American painting and its tradition

by John C. Van Dyke

JOHN W. ALEXANDER

Chase and Alexander were of the same faith in art though they varied in ritual. They both believed in the finality of good workmanship decoratively displayed. They had differing views of what constituted design and color, their atmosphere and light were not the same, and each had his peculiar handling; but with all this latitude for variation in method there was no essential difference in æsthetic aim or purpose. The portrait of a lady was to both of them not primarily a revelation of the lady but a presentation of a decorative pattern in which the sitter and her garmenting held large place because conforming happily to an “arrangement.” This, of course, was the Whistlerian point of view with which Chase and Alexander were in sympathy. All three of them frequently rose above their creed and told tales of the lady’s charm, or womanly instincts, or perhaps gave suggestion that she was a lady and not merely a studio model dressed for the part; but usually they were content with arranging her in a pattern as an entomologist might spread and pin to advantage a golden butterfly on a blue-green ground.

To question their practice is to take sides in a very old quarrel in art. For they were the David and Ingres of the new dispensation. Their works were based in method, though the method was brush-work rather than drawing, and they were pronounced in arrangement though the arrangement was a pattern of light and color instead of line and group composition. Set over against them are the Delacroixs and Millets of to-day who are no longer romantic and dramatic, but lay stress on sentiment, feeling, significance, character, strength rather than mere pattern. It is not necessary to name them, for every one will recognize the species and call to mind the types. There are always two sides to a quarrel, and there are several sides to art. It may be a symphony of color as Whistler insisted, an arrangement of line or a matter of facile workmanship as Alexander and Chase contended. No one will deny that. In fact there is a modern disposition to locate the art of a picture strictly within the limits of craftsmanship. But a picture may express something more than the skill of the painter. Many of the craft have shown that it is a means of expressing moods, passions, feelings, sentiments, emotions; they insist that line and color, and all the what-not of technique, are merely the means to an end and not the end itself. Both arguments have merit and are abundantly exemplified in practice. And why not something worth while, something acceptable, in both?

There was good reason why Chase and Alexander should be accepted, because they came at a time when method in America was in sad need of reconstruction. Modern craftsmanship was practically unknown. They brought it into vogue, established it as the grammar of art, gave it the prominence it deserved. It was then, as now, the sine qua non of art. One must know how before he can say very much of moment. There have been painters and poets with very limited skill who have said things the world is glad to remember, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. The Shakespeares, Goethes, Titians, and Rembrandts were all highly trained craftsmen. They had great things to say, surely; but should we have heard them had they belonged to the unskilled? How many in all the arts have had

“The vision and the faculty divine

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse!”

We need not, then, think lightly of the craftsman in American art. He has proved a much-needed person in the school. And his work has also turned out to be a very agreeable factor in the home. Art of a decided quality does lie in the eye and the hand. It can be greatly enhanced in significance by the addition of a mind and a soul, but these latter must be approached through the former to attain their full expression. For, to repeat, technique or craftsmanship is at the bottom of all artistic expression.

Alexander learned to paint in practically the same roundabout way as Chase. He was born in Alleghany City in 1856, and as a child was reared by his grandparents, his father and mother having died early. At twelve he was a telegraph messenger, and shortly afterward, with the death of his grandparents, he came under the guardianship of Colonel Edward J. Allen. He was persuaded to give up the telegraph work and go to school, but at eighteen he broke away and went to New York. He had given signs as a boy of artistic tendencies, his drawings had attracted some attention, and he went to New York to make illustrations for the Harpers. There was some disappointment at first. The Harpers had not heard of him and did not want his artistic services, not even as an apprentice. But they needed an office boy. He accepted the place, and through it got into the art department, where he finally came to work upon blocks and plates. Charles Parsons was then in charge of the department, and E. A. Abbey, Stanley Reinhart, and A. B. Frost were there. Alexander learned much from their counsel and example. From 1875 to 1877 there appeared in Harper’s Weekly an occasional political cartoon signed “Alexander,” and in 1877 during the great strike in Pittsburgh there were a number of large sketches and illustrations signed “J. W. Alexander.” Later on he did for the Harper publications and also for the Century Magazine various illustrations signed “J. W. A.”; but this was after he had been to Munich and had had some exact training.

He remained with the Harpers three years, and then with Albert G. Reinhart he went to Europe. The pair had intended to study art in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but on arrival there they found the school closed for the summer. With no French to their name, Paris was a little dreary, and they drifted on to Munich—because Reinhart understood a little German, it is said. The Munich Academy was open, and Alexander entered the classes of Professor Benzcur and remained there for some three months. The teaching proved too academic and the living in Munich too high for him, and he went to Polling, a small town in Bavaria, where there was an American art colony under the shepherding of Frank Duveneck. Shirlaw, Currier, Joseph De Camp, Ross Turner were of the group. Alexander fell into good company and began at once to profit by the association. While at Polling he sent sketches to the student’s exhibition at Munich and won for them a bronze medals—his first honor. Two years were passed in Bavaria and then he joined Duveneck’s class to study art in Italy. There were twenty-three in the class, and Alexander with Duveneck went ahead to Florence to engage studios for them.

Two winters were spent at Florence—the summer months being more agreeably put in at Venice. It was at Venice in the summer of 1880 that Alexander met Whistler and received counsel and direction from him. The advice was very potent in helping him out of the dark Munich rut and suggesting that the decorative was perhaps more important than the merely realistic or representative. Indeed the Whistler influence was the most compelling the young student had yet encountered. It made a decided impression upon him and changed perhaps the whole trend of his art. For while Alexander never imitated Whistler’s schemes or patterns, he accepted the decorative point of view, giving it out in his own way with many changes and modifications brought about by later observation in Paris. He was always impressionable and quick to adopt new ideas, and yet it is almost impossible in his work to trace home any feature to a given source. In that respect he was perhaps more original than Chase or even Whistler himself.