William Hamilton Gibson: artist—naturalist—author

by John Coleman Adams

His work, moreover, was strong not only in its mastery of the science of expression, but by its fidelity to the facts of science in its subject-matter. It was a flat refutation of the doctrine, so dear to shallow sentimentalists, that the progress of science must weaken the power and circumscribe the field of art. There is much misleading talk to the effect that science is filching from the realm of the imagination, the kingdom where art thrives, and by its cold light is taking all the glow and loveliness out of the atmosphere in which the fancy has been wont to see its fairest visions. But almost any one of Gibson’s illustrations of natural history, of botanical subjects, or of open-air life and scenery sufficiently refutes this theory. Here is a mind at once faithful to the scientific method, and free in its artistic spirit. Here is the accuracy of the scientist’s eye and the artist’s creative imagination. Turning the pages of “Sharp Eyes,” or indeed almost any of his books, one knows not which to praise the more, his close observation of fact or his easy translation of it into the dress of fancy. One of his critics said: “His pictures sometimes seem ideal, they are wrought with such a light and painstaking touch. Yet close analysis will show them to be almost photographic in their accuracy.” However freely his fancy deals with the facts, he never violates their logic, nor misrepresents their substance. Mr. Roe, in a letter to Gibson once told him: “You understand nature, and are capable of seeing her as she exists. Most other artists have conventional ideas of nature. You can take an actual scene and reproduce it, while at the same time idealizing it.” His methods are a triumphant example of the scientific use of the imagination, and of the imaginative presentation of science. The most hardened Gradgrinds of research could find no fault with his facts, but were astonished and put to confusion by his power to suffuse reality with the glow of a poetic fancy. One critic, writing in the “New York Tribune,” did say of him, in the tone of one pointing out a limitation, “Nimble and agile as he was of intellect, he did not possess breadth and scope of judgment, nor maintain a deliberate balance of interests.” But even this farfetched comment did not deny his fidelity to the facts, but only claimed a tendency to give them wrong values; and moreover the critic was reckoning without a large knowledge of his mind. He confuses Gibson’s business as an artist with what his business might have been as a mere naturalist, and in doing so makes the common mistake of disparaging what is done by showing that it is not something which was not attempted.

Here, for instance, in a chapter on “Ballooning Seeds,” Gibson draws across a page what he calls a “fanciful eddy,” wafting up a swarm of seeds, which fly abroad on the autumn breeze. Every form in the airy sketch is accurate enough for a text-book, yet the whole is fit for the illustration of a poem. Again, in “A Masquerade of Stamens,” his pencil leads down the page out of a sunny meadow a long procession which, beginning in the grasses of the foreground, develops into the exactly drawn forms of a score of curiously fashioned stamens. The illustrations for “Queer Fruits from the Bee’s Basket,” with its decorated initial, showing just the right bee, investigating just the right flower; the laden bees hastening from the clump of bushes in the foreground to the distant hives behind the farmhouse; and finally the sketch at the close, of a group of the odd forms of pollen-dust which the microscope reveals;—these are all examples of a fancy which only serves to illumine, throw light upon, the fact, but never to distort it or to pervert it. In this phase of his work, Gibson carries the office of the illustrator to its highest possible point, and shows all its dignity and power.

He did all this in his own way. No artist of our generation was more thoroughly individual in his methods and in his aim. He sought what his own spirit loved and longed for. He saw with no eyes but his own. He drew and painted after his own fashion. His originality was absolute. He had none of the mannerisms of any man or any school but his own. He asked no one to tell him the color of the grass, or the fashion in which he should paint the clouds. What he did was his own work, what he saw was his own vision. What men called his “versatility” in the choice of “mediums” was his quick sense of fitness and of adaptation. His aim was never loyalty to a school, adherence to a method, repetition of a successful device of technique. It was always, rather, fidelity to nature, adaptation of the medium to the thing represented, variety of method to treat his various themes. If his style became characteristic, it was because he put his own strong mark on all his work. It was as much his own as his autograph. It was William Hamilton Gibson transferred to paper or canvas.

Gibson’s success as an artist was as good for the American people as it was for himself. It was truly a “popular” success. The people, and a great many of them, secured it. For he spoke to them, and they made approving answer. It would be hard to name an artist of his generation who appealed to a larger public, whose work in the magazines was hailed with a heartier delight, whose name stood for a more definite pleasure and appreciation than his. The people liked his work, and they knew why they liked it. One of his most discriminating critics said of him, in 1888:

“Mr. Gibson’s work has been essentially democratic, that is, has reached the many rather than the few, presenting to them studies of nature which stand for a great deal more than mere descriptive picturesqueness, because, as we have said before, they are informed not only with the feeling for the beautiful, but also with the scientific spirit of inquiry and a love of exact truth.” To gain such universal approval without the slightest swerving from his artistic integrity, or any lowering of his artistic standard, was an immense triumph. He realized it, and it gave him great joy. His honest and ingenuous pride in the reception accorded to his early work is well shown in two brief notes to his mother, one in May, the other in July, 1878:

“The bird article is finished and the proofs are beginning to pour in. One or two of them are so fine that their fame has spread over the city, and I am besieged by engravers and artists to see them. One, a full-sized peacock’s feather which takes up a full page of the magazine, is by far the most superb piece of wood-engraving that has ever been accomplished. It is spoken of in art-circles all over the city. It is the opening picture, and will create a sensation. The illustrations number sixteen in all, and Mr. Parsons told Mr. Beard and others that it was the most beautiful and at the same time the most expensive article the magazine had ever gotten up. Mr. Parsons told me that the drawings not only pleased him, but that they exceeded his highest expectations, and that he did not believe there was another man in this country or in any other that could excel them.”

In similar vein, after the notices began to appear, he wrote again:

“Brooklyn, July 27, 1878.

“Dear Mother:—

“I send you to-day a copy of the ‘Nation’ containing notice of Harper’s Magazine. The ‘Nation’ is a high authority and has the reputation of stating the truth. It seldom goes into ecstasies over anything, and such a notice as it has given of my ‘birds’ is considered by the Harpers as a magnificent compliment.”