AMERICAN PAINTING AND ITS TRADITION

AMERICAN PAINTING

AND ITS TRADITION

AS REPRESENTED BY INNESS, WYANT, MARTIN, HOMER, LA FARGE, WHISTLER, CHASE, ALEXANDER, SARGENT

BY

JOHN C. VAN DYKE

Author of “Art for Art’s Sake,” “The Meaning of Pictures,” “What is Art?” etc.

With Twenty-four Illustrations

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1919

Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner’s Sons Published October, 1919

PREFACE

THE painters about whom these chapters are written helped to make up the period in American painting dating, generally, from about 1878 to, say, 1915. That period has practically closed in the sense that a newer generation with different aims and aspirations has come forward, and the men who broke ground years ago in the Society of American Artists have turned their furrow and had their day. Indeed, those I have chosen to write about herein, with the exception of Sargent, have passed on and passed out. Not only their period but their work has ended. We are now beginning to see them in something like historic perspective. Perhaps, then, the time is opportune for speaking of them as a group and of their influence upon American art.

Not all of the one-time “new movement” originated and died with these nine men. Dozens of painters became identified with American art just after the Centennial, and many of those who came back from Munich and Paris in the late seventies and the early eighties are still living and producing. But while the nine were by no means the whole count they were certainly representative of the movement, and their works speak for almost every phase of it. The value of the movement to American art can be rightly enough judged from them.

During their lives these nine did not lack for praise—some of it wise and some of it otherwise. They were much exploited in print. I myself joined in the chorus. I had more or less acquaintance with all of them, lived through the period with them, and from 1880 on wrote much about them. My opportunities for seeing and hearing were abundant, and perhaps such value as this book may possess comes from my having been a looker-on in Vienna during those years. To personal impressions I am now adding certain conclusions as to what the men on my list, taken as a body, have established. They wrought during a period of great material development—wrought in a common spirit, making an epoch in art history and leaving a tradition. The pathfinders in any period deserve well of their countrymen. And their trail is worth following, for eventually it may become a broad national highway.

J. C. V. D.

Rutgers College,

1919.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The Art Tradition in America 1

II. George Inness 19

III. Alexander H. Wyant 43

IV. Homer Martin 65

V. Winslow Homer 89

VI. John La Farge 115

VII. James Abbott McNeill Whistler 147

VIII. William Merritt Chase 185

IX. John W. Alexander 217

X. John S. Sargent 243

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

George Inness, “Evening at Medfield” 32

George Inness, “Sunset at Montclair” 34

Reproduced by the courtesy of F. F. Sherman, publisher of “George Inness,” by Elliott Daingerfield

George Inness, “Hackensack Meadows” 38

Alexander H. Wyant, “Mohawk Valley” 52

Alexander H. Wyant, “Broad, Silent Valley” 58

Homer D. Martin, “View on the Seine” 78

Homer D. Martin, “Westchester Hills” 84

Reproduced by the courtesy of F. F. Sherman, publisher of “Homer Martin,” by Frank Jewett Mather

Winslow Homer, “Undertow” 102

Winslow Homer, “Marine” 104

Winslow Homer, “Fox and Crows” 108

John La Farge, “Paradise Valley” 130

John La Farge, “The Muse” 134

John La Farge, “The Three Kings” 138

James A. McNeill Whistler, “Nocturne. Gray and Silver. Chelsea Embankment” 158

James A. McNeill Whistler, “The Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine” 162

James A. McNeill Whistler, “The Yellow Buskin” 168

William Merritt Chase, “The Woman with the White Shawl” 202

William Merritt Chase, “Afternoon at Peconic” 204

William Merritt Chase, “Child Dancing” 212

John W. Alexander, “The Ring” 230

John W. Alexander, “Walt Whitman” 236

John S. Sargent, “Mrs. Pulitzer” 256

John S. Sargent, “Carnation Lily, Lily Rose” 260

John S. Sargent, “Carmencita” 262

I