men of our time. Powers's Webster, in front of the State House, is striking from one point of view.2 Its com- panion, Horace Mann, by Miss Stebbins, is a mass of bad drapery. The Everett, by Story, and the Sumner, by Ball, both in the Public Garden, are bold examples of realism in costume. In Ball's statues of Governor Andrew and Quincy, -one at the State House and the other in front of the City Hall, - some advantage has been taken of the folds of a cloak to mask the unmanageable clothes. Where a military uniform or more picturesque costume is possible, the artist could be literal without fear of being prosaic. Chantrey's Washington, although lank and ungraceful, is dignified. Richard Greenough's Franklin3 (in front of the City Hall) and Winthrop+ (in Scollay Square) are weak figures, but the first is ornamental. A good manly figure of Sam Adams, by Miss Whitney, stands in Adams Square. Dr. Rimmer's statue of Hamilton, on Commonwealth Avenue, is of granite.5 The Army and Navy Monument, by Martin Milmore, is a tall shaft bearing a bronze figure of America, surrounded at the base by four statues of Peace, History, the Soldier, and the Sailor. Placed on the highest spot in the Common, it is a conspicuous object.6
1880. It was cast at a foundry lately estab- lished there, which promises to rival the work of Müller, of Munich. It arrived in the United States just in time to be dedicated on the anni- versary of the battle of Bunker Hill in the next year. The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop delivered an address.
1 [See a paper on "The Study of Art in Bos- ton," in Harper's Monthly Magazine, May, 1879, p. 818. Contrast "Art Schools in New York," in Scribner's Magazine, October, 1878. - ED.]
2 [Its position is seen in the view of Park Street in the chapter on " The Mayors," in Vol. III .; and there is an account of it in the note to the portrait of Webster, in Mr. Morse's chapter in this volume. - ED.|
3 [This is shown in Vol. II., p. 290. - ED.]
4 [This is shown in Vol. I., p. xxxii. - ED.]
[This is given in Mr. Lodge's chapter, in Vol. III .- ED.]
6 [This is shown in Gen. Palfrey's chapter, in Vol. III., where will be found an account of this
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The most important statue within the city proper is the equestrian figure of Washington, in the Public Garden. The pose and action of the rider
BALL'S WASHINGTON.1
are simple, but animated. Seated firmly in the saddle, the General checks his horse, lays his drawn sword across his bridle-hand, and turns his head and other monuments commemorating the ser- 1 [See the note to Mr. Lodge's chapter in vices of Boston troops in the Civil War .- ED.] Vol. III .- ED.]
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THE FINE ARTS IN BOSTON.
towards the left, with an air of calm and deliberate scrutiny highly charac- teristic of Washington. The spirited horse, unwillingly submitting to the firm hand on the rein, is in excellent contrast with the dignified and im- posing figure of the rider. The accessories are carefully studied; and the whole forms as good a representation as we can have of the hero on the battlefield. The height of the monument is thirty-eight feet. The pedestal is too high; and the consequent foreshortening mars the effect of one of the finest works of art in our city. It was erected in 1869, - the work of Thomas Ball, long a resident of Florence, though born a Boston boy.
On June 17, 1881, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, a bronze statue of Colonel William Prescott, the commander of the battle, was pre- sented to the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and placed in front of the monument. It is a bronze figure, nine feet high, representing the farmer- soldier as he appeared on the day of the fight, clad in a loose banian or gown, assumed on account of the heat, in place of his coat. The moment chosen by the artist is that of the advance of the British troops, when Prescott ordered his men not to fire until he gave the word. The left arm is thrown back with a restraining gesture, as if to enforce the words, " Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes!" The firmly poised figure stands in an attitude of intense expectation; and the statue is one of great dramatic power. William W. Story is the sculptor of this noble work. He was obliged to follow the family features, as no portrait exists.
Although the Boston Art Club has existed for a quarter of a century, it is only within ten years that it has become a flourishing institution, es- tablished in quarters of its own, under the presidency of Mr. Charles C. Perkins. There are more than eight hundred members; every year sev- eral exhibitions are opened to the public, and it does much to cultivate a love of art and a good feeling among the artists. Hitherto occupying part of a house in Boylston Street, to which an exhibition gallery was added, it is now erecting a club-house in Dartmouth Street. That a purely artistic club has so large a roll of members, and is in a flourishing condi- tion, is a good sign.
No city has more genuine love of art or more earnest followers of it than Boston. The zeal of our artists is encouraged by a large and constantly increasing class of the community. All who can look back twenty-five years must see the advance which art has made here in that period. We cannot yet pretend to anything like a national school of art. The eclec- ticism of the American character fosters imitation rather than individuality. In painting we are of late too much influenced by the modern French school, where dexterity is cultivated at the expense of simplicity and feel- ing. Yet, especially in landscape painting, our country affords material for success in distinctively American paths which have been little trodden. We are a young nation; the stir and strain of material progress which
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fills our daily life are not favorable to the development of art; but a love of the beautiful may bring softer influences into a prosaic age and country. If a more restful period of our career succeeds, it may see fuller fruit than has yet come of the fondness for art which is now a conspicuous and en- couraging feature of our people.
archuDexter
CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN BOSTON.
BY JOHN SULLIVAN DWIGHT.
T trace the more important agencies and steps of progress which have brought Boston where it stands to-day in musical taste and culture is all that will be attempted in this brief essay. The whole movement, so to speak, is really included in the present century. Before the year 1800, all that bore the name of music in New England may be summed up in the various modifications of the one monotonous and barren type, - the Puri- tan Psalmody. Its history, quaint as it may be, is more interesting as one phase of the old Puritan life and manners, than as having any significant relation to the growth of music or of musical taste and knowledge here as such. It would make a readable chapter by itself; but it would not show the germs out of which the musical character, such as it is, of Boston has developed. Music, for us, had to be imported from an older and a richer soil. Let us try to sketch its progress, which, for convenience, we will consider in four periods.
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