USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884, Volume I > Part 19
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* These were John Trumbull, John Wesley Jarvis, William Dunlap, G. Marsiglia, C. C. Ingham, Henry Inman, Waldo and Jewell, Rembrandt Peale, N. Rogers, James Herring, Jr., N. Jocelyn, W. Birch, Miss Peale, William Wall, A. B. Durand (engraving of Trum- bull's " Declaration of Independence"), and Gilbert Stuart.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE National Academy of the Arts of Design, it has been observed, was the competitor for public fame and the successor of the American Academy of Fine Arts. It was the logical product of the narrow, ungenerous, and unwise policy of the latter institution.
When Colonel John Trumbull, a soldier in and an artist of the period of the old war for independence, became president of the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York, on the retirement of De Witt Clinton, he introduced a policy which was calculated to repress rather than to encourage the aspirations of those who felt the inspiration of inborn genius for art. Trumbull had lived to the life-period of "threescore and ten," and during a time when there was very little encouragement, either in words of praise or offerings of money, for the practitioner of the fine arts. Almost the only branch of fine art in America productive of a livelihood for the artist was that of portrait painting. It ministered to egotism, and was patronized. Therefore Trumbull, who aspired to the position of an historic painter, had been full of grievous disappointments ; and in comparative poverty tow- ard the end of his earthly life, he seems to have felt that a part of his future benevolent mission in society was to prevent clever young men from following his unproductive profession as a vocation. To the admirable artist, the now venerable Weir, when the youth showed him evidences of genius and asked his advice, the veteran said, " You had better make shoes than attempt to print them." And to the bright and enthusiastic boy, Agate, when the lad timidly showed the Nestor some of his excellent sketches. Trumbull said, " Go saw wood !"'
Yet Trumbull was not naturally a churl. He was a kind-hearted, courteous gentleman, a scholar. a true lover of art and sincere admirer of genius. But he had become soured by vicissitudes, and was totally unfitted by circumstances for the important position of chief manager of such an institution as he then controlled.
Colonel Trumbull persistently opposed the establishment of schools of art in connection with the Academy, and when the directors had resolved to do so, he imposed such restrictions and allowed such
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embarrassments that young students were practically prohibited from availing themselves of the privilege of drawing from the casts in the Academy. It was stipulated that they should draw only in summer. and then between the hours of six and nine in the morning. Those who attempted to comply with these rules were often subjected to indignities at the hands of a surly janitor, who " put on airs" because he had been a " Continental soldier," and this conduet was ever unrebuked by the president.
An unwise revision of the by-laws of the Academy was made, in which discriminations against professional artists were so conspicuous that they felt sorely aggrieved. It was decreed that academicians, not to exceed twenty in number, professional artists, should be chosen by the directors from the stockholders. As few artists were then rich enough to, become stockholders, the number of academicians was very small. Only three artists were allowed a place in the board of eleven directors, and so artists were virtually excluded from the management of the institution. None but " artists of distinguished merit" were permitted to exhibit their works, while amateurs were invited " to expose in the gallery of the Academy any of their performances." These discriminations were offensive to the artists of the city. It effectually barred all young and growing artists who were yet " un- known to fame" from exhibiting works in the Academy.
At length an open rupture between the city artists and the Academy occurred. At that juncture (early in 1825) a tall, slender, personally attractive young portrait painter was among the aggrieved. He had struggled for existence in the city, with poverty in obscurity, while waiting for commissions ; now he was known and prosperous. Social in his instincts, kindly in his nature, he had beheld with much concern that the artists of the city were standing apart. in an attitude of indifference toward each other, if not in actual antagonism. This state of things his loving nature deplored, and by his winning ways and manly words he had succeeded in bringing most of the artists into fraternal social relations with each other. This was a most auspicious circum- stance at this critical moment in the history of the fine arts in the city of New York. There was a perfect sympathy of feeling concerning the grievances of the city artists, and they were ready to act in concert in an effort to provide a remedy for them. The artist alluded to was Samuel F. B. Morse, afterward the famous tamer of the steeds of Phaethon to the common intellectual uses of man.
Among the younger of the aggrieved artists was Thomas S. Com- mings. a young man of twenty-one years, and a student with Honey
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Inman .* In consequence of a personal affront and persistent injustice toward art students, young Cummings drew up a remonstrance and petition to the directors of the Academy, setting forth in the former the grounds of complaint by the artists, and in the latter praying that students might enjoy, without unnecessary hindrance, the privileges to which the directors had invited them. The petition was warmly com- mended by the artists. Early in the fall of 1825 many of them assem- bled at the studio of Mr. Morse, when it was concluded that further efforts to conciliate the directors and managers of the Academy would! be useless, for there was a potent energy within the government of the institution inimical to the artists, and uncontrollable by the few direct - ors who took an active interest in its affairs. The petition was not presented.
At the conference in his studio (No. 69 Broadway) Morse suggested that an association might be formed for the promotion of the arts of design and the assistance of students, composed wholly of artists, as such an association ought to be. This suggestion was heartily ap- proved, and a formal meeting of the artists of New York was held on the evening of November 8, 1825, in the rooms of the New York Ilis- torical Society. Asher Brown Durand was called to the chair, and Mr. Morse was appointed secretary. At that meeting an association. to be composed of architects, painters, sculptors, and engravers, was organized, and called " The New York Drawing Association," with Mr. Morse as president. Its rules were few and simple. They pro- vided that its members should meet in the evening, three times a week. for drawing ; that each member should furnish his own drawing mate- rials ; that the expenses for light, fuel, etc., should be paid by equal contributions ; that new members should be admitted on a majority vote, on the payment of $5 entrance fee, and that the lamp should
* Henry Inman was for many years the leading portrait painter of the country. He was born in Utica, N. Y., October, 1801. He became a pupil of John Wesley Jarvis, and early excelled in the painting of miniature portraits. He afterward devoted his labors almost entirely to the production of portraits in oil, and spent some time in Philadelphia and Boston in the pursuit of his profession. Failing health induced him to visit Eng. land in 1844, where he painted portraits of Dr. Chalmers, Wordsworth, Macaulay, and other celebrated men then living. Returning in 1845 with unrestored health, he nn- dertook to furnish the National Capitol with a series of pictures illustrating the settle- ment of the West, but did not complete the first one he undertook. . He was a versatile painter. After his death a collection of one hundred and twenty-seven of his picture; was exhibited for the benefit of his family. Mr. Inman was at one time vice-president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design. He had exquisite literary taste, and wrote some valuable sketches. He died in New York in January, 1846.
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be lighted at six o'clock and extinguished at nine o'clock in the evening.
". The Lamp !" It was a famous illuminator, which was extolled in song as
" A bright volcano hoisted high in air, Smoking like Etna, shedding lurid light On gods and goddesses and heroes rare, Who were unmindful of their dingy plight."
This lamp was a tin can, holding about half a gallon of oil, with a wick four inches in diameter, and set upon a post about ten feet in height. To secure sufficient light the wick was kept " high," which made it smoke intensely, and showers of lampblack fell softly on every object in the room.
The organization of the New York Drawing Association was the planting of the germ of the National Academy of the Arts of Design. The president of the old Academy claimed the members of the Drawing Association as students of the elder institution. One even- ing, a few weeks after their organization, Colonel Trumbull entered their room while they were at work. took the president's chair, and beckoned young Cummings to him. He offered him the matriculation book of the Academy, with a request that he and his fellow-members should enter their names in it as " students of the American Academy of Fine Arts." Cummings politely declined to receive the book. and bowing respectfully, retired. His fellow-members kept on with their work unmindful of the venerable intruder, who soon left the room. saying in a loud voice, " Young gentlemen, I have left the matricula- tion book ; when you have signed it, return it to the secretary of the Academy."
There was a flutter of excitement among the artists present after the intruder had retired. President Morse called the members to order, when the questions were discussed : " Have we any relation to the American Academy of Fine Arts ? Are we its students ?" The association replied to the first question. " None whatever, " and to the second question, " We are not students of the Academy. We have been set adrift, and we have started on our own resources."
The die was now cast. Prompt action was necessary, and it was boldly taken. The few small casts which the association had borrowed from the Academy were sent back with courteously expressed thanks. Yet there was a strong desire to fraternize with the old institution, and arrangements to that end were made by conference committees. It
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was agreed that the Drawing Association should have six representa- tives in the board of directors of the Academy. To make four of the six chosen for seats. stockholders, to meet the requirement of the laws of the Academy, the amount required was paid out of the treasury of the association. At the election which occurred, a fortnight after- ward, only three of the six chosen were elected.
This violation of a solemn compact, this taking their money by a false pretext, made the members of the Drawing Association very indignant. The last link which bound them to the Academy, by honor or courtesy. had been ruthlessly broken. The elected members refused to serve. The Drawing Association, feeling itself competent to form an inde- pendent academy, resolved to do so, and to organize a new institution. to be managed by artists alone, and founded on such liberal principles as should tend to stimulate and foster a love for the practice of the arts of design.
For this purpose the New York Drawing Association met on the evening of the 14th of January, 1826. The president, Mr. Morse, after stating the chief object of the meeting, proposed a plan of organi- zation as follows : " Let every member," he said, "take home with him a list of all the members of our association. Let each one select for himself from the whole list, fifteen whom he would call profes- sional artists, to be the ticket which he will give at the next meeting. The fifteen thus chosen shall immediately select not less than ten nor more than fifteen professional artists, in or out of the association, who shall with the previous fifteen constitute a body to be called The National Academy of the Arts of Design. To these shall be delegated all powers to manage its affairs."
Mr. Morse, alluding to the name he had chosen for the new Acad- emy, said : " Any less name than . National ' would be taking one below the American Academy, and therefore is not desirable. If we are simply associated artists, their name would swallow us up ; there- fore ' National ' seems a proper one. As to the . Arts of Design ' -- painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving-while the fine arts include poetry, music. landscape gardening, and the histrionic arts, our name would express the exact character of our institution, and that only." *
Morse's plan was adopted by unanimous consent, and on the evening of January 18, 1826, the organization of the National Academy of the
* See " The National Academy of the Arts of Design and its Surviving Founders," in Harper's Magazine for May, 1883. by Benson J. Lossing.
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Arts of Design was completed by the election of S. F. B. Morse president, John L. Morton secretary, and A. B. Durand treasurer. until a constitu- tion should be adopted. This was soon done, when Thomas S. Cum- mings was elected treasurer, and filled that important office for fully forty consecutive years afterward. Of the thirty artists who were its founders, only three now (1883) remain upon the earth-namely, A. B. Durand, John Evers, and Thomas S. Cummings. The following are the names of the founders : Samuel Finley Breese Morse. Henry Inman, Asher Brown Durand, John Frazee, William Wall, Charles C. Ingham, William Dunlap, Peter Maverick, Ithiel Town, Thomas S. Cummings, Edward C. Potter, Charles C. Wright, Mosely J. Dan- forth, Hugh Reinagle, Gerlando Marsiglia, Samuel Waldo, William Jewett, John W. Paradise, Frederick S. Agate, Rembrandt Peale, James Coyle, Nathaniel Rogers, J. Parisen, William Main, John Evers, Martin E. Thompson, Thomas Cole, Jolm Vanderlyn, Alexander An- derson, and D. W. Wilson.
The new institution began its work with promptness and vigor. An Antique School was opened in a room procured of the Philosophical Society, and in May (1826) the first exhibition of the Academy was opened in the second story of a house on the corner of Broadway and Reade Street, lighted by day with ordinary side-windows, and at night by six gas-burners." The pictures were one hundred and seventy-six in number, all by living artists, and never exhibited before. The pri- vate view of these pictures was attended by Governor Clinton and his suite, the mayor and common council of the city, the president and faculty of Columbia College, and distinguished persons in New York. It was a fixed rule of the Academy that a picture should be exhibited but once. This insured novelty. The new institution was very popular from the beginning.
The old Academy and its friends chose to consider its young sister as a rival, and unfair criticisms of its first exhibition, ungenerous attacks upon the reputation of some of its members, sneers concerning the incapacity of artists to manage business affairs, and free prophecies of its speedy failure and demise were seen in the daily newspapers. The
* The introduction of illuminating gas had not yet become general in the city. The first attempt to introduce it in the United States was made at Baltimore between 1816 and 1820. It was a failure. In 1822 it was successfully introduced into Boston, and in 1823 the first company for its introduction into New York was formed, with a capital of $1,000,000. It was incorporated as "The New York Gaslight Company." The people were slow to adopt it, and the company was not in full operation before 1827, when the population of the city was about 160,000.
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chief managers were spoken of as " beardless boys." One individual. who had been denied admission to its membership because of his quar relsome disposition, kept up these attacks for years, but when age and poverty became his companions he acknowledged his error.
Meanwhile the old Academy was dying for want of nourishment. Attempts had been made by it to prolong its existence by union with its vigorous sister, but failed, and in 1841 it expired. Its statuary was purchased by the National Academy for $400.
The National Academy of the Arts of Design was incorporated by the Legislature in 1828. It was migratory from the beginning. It> second exhibition was held over Tylee's baths, in Chambers Street. From 1829 for ten years it occupied more spacious apartments in Clin- ton Hall. Then it removed to the building of the New York Society Library, corner of Leonard Street and Broadway, where it remained ten years. Up to that time it had struggled under a burden of debt. but by the skilful management of Treasurer Cummings that load was entirely removed, and its schools were placed in a flourishing state. 1 library had been established, and its yearly exhibitions were more and more profitable.
Having purchased property on Broadway, opposite Bond Street, the Academy took possession of this new and more spacious home in 1849. After experiencing many vicissitudes, it sold this property at a profit sufficient to purchase the ground on which its home now stands, and leaving a surplus of $10,000 in the treasury. For this auspicious result the institution is indebted to the financial ability and untiring and unselfish labors of Treasurer Cummings. And had the association listened to and heeded his counsels, a far better location than the one now occupied might have been secured at a less price, at the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue.
The corner-stone of the new Academy building was laid in the fall of 1862. The edifice was completed and dedicated to the Muse of Art in 1866, when Treasurer Cummings, seeing the institution comfortably housed and fairly prosperous, resigned his long-held office and retired to a pleasant country-seat in Connecticut .*
* Thomas S. Cummings was born on August 26, 1804. He was the only son of his parents. At a very early age he evinced taste and talent for art, and this was fostered by Augustus Earle, the " wandering artist," who found a home for a while under the roof of the elder Cummings, when the gifted son was abont fourteen years of age. The father. however, had determined that his son should be a merchant, and he placed him in a counting-room. There he remained about three years, dutiful, industrions, and an apt learner of some of the best lessons of commercial life. There he acquired, by experience
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The architectural style of the Academy building is called " Venetian Gothic," its exterior having been copied after a famous palace in Venice. It is built of gray and white marble and bluestone. The entire cost of the ground and buildings was about 8237,000.
The National Academy of the Arts of Design is a private association, managed exclusively by artists for the public good. Its means are devoted entirely to the cultivation of the arts of design. It comprises professional and lay members, the former being the academicians, associate and honorary, and the latter honorary members and fellows. Connoisseurs, amateurs, and all lovers of art may become fellows by the payment of a subscription of $100. A subscription of $500 consti-
and observation, a knowledge of the art of business management which was of essential service to him in all his after life.
But the genius of young Cummings could not be confined in its aspiration to the realm of trade. His longings to become an artist were irrepressible, and his wise father, per- ceiving the bent of his desire, gratified the youth by placing him under the instructions of Henry Inman, the eminent artist in oil and water colors. The making of small por- traits in water-colors on ivory (called miniatures) specially delighted the pupil, and in very early life he became one of the most eminent artists in this line then living. This lofty position he held until Daguerre summoned the sun to the realm of human art, and instituted him an eternal rival of artists.
Inman and Cummings were business partners for six years, when the latter abandoned the use of oils and devoted himself exclusively to the production of small portraits in water-colors. In this style of art he produced some admirable compositions, which were reproduced by some of the best engravers of that day. Among these compositions, " The Bracelet," " The Bride," and " The Exchange of Queens," were most conspicuous for the accuracy of drawing and their exquisite coloring. Equally so were his large half- length figures in Scotch costume, which had all the strength of oil- color with the delicacy of the finest water-color pictures ; also " The Ariadne" and " The Lily."
Mr. Cummings was one of the earliest and most efficient coadjutors of Mr. Morse in the establishment of the National Academy of the Arts of Design. He was a general favorite with all the artists, for to his commanding talent in the profession he added an urbanity of manner and a generosity of spirit that won all bearts. During his Jong per- sonal connection with the Academy as its treasurer -- a period of FORTY conseentive years -- he was one of the most judicious, energetic, efficient, and untiring workers in its behalf, as its annals fully attest. He was especially helpful (thanks to his early business training) when dark clouds of pecuniary embarrassment overshadowed its prospects at times. Through his skilful management for several years of property belonging to the Academy, on Broadway near Bond Street, he secured for it at its final sale more than $60,000 above its debts, with which it provided purchase money for the site of its present home and building thereon.
The schools of the Academy were special objects of the care of Mr. Cummings, and he conducted them for several years with success, on a plan of his own. He also con- dueted a private school for many years. Nor were his tastes or his labors confined to art ; scientific and literary bodies, as well as the benevolent institutions of the city, felt his influence. Mr. Cummings succeeded Professor Samuel F. B. Morse as professor of the arts of design in the University of the City of New York, and held that position
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tutes a fellow in perpetuity, with power to bequeath its privileges fed all time. The academicians and associates are limited in number in one hundred each. In 1853 its academicians numbered ninety-two. and its associates eighty-two.
The art schools of the Academy were free until 1852. They consist of an Antique and Life school. In the latter are living models, draped and nude. The schools are open to both sexes. They were the special object of Treasurer Cummings's care during his official conner. tion with the Academy for fully forty years. At an early period he introduced a plan of his own, and conducted the instruction with great success. *
until his retirement from the city. In lectures, essays, and other literary productions on the subject of art, he contributed largely. In 1865 he completed and published an octavo volume of three hundred and sixty-four pages, entitled " Historical Annals of the National Academy of Design." This will forever remain a trustworthy history of the foundation and progress of that institution during the first forty years of its existence.
When in 1838 Professor Morse was ready to exhibit his electro-magnetic telegraph to the public, Mr. Cummings, as will be observed hereafter, was a conspicuous witness of its first public test, at the University. He had lately been commissioned a brigadier- general by Governor Seward. In military science and tactics he became very efficient. He passed rapidly through all the grades of office in the Second Regiment N. Y. S. Light Infantry, from ensign to colonel, and commanded it several years before he became a brigadier. He was regarded as one of the soundest military jurists in the country. Ilis decisions, made by virtue of his office, though sometimes contested by the most eminent legal talent in the city, were never reversed by higher authority.
More than thirty years ago the then Governor-General of Canada, visiting General Cum- mings's studio, saw a beautiful small copy, in water-colors by that artist, of the portrait of Mrs. Washington, by Stuart, and said, " How my Queen would delight in such a picture of that lady!" The artist generously presented it to her Majesty, and in due time received a letter of acknowledgment, with a beautiful gold medal bearing her effigy on one side.
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