English Painters, with a Chapter on American Painters

by H. J. Wilmot-Buxton; S. R. Koehler

H. P. Gray's allegiance was given, almost undividedly, to the masters of Italy, and his subjects were mostly taken from antiquity. In his best works, such as The Wages 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 named is apt to provoke a smile. Gray's Judgment of Paris is in the Corcoran Gallery at Washington.

W. H. Powell is best known by his De Soto discovering the Mississippi, in the Rotunda at Washington, a work which is on a level with the average of official monumental painting done 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 America. Without any real feeling for colour, and with a style of drawing which made up in so-called grace 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, among them his Sheridan's Ride, may be seen at the Pennsylvania Academy. J. B. Irving, a student at Düsseldorf under Leutze, was a careful and intelligent painter of subjects which might be classed as historic genre, including some scenes from the past history of the United States.

Among the foreign artists who came to America during this period must be named CHRISTIAN SCHÜSSELE (1824—1879), a native of Alsace, who has exercised some influence through his position as Director of the Schools of the Pennsylvania Academy, in Philadelphia. His Esther denouncing Haman, in the collection of the institution just named, shows him to have been an adherent of the modern French classic school, in which elegance is the first consideration.

A place all by himself must finally be assigned to WILLIAM RIMMER (1816—1879), of English parentage, who spent much of his life in the vicinity of Boston. Dr. Rimmer, as he is commonly called, since he began life as a physician, is of greater importance as a sculptor than as a painter. He, nevertheless, must be mentioned here on account of the many drawings he executed. To an overweening interest in anatomy he added a somewhat weird fancy, so that his conceptions sometimes remind one of Blake. His most important work is a set of drawings for an anatomical atlas, in which special stress is laid upon the anatomy of expression. His oil-paintings, such as Cupid and Venus, &c., are marred by violent contrasts of light and dark, and an unnatural, morbid scheme of colour, which justifies the assumption that his colour-vision was defective. But Rimmer will always remain interesting as a brilliant phenomenon, strangely out of place in space as well as in time.

The same absence, in general, of a national spirit is to be noticed in the works of the genre painters. Among 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 claim a place in a history of painting in America.

The one American genre painter par excellence is William Sydney Mount (1807—1868), the son of a farmer on Long Island, and originally a sign-painter. No other artist has rivalled Mount in the delineation of the life of the American farmer and his negro 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 Gamblers, the last named one of his best works also as regards colour, are in the collection of the New York Historical Society; The Painter's Triumph is in the gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, has The Long 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.

Of other painters of the past, HENRY INMAN (1801—1846), better known as a most excellent portrait-painter, executed a few genre pictures based on American subjects, such as Mumble the Peg in the Pennsylvania Academy; and RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (about 1825—1855), who studied at Düsseldorf, became favourably known, during his short career, by his Mexican News, Sailor's Wedding, Bar-Room Politicians, &c.; while among 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 well-worn themes of their European predecessors, as shown by W. E. West's (died 1857) The Confessional, at the New York Historical Society's Rooms, or the paintings of James W. Glass (died 1855), whose Royal Standard, Free Companion, and Puritan and Cavalier, are drawn from the annals of England.

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 from the genuinely artistic side. As an ornithological painter, scientifically considered, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON (1780—1851), the celebrated naturalist, occupied a high rank. The animal world of the prairies and the great West in general 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 workmanship, his ambition, and the limitation of his powers, which was too great to allow him to occupy a prominent place among the animal painters of the world.