The Book of Philadelphia
By Robert Shackleton
©1918
The Penn Publishing Company
Philadelphia
Chapter XI
ART AND ARTISTS
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HERE are two big canvases by the Philadelphia painter,
Benjamin West, including his famous "Death on the Pale Horse," in the
Academy of the Fine Arts of this city; another great canvas—for West worked in
a period when there was importunate demand for canvases of heroic size, and he
was amply qualified to meet the demand—is in the Pennsylvania Hospital here;
others are preserved in the National Gallery of London, in the Grosvenor
Gallery, and in many other public or private British collections.
Benjamin
West was also a personal favorite of George the Third, and by a remarkable
chance it so happened that he was painting, a portrait of that monarch when a
messenger entered with news from West's own city, the most important news that
ever came out of Philadelphia, that of the Signing of the Declaration of
Independence. For a little while the King was agitated; then his agitation
ceased and he became silent and thoughtful; and at length he said
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slowly:
"Well, if they cannot be happy under my government, I hope they will not
change it for a worse.—I wish them no ill."
West had been
prominent in organizing the Royal Academy, and when its first president, Sir
Joshua Reynolds, died, he, American as he was, was unanimously chosen president
to succeed the mighty Reynolds; and held the office for more than a score of
years.
When
he died, in 1820, he was laid to rest in St. Paul's where Reynolds and Van Dyck
had similarly been honored, and his body was followed to the cathedral by a
long line of lovers of art and by great and titled men. Yet in the very year of
West's death Sydney Smith wrote his famous gibe: "In the four quarters of
the globe, who looks at an American picture or reads an American book?"
And at the time, and ever since, the gibe has been accepted, not so much by the
English as by Americans themselves, just because a very clever Englishman said
it; although Sydney Smith well knew of Benjamin West, and also of that other
American, Lindley Murray—also to be deemed a Philadelphian, for he was born in
Lancaster County—whose Grammar was, when Smith wrote, the acknowledged standard
for all British writers. So that Sydney Smith well knew, and every one ought to
know, that everybody of taste or knowledge looked at American pictures and
honored American writing; and to West and Murray may be added Gilbert Stuart, a
superior of West, and Benjamin Franklin, whose
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writings were
familiar to every Englishman. Yet what persistent life a gibe may have!
Enclosed
within the campus of Swarthmore college is still preserved the farmhouse in
which, far back in 1735, Benjamin West was born. Indians were still common in the neighborhood
at that period, and one day one of them, watching little Benjamin making a
picture (for West was an instinctive artist from his very boyhood), silently
give the lad some pigment of red and some of yellow, such as the Indians used
in painting their own bodies, so that the boy might make his pictures in color.
Overjoyed, the boy ran to show the colors to his mother, whereupon she promptly
handed him some indigo from beside her washtub, and thus did Benjamin West
first come into possession of the three primary colors; one of the many
examples of the ancient adage that truth is stranger than fiction.
As a young
man, we see West away from his farm and located in nearby Philadelphia, making;
pictures for one dollar each (the Spanish dollar was then our unit of money),
and before long he has actually so improved, under such encouragement and
advice as the town could then offer, and by virtue of his indefatigability,
that he is receiving five pounds for every portrait; and now he heeded the call
of Rome, and sailed, armed with letters of introduction and preceded by letters
of description; for Philadelphia was proud of him.
And
now came an incident which forever gave him standing. The painters in Rome
arranged joyfully
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to make game
of the raw youth from the backwoods, and they so managed as to have him first
led into the presence of the Apollo Belvidere. But West looked calmly at the
statue, with intelligent appreciation; and then said, quietly, "It is like
a Mohawk warrior." With that he attained, in an instant, in the judgment
of European artists—for his words flew broadcast—to the pedestal of
clear-sighted originality; no one else had ever thought of comparing the
physical perfection of Greece with the physical perfection of the American
wilderness.
He did not
settle in Rome, but in London, and there he never failed to use every
opportunity to aid other American artists, for he knew from his own experience
how much an artist needs aid and encouragement in his formative days. Gilbert
Stuart, Copley, Allston, Trumbull; such and others were American artists that,
in London, he nobly encouraged and generously helped. And many Americans called
who were not artists, and they were always genially welcomed; and in regard to
this there is a story that is peculiarly typical of Philadelphia. For one day
West had as a dinner guest one of the Whartons of Philadelphia, and a caller
was announced, and as West did not happen to know the name, Wharton volunteered
to go and see who it was. In a few moments he came back beaming: "He's all right!" he exclaimed.
"He is connected with one of the most exclusive Philadelphia
families!"
The
portraits of West and his wife by Matthew Pratt, said to be the first American
artist that West
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helped, show
the distinguished man to have been very distinguished looking, with long nose
and high-arched eyebrows, with a slender, striking and unusual face framed in
dark hair; And, Mrs. West is an alert, winsome, highly likable woman, with pearl
necklace, low-cut dress and filmy white scarf, and an odd suggestion of Mona
Lisa about the mouth. They make a handsome pair, like a couple straight out of
romance; and their marriage was indeed a romance. And never did a romantic tale
concern so many distinguished Philadelphians.
For before
leaving Philadelphia for Rome, West had met pretty Elizabeth Shewell; he had
been introduced to her by Anthony Wayne; and an engagement followed
acquaintance, but her brother—the two were orphans—frowned upon the engagement,
for he was a wealthy merchant and saw no money in art. So West went to Europe
alone.
But
as soon as he won his foothold abroad, West wrote to Elizabeth that he now was
able to earn sufficient money to live on. His father, he said, was shortly going
to England to see him, and he begged her to cross in his father's care, and
they would be married in London. He must have given a good reason why he could
not come back to Philadelphia to get her, for the high-spirited Elizabeth
acceded to his urgency and told her brother that she was going to London to be
married; at which the ogre of a brother promptly and literally locked her in
her room. Elizabeth had unguardedly told him everything, even on what ship
West's father was to sail,
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and with that
knowledge the brother determined to keep her under lock and key until after the
boat had gone.
But Elizabeth
was not to be balked. She was going to be married to her Benjamin! So she
contrived to let one of his friends know of her plight, whereupon he and two
other friends planned to aid her. There is no absolute certainty as to who were
the three, but charming tradition has for decades had it that they were
Benjamin Franklin, Francis Hopkinson, who was afterwards one of the Signers,
and William White, who was destined to become the first Episcopalian bishop in
America. And never was so romantic and youthful a scheme carried out by so many
men who were later to win such grave dignities.
Through
collusion with Elizabeth's maid a rope-ladder was smuggled into the house, and
after night had fallen the young woman and the maid descended from the window
and, under the escort of the three friends, they galloped down to Chester—what
a delightful galloping party that was!—and at Chester a small boat was in waiting
to carry them out into the channel, where the brig which was bearing West’s
father had lain, by arrangement with the captain to wait for them. And so
Elizabeth got to London and became Mrs. West.
For
over fifty years of married life the romance happily continued; and it adds
fascinating interest to the great pictures by West that his city of
Philadelphia still pridefully preserves.
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On the whole,
the most distinguished portrait painter that America has produced was Gilbert
Stuart, and it was in Philadelphia that his most superb portraits, those of
President Washington, were made.
The father of
Gilbert Stuart was a Scotchman who gallantly went out for "Prince
Charlie" and, after fighting through the brief campaign and at Culloden,
fled to America and started a little snuff mill a few miles from what is now
known as Narragansett Pier, in Rhode Island. I was near there lately, and
hunted the place up, and found the old mill and the old house still there,
beside, the thicket-bordered little stream, in the heart of a wild and little
settled region (small though Rhode Island is!); and I thought it but natural
that an American, born in so romantic a spot, should, after great success in
England and the painting of King George and of his son who was to be another
King George, romantically gave up his career of success for the sake of coming
back to his native land to paint the greatest George of all, George Washington.
What
is known as the Atenæum portrait, which
was made by Stuart in Philadelphia while the seat of the national government
was here, is by general consent, and has from the first been deemed, the finest
and most adequate of all the portraits of Washington, whether by Gilbert Stuart
or others. And there were so many artists, in all, including Americans and
foreigners, who wished to put Washington on canvas or into marble, that he
could write, good-naturedly,
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that "I
am now altogether at their beck, and sit like Patience on a monument, whilst
they are delineating the lines of my face"; and this is especially
interesting from its incidental quotation from Shakespeare, which was not at
all a customary matter with Washington.
The Athenæum portrait, with the firm-set month, the steady eyes, the
brooding, watchful greatness of it all, stands as the picture of a ruler of the
ages; and I do not know that it has ever been remarked that it bears a striking
resemblance to the Sphinx. Whether by accident or design, and I think it must
have been by design, Gilbert Stuart followed the position, the pose and the
angles of that mighty mystery of the past, and there is in his portrait the
same massive dignity and gravity, the same calm unshakableness, that one sees
in the Sphinx. The stoppage of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait at the shoulders adds
to the similitude, and even the hair of Washington, in the portrait, comes down
precisely as does that of the great stone image.
This portrait
by Stuart did not remain in Philadelphia, but went to Boston, but Philadelphia
still possesses, in spite of this, the finest collection of Gilbert Stuart's
portraits, in both number and, variety, of any city. Most of them are gathered
at the Academy of the Fine Arts, and they are superb and beautiful examples of
portraiture. Hazlitt, who once filled a great space in the public eye, deserves
to be still remembered for some of his wise clevernesses, as, for example, his
declaration that he
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would rather
leave a good portrait of himself behind him than a good epitaph; and he would
have been more than ever justified in his remark could he have been painted by
Gilbert Stuart.
The Gilbert
Stuarts are the glory of the Academy, and it is to be regretted that for the
greater part of that time of the year during which visitors come to the city,
the Gilbert Stuarts are heedlessly packed out of sight, to make room for
hundreds of pictures, most of them necessarily mediocre, in spite of the
numerous fine ones, shown in the annual exhibitions.
On the whole,
Philadelphia still holds the art leadership of the country, and it is odd that
it should do so, for, although in the beginning it was the largest and richest
American city, riches and size were soon more markedly attained by New York.
Yet New York, in drawing to herself the national leadership in literature and
the professions, was not able to grasp the leadership in art.
To the Academy
of the Fine Arts, "the Academy," the long leadership is owing; it
having been founded in 1805 by that original genius, Charles Willson Peale, who
did so much for America, in painting the portraits of her leaders, and who,
similar to the many-sided Paul Revere, was not only of highly artistic bent,
but was also a dentist, an engraver and a silversmith, a saddler, a clockmaker,
a glass molder and a soldier; at the Battle of Trenton he served as a captain
of volunteers; but most of all he was artistic. And when it came to naming his
children he did not name them after rich uncles or
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famous
statesmen but, with proper devotion to his art, gave such names as Rembrandt
and Raphael, Van Dyck, Titian and Angelica Kauffman. It was as if, like Bernard
Shaw's Louis Dubedat, his confession of faith was: "I believe in Michael
Angelo, Velasquez and Rembrandt, in the might of design, the mystery of color,
the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting." Or, if one wishes to
be more prosaic, he may compare Peale's idiosyncrasy with that of the soldier
of Charles Dickens who named his children from the garrison posts where they
were born, as Malta, Quebec and Woolwich.
One does not
need to feel prosaic about anything connected with Charles Willson Peale, for
he profoundly worshiped art from his early years to the very close of his long
life. He worshiped art, in those early American days, under difficulties. And
it is pleasant to remember that Washington liked him.
He tried to
establish an art collection and a school of art, in 1797, and was aided, but
unsuccessfully, by the wood-carver Rush, and an Italian named Ceracchi who had
come over to make busts of Washington and others and who, unfortunately for himself,
went to France just in time to be guillotined. A few years later Peale made
another attempt, but this time shocked Philadelphia by showing a Venus de
Medici in his collection, and it had to be kept out of sight except for a
privileged few.
But he
persevered, and the present Academy was started, by seventy-one leading
citizens, who met to-
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gether and decided
to organize; and it was housed in a beautiful classic building designed by the
distinguished, Latrobe. From the first the Academy was given acknowledged
standing, even though its first formal exhibition, in 1806, was sorely
shocking. For casts of statuary had been sent from Paris, and although they had
been chosen by a Biddle (one of the names revered by Philadelphia) it was
necessary to set aside Mondays for the ladies exclusively, so that they need
not be embarrassed.
In the course
of years the classic structure was burned, and it was in 1876 that the Academy
moved to its new quarters, the extremely uninteresting structure that it built
at Broad and Cherry streets.
It was a
Philadelphia artist, Sargent, who gave Whistler the opportunity to flash one of
the most brilliant lightnings of his caustic wit. For Sargent had on exhibition
in London a painting which he had named "Carnation Lily, Lily Rose,"
which swiftly brought from Whistler the "Darnation silly, silly
pose!" And, Sargent being a man of high ability, the clever fleer
doubtless was of influence in keeping him from progress in a sentimental
direction.
I call Sargent
a Philadelphian because he called himself a Philadelphian, although he was born
in Italy, and his first childish language was German, and his first art study
was in France, and England has been principally his home. Queen Victoria once
offered to make him an Englishman, but he courteously declined. His parents
were or wealth and social position in this city; his mother was a
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Newbold; so he
was born in the Philadelphia purple, although the purple happened to be at the
time in Florence. Admirable and distinguished though his work is, one fancies
that perhaps a little more of Whistler would have been good for his art, for an
infusion of weakness, which it needed a peculiarly clearsighted man to
discover, displayed itself when he came to make portraits of the really great
and strong; for at the recent exhibition of 1918 at the Philadelphia Academy
there were shown his Woodrow Wilson and his John D. Rockefeller, and in neither
case was this really great painter able to put upon canvas the indomitable
forcefulness of his subject. Plainly though that quality is to be seen in the
faces of both of them, Sargent did not reproduce it.
William M.
Chase, though born in Indiana, had much to do with Philadelphia. He was greatly
stimulated by the Centennial. For thirteen years he taught in this city. Here
he painted some of his best works. Here his finical dressing became recognized,
his care as to every detail, even to every hair of his pointed beard. And he
himself keenly appreciated the astonished question of a little ragged boy, who,
playing on the Broad Street pavement, caught sight of him and, after a moment's
stare of fascination, ran after him with the impulsive question, "Say,
mister, ain't you somebody!"
As a man and
as an artist, Chase impressed; and what is probably his finest portrait, the
"Lady with
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the White
Shawl," is in the Academy: a lovely portrait, a thing of beauty, a
portrait all in harmony, the fine and expressive face, the dark background, the
dark gown and the white shawl.
Whistler,
rather critical of Sargent, was a close personal friend of Chase, and one of
Whistler's most excellent portraits is in this city; not, however, at the
Academy but lost amid the jumble of the ordinary at Memorial Hall; and yet, not
really lost, for the eye singles it out at once; the portrait of Lady Archibald
Campbell, a picture of splendid color in perfect modulations, the portrait of a
beautiful woman, a woman all alive. Yet it is remembered that her husband did
not like it—which perhaps explains why it found its way to this city of
Philadelphia.
Friend of
Chase though he was, Whistler would have been delighted to be the author of a
pungent Philadelphia cleverness regarding him; for a visitor, looking first at
the distinguished Sully portraits of lovely women, and then at the
white-shawled portrait by Chase, remarked that if he were a woman he
"would rather be Sullyed than Chased."
In the very
first city directory of Philadelphia is a reminder of an early and curious
connection of art with this city, for in that directory, of 1785, Robert Fulton
is set down as a miniature painter, at Second and Walnut streets; for Fulton
was Lancaster County born, and was a painter before he became inventor of the
steamboat. I do not recall any of his portraits as retained in Philadelphia,
but
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his work may
be seen (and it is fairly good work, too) among the portraits gathered at the
City Hall in New York.
Howard Pyle
was nearly a Philadelphian, for his home
was at nearby Wilmington; and he painted castles and feudal knights in armor
excellently throughout many years; until, indeed, he went to Europe and for the
first time saw the castles which his imagination and his brush had so well
pictured; whereupon, whether with age or excitement, he shortly died.
Edwin A. Abbey
was born in Philadelphia, and was typesetter on a newspaper before getting his
start as an artist. And mention of his name brings up the question of how
English Royalty could get along without Americans, and especially without
Philadelphians. For Charles Leslie, who painted the Coronation of Queen
Victoria, was the son of a Philadelphia watchmaker and went to England to make
his artistic fortune; and as to Abbey, it was the most curious of his life
experiences, that, seated on the top of the tomb of Edward the Confessor, he
made his studies, during the ceremonies, for the painting which at King
Edward's request he made of that King's Coronation in Westminster Abbey; and he
had also the curious experience of refusing the formal request or the
government to paint the Coronation of George the Fifth: Abbey himself having become
a veritable "Westminster Abbey" indeed. John LaFarge was not a
Philadelphian, yet he should be mentioned in references to Philadelphia
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art, because
his father, a young officer of Napoleon the Great, having been sent to San Domingo
as one of an expedition to suppress an insurrection, was compelled to flee and,
after vividly exciting adventures, reached America, landing at Philadelphia.
And the artist himself had another connection with this city, because he
married a young woman who was not only the granddaughter of Commodore Perry of
the Battle of Lake Erie but great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin.
There are
present-day Philadelphia artists, women as well as men; in fact, women rather
more than men, as if to call attention to the fact that this is the Twentieth
Century; who carry on the tradition of the city's artistic distinction, by not
only doing excellent work but by winning fame far beyond the bounds of the
city: among such artists being Elizabeth Shippen Green, Cecilia Beaux, Violet
Oakley, Mary Cassatt, Alice Barber Stephens, and, notable among the world's
etchers, Joseph Pennell. Maxfield Parrish, too, is a Philadelphian.
A Philadelphia
lawyer calmly remarked to a Philadelphia artist one day—I have the story from the
lips of the artist himself—that the necessary men are the lawyer, the doctor,
and the clergyman, the artist being but an unnecessary chance product; to which
cool assurance the artist instantly replied that the lawyer, the doctor, and
the clergyman depend entirely for their existence upon the crimes or accidents
of life, for not one of the three would be of any good whatever if nothing were
the matter
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with body or
property or soul; but that the artist stands for the beautiful, and for things
which nobly nourish the mind.
[School
of Industrial Arts]