Part 6 (2/2)

But he was ill at ease there, and finally definitely decided upon an artistic career, went to Newport and worked under the guidance of Willia in the end to decorative work, and afterwards to stained glass In these he has had no equal, and his high achievement, as well as the wide appreciation his work has won, is peculiarly grateful to Ae's career has been characteristically American He had little actual study in Europe, and yet possesses certain great traditions of the ree unequalled by any compatriot

Of his work as a whole, it is difficult to speak adequately Perhaps its ht that is lavished upon it, so that the artist gives us the very spirit of his subjects In inspiration, in handling, in drawing, and in color, LaFarge stands alone No eneration has equalled him in the power to lift the spectator out of himself and into an enchanted world by the consu for color cullass work--probably the richest color creations that have ever been fashi+oned on this earth In all his variedthat lacks interest and chare's study under William Morris Hunt, and we must pause for a moment to speak of the older artist His artistic career was in so a tendency to consumption in his late boyhood, his h to enable him to imbibe soin ith H K Brown, the sculptor He found the work so congenial that he persuaded his mother to omit the course at Harvard which had been expected of him, and to permit him to devote his life to art

For five or six years thereafter, he studied at Rome and Paris, then for three years he ith Millet at Barbizon Finally, in 1855, he returned to A first at Newport and afterwards at Boston

He painted ure pieces, and was an active social and artistic influence to the day of his death As an artist, he lacked training, and rereat pros us to the reatest artist of his time--James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Whistler was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834 His grandfather, of an English faoyne's invading army, but afterwards joined the American service, and, after the close of the Revolution, settled at Lowell His father was a distinguished engineer, and major in the ar Whistler should turn to the army as a career He entered West Point in 1851, remained there three years, and was finally dropped for deficiency in chemistry

There was one study, however, in which he had distinguished hi; and after his dismissal he went to Paris, where he studied for two or three years Then he removed to London, where most of the reinal, was at first utterly misunderstood by the public The most famous piece of hostile criticis at ”The Falling Rocket” in 1877, that here was a felloith the effrontery to charge a hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face Some further years of abuse followed, and then the pendulu the other way, and the eccentric artist became a sort of cult In the end, he won a wide reputation, and before his death was recognized as one of the leading painters of his time

And this reputation was deserved, for his work possesses a rare and delicate beauty, individual to it His portraits of his mother and of Thonity; and many of his ”harmonies,” as he liked to call them, are so coht Whistler always declared that he had no desire to reproduce external nature, but only beautiful combinations of pattern, and tone; what he ht, not external realities, but the spirit which underlies thereat painter

If Whistler was a law unto himself, so, in another sense, is Winslow Homer, who has worked out for himself an individual point of view and method of expression Born in Boston in 1836, and early developing a taste for drawing, he entered a lithographer's shop at the age of nineteen and two years later set up for hi the Civil War he acted as correspondent and artist for _Harper's Weekly_, and, when peace cas with a series of army scenes After that he tried his hand at landscape, and finally found his real vocation as a painter of the sea From the first, his pictures possessed obvious sincerity More than that, they convince by their absolute veracity, as a reproduction of the thing seen--seen, be it understood, by the eyes of the artist--and so they have lived and been reotten Again, he chooses his subjects with a fine disregard of what other men have done or decided that it was impossible to do, and painted theinal No other artist has so conveyed on canvas the weight and buoyancy and enormous force of water; no one else approaches his as an interpreter of the power of the sea

Lineal successor of Inness is Dwight William Tryon, not that his work resembles the older man's, but because both paint the A and with a superb technique Tryon has not yet developed into so co what the future holds for him, for his work seems as full of poetry and emotion as the older man's, with a spirit more delicate and a foundation more firm

The work of Francis D Millet has attracted wide attention and is also full of promise and inspiration Millet has the American versatility--he has been a war-correspondent, an illustrator, has written travels, criticism, and even fiction, has acted as an expert on old pictures, raised carnations, and even, in tiical operations on wounded soldiers--all of it, not as an a no odds of anyone In addition to which, he has been a painter, and a painter whose work has shown no sign of haste or distraction The quiet, huhteenth centuries is what has most appealed to him, the country parlors and white-washed kitchens, peopled with travellers and buxoroups are unusually attractive and well executed

Allied with Millet in taste and viewpoint, and with ahis career as an illustrator, he soon reached the front rank in that profession, especially with his illustrations of classic English poeht better be called their interpreter than their illustrator Froressed naturally to oil, and here, too, he has achieved soh Aovern Edward VII It is a curious coincidence that the official picture of the coronation of Queen Victoria was also painted by an American, C R Leslie

More ireatest Aent, whose nationality has occasioned no little controversy Born in Florence of A in Paris, residing since in England, though with h Europe and only two or three trips to the land of his allegiance, heHis paintings have been shoherever pictures are to be seen and he has received for them all honors that a painter can receive

Before the freedoent's art criticism stands abashed His portraits have a wonderful effect of vitality, and a purity and brilliancy of color which have never been surpassed; but most noteworthy of all, he achieves the supre and displaying character He shows the very soul of his sitter, without malice but also without mercy Only towards children does he show tenderness, and then he paints with a wonderful and varied charive the character--a room takes on personality; silks, velvets, furniture, bric-a-brac are all eloquent On the whole, his qualities are such that he reatest portrait painter since Reynolds and Gainsborough The portrait of Edwin Booth, at the beginning of the chapter dealing with the stage, is an excellent specient's portraits have placed hi the masters of all time, but perhaps he is most widely known by his remarkable decorations in the Boston Public Library, which in the original and in photographic reproductions, have given the keenest delight to thousands and thousands of persons It is iive any detailed description here of these masterpieces of decorative art, so perfect technically that they ht almost serve as a canon to decorative painters

A ent, yet there are two other painters, who, if they fall below hiinality all their own One of these is George de Forest Brush, who, somewhat after the fashi+on of Holbein, looks for a beauty of spirit independent of for Goddesses rollicking with cherubs, but as grave and tender wo of their health and youthful freshness to the children they hold in their ar peace, a delicate distinction, which give Brush a position by himself

The other is John W Alexander, whose work is interesting as introducing a certain new eleinality of the first general effect, including nothing that does not interest, and yet giving the effect of co to distract the interest from the personality of the sitter, and he usually achieves a delineation of character direct and truthful

Here this short review of the great personalities of American art must end There are many other painters alive to-day whose work is full of proreat places in the world's Pantheon

Indeed, it would almost seem that a renascence of Aed from the crudities of its first years, and from thelost the freshness and enthusiash achievement

Its face is toward the sunrise

SUMMARY

COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON Born at Boston, July 3, 1737; went to Europe, 1771, and spent the remainder of his life there, principally in London; associate of Royal Academy, 1771; full member, 1773; died at London, Septefield, Chester County, Pennsylvania, October 10, 1738; studied in Italy, 1760-63; settled in London, 1763; became court historical painter, 1772; president of the Royal Academy for many years; died at London, March 11, 1820