Chapter VI: Present Tendencies of American Art (1)

At the close of the fourth chapter of this volume it was briefly stated that new influences and forms of art expression have recently become prominent in our art, and are rapidly asserting their growing importance. With perhaps one or two exceptions, these new influences so gradually shade out of our former art that it is difficult to tell the exact moment when they assume an individuality of their own, and appear as new and distinct factors in the æsthetic culture of our people.

It is only when we take a retrospect of the whole field, and compare one generation with another, that we discern the vanishing point of one set of influences and the genesis of new schools, with the introduction of new branches of art culture in the community. Considering the progress of American art from this point of view, we find it divided most decidedly into periods, advancing with regular pace from one phase to another like the tints of a rainbow, shading off at the edges, but gradually becoming more intense. Thus we are able to trace in geometrical ratio the progress from primitive silhouettes and rude carvings up to the present comparatively advanced condition of the arts in this country.

And yet a closer inspection into the history of American art enables us to detect in its growth the same rapid spasmodic action, when once a start is made in a certain direction, as in other traits of our national development. There is a tropical vivacity in the manner in which with us bloom and fruition suddenly burst forth after a period of apparently unpromising barrenness. Thus West and Copley appeared almost full-fledged in art genius and capacity to adapt themselves to occupy prominent positions in Europe, and yet there were but few premonitory signs to indicate that the country was prepared for the advent of such artists.

Until recently, also, owing to some cause yet unsolved, we have not seemed able to develop more than one or two forms of art at once. At one period it was historic painting and portraiture; then portraiture, including for a time very marked success in miniature painting, headed by Fraser and Malbone, and continued by such able artists as T. S. Cummings, J. H. Brown, Miss Goodrich, and Mrs. Hall; then, all at once, landscape-painting made its appearance, and almost at a bound reached a good degree of merit. Hand in hand with landscape art came remarkable facility in line engraving. How rapidly excellence in this art was achieved in this country may be judged from the fact that in 1788 the editor of the _American Magazine_ said apologetically, in presenting an incredibly rude plate of a dredging-machine in the magazine, "The editor has given the plate of the new machine for clearing docks, etc., because he had promised it. The want of elegant plates in a work of this kind is extremely regretted, and will, if possible, be supplied. If it cannot, the editor flatters himself that the infancy of the arts in America will be accepted as an apology for the defect." And yet not twenty years from that time Peter Maverick was doing good steel-engraving in New York; and scarce ten years later Durand was executing the masterly engravings of Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence" and Vanderlyn's "Ariadne." And from that time until recently engravers like James Smillie, senior, A. H. Ritchie, and John Marshall have carried this art to a high degree of excellence; while John Sartain has attained celebrity in mezzotint.

Strange as it may seem, while portraiture, landscape, and steel engraving were pursued with such success by our artists, a feeling for the other arts could hardly be said to exist. A sympathy with form, generally the earliest art instinct to show itself, was long in awakening, as proved by the tardiness of the plastic arts to demand expression among us; while to the resources of black and white, or _camieu_, or a perception of the matchless mystery and suggestiveness of _chiaro-oscuro_, the people have, until within a very short time, seemed altogether blind. Water-colors, also, were almost hooted at; wood-engraving was for long in a pitiful condition; and as for architecture and the decorative arts, nothing worthy of the name, and scarcely a sign of a perception of their meaning, could be said to exist on this side of the Atlantic.

Some years ago W. J. Linton, one of the most distinguished wood-engravers of the century, came to this country to live. Whether that had anything to do with the very rapid development of wood-engraving here since that time cannot be stated with certainty; but, judging from analogy, we should say that he has exerted a marked influence in stimulating the remarkable progress already reached by our engravers within a very few years. A.V.S. Anthony was one of the first to respond to the awakening demand for good wood-engraving here, and has shown great delicacy and skill in interpreting the drawings of our very clever artists in black and white. Charles Marsh is also an engraver of remarkable character and originality of style. In the rendering of a decorative or highly ideal class of subjects he brings to his aid an artistic genius not surpassed by any engraver we have produced. Messrs. Morse, Davis, Hoskin, Wolf, Annin, Juengling, Kingsley, Müller, Cole, Smithwick and French, Kreul, Dana, Andrew, and King, among a number who have distinguished themselves in this art, are especially noteworthy, not only for correct rendering of the spirit of a drawing, but often for individuality of style.

One of the most interesting phases of the development of wood-engraving in this country has been the discussion as to its position among the arts, and the merits of the recent method of engraving drawings or paintings photographed directly on the wood. This discussion has been interesting and valuable as another evidence of the activity and importance which the art question has already assumed in the community. That engraving is an art, one would think could never be disputed, if the question had not already been raised with a certain degree of acrimony on the part--strange as it may seem--of those who are often dependent upon the genius of the engraver for the recognition of their abilities by the public--the artists themselves. It seems to us to be sufficient answer to those who consider it purely a mechanical pursuit, that the simple fact that the higher the artistic perceptions of the engraver the better is the engraving he does, proves it to be a work of art.

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On the other hand, it appears that the engraver may in turn assume too much when he claims to improve upon an illustration, or objects _per se_ to cutting photographs on wood. While granting to engraving the rank of art, it cannot justly be forgotten that it is, after all, a means to an end,--an art, it is true, but an art subordinate to other arts which it is designed to interpret. Once this is allowed, it follows, as a matter of course, that it is the duty of the engraver to render faithfully the drawing or painting that is to be cut; and to magnify himself not at the expense of the artist who made the drawing, but by rendering, as nearly as possible, a fac-simile of the original picture. If this be granted, then is it not clear that, instead of opposing, he should hail with satisfaction any new process which enables him to give on wood or any other material a closer copy of the style and spirit of the artist whom he is interpreting. That this can be done by a clever engraver by photographing a pen-and-ink drawing or painting directly on the wood, and then studying also the original work as he cuts it, seems to be no longer an open question. It has been demonstrated by too many excellent engravers within the last five years.

Another advantage of what we cannot but consider an advance in this art is, that it admits of a larger variety of styles, and a freer expression of the designer's methods of thought and feeling, and also enables many who do not care to work in the cramped limits of a block of wood to make a large composition in black and white, whether with Indian-ink or monochrome in oil, which is then photographed on the wood. In this way far greater freedom and individuality of handling is obtained, and a nobler utterance of the truths of nature. Can there be any question that a process which allows of such variety of expression must inure to art progress, and still more to the instruction of the people, who are directly benefited by the illustrations which are brought to their own doors, and placed in the hands of the young at the time when their tastes and characters are forming, and their imagination is most plastic and impressionable?

It would seem as if the art of wood-engraving had received in the most direct manner the action of some unseen hand, impelling it suddenly forward in this country by concerted action with the genius of illustration; for apparently by secret agreement that branch of art has within the last decade developed a comparative excellence yet reached by none of the sister arts in the land. And this turn for illustration has naturally been accompanied by an active movement in black and white drawing, particularly in crayon.

Samuel W. Rowse was one of the first to give an impetus to crayon drawing by a style of portraiture especially his own. As such he ranks with our leading portrait-painters; while the fact that he employed crayon as a medium for a time gave him a position almost entirely alone in this country. There is a wonderful subtlety in his power of seizing character and the rendition of soul in the faces he portrays. Equally happy in all the subjects he treats, he will be longest remembered, perhaps, for the many beautiful children's portraits he has executed. The success of Rowse naturally led to similar attempts by other artists; and in all our leading cities one may now find crayon artists who are more or less successful in the department of portraiture, among whom may be mentioned B. C. Munzig and Frederick W. Wright. Out of this has grown a school of landscape-artists employing charcoal--a medium that Lalanue and Allongé had already used with magical results. John R. Key, who is well known as a painter in oil, has, however, done his best work, as it seems to us, in charcoal. There is great tenderness in his treatment of light and shade, together with harmonious composition. J. Hopkinson Smith, known as a water-colorist, also handles charcoal like a master. He seizes his effects with the rapidity of improvisation, treats them in masses, and shows a feeling for _chiaro-oscuro_ that is almost unique in our art.

[Howard Pyle.]]

When we come to the book illustrators we encounter a number of artists of merit, and occasionally of genius, who are so numerous that we can select only here and there a few of the most prominent names. Felix O. C. Darley was one of the first to show the latent capacity of our art in this branch. His style soon became very mannered, but, at the same time, undoubtedly showed great originality and invention in seizing striking characteristics of our civilization, and a refined fancy in representing both humor and pathos. His linear illustrations to "Rip Van Winkle" and Judd's "Margaret" placed him, until recently, among our first two or three _genre_ artists. Less versatile and inventive, Augustus Hoppin has, however, earned an honorable position among our earlier illustrators. Louis Stephens also won distinction for an elegant rendering of humorous subjects. Then followed a group of landscape illustrators, among whom Harry Fenn holds a high position for poetically rendering the illimitable aspects of nature and the picturesqueness of rustic or Old World scenery and ruins. Under the guidance of his facile pencil how many have been instructed in art, and learned of the varied loveliness of this beautiful world! Thomas Moran ranks with Mr. Fenn as a master in this field. It appears to us that in this branch he displays more originality and imagination than in the elaborate paintings by which he is best known.

Within a very few years--so recently, in fact, that it is difficult to see where they came from--a school of _genre_ illustrators have claimed recognition in our art, educated altogether in this country, and yet combining more art qualities in their works than we find in the same number of artists in any other department of American art. It is a little singular that, notwithstanding the recent interest in black and white in this country, the _genre_ artists who represent it should at once have reached an excellence which commands admiration on both sides of the Atlantic, while our painters in the same department have rarely achieved more than a secondary rank.

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Alfred Fredericks has distinguished himself by combining landscape and figure in a most graceful, airy style; and Miss Jessie Curtis, in the delineation of the simplicity and beauty of child life, has delightfully treated one of the most winsome subjects which can attract the pencil of the poetic artist. Miss Humphreys, in the choice of a somewhat similar class of subjects, has yet developed individuality of method marked by breadth of effect and forcible treatment. Of the ladies who have found scope for their abilities in the field of illustration perhaps none have excelled Mrs. Mary Halleck Foote. We cannot always find her style of composition agreeable, and in invention or lightness of fancy she seems deficient, while her manner is strong rather than graceful. But she is a most careful student of nature, and the effects she aims at, and sometimes reaches, are inspired by an almost masculine nerve and power, and show knowledge and reserve force. Some of her realistic landscapes are almost as true and intense in black and white as the daring realisms of Courbet in color, but showing fine technical facility rather than imagination. Miss Annette Bishop, who died too early to win a general recognition of her talents, was gifted with a most delicate poetic fancy, and singular facility in giving expression to its dreams.

F. S. Church is an artist of imagination, painting in oil and water-colors, but perhaps best known for striking and weird compositions in black and white, often treating of animal or bird life. He is an artist whose advent into our art we hail with pleasure, not because his style is wholly matured or always quite satisfactory, for it is neither, but because it is inspired by a genuine art feeling, and yet more because it shows him to be--what so few of our artists have been--an idealist. What is art but a reaching out after the ideal, the most precious treasure given to man in this world? It includes faith, hope, and charity. To search after the ideal good, to live in an ideal world, to yearn after and try to create the harmony of the ideal, is the one boon left to man to give him a belief in immortality and a higher life. The more of an idealist the poet or the artist, the nearer he comes to fulfilling his mission. The idealist is the creator, the man of genius; and therefore we hail with joy the appearance of every idealist who enters our art ranks, and infuses vitality into the prose of technical art, and inspiration into the dogmas of the schools. The most hopeless feature of American art has always been hitherto, as with our literature, the too evident absence of imagination; and wherever we recognize an idealist, we set him down as another mile-stone to mark the progress in art. It is through the idealists that Heaven teaches truth to man; and hence another reason why we regard with such importance the present school of artists in black and white. In no department is there more scope for the imagination than in the drawing of the pure line or in the suggestions of _chiaro-oscuro_. Therein lies the enormous power of the art of Rembrandt. He dealt with that seemingly simple but really inexhaustible medium, light and shade: in the hands of a master, potent as the wand of a magician to evolve worlds out of chaos.

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Barry, Bensell, Shepherd, Davis (who is also known as a decorative artist), T. A. Richards, Eytinge, Frost, Merrill, Ipsen, Shirlaw, Lathrop, Lewis, Perkins, and Davison are other artists who have justly acquired repute for success in the department of black and white, or book illustration. Kelley has a sketchy style that is very effective, and of which the correct rendering on wood would have been well-nigh impossible with the old processes; but there is danger of carrying it to the verge of sensationalism. The facilities afforded by photographing a design on wood has seemed to be the occasion for aiding the development of a class of artist-authors who both write and illustrate their own articles for the magazines. How remarkably well this can be done is proved by such clever artists as Howard Pyle and W. Gibson, who display at once fertility of imagination and technical facility as draughtsmen. C. S. Reinhart has become widely known as one of the most versatile illustrators we have produced. Excelling as a draughtsman, he brings to his aid an active fancy that enables him vividly to realize the scenes he undertakes to represent; and he seems equally at home in the portrayal of quaint old-time scenes, or the brilliant costumes and characters of the present day, combined with forcible delineations of scenery. The Puritan damsel or the belle of Newport may alike be congratulated when Mr. Reinhart ushers them before us with the grace of a master. The success of this school of artists, who have made their mark in the department of illustration, has doubtless been due in part to the increasing study of the figure in this country, and the greater facilities afforded for drawing from the life. Most of these artists are young men, whose abilities have been vastly assisted by their studies in life schools, which it would have been well-nigh impossible for them to find in the earlier periods of our art. Although perhaps better noticed under the head of Ethics rather than of Æsthetics, we may allude to the surprising growth and influence of caricature-drawing in this country, represented by such able artists as Nast, Bellew, Kepler, or Cusack, as associated with the development of our black and white art.

An artist who seems to combine the qualities we see more or less represented by other artists in black and white, who has already accomplished remarkable results, and gives promise of even greater successes, we find in E. A. Abbey. It must be taken into consideration that he is still very young; that he now for the first time visits the studios and galleries of Europe; that his advantages for a regular art education have been very moderate, and that he is practically self-educated. And then compare with these disadvantages the amount and the quality of the illustrations he has turned out, and we see represented in him genius of a high order, combining almost inexhaustible creativeness, clearness and vividness of conception, a versatile fancy, a poetic perception of beauty, a quaint, delicate humor, a wonderful grasp of whatever is weird and mysterious, and admirable _chiaro-oscuro_, drawing, and composition. When we note such a rare combination of qualities, we cease to be surprised at the cordial recognition awarded his genius by the best judges, both in London and Paris, even before he had left this country.

If I have spoken strongly in favor of our school of illustrators, it is because I think such commendation has been rightly earned, and to withhold it when merited would be as unjust as to give censure when undeserved. Criticism need not necessarily be the essence of vitriol and gall, as some critics seem to imagine it to be. A jury is as much bound to approve the innocent as to condemn the guilty.

In another department of our arts we also feel called to award praise to a degree that has never before been possible in the history of American art. I refer to the department of architecture. It is difficult to say exactly when the new movement toward a fuller expression of beauty in our civic and domestic building began; but we are conscious that about ten years ago what was for a time a mere vague feeling after more agreeable examples of architecture shaped itself into a definite and almost systematic impulse. The Chicago fire, and more especially the great fire in Boston, accelerated the action of the forces that already directed the people to demand nobler forms and types in the constructions that were henceforth to be erected in our growing cities. The advance of landscape-gardening, as evidenced in the Central Park of New York, and the public parks of other cities, doubtless aided to increase the yearning for material beauty. But whatever the influences at work, there is no question as to the results already apparent. I would not be understood as approving all the buildings of importance that have recently been put up in this country--very far from it. But, on the other hand, one cannot avoid seeing that the general tendency is toward improved styles, and that here and there groups of buildings or single structures have been erected which are at once elegant, commodious, and artistic; and, if not strictly offering new orders of architecture, presenting at least graceful adaptations of old orders to new climatic and social conditions in a way that gives them the merit of originality.

So prominent has this improvement in architecture already become in American cities, that already their external aspect or profile has begun to partake of the picturesque character hitherto supposed to belong only to the Old World, and to present that massing of effect so dear to the artistic eye. We can illustrate this by mentioning only two or three examples among many. One who looks toward Philadelphia from the railway station on the east side of the Schuylkill, may see a cluster of spires and domes centering around the Academy of Fine Arts, which is so agreeably composed that one would almost imagine the position of each to be the deliberate choice of a master in composition. Twenty years ago one would have looked in vain for any such harmonious outline of structural beauty in this country. The small, quaint fishing-port of Marblehead has also found itself suddenly transformed into one of the most pleasing cities of the Union, as viewed from the Neck across the harbor; for on the very crest of the hills upon which the place is built a town-hall has been erected, of brick, neatly faced with stone, and surmounted by an elegant tower. At once the old town has emerged from the commonplace into the region of the picturesque. The new structure has given character and symmetrical outline to the city by producing convergence to a central point of effect; and when the sun sets behind it, and brings its outline into bold but harmonious relief against a golden background, while a mist of glowing rays glazes the whole into tone, the view is in the highest degree artistic, and so resembles some of the scenes one so often sees in the Old World that he can hardly believe he is gazing at an American prospect.

We find a somewhat similar effect, but on a much larger scale, presented by the new Capitol, or State-house, at Albany. This city, as beheld from the opposite banks of the Hudson at Greenbush, has always been one of the most pleasing of American cities, situated as it is on several lofty hills, divided by ravines in which purple shadows linger when night is approaching; but the addition of the vast structure now in course of completion there adds greatly to the glory of the spectacle. It dominates over the city of eighty thousand inhabitants with superb dignity; and the whole place borrows beauty from it, and is elevated above prose into poetry. Again one is reminded of the cathedral towns of Europe, where some lofty, venerable minster guards through the ages the roofs that cluster below. Not that this pile, which is rather hybrid in its style, is to be considered equal to the masterpieces of old-time architecture; but it is a long step in advance compared with the civic buildings formerly erected and admired in our cities, and its presence at the capital of a great State cannot but have an ennobling and educational influence upon rising generations.

The styles, whether pure or modified, that are most employed by our architects in this new movement have been chiefly the Romanesque, the Palladian Renaissance, the French Renaissance of Mansard and Perrault, and the later Elizabethan or Jacobean. The first two have entered chiefly into the construction of civic buildings; the second has been followed in religious edifices; while the last has been used with excellent effect in domestic architecture. A fine example of the success achieved in the employment of the Romanesque is seen in the new Trinity Church on the Back Bay lands, in Boston, designed by Gambrel and Richardson. This is one of the most conscientious and meritorious buildings erected on this continent, although less imposing than it would have been if the original design had been fully carried out. There is, also, an affectation of strength in the massive blocks of undressed stone under the windows, in a part where such strength is disproportionate to that employed in other portions of the building. But the general effect is excellent, and the covered approaches or cloisters are quite in the spirit of true architecture. Color enters judiciously into the selection of the stone used to aid the general effect; and the same observation may be applied to the very elegant tower of the new Old South Church, close at hand, designed by Peabody and Robinson, in the Italian Gothic style, and which for grace, beauty, and majesty has not been surpassed on this side of the Atlantic. The church edifice to which it is attached, although sufficiently ornate--perhaps too much so--is lacking in that repose of outline or just proportions that are required to bring it into harmony with the campanile.

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Other towers and churches are clustered in that neighborhood, erected within ten years, which present an effect that is really intrinsically beautiful, without taking at all into question the rapidity of the transformation which has come over the spirit of our architecture. And the effect is heightened, to a degree never before attained on this continent since the Mound-builders passed away, by the excellence of the domestic architecture which has entered into the construction of the dwellings of that vicinage, especially on Boylston Street and the adjacent avenues. Beauty, taste, and comfort are there found combined to a degree that promises much for the future of architecture in our country. The gargoyles, gables, cornices, and carvings one meets at every turn carry one quite back to the Middle Ages. It is interesting to observe that the sham cornices formerly so common here are gradually being discarded, together with all the other trumpery decoration so much in vogue. Good honest work is shown in external decoration, together with a feeling for color that is adding much to the cheerfulness of our cities. Brick is made to do service for ornamentation as well as for mere dead walls, and string courses, or bands of colored tiles or terra-cotta carvings, all of an enduring character, enter into the external decorations of private dwellings.

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Not only is the love of beauty shown in domestic architecture, but it is found displayed in the construction of banks and stores; and it is again in Boston that we find whole streets of buildings of rich and elegant design, and conscientiously constructed, devoted wholly to business purposes. But a building which, perhaps, more than any other is typical of the architectural movement now passing over the country is the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is not so much after any one style as a choice from different schools of later Gothic adapted to modern conditions. The terra-cotta groups in relievo in the façade, temper what would be otherwise too large an expanse of warm color, for it is built of red brick. The grouped arches, turrets, and oriel windows, and the numerous terra-cotta decorations at the angles and on the gables, are elegant, but perhaps so generally distributed as to be a little confusing. The effect is scattered, and thus weakened, instead of being massed at one or two central or salient points. This is the most glaring error we discover in the present importation or adaptation of foreign and ancient styles to our needs here. It is an error which we share with the modern British architect, and was forcibly illustrated in the new Houses of Parliament, by Sir Charles Barry. No buildings of this century are so profusely ornate as some of the magnificent cathedrals and town-halls of the Middle Ages; but at the same time all this sumptuousness of decoration was massed upon one or two effective spots, surrounded by large spaces comparatively simple and free of embellishment. Thus grandeur and nobility of outline were preserved, while extraordinary beauty in color and sculpture could be added without disturbing the general effect or cloying the imagination. But our architects, not having yet fully grasped the ideas after which they are searching, scatter instead of concentrating the external decorations of their buildings.

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Interior decoration has also naturally assumed importance as the quality of our architecture has advanced. Elaborate wood-carvings are entering into the decorations of the houses of our citizens, and painting is called in to adorn the walls of private and civic buildings, sometimes with more affectation or extravagance than taste; although it can be conceded without hesitation that a remarkable and decided improvement is noticeable within a very few years in the decoration of interiors in this country. M. Brumidi made a beginning, some twenty years ago, in the frescoes of the Capitol at Washington; and quite recently Mr. Lafarge has beautified the interior of Trinity Church, Boston, and other public buildings, with sacred designs in fresco, and other decorative work in gold and red, which are very interesting. Among the last, and probably the most important, works of the late William M. Hunt were the mural paintings in oil for the new State-house at Albany. Other artists who have shown promise in this department are Francis Lathrop and Frank Hill Smith.

It is not surprising to find that this advance in decorative art, together with the increasing luxury accompanying it, should create a demand and develop a talent for toreutic art, or art in metal-work, especially the precious metals; and such we find to be the case. The success achieved in this department is, perhaps, the most remarkable yet attained in American art, excepting possibly that of some of our artists in black and white, and has justly merited and obtained unqualified applause abroad as well as at home. It is to such designers as Messrs. Grosjean, Perring, Wilkinson, and Moore, assisted by the most skilled artisans of the age, that our toreutic art is indebted for the recognition it received at the French Exposition.

Another sign of the rapidly increasing activity of the interest taken in the art question in America is presented by the art museums or galleries which have almost simultaneously arisen in Boston, New Haven, New York, and Washington, founded at considerable expense, and entirely without State aid. With the former two are connected important schools for art instruction, combined with fine casts of the masterpieces of ancient plastic art.

Another evidence of the awakening art feeling of a great nation is the demand for art education--a want which has been met by the establishment of numerous schools or academies of art in our leading cities all over the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is true that in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York academies were founded early in the century, and the last especially had become a very important factor in stimulating the latent love for art in our people. The Massachusetts Normal Art School, under the able direction of Mr. Walter Smith, while devoted chiefly to the advancement of industrial art, has also by its example greatly assisted the growth of the art feeling in the popular mind. While much may be urged with reason against compulsory instruction of art in the public schools, it would seem that few could be found to object to the education of art instructors, and the addition of an optional art branch to the State schools for the benefit of those who are desirous of art instruction, but are too poor to avail themselves of the advantages offered by such admirable art schools as those of the Cooper Institute and Artists' League in New York, the National Academy or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or the Academy in Philadelphia. It may, then, be conceded that the founding of the Massachusetts Normal Art School is not only a strong indication of a growing demand, but that it has also been a very powerful agent in the diffusion of art knowledge in the United States.

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Thus we see that by a cumulative effort the arts are making sudden and rapid progress in America. And there is still another movement which strikingly indicates this. Slow to be recognized, and meeting in some quarters with but cold welcome, it is yet by no means the least significant indication out of many that we are in the full tide of æsthetic progress, and have fairly entered on the third period of American art. From the time of West it has been not uncommon for our painters to go to Europe for study and observation; but they either had the misfortune to form their style after that of schools already conventional and on the wane, or they were not yet sufficiently advanced to accept the methods and principles of new masters and schools. A possible explanation, that is more philosophical, but which some may decline to accept, may be found in the general laws directing human progress, that obliged us, unconsciously, falteringly to tread one after the other the successive steps which others have followed before us. For the same reason, when an artist of unusual ability, like Stuart, appeared in the country, he had little or no following, because he came before his time.

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But it has been evident for some years that a new element was entering our art ranks and demanding expression, which has at last reached a degree of vigor and organized strength that challenges respectful attention, if not unqualified acceptance. By associations, schools, and exhibitions of its own, it has thrown down the gauntlet to conservatism and conventionalism, and the time has arrived when we can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that a new force is exerting itself with iconoclastic zeal to introduce a different order of things into American art. We cannot justly consider this movement in the light of reform, for up to this time our art has been very creditable, and, considering the environing circumstances, full as advanced proportionally as the other factors of American civilization. We regard it simply as another stage in our art progress, destined, when it has accomplished its end, to be in turn succeeded by yet higher steps in the scale of advance; for, notwithstanding the somewhat demonstrative assumptions of some of its promoters, the new movement does not comprehend within itself, more than any other school, all the qualities of great art. To no school of art has it yet been given to demonstrate and include in itself all the possibilities of art, or to interpret all the truths of nature and man. Perhaps some future school may arise, with all the knowledge of the ages to choose from, which may comprehend the whole sphere of art in its compass. But they are probably not yet born who shall see it, or give to it the symmetry of perfection. Until that time, it behooves those neophytes and disciples, who proclaim that their art includes all that art has to tell, to be modest in their claims, and to be satisfied if they have been able by fasting and prayer to enrich the world of art with one or two new truths. Nowhere is humility more becoming than in art; arrogance and assumption dig its grave sooner or later; while humility is by no means incompatible with earnestness, zeal, and progress.

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The ripeness of our art for a change before the new movement actually assumed definite shape had already been suggested and welcomed in advance by such artists as Eastman Johnson, Homer Martin, and Samuel Colman, the admirable painter in oil and water colors, strong in _chiaro-oscuro_, brilliant in color, and, although without academic training abroad, of a most excellent catholic spirit in all matters relating to art, ready to accept the good of whatever school, and to aid progress in the arts of his native land by whomsoever promoted. Benjamin C. Porter, whose massive characterizations in portraiture, broadly treated and admirably colored, have been among the most important achievements in recent American art, and Winslow Homer, A. H. Wyant, and E. M. Bannister are also among the artists whose sympathies are naturally with the new movement, although receiving their art training chiefly in this country, and who have thus indicated and prepared the way for the assertion of new influences in our art.

R. Swain Gifford should be added to the list of the noteworthy landscape-painters who have thrown the weight of their influence in advance to welcome to our shores new elements of progress and change whereby to quicken American art to fresh conquests. This artist at one time devoted his efforts to marine-painting, in which he did and still does some creditable work, his knowledge of ships being sufficiently technical to satisfy the nautical eye; but since his sojourn in Algeria, and the observations made in the Continental galleries and studios, he has devoted himself to landscape, and adopted a bolder style and a truer scheme of color. The influence of French art is perceptible in his later methods, but altogether as an influence, and in no sense as an imitation, for in his works there is always evident a sturdy self-assertion, whether in subject or treatment. In catching the gray effects of brooding skies receding in diminishing ranks through an aërial perspective of great distance and space, and giving with fine feeling the Druid-like spirit of clumps of sombre russet-hued cedars moaning by the granite shore of old Massachusetts, and identifying himself with the mysterious thoughts they suggest, Mr. Gifford has no superior on this side of the Atlantic. As a professor in the Cooper Institute, his influence is of great importance to the future of American pictorial art.

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George Inness is another painter who, although without training in foreign studios, should be included with the artists just named, whose sympathies have gradually led him to exemplify in his works some of the most characteristic traits of later Continental methods. At first his style was not unlike the prevailing style of our middle school of landscape-painting; like that, giving careful attention to the reproduction of details. But his emotional nature, and intense reflection upon the philosophical principles of art, gradually led him to a broader style and a more free expression of the truths of nature, dealing with masses rather than with details, and handling his subjects--especially atmospheric effects--with a daring and an insight that has never been surpassed in our landscape art. To these he has added a feeling for light and color that place him, at his best, among the masters of the art. But there is inequality in his works, and sometimes a conflict of styles, as when he dashes off a composition, in two or three sittings, that is full of fire and suggestion; and then, perhaps with a relic of his first method still lingering in his memory like a habit, goes over it again, and smooths away some of those bold touches which, to an imaginative observer, gave it additional force.

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In his latest works Mr. Inness has shown a disposition to yield more and more to a style at present called impressionist. Impressionism pure and simple, as represented by its most extravagant supporters, is like trying to represent the soul without the body. This may be well enough in another world; but in this a material body is needed to give it support. But, philosophically considered, there is no question that impressionism--or the attempt to represent nature according to the impressions it makes upon the mind's eye, rather than the mere reflections left on the material eye--undoubtedly presents the quintessence of the spirit of art; and therefore all good art must have in it more or less evidence of subjective influence. But just so long as art finds expression with material means, the artist must make concessions to the limitations of substance. Naturally, of all the arts, music comes nearest to the ideal which the impressionist is seeking to grasp.

It is useless to deny that, extravagant as some of the works of the contemporary impressionists appear to many, they undoubtedly present a keen appreciation of aërial chromatic effects, and for this reason are worthy of careful attention. That they are not carried nearer to completion, however, indicates a consciousness on the part of the artist that he is as yet unable to harmonize the objective and subjective, the material and the spiritual phases of art. A perfect work of art combines the two; but, alas! such achievements are as yet rare, although that is the ideal which the artist should keep in view. The artist who gives us what is called a finished painting is so far right. He represents what appears to the material eye. In proportion as he combines with this a suggestion of the intellectual impression also made on his mental vision, he approaches the ideal in art execution. On the other hand, the artist who is impatient of details, and deals wholly with a broad, and sometimes, we regret to say, dauby and slovenly interpretation of nature, is yet so far right, because he is endeavoring to interpret the wholly imaginative and intellectual side of art. When to this bias he adds the balance of power which enables him to give something of the other phase of art, he in turn approaches the ideal aim of art. Turner was an impressionist; so was Corot; so, to go farther back, was Velasquez; so, also, are the Japanese. But these artists, especially Turner and Velasquez, had the supreme faculty of uniting the two opposite poles in art in their best works, and hence the commanding position which they hold, and always will hold, in the art world.

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So far as can be ascertained, it is to the late William M. Hunt that we must ascribe the initiation of the third period in our pictorial art, and perhaps, in a secondary manner, the general impulse toward foreign styles now modifying the arts of design in this country. When Mr. Hunt went to Düsseldorf to study, in 1846, he did no more than many of our artists had already done. But when, dissatisfied with the conventionalism of that school, he turned his steps to Paris, and became a pupil of Couture, and was one of the first to discover, to admire, and to emulate the art methods of Millet, then, unconsciously, he became a power, destined by his somewhat narrow but intense personality to influence the destinies of our art--especially by returning to Boston, a city easily brought under the magnetism of a strong individuality, and more ready than any other city in the land to surrender the guidance of its opinions to those whom it condescends to admire.

The going of Mr. Hunt to Paris meant that technical knowledge and the perception of the underlying principles of art were now, as never before, to be systematically mastered and imported to America by our artists, together with the most advanced theories, truths, or discoveries in the technical part of the subject. It did not mean that all our artists who went abroad to study would necessarily be great, or that any of them would be especially original, but that there would be a general harmony of action toward improving the means of art education in America. Regarded in this light, Mr. Hunt must be considered to have been a most important promoter of the development of art in America. He was probably not a man of genius--unless great force of character be considered as such--but he had a true perception of the character and aims, the limitations and possibilities of art; and the intolerance he sometimes exhibited was not unusual in those who are introducing new methods, and have to create a circle of influence. In his own works, as a landscape, portrait, _genre_, and decorative painter, it cannot be said that he added greatly to the sum of the world's art by anything strikingly original; but he exhibited a true perception of the importance of the ideal in art; and one feels, in contemplating his works, that he was ever striving to overcome the difficulties of material means of expressing the ideal. Moved, like most leading American painters, by a feeling for color rather than for form, yet, in such compositions as "The Bathers," representing a boy about to dive from the shoulders of another, who is half immersed in a pool, vanishing into the green gloom of the wooded banks, we have an admirable example of the manner in which this artist sometimes combined form, _chiaro-oscuro_, and color, with a delicacy, force, and suggestion of outline and tint, to a degree rarely equalled before by American art; with a technique essentially that of the later French school, yet modified by individual feeling.

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But the life-work of Mr. Hunt was, after all, not more in his paintings than in that influence by which he gathered about him a school of admirers and disciples who disseminated his opinions and imitated his style, although rarely with his success. Among those who directly profited by his style and influence may be mentioned Mrs. Darrah, who effectively paints gray coast scenes and landscapes in a low, minor key; Miss Helen M. Knowlton; Miss Bartol; F. P. Vinton; and S. S. Tuckerman, the marine painter.

The power of Mr. Hunt was still more widely felt in directing a large number of young art-students to visit Paris, and eventually also Munich, at each of which the tendency has been for some years toward bolder methods in the technics of art. The result has been to introduce to this country a truer perception of the vital importance of style in the present stage of our art, and to emphasize the truth that he who has anything to say will make it much more effective if he knows how to give it adequate utterance.

Of the many Boston artists who have profited by foreign study and are now resident in that city, we can mention but three or four. John J. Enneking, a graduate of the studios of Munich and Paris, can hardly be called an idealist. There is little evidence of imagination in his canvases; but in seizing the effects of the brilliant lights of sunset, or the varied grays of a lowering sky on a cloudy day, he shows himself equally happy in color, _chiaro-oscuro_, and technical skill in handling pigments. His versatility is remarkable. He can render the figure from life with a vigor and freshness scarcely less than that of his landscapes. There is, unfortunately, an evidence of haste in too many of his works, which cannot be too much regretted, for he thus fails to do justice to the very decided ability he possesses. Having studied both in Munich and Paris, and given careful attention to all the European schools of art, and adding to this knowledge sturdy independence of opinion and great earnestness and energy, Mr. Enneking ought to be strongly influential in the present stage of American art.

We find much that is interesting in the paintings of E. L. Weeks. They are marked by a powerful individuality, which delights in glowing effects of light, and revels in the brilliant coloring of tropical scenery or the varied splendor of Oriental architecture and costumes. There is something Byronic in the fervor of this artist's enthusiasm for the East, and the easy adaptability that has enabled a son of New England to identify himself with the life and scenery of lands so exactly the opposite of his own. Although a pupil of Bonnât, and an ardent admirer of the excessive realism now affected by some of the followers of the later French school, Mr. Weeks is, in spite of himself, an idealist, and no imitator of any style. This has, perhaps, been an injury to him, for he finds difficulty in mastering the technical or mechanical problems of his profession. A lack of knowledge or feeling for form, a weakness in drawing which is too often perceptible in his works, and sometimes an apparent opaqueness in his pigments, impair the quality of compositions which are inspired by the fire of genius.

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J. M. Stone, who is one of the professors at the Museum of Fine Arts, and a graduate of the Munich schools, indicates considerable force in rendering the figure, both in color and drawing, and a touch of genius in the painting of dogs and horses. His service in the army during the war intensified his interest in equine art, and will probably result in important compositions suggested by that conflict. C. R. Grant has a delicate poetic feeling for color and form, and a pleasant fancy tinged with quaintness; and in his choice of treatment and subject suggests the works of G. H. Boughton. In T. W. Dewing, a pupil of Lefévre, who has recently settled in Boston, we find much promise in figure-painting, but altogether after the clear-cut, well-drawn, but somewhat dry method of Gérôme.

J. Foxcroft Cole, who has been a careful student of the best phases of French landscape art, but has formed, at the same time, a sufficiently individual style of his own, is an artist whose works command a growing esteem. Although adding groups of cattle to his compositions, he is essentially a landscape-painter. We receive from a study of his works an impression of sameness, like that conveyed by the landscapes of Corot, chiefly because they are generally on one key, and refer to a class of subjects so quiet and undemonstrative that only he who observes them repeatedly and reflectively discovers that each work is the result of a distinct inspiration, and possesses suggestions and qualities of its own. Exquisite feeling for space and atmosphere, for the peaceful effects of pastoral life, and the more subtle aspects of nature, especially in color, are the characteristics of the style of Mr. Cole.

In reviewing the Boston school, we note in its development much activity and earnestness, too often combined, however, with crudeness; while the foreign influence that is, on the whole, most evident in it is that of the contemporary French school. As Boston is intense rather than broad in its intellectual traits, and is inclined to follow the lead of its own first thinkers and artists, it is the more unfortunate that one influence should predominate, because in such a case the errors as well as the good qualities of a style are liable to receive too much attention; while free growth depends on the catholic eclecticism which supplements the study of nature by culling the good from different schools, and correcting one by comparison with another, thus enabling the artist to arrive at a more just and profound view of a question that proceeds upon irreversible laws. The mind thus educated learns by balancing the merits of different schools, and the results are not so much imitation as assimilation, yielding healthy growth and development.

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In New York there seems to be, with no less activity than that of Boston, an art movement which is based on broader grounds, and offers more encouragement for the future of our art. The artists who are the most influential in this advance are more equally divided between the French and the German schools than those of Boston, and indicate more breadth of sympathy and art culture, together with a cosmopolitan love for the good in the art of all schools, which is one of the most encouraging of signs in a dawning intellectual reform. So decided had the tendency toward Munich become soon after 1870, that the colony of American art students in Munich soon grew sufficiently large to establish an art association, having stated days of meeting, at which contributed paintings were exhibited and discussed, and carefully prepared papers on art topics were read. Opinions were exchanged in this manly, earnest, sympathetic manner, and breadth and catholicity were reached in the consideration of the great question in which all were so profoundly interested. Thus were gained many of the influences which are destined to affect American art for ages to come.

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