THE SENTIMENT OF TRYON

D. W. Tryon is an example of this new spirit at its best. His sentiment, if not so deep and strong as Inness at his best, is yet more delicate and subtle. That is due to a difference of temperament; but the way in which the picture is developed is a matter of training. With Inness the first thing was to express somehow his feeling, and then the canvas was worked over until it was got into construction; with Tryon the draftsmanship was fundamental and indispensable, and the sentiment was built upon that. One may say of our recent landscapes that they show a construction gained from the study of the nude and a handling adapted from the best foreign models. This education has greatly raised the average of our art; but a few men of the older time had strength and feeling to work out a training for themselves more personal and perhaps as permanent as that of the later day. Time tests all things, and its verdict cannot be foreseen; but it is doubtful if it will place any of our modern landscape artists before Martin or Inness. Among these modern landscape painters are men of such talent as H. W. Ranger, Bruce Crane, and J. Francis Murphy, without mention of whom no article on American landscape painters would be complete.

H. W. RANGER

BRUCE CRANE

J. FRANCIS MURPHY

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

American Painters	George W. Sheldon
Art in America	S. G. W. Benjamin
American Masters of Painting	C. H. Caffin
The Story of American Painting	C. H. Caffin
A History of American Painting	Samuel Isham
A History of American Art	K. S. Hartman
Book of the Artists	Henry T. Tuckerman
Life and Times of Asher B. Durand	John Durand
Homer Martin	Frank Jewett Mather
George Inness	Elliott Daingerfield
George Inness: A Memorial	Alfred Trumble
Homer Martin: A Reminiscence

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AUTUMN OAKS By GEORGE INNESS

Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
George Inness

ONE

George Inness is said to have painted more good pictures than anyone else ever painted. At any rate, he painted more than he himself could remember. A landscape supposed to be Inness’s was brought by the man who owned it to the artist’s studio, with a request to know if it was genuine. Inness looked at the painting carefully for a long time. “Leave it, leave it,” he finally said. “Perhaps I shall recall it.”

Inness spent the greater part of a long career in the neighborhood of New York. He began studying at the age of fourteen. He received very little instruction; but for the most part found out through his own hard work and drudgery all that a painter must know about drawing, colors, and the mechanical side of art. Then, during a few years in Italy, the glorious landscapes, the historic traditions, the art of old masters, all combined to develop in the artist, who was then but a young man, that quality of imagination which was needed to make him a genius.

Yet neither his knowledge of art nor his imagination could have placed him foremost among painters of American landscape had it not been for the energy that was above all characteristic of his nature. Inness would often work fifteen hours at a stretch. Friends wondered at his endurance, and even more at the speed with which he painted. He saw one day two pictures by Rousseau, the famous French artist, and remarked to a friend, “I could paint two of those a day.” Next day, to prove his point, Inness painted two canvases in the French style, and later sold them both to one man.

An incident that happened at Montclair, New Jersey, shows how little he valued his own finished work. When out walking one day he was overtaken by a thunderstorm, and was so impressed with its fury and grandeur that he rushed home to paint it while the memory was still fresh. Arrived at the house, and unable to find a canvas large enough for his idea, he took down a ten-foot picture of Mount Washington which he had painted years before. In two hours the mountain scene was replaced by a striking representation of the storm just over. That picture, with the outline of Mount Washington still traceable by ridges of paint, now hangs in the museum at St. Louis.

Men of great energy often wear themselves out early in life; yet George Inness kept on painting to a good ripe age. At sixty-nine he died in Scotland, where he had gone for his health.

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26

VIEW ON THE SEINE By HOMER MARTIN

Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
Homer Martin

TWO

Of all our great artists the most unsuccessful financially was Homer Dodge Martin. His work was not popular; he never won any prizes; and indeed he was long forced to depend for a living on the assistance of his wife. Like many other early American artists, he was self-taught. His father, a carpenter in Albany, New York, was not easily persuaded to let the boy follow up a natural talent for painting. Martin first tried carpentering, shopkeeping, and architecture. In each case his desire to draw pictures was too strong for him,—boards, paper, blank walls, were decorated with landscapes,—until his employers found it necessary to discharge the young artist. At last a sculptor of the time pleaded for him, and Homer was permitted to paint.

Martin insisted on doing everything in his own way, and he did not get far at first. His admirers can find hardly more than an occasional hint in these crude early works of the great skill that this artist afterward acquired. Nevertheless, the wealthier people of Albany, who were proud of their artist, bought a number of Martin’s canvases.

It was not until he moved to New York in 1862 that this queer genius had a really hard struggle to live. His habits were irregular, he dressed badly, and generally made a poor impression. The great Whistler said, introducing him, “Gentlemen, this is Homer Martin. He doesn’t look as if he were; but he is!” Revolutionary ideas and a keen, cutting humor made him as many enemies as friends.

Strangely enough, he chose quiet, calm landscapes to paint. He was attracted to the Catskills, Adirondacks, and White Mountains, and in Europe preferred tranquil scenes along the upper Thames and in Normandy.

Homer Martin seldom painted direct from nature; but would sketch in his notebook and jot down color memoranda. Less surprising, therefore, than it would seem at first is the painting of two famous pictures in 1895, when he was all but blind. “The Adirondacks” and the “View on the Seine” rank with his best work. Two years later he died.

Martin was not appreciated during his lifetime. The few pictures that he did manage to sell were purchased by his friends. Today few of his important pictures can be bought at any price.

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26

AN OLD CLEARING By A. H. WYANT

Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
A. H. Wyant

THREE

Many a great artist has begun life in some distasteful branch of trade. Wyant worked for a harness maker. He was born and brought up at Port Washington, Ohio, and though he is said to have sketched flowers and leaves on the kitchen floor during his childhood, and later to have used his spare time in sign painting, he had no real opportunity either of showing his own talent or of seeing pictures by other artists until he was nearly twenty.

A visit to Cincinnati, where he saw the work of George Inness, may be considered the beginning of Wyant’s artistic career. From that time on, his one ambition in life was to be a great painter. He set out for New York City as soon as he could get money enough together, found Inness, and received from the master painter both help and encouragement. Inness saw great possibilities in this Ohio boy.

On his return Wyant made studies of the Ohio Valley, where no artist of any account had ever painted. He threw into his work all the energy and enthusiasm of which his poetic genius was capable.

The year 1865 brought the opportunity to which Wyant had long looked. He was able to go abroad, and study there for awhile in Karlsruhe and London. But the result was somewhat disappointing; for he failed to get the inspiration he expected from contact with European painters.

Another disappointment was in store for him when he undertook, like Moran, to explore the West. Indeed, it was more than a disappointment. He was treated so brutally by the leader of the expedition that on returning he suffered a stroke of paralysis. Although he never entirely recovered, Wyant would not give up the old determination to be a great artist. His right hand useless, the invincible painter learned to use his left, and with it did more perfect work than he had ever done with the other.

It is a fact which cannot be too much regretted that Wyant reached the end of his life before his genius could be perfected. He himself knew that it would be so. “Had I but five years more in which to paint,” he said, “I think I could do the thing I long to.” In the mystic coloring of his Adirondack scenes we catch glimpses of the thing he longed to do.

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26

IN NATURE’S PLAYGROUND By THOMAS MORAN

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
Thomas Moran

FOUR

Though a true American, taking great pride in his chosen country and her art, Moran is English by birth. When he was but seven years old the boy’s parents settled in Philadelphia, where he received his education. That he should soon show remarkable talent was not at all surprising, as the family he belongs to has produced nine distinguished artists.

Thomas Moran was apprenticed to a wood engraver, whose art he mastered before starting to work in color. Engraving has in fact occupied a considerable part of his life ever since, and his etchings are among the best that have been done in America. He has also great skill in water color; though he is best known for his oil paintings.

Success came easily and quickly. Moran went with a government exploring expedition to the West, where he wished to sketch the unknown Rockies. A poetic imagination, coupled with an eye trained to note and remember the smallest details, could not fail to being home valuable material. The artist’s enthusiasm was aroused by that bigness in the scenes before him which now brings tourists from all parts of the world. The magnificent coloring of rock and mountainside, forest and canyon and swift river, was faithfully observed, to be rendered in the most famous of Moran’s paintings.

The United States government chose two of his pictures, “The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone” and “The Grand Chasm of the Colorado,” to adorn the walls of the national Capitol. The artist received for them $10,000 apiece.

Moran must be considered one of our self-taught painters; for, except during his first visits to Europe, he received very little instruction. He is an American painter of American landscapes. Yet he has also made several excellent paintings of the sea. He likes best to paint the sea with mountains near at hand in the picture.

He has made several prolonged stays in Europe; but is most fond of his home at East Hampton, Long Island.

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26

TWILIGHT—AUTUMN By D. W. TRYON

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
Dwight William Tryon

FIVE

The world stands ready to admire a painter whose trees bend beneath the gale, their tops all but whipping the torn, gray, low-driving clouds, and whose lightning and rain and frightened animals aid the dramatic impression of violent storm. Yet the world often forgets the sort of skill that can show a light wind barely swaying the straight, stark woods of March, or can bring home to everyone the chill and the melancholy of oncoming frost in an autumn evening. When trees toss we know that the wind is up. Running cattle suggest thunder. But in “Twilight—Autumn” there is nothing to tell us why we seem to hear the far-off moaning of the November wind. Tryon makes one feel the spirit of scene and season.

At the age of twenty-five Dwight William Tryon first set up his studio. Before this he had been a clerk in a bookstore at Hartford, Connecticut. At seven he began studying at the École des Beaux Arts under Daubigny and De la Chevreuse. Two of his pictures were exhibited at the Paris Salon. Since then he has won prizes everywhere—a gold medal of the first class at Munich in 1891; thirteen medals at the Chicago exhibition, 1893; and many more. He is a member of the National Academy.

Some of the best of Tryon’s earlier work is included in a series of landscapes and marines which he painted for the hall of a collector in Detroit. One of his series, “Dawn—Early Spring,” is remarkable for its simplicity. The foreground is a low, marshy field, back of which an almost uniform line of trees runs the whole width of the horizon. Yet this painting, with all its simplicity, is so full of imagination that a beholder feels the dawn and the bleakness of March sinking irresistibly into his mind. It is Tryon’s method to conceal his art, and make us feel the emotion in a picture without knowing why we feel it.

All his paintings have the same subtle simplicity. Among the best known are his “Winter” and “A Scene at New Bedford.”

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26

HEART OF THE ANDES By F. E. CHURCH

Metropolitan Museum of Art

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTERS
Frederick Edwin Church

SIX

Many people like to find something unusual or striking in a picture. To these the paintings of Frederick Edwin Church make a special appeal. The range of Church’s art is wide, and covers subjects chosen from many parts of the world. Before cameras were invented nobody could tell, unless he went there himself, just what a tropical forest looked like. Therefore, when Church wanted to paint something mysterious and wonderful he traveled to South America, among the mountains and through jungles of which few people in northern countries had any idea. It was not strange that critics should praise the landscapes he painted on his return,—scenes by moonlight across a luxuriant growth of palms and creepers, or high mountain peaks with animals of the tropics lurking about the foreground. So enthusiastically were his canvases received, both at home and abroad, that the young artist soon revisited those regions, and made further studies, which met with equal success. The greatest of his South American works is “The Heart of the Andes.”

Feeling at length that he had learned enough of one country, and desiring a wider field for his genius, Church turned northward. “Niagara Falls from the Canadian Shore” is a picture known to everyone. A journey to Labrador gave him new opportunities, quite the opposite of what he had experienced in the tropics. We have the result in “Icebergs,” one of his best canvases. For him nothing was too difficult. Soon afterward Church left America, made southern Europe his study, and went on from there into Palestine. “The Parthenon,” a picture showing that magnificent temple in the middle distance, with no other object prominent enough to lessen the majesty of its ancient ruined architecture, is the most famous record of this European period in the artist’s life.

Church painted on very large canvases, and was painstaking to the smallest detail. A pioneer in the landscape art of America, he had all the directness and bigness of the pioneer. “The Heart of the Andes” and the “Niagara” give him a permanent place in the history of American painting.

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ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 26, SERIAL No. 26