Part 10 (1/2)

A somewhat similar spirit manifested itself in the works of John Vanderlyn (1776--1852), Rembrandt Peale (1787--1860), Samuel F B Morse (1791--1872), and Cornelius Ver Bryck (1813--1844)

JOHN VANDERLYN is best known by his _Marius on the Ruins of Carthage_, for which he received a medal at the Paris Salon of 1808, and his _Ariadne_, which forms part of the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy Vanderlyn, as the choice of his subjects, coupled with his success in France, shoas a very good classic painter, trained in the routine of the Acadeh somewhat red in the flesh, placed in a conventional landscape of high order A large historic co of Columbus_, finished in 1846, fills one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washi+ngton As a portrait painter Vanderlyn was most unequal

REMBRANDT PEALE--the son of Charles Wilson Peale, best known through his portraits--deserves mention here on account of his _Court of Death_, in the Crowe Art Museuhter_, in the Boston Museu contemporaries

S F B MORSE, whose fame as an artist has been eclipsed by his connection with the electric telegraph, was a painter of undoubted talent, but given so and colour

Good speci Hercules_, Yale College, New Haven, and the rather theatrical portrait of Lafayette in the Governor's Room of the City Hall of New York Morse essayed to paint national subjects, and selected for a theme the interior of the House of Representatives, with portraits of the meh it is said to have been very clever, and the artist did not even cover his expenses by exhibiting it

CORNELIUS VER BRYCK painted Bacchantes and Cavaliers, and a few historic pictures, with a decided feeling for colour, as evidenced by his _Venetian Senator_, owned by the New York Historical Society He stands upon the borderland between an older and a newer generation, both of which, however, belong to the same period Thus far the influence of Italy had been para Dusseldorf clai the historical art of the United States The only names that can be mentioned here in accordance with the plan of this book, which excludes living artists, are Emmanuel Leutze (1816--1868), Edwin White (1817--1877), Henry Peters Gray (1819--1877), W H Powell (died 1879), Tho (1826--1877)

LEUTZE was a Gerh he had been brought to America as an infant, carried him to Dusseldorf The eminence to which he rose in this school may be inferred from the fact that he was chosen Director of the Academy after he had returned to Ah of foreign parentage, he showed more love for American subjects than most of the native artists, but the traht hly national painter Histhe Delaware_, _Washi+ngton at the Battle of Mone_; the two last named are at present in the possession of Mrs Mark Hopkins of California In the Capitol at Washi+ngton may be seen his _Westward the Star of E of the Norse of a Teocalle_, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

EDWIN WHITE, an extraordinarily prolific artist, who studied both at Paris and Dusseldorf, also painted a nuton resigning his Commission_, for the State of Maryland The bulk of his work, however, weakly sentimental, deals with the past of Europe

H P GRAY'S allegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken froes of War_, he appears in the light of an academic painter of respectable attainments; but there is so little of a national flavour in his productions, that the label ”American School” on the frame of the picture just naton

W H POWELL is best known by his _De Soto discovering the Mississippi_, in the Rotunda at Washi+ngton, a hich is on a level with the average of officialdone in Europe, in which truth is invariably sacrificed to so-called artistic considerations As a portrait-painter he does not stand very high T B

READ, the ”painter-poet,” enjoyed one of those fictitious reputations which are unfortunately none too rare in A for colour, and with a style of drahich race for what it lacked in decision, he attained a certain popularity by a class of subjects such as _The Lost Pleiad_, _The Spirit of the Waterfall_, &c, which captivate the unthinking by their very superficiality Several of his productions, a them his _Sheridan's Ride_, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy J B IRVING, a student at Dusseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of subjects whichsome scenes fro the foreign artists who ca this period must be named CHRISTIAN SCHuSSELE (1824--1879), a native of Alsace, who has exercised soh his position as Director of the Schools of the Pennsylvania Acade Haman_, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to have been an adherent of the ance is the first consideration

A place all by hined to WILLIAM RIMMER (1816--1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the vicinity of Boston Dr Rian life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a painter He, nevertheless, s he executed To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a someeird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes res for an anatomical atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatos, such as _Cupid and Venus_, &c, are ht and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour, which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective But Ri as a brilliant phenoely out of place in space as well as in tieneral, of a national spirit is to be noticed in the works of the _genre_ painters A the earliest of these are to be named CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE (1794--1859), many of whose works may be seen in the Lenox Gallery, New York, and at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia; and GILBERT STUART NEWTON (1794--1835), a nephew of Stuart, the portrait-painter, who is represented at the New York Historical Society and in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston These two artists are, however, so closely identified with the English school, and draw their inspiration so exclusively from European sources, that they can hardly clai in Aenre_ painter _par excellence_ is WILLIAM SYDNEY MOUNT (1807--1868), the son of a farn-painter No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of the life of the Aro field hands, always looked at from the humorous side As a colourist, Mount is quite artless, but in the rendition of character and expression, and the unbiassed reproduction of reality, he stands very high His _Fortune Teller_, _Bargaining for a Horse_, and _The Truant Gaards colour, are in the collection of the New York Historical Society; _The Painter's Triuallery of the Pennsylvania Acade Story_ Several inferior artists have shown, by their representations of scenes taken from the political and social life of the United States, how rich a harvest this field would offer the brush of a modern Teniers But in spite of the popularity which the reproductions of their works and those of some of Mount's pictures enjoyed, the field remained comparatively untilled

[Illustration: A SURPRISE _By_ MOUNT

_Copyright, 1879, by Harper and Brothers_]

Of other painters of the past, HENRY INMAN (1801--1846), better known as a enre_ pictures based on A_ in the Pennsylvania Academy; and RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (about 1825--1855), who studied at Dusseldorf, beca his short career, by his _Mexican News_, _Sailor's Wedding_, _Bar-Roo the mass of work by F W EDMONDS (1806--1863) there are also several of specifically American character; but the majority of artists preferred to repeat the orn themes of their European predecessors, as shown by W E WEST'S (died 1857) _The Confessional_, at the New York Historical Society's Roos of JAMES W GLass (died 1855), whose _Royal Standard_, _Free Companion_, and _Puritan and Cavalier_, are drawn froland

The Indian tribes found delineators in GEORGE CATLIN (1796--1872) and C

F WIMAR (1829--1863), while WILLIAM H RANNEY (died 1857) essayed the life of the trappers and frontiersmen None of these artists, however, approached their subjects froical painter, scientifically considered, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON (1780--1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank The anieneral was the chosen field of WILLIAM J HAYS (1830--1875) A large picture by him of an American bison, in the American Museum of Natural History at New York, shows at once his careful workmanshi+p, his areat to allow hi the animal painters of the world

The skill in realistic portraiture, e century, was fully upheld by their successors of the third period Most of the historic painters named above ell known also as portraitists, and their claims to reputation are shared with more or less success by J W JARVIS (1780--1851), THOMAS SULLY (1783--1872), SAMUEL WALDO (1783--1861), CHESTER HARDING (1792--1866), WILLIAM JEWETT (born 1795), EZRA AMES (flourished about 1812--1830), CHARLES C INGHAM (1796--1863), J NEAGLE (1799--1865), CHARLES L

ELLIOTT (1812--1868), JOSEPH AMES (1816--1872), T P ROSSITER (1818--1871), G A BAKER (1821--1880), and W H FURNESS (1827--1867)

Specimens of the work of n parentage, will be found in the collections of the New York Historical Society, the Governor's Room in the City Hall of New York, the Pennsylvania Academy, and the Museu the later na Elliott, as born and educated in America, but whose work, when he is at his best, nevertheless shows the hand of a master E G MALBONE (1777--1807), whose only ideal work, _The Hours_, is in the Athenaeum, at Providence, RI, is justly celebrated for his delicate miniatures, a department in which R M STAIGG (1817--1881) likewise excelled As a crayon artist, famous more especially for his female heads, SETH W CHENEY (1810--1856) , however, because the inal, manifestation of the art instinct in this period is found in landscape In this department also it seemed for a tiain the upper hand But the influence of Dusseldorf, aided by that of England, although not through its best representatives, such as Constable, gave a different turn to the course of affairs, and in a measure freed the artists froh, naturally and justly enough, the landscape painters of An lands, they nevertheless showed a decided preference for the beauties of their own country, and diligently plied their brushes in the delineation of the favourite haunts of the Catskills, the Hudson, the White Mountains, Lake George, &c, and, at a later period, of the wonders of the Rocky Mountains and the valley of the Yosemite It has become the fashi+on in certain circles to speak rather derisively of these painters as ”the Hudson River School,” a nicknae that they preferred the subject to artistic rendering and technical skill There is no denying that there is soht, also, that a nore subject altogether It is precisely the comparative unattractiveness of the methods employed which enabled these painters to create what may be called an American school, while, had they been asof problems of colour, as some of their successors, they would probably have rivalled thelect of the national element It is worthy of note that the rise of this school of painters of nature is nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of William Cullen Bryant, whose ”Thanatopsis” was first published in 1817, and who is eminently entitled to be called the poet of nature

The first specialist in landscape of whom any record is to be found is JOSHUA SHAW (1776--1860), an Englishman, who came to America about 1817

The specimens of his work preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy show him to have been a painter of soth In the same institution may also be found numerous examples by THOMAS DOUGHTY (1793--1856), of Philadelphia, who abandoned mercantile pursuits for art in 1820, and who may claim to be the first native landscape-painter His early work is hard and dry and ht As he advanced, his colour improved so the pioneers in this department, but he was more active as a portrait-painter