SUPPLEMENTARY READING
ART IN AMERICA
By S. G. W. Benjamin.
1880—Harper & Bros., New York.
AMERICAN PAINTING
By Samuel Isham.
The Macmillan Co.—1910.
The most complete and modern work on the subject.
ARTIST LIFE
By Henry T. Tuckerman.
D. Appleton & Co.—1847.
Not so much biographical as laudatory estimates.
PORTRAITS OF WASHINGTON
By Elizabeth Bryant Johnston.
A most complete work of reference.
HEIRLOOMS IN MINIATURES
By Anne Hollingsworth Wharton.
J. B. Lippincott Company.—1898.
The standard work on the subject of American Miniature Art.
LIFE OF BENJAMIN WEST
By John Galt.
Published shortly after the death of the artist and long out of print.
THE DOMESTIC AND ARTISTIC LIFE OF JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, R. A.
By M. B. Amory.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston—1882.
The standard work on Copley. Difficult to procure.
LIFE AND WORKS OF GILBERT STUART
By George C. Mason.
Charles Scribner’s Sons—1879.
An elaborate work now out of print.
LIFE AND LETTERS OF WASHINGTON ALLSTON
By Jared B. Flagg.
Charles Scribner’s Sons—1902.
Interesting from a literary standpoint.
LIFE PORTRAITS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
By Charles Henry Hart.
McClure’s Magazine—February, 1897.
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Volume 1 Number 45
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Editorial
We have been asked more than once how the schedule of The Mentor is planned and how our subjects are selected. The question is a good one, for in the answer is to be found the basic idea on which The Mentor plan is established. If the schedules were prepared hastily and without due thought, and if the subjects were selected solely with consideration to the interest of the passing moment, The Mentor plan would have no more claim upon thoughtful and intelligent people than the most ephemeral journalistic enterprise. As a matter of fact, however, the schedule of The Mentor is prepared for more than a year in advance, and the plan is worked out on broad lines of general education—and not with the thought of merely reflecting the interest of the hour.
Of course, in some matters we observe timeliness. Our article on Abraham Lincoln will be published during the week in which Lincoln’s birthday occurs. Professor McElroy’s article on George Washington will appear on February 23rd. The advantage of selecting proper dates for these articles is obvious. In general, however, we arrange the schedule so as to give a just balance of subjects, and we endeavor to follow a certain mental logic in distributing the subjects through the year.
And now we are asked how the schedule is made up. The selection of subjects begins with the editors. After considerable study a list is made that is large enough to form the basis of more than a year’s reading. This list is divided into departments, and the subjects in each department are submitted to the member of our Editorial Board who has that department in charge. In a number of cases changes are made and new subjects are suggested by the members of the Advisory Board. Not only are the subjects of the articles determined under their supervision, but the names of the writers are often suggested by them, and in many cases the illustrations are selected under their direction. The association of the members of the Advisory Board with the Editors of The Mentor is close and continuous. We give the readers of The Mentor the direct benefits of this association.
But our answer would be incomplete if it failed to include mention of a most interesting source of suggestion—the readers of The Mentor. It is a great pleasure to say this, for it is the best evidence in the world of the coöperative spirit that exists in The Mentor Association. That is the spirit we seek.
We have had some of the most valuable suggestions from Mentor readers. Only last week we received a letter from an interested reader who had been following the historical articles in The Mentor. She wanted to know what we had in store for a lover of history. She suggested that it would be interesting to take up history from several special points of view—the great historic rivers for example. The idea is good. Think of the historic value and of the human interest in the story of the Rhine; the story of the Nile; the story of the Danube; the story of the Mississippi! The great rivers of the world have borne some of the most important historic events along on their currents. We are planning a set of articles on this subject.
This is but one case in which a reader of The Mentor has helped us. We could cite many others. And in acknowledging them we want to express our heartfelt appreciation of the earnest interest shown by our readers in The Mentor. Our mail brims over with it every day.
LADY WENTWORTH, by John Singleton Copley—Lenox Library, N. Y.
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
John Singleton Copley
ONE
The parentage of John Singleton Copley was Irish. He was born in America. The most active years of his art career were spent in England. About the time of his birth in Boston, July 3, 1737, his father died, and the boy was named after his grandfather on his mother’s side, John Singleton of Quinville Abbey, County Clare. After ten years his mother married Peter Pelham, a painter and mezzotint engraver. From him Copley received instruction and encouragement in art. But Pelham died when Copley was fourteen, and the boy had then to be his own master. He was living in Boston at a time when Boston had but 18,000 inhabitants. His skill in painting gained him renown through-out the city. He was a handsome, brilliant young man, dressing and living in style, and moving in the best society. Within the limited range of New England life he played something of the part that Van Dyck in his time played in the larger world of Holland and England.
When Copley was thirty-two years old he married the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Richard Clark. His father-in-law was the agent of the East India Company, to whom later was consigned that historic cargo of tea which was flung into Boston Harbor. Expecting trouble with England, young Copley, who was now a thoroughly successful painter, went to Rome for a year’s stay; but in 1775 he took up his residence in London. He was received in a kindly and appreciative way by the great painter, Benjamin West, and soon became popular with the art loving public. After two years’ residence he was made an associate member of the Royal Academy. He became a full Academician in 1779, after exhibiting his most famous picture, the “Death of Chatham.”
Copley’s life was one of success and happiness. For him there were no struggles, and no embittering disappointments. His wife was beautiful and attractive, and they drew about them, in their home, a set of interesting and distinguished people. Their house on Beacon Hill was surrounded by eleven acres of land, which he called “Copley’s Farm,” and in which he took great pride and satisfaction. The Revolutionary War was naturally a matter of great concern to Copley, living as he was among English friends; but he remained steadfastly loyal to the land of his birth, and rejoiced at the issue of the war. As the Revolution closed Copley was working on the portrait of Elkanah Watson, and in December, 1782, he and Watson listened together to King George’s speech recognizing America’s independence. In the background of the Watson portrait Copley had introduced a ship, and when the two returned to Copley’s house after hearing the king’s speech, the artist painted on the ship’s mast the first American flag displayed in England.
Copley died in 1815, full of years and of honors. His son became Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst.
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CHRIST REJECTED, by Benjamin West—Pennsylvania Academy
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
Benjamin West
TWO
The career of Benjamin West has often been cited as a triumphant demonstration of genius, which like lightning, strikes where it will and develops in the most uncongenial surroundings. He was born in 1738 at Springfield, a little Pennsylvania settlement, and in his childhood he knew the rigor of frontier life. He was the youngest child of a large family. When six years old, he began to draw with pen and ink, showing the first signs of an inclination to art. A year afterward a party of friendly Indians, amazed at the sketches of birds and flowers that the boy made, taught young West to prepare the red and yellow colors with which they painted their ornaments, Mrs. West furnished indigo; house cats furnished the fur to make brushes; and with these primitive materials the boy West produced some paintings that showed real worth. As a result a box of paints was sent to him from Philadelphia by a relative. His delight knew no bounds, and a few days later he set out to visit his relative in Philadelphia, a Mr. Pennington, who brought him in touch with the artist Williams. The boy’s interest and enthusiasm about art impressed Williams, who asked him if he had read any books. Finding that young West’s reading was limited to the Bible, the young artist lent him the works of Dufresnoy (Doo-frayn-wah) and Richardson on painting. These books gave the boy the idea of an artist’s career, and soon afterward his skill brought him his first money.
At the end of West’s Philadelphia studies the question of settling him in some profession came up, and as a result there was a solemn scene in the sober Quaker home of his parents, with discourses, prayers, and final dedication of the youth to art.
So launched, Benjamin West left home, and worked as a portrait painter first in Philadelphia and then in New York. In 1760, when he was twenty-two, he went to Italy for study, and remained there for three years. Then he settled in London, and success came to him rapidly. He was soon known as one of the leading portrait and historical painters of the time. In 1772 he was appointed court historical painter. He became one of the first members of the Royal Academy; and later he had conferred upon him the final crown of art distinction when, after the death of Joshua Reynolds, he was elected president of the academy.
Benjamin West in his old age was surrounded by a group of enthusiastic and talented young students. Washington Allston was a pupil of his, Copley too, and many other artists who afterward attained world wide fame. He died at London in 1820.
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GEORGE WASHINGTON, by Charles Willson Peale—Metropolitan Museum, N. Y.
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
Charles Willson Peale
THREE
Peale has been a well known name in American art for one hundred and fifty years. Charles Willson Peale, who lived from 1741 to 1827, was celebrated especially for his portraits of Washington and other famous men of the time. James Peale, his brother, who lived during about the same period, painted two portraits of Washington, one of which is in possession of the New York Historical Society, and the other in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. He also made a number of landscapes and historical pictures. Rembrandt Peale, the son of Charles Willson Peale, lived from 1778 until 1860. He too was a portrait painter, and among his works is an equestrian portrait of Washington, now in Independence Hall. Two brothers of Rembrandt Peale were artists likewise.
So when anyone speaks of the “American painter Peale” some further definition is needed, and when a portrait of Washington by Peale is mentioned it is important to know which Peale was the painter.
Charles Willson Peale, the most celebrated of them all, was born in Queen Anne County, Maryland, in April, 1741. His boyhood was spent at Chestertown, and then at Annapolis, where at thirteen years he was apprenticed to a saddler. He was twenty-three years old before he began to study art. His first teacher was a Swedish painter, Hessellius. Peale’s progress was rapid. He sought out the master painter, John Singleton Copley, in Boston, studied under him for three years, then went to London and became a pupil of Benjamin West. In 1770 he established himself in Philadelphia, and his studio soon became famous. Two years after he reached Philadelphia he painted a three-quarter-length picture of Washington in the uniform of a Virginian military colonel. This is the earliest known portrait of the great commander. It is now in the chapel of Washington and Lee University.
Peale painted a number of paintings of Washington and two miniatures of Mrs. Washington. When the Revolution broke out the artist turned soldier, raising a militia company of which he was finally made captain, and, as such, fought in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Germantown. He afterward entered the Pennsylvania Assembly, where he was known as one of the first abolitionists. He voted against slavery, and freed his own slaves.
Beloved and esteemed, Peale lived to be eighty-six years old, enjoying a distinction in art shared only by a few other American painters. His name is identified chiefly with portraits of Washington. By an odd coincidence, the month and day of his death were the same as that of Washington’s birth. He died at his home near Germantown on February 22, 1827.
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DOLLY MADISON, by Gilbert Stuart—Pennsylvania Academy
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
Gilbert Stuart
FOUR
To many Gilbert Stuart is known as the “painter of Washington.” We know Washington today as Trumbull and Stuart have painted him, and Stuart has been aptly called the “prime painter to the president.” According to an anecdote, Stuart was said to regard Washington as his own particular subject, and valued him as any workman might a “pay envelope.” Whenever he lacked in income he could always paint a “Washington head” and get his price for it. Gilbert Stuart was born at North Kingston, Rhode Island, in December, 1755. He studied at Newport for awhile, then in 1775 he went to England and studied under Benjamin West. Four years were all that Stuart needed for study, even under this master. He set up his own studio in London, and from the beginning found success. Indeed, it came to him so quickly that Stuart was tempted into outrunning it, and was soon beyond his means and in financial difficulties.
In 1788 Stuart found it expedient to slip away to Dublin. When there he found success anew, and remained in Ireland for five years. Then he returned to America, enticed by the commission to paint General Washington. Experienced as he was at that time, Stuart confessed to genuine embarrassment in facing Washington for the first time. He said that though he had painted King George III and the future George IV, had painted Louis XVI and many others among the great, he had never been disconcerted until he found himself in the presence of the American general. As a result his first portrait was a failure. But Washington sat again for him, and the result was the famous head on the unfinished canvas, now known as the “Athenæum” portrait. The Stuart portraits of Washington are famous the world over; so much so that some overlook the splendid work that Stuart has done in portraiture for other celebrated men of America—John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and the rest, the list including nearly all the notables of his time. Stuart was more than a good technical painter. He was a portrait maker in the finest sense. He studied character, and his portraits are living people.
In his art work and his associations Gilbert Stuart was a man of great simplicity. His habits were sometimes a shock to his more fastidious art friends. When Trumbull in 1780 came to Benjamin West, the latter referred him to Gilbert Stuart for painting materials and casts to work with. He found Stuart, as he states, “dressed in an old black coat with one half torn off the hip and pinned up, looking more like a beggar than a painter.” Trumbull, whose idea of what was fit for an artist had been gained from establishments like those of Copley and West was much upset. But he soon learned to appreciate the great painter under the shabby habit.
Stuart is recognized not only as a leader in American art, but as one of the greatest portrait painters. His last years were spent in Boston, where he died in July, 1828.
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by John Trumbull—Metropolitan Museum. N. Y.
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
John Trumbull
FIVE
John Trumbull was the youngest of six children of Jonathan Trumbull, who was once governor of Connecticut. To him George Washington gave the name of “Brother Jonathan,” a name that has now become a national personification. Whether the people deliberately adopted this name in order to apply it to our national type is a subject of some discussion; but it is a fact that Washington called Trumbull “Brother Jonathan,” and it is a fact that many affectionately employed the term thereafter as a familiar name for the United States. So its origin in the incident seems probable at least.
John Trumbull was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756. He was a sickly child, with a mind more active than his body, an infant prodigy of learning, who qualified to enter college at twelve. He actually did enter Harvard in the middle of the junior year at the age of fifteen. His delicate health and his extreme youth prevented his making many close college friends. He spent his spare money on French lessons, and his spare time studying pictures in the fine art books that he could find in the college library. When a student he visited Copley, and became imbued with the great painter’s ideas of the dignity of an artist’s life.
After graduation in 1773 Trumbull tried to paint with home-made materials. His art studies and experiments were interrupted by the opening of the Revolution. When war with England became imminent Trumbull began training the young men of the school and village, and, after the battle of Lexington, when the first regiment of Connecticut troops was formed, he was made adjutant. Afterward he became second aide-de-camp to General Washington, and when General Gates took command of the northern department he appointed Trumbull adjutant general, with rank of colonel, and in that capacity he took part in the unfortunate expedition to Albany and Ticonderoga. He resigned from the army in 1780 and went to London to study art under Benjamin West. Then came the news of the arrest and execution of Major André, which stirred England, and suggested the arrest of John Trumbull because he had been an officer of similar rank in the American army. He was imprisoned for seven months. In 1784 he was once more studying under West, and when there painted his two great pictures, the “Battle of Bunker Hill,” and the “Death of Montgomery.” In 1785 Trumbull visited Paris, and it was when there that he began his picture which is perhaps the most famous of all his work, the signing of “The Declaration of Independence.”
The years thereafter were active ones for Trumbull. He produced many portraits of celebrated men, and many historic paintings that still hold leading places in the national art of America.
In 1794 Trumbull acted as secretary to John Jay in London during the negotiations for the treaty between America and Great Britain. He was a man of prominence in public life, a leader in art in both England and America. He was president of the American Academy of Fine Arts from 1816 until 1825, and he died in New York, November 10, 1843.
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SPANISH GIRL, by Washington Allston—Metropolitan Museum, N. Y.
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
Washington Allston
SIX
The standard bearer of the group of young artists who studied under Benjamin West was Washington Allston. Although several years of Allston’s active life were spent in England, he was a native American, and was born in the Waccamaw region of South Carolina in 1779. Allston’s father married twice, and the painter was the son of the second wife. His father died when Allston was only two years old, and when he was seven his mother married Dr. Henry C. Flagg of Newport, who was chief of the medical staff of General Greene’s army.
Allston as a boy showed unusual ability for drawing, and he was fortunate in finding in Newport two friends to assist and encourage him. In particular there was a boy named Malbone, two years his senior, who was already beginning to paint miniatures, and in after years became known as Edward G. Malbone, a famous painter of portraits. The friendship with Malbone had much influence on Allston’s nature. They remained good friends through life, and gave to each other and took from each other the riches of sympathy and understanding that lie in an art kinship.
At college Allston showed himself a genuine boy, full of animal spirits. He joined in college pranks, and got the most that college life could give in fun and friendship. He was in short a radiant young man, graceful, handsome, with blue eyes, silky black hair, and pale, clear complexion. He was liked and honored by all his fellow students, cordial to all, yet with a certain aristocratic distinction that marked him as one of finer nature. He loved not art alone, but literature and romance. His verses were creditable, and brought him the honor of being elected class poet.
He graduated at Harvard in 1800, and for awhile studied art in Charlestown with Malbone. In 1801 Allston went to London with Malbone. He entered the Royal Academy, and became a pupil of West. Allston admired West enthusiastically, and got from him not only instruction but inspiration. From 1804 until 1809 Allston was a traveler in Europe, spending part of the time in Paris and part in Italy, and when he returned to his native country in 1809 he had already established himself among the painters of his day.
From 1811 until 1817 he lived and worked in England, and when there he came to realize his full powers. He had developed greatly, not only in artistic and poetic fields, but in religious convictions. And not only in painting but in writing he showed great ability. Coleridge, who was for years a close friend, pronounced him a leader in the art and thought of his time.
Allston was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1819, after having just returned to America. He spent the remaining years of his life in Boston and in Cambridge, where he died in July, 1843. His paintings are to be seen in a number of the prominent galleries of this country and England. The most celebrated of them are religious in nature.
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