William Merritt Chase: Efforts at Art

"Apprentice," 1875 by
William Merritt Chase

"William Merritt Chase returned for a time to the uncongenial task of clerk in his father's shop, but the art impulse still persisted and found its way to expression. Up to this time the young artist had never had the opportunity to use oil paints, but when he found a number of cans of house paint at home an idea struck him. He painted a portrait of the ship's captain on a large piece of sheet iron, and delighted with the possibilities he next painted a picture of his father's calf, his brother holding the reluctant animal in pose.

Another day Chase decided to make a plaster cast of his mother, but being inexperienced, he found himself unable to remove the hardened plaster which stuck to the patient lady's eyebrows. The frightened younger children stood about while young William chipped away the plaster bit by bit.  It is a testimony to the maternal devotion that Mrs. Chase, after this highly unpleasant experience, consented to the operation again. This time everything worked perfectly.

He often pressed his brothers and sisters into service as models. The attempt to reproduce what he saw had an unceasing fascination for him. Finally, his father consented to take his son to an artist and get his opinion about the boy studying drawing. However, the painter prophesied that the boy could never hope to succeed in his chosen career.

This had the opposite effect upon William. He started in with even greater determination, bought his first box of real painting materials and began to experiment with them. His father took him to another artist. This man, Benjamin Hayes, realized at once that the boy had talent and accepted him as a pupil. 

Chase made great strides now, and after several months of instruction his teacher declared his pupil had learned all that he could teach him. He suggested that the young man should be sent to New York, giving him a letter to artist and instructor J.O. Eaton. That was in 1869. At that time William Chase was exactly twenty years old."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase" by Katharine Metcalf Roof.)

William Merritt Chase: Off to Sea

"Seascape with Boats" by William Merritt Chase

"When William Chase was about fifteen or sixteen his father, who was a shoe dealer, took him into his shop as a clerk. But the boy spent so much time drawing on the wrapping paper and paid so little attention to customers that his father began to regard his erratic and useless son as a visitation of Providence. It was evident that young Chase did not have his heart in the shoe business. He was likely to slip out of the shop at the most crowded hour to look at the works of art displayed in a neighboring shop window. He used to stand enraptured; hoping, he said, that some day he might be able to paint like that, yet fearing that he could never attain to such heights of achievement. Imagine now, Chase the master, standing enthralled before a lithograph in a window!

As he grew older, with a restlessness born of the fact that he had not yet found the thing his nature demanded, the boy decided that he would like to be a sailor, and begged his father to let him enter the navy. He consulted with another dissatisfied clerk in his father's store, and they both decided that they would begin as sailors, from which humble position their virtues and talents would soon raise them to the admiralty. 'For Merritt always had the idea of being somebody of importance in the world,' his mother said.

The father, glad to have his son interested in something more tangible and lucrative than art, gave his consent, and William and his friend boarded a train for Annapolis. The two boys were accepted and placed on the school ship 'Portsmouth' which was then starting on a three-months' cruise. But very soon after the ship had left land Chase found that he had made a sad mistake. On the ship he was not very popular. One of the petty officers disliked the absent-minded boy and made him perform all the unpopular tasks. The sailors were rather a rough lot and William Chase, an artist to the soul, was thoroughly unhappy among them.

When the tale of the boy's suffering had been poured into his father's ear, the man travelled in person to New York to obtain his son's discharge. So moved was he by his son's pathetic story that he not only bought his son a new suit of clothes, but took both boys out to dinner and the theatre before reinstating him as clerk in his shoe shop."

To be continued

("The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase," by his former student, Katharine Metcalf Roof, was published in 1917.)

William Merritt Chase: An Artistic Boy

"The Morning News"
by William Merritt Chase

"William Merritt Chase was born in the little town of Williamsburg, Indiana, on November 1, 1849. His father was a native of Indiana as was his mother. The family lived in Williamsburg till William Chase was about twelve years old. It is almost impossible for us to picture the bareness and limitation of such an environment. 

His early concepts of art were gained from the crude lithographs that adorned the simple homes of the period, and the illustrations of such books as found their way into his circle. These the boy used to copy - not in his playtime, but in the hours dedicated to 'studying lessons.' As far back as he can remember he had the ambition , as he expressed it, 'to make pictures for books.' His attempts to draw began very early, but he did not have any painting materials until he was twelve or fourteen, and then only such colored pencils or watercolor paints as are given to children for playthings.

In the school that he attended, the teacher had a drawing class after school hours. Drawing lessons at that time meant making copies in pencil from a drawing book, filled with outline pictures of domestic animals, luxuriant trees, church spires, and old oaken buckets. In this guileless form of art, Chase's prowess soon far outstripped his teacher's skill. 

Soon he began to draw from life, people and things. Chase's schoolmates apparently did not hold the young artist's talent in great regard, but reviewing those days Chase never sentimentalized his lack of recognition. 'I am not sure that it is a bad thing to go to a school as I did, where the boys threw things at me, and asked if there was nothing else I could do, ' he said once to his class."

(Excerpts are from "The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase," by his former student, Katharine Metcalf Roof.)

William Morris Hunt's "Talks on Art:" Miscellany

"Still Life with Onions" by N.C. Wyeth

"There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder. It should impress you like reality.  Velasquez and Tintoretto could do this like no one else - not Titian even, whose work was beautifully modeled and colored, but had not this quality of instantly seizing and holding the attention."

"I saw a man walk by. I have an impression in my brain of that man. I did not scrutinize him. I am not sure that he took steps exactly two feet and a half long. That had nothing to do with the impression. In your sketches keep the first vivid impression. Add no details that shall weaken it."

"Work as long as you know what to do. Not an instant longer!"

"Nothing remains of a nation but its poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture."

"Continually walk away from your work, and see if your representation realizes your idea of the subject."

"Strike frankly and strong from your convictions, and your faults will be much more easily corrected; for they will be the more evident."

"When an inexperienced person discourages you by not liking your work, ask yourself how many dollars you would give for his opinion."

"Keep this in mind, that it is the definite, individual character of an object which makes beauty."

"The effect of light is what makes things beautiful. Light never stops to find beauty." 

(Excerpts from W.M. Hunt's "Talks on Art.")

 

William Morris Hunt's "Talks on Art:" Motivation

"Val d'Aosta (A Stream over Rocks)" by John Singer Sargent

"Artists are supposed to pass their lives in earnest endeavor to express through the medium of paint or pencil, thoughts, feelings, or impressions which they cannot help expressing, and which cannot possibly be expressed by any other means. They make use of material means in order to arrive at this end. They tell their story - the story of a day, an impression of a character, a recollection of a moment, or whatever, more or less clearly or well, as they are more or less capable of doing. They expose their work to the public, not for the sake of praise, but with a feeling and a hope that some human being may see in it the feeling that has passed through their own mind in their poor and necessarily crippled statement. The endeavor is honest and earnest, if almost always with a result weakened by over conscientiousness or endeavor to be understood."

"If we only would dare to say what we believe - what we like. We pick a little flower in the field, and look at it by ourselves, certain that no one sees us. At last somebody comes along: 'Hulloa! Then you like a potato blossom? So do I! But I never dared to say so.'"

"The painter has to go directly to nature, or he is a mere copyist. He cannot paint his picture like somebody else. He must tell his own story... Please look out of the window. You'll get something different from what you get out of books, for it never has been seen before."

"Five years ago scarcely a Boston individual would look at a Corot. Twenty years ago nobody in Europe would buy him. He was 'so peculiar!' So was Christopher Columbus. The pioneer is always peculiar!"

"We don't work enough for the sake of learning but too much for the sake of having it known that we work. The desire to excel is natural and commendable, but we must cut it down, and sacrifice ourselves in order to learn."

"The artist is an interpreter of Nature. People learn to love nature through pictures. To the artist nothing is in vain; nothing beneath his notice. If he is great enough he will exalt every subject which he treats. Who sees or hears the word 'albatross' and does not think of the 'Ancient Mariner?'"

(Excerpts from "Talks on Art" by W.M. Hunt.)

 

 

William Morris Hunt's "Talks on Art:" Persistance

H. Herbert La Thange "The Water Splash"

"Inspiration is nothing without work."

"We are not satisfied to do simply the things which we can do. We must draw something too hard for us. We must sing songs that have notes too high for us. How rare to hear a singer whose voice is not strained to reach impossible tones. Who want to hear the highest tone that you can sing? We want to feel that there is a reserved force."

"You don't know what persistent effort is. Think of the violin student in this Paris Conservatoire, who was more than a year trying to bend his thumb as he had not been taught to do in the provinces."

"'It seems as if nothing would ever come to me!' Nothing comes into anybody's head. It is persistent love of a thing that tells finally. We don't try, for fear that we can't."

"When I was a little boy I wanted to learn the violin, but a certain man discouraged me. 'Don't learn the violin. It's so hard!' I could kick that man now. It is easier to eat dip-toast than to play the violin, but it doesn't meet the same want."

"Don't be too difficult with yourself. One's self can't stand it. It discourages production. Go ahead. Produce! Produce! and don't stop to judge till the last sample has appeared. The horses which have won four-mile races have never stopped at the end of the first mile to criticize their own pace. Others will do this; and whatever others will attend to, leave them behind to attend to it!"

"Should you grow discouraged at your slow progress, try for a year or two to play a violin solo." 

"Work is a stimulus to work - and loafing is a stimulus to laziness."

(Excerpts from Hunt's "Talks on Art.")

William Morris Hunt's "Talks on Art": Simplify

Sand Dunes, Newbury, Massachusetts
by William Morris Hunt

"Nature is economical. She puts her lights and darks only where she needs them. Don't try to be more skillful than she is! Why draw more than you see? We must sacrifice in drawing as in everything else. You thought it needed more work. It needs less. You don't get mystery because you are too conscientious. When a bird flies through the air you see no feathers! You are to draw not reality, but the appearance of reality!"

"You see a beautiful sunset, and a barn comes into your picture. Will you grasp the whole at once in a grand sweep of broad sky and a broad mass of dark building, or will you stop to draw in all the shingles on the barn, perhaps even the nails on each shingle; possibly the shaded side of each nail? Your fine sunset is all gone while you are doing this."

"In your sketches keep the first vivid impression. Add no details that shall weaken it. Look first for the big things. 1) Proportions 2) Values - or masses of light and shade 3) Details that will not spoil the beginnings."

"Strive for simplicity, not complexity! If you are going to Africa with a large cargo of merchandise, and you learn that, by reaching there on a certain day, you can double the price you were to get, throw half your cargo overboard and arrive there in season to get your double price. Don't put needless expense into painting a head."

"Picturesqueness can be expressed in five minutes by light and shade."

(These extracts, fragmentary and incomplete from Mr. Hunt's instructions were jotted down on backs of canvases and scraps of drawing paper without knowledge of short-hand. Their publication has been requested by artists in Europe and America. Helen M. Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt: Tragedy

"The Listeners" by William Morris Hunt

"For years William Morris Hunt's health had not been firm. From the year of the burning of his studio in Boston, he had scarcely known a day of perfect health or of freedom from anxiety. It certainly had not helped when he had gathered together all his work and opened a wonderful exhibition in his studio. Not one picture sold, and of only one was the price asked. It was one of the most poetical of his renderings of the scenery of Niagara. 'I should be glad to get $750 for it,' said Hunt, but the picture was not bought. In less than a year's time, after his death, it was sold for $7500.

As midsummer approached a visit to the cottage of life-long friends, the Thaxters, was planned. Cecilia Thaxter wrote of it: 

'In the sweet summer weather, he passed all hours of the day, watching the glowing colors in the little garden or the beautiful sea and sky, or lying in one of the hammocks listening to the lovely music of piano and violin that floated out to him from within; or chatting pleasantly with this or that friend of the many who drew close about him, glad to have the privilege of listening to his wonderful speech. So the bright days passed, and I am sure that he must have found some pleasure in them, feeling himself so wholly beloved, honored, and appreciated by all.'

No especial apprehension was felt about him until the sad Monday of September 8th when tragedy fell. In a letter to the New York Tribune, Cecilia Thaxter explained:

'At the top of the ledge behind the cottage is a sheet of tranquil water, open to the sky and reflecting its every tint and change as perfectly as the great ocean beyond it. Round it the fragrant barberry bushes cluster thickly, and until late, the wild roses blossom in sweetness... Here on that Monday morning, when all our little world was seeking him, I found all that was left of our beautiful friend, floating upon his face... Unavailing efforts to resuscitate him were made, but life had been gone for some hours.'

Those who knew Hunt best understood that the cause of his death was one of the fits of vertigo to which he had frequently been subject. For several years he had not trusted himself to ford a river or to look from a great height. He sometimes stopped when going down stairs, feeling the possibility of an attack. Doubtless, while standing by the reservoir, he was seized by one of these attacks, and, leaning upon the staff of his umbrella, which seems to have broken under his weight, fell face down upon the water. A surgeon in attendance declared that he had fallen into the water while unconscious.

The funeral took place at the Unitarian Church in Brattleboro, Vermont, on the 11th of September. It was largely attended by relatives and friends, and among the latter were many well-known artists from Boston and New York. His grave is on the brow of the hill where one looks off across the tree-hidden village to the Connecticut River and to the mountains which mark the horizon on the north. It is covered by a heavy slab of polished granite, which bears the simple inscription: 'William Morris Hunt, born March 31, 1824; died Sept. 8, 1879.'"

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.")

William Morris Hunt: The Value of Values

"Charles Monginot" by William Morris Hunt

"In William Morris Hunt's teaching he never followed the pedantic slavery to outline. How did the thing exist? To him it was largely a matter of light and shade to begin with. It was a dark object against a light ground, or the reverse; and he began his drawing usually as a sculptor would work. He struck out for large planes and masses, dashing off a superfluity here, building up there, where there was a deficiency, gradually evolving the perfect form from the more or less shapeless mass.

Every painter who begins with outline solely, keeping to that throughout his work, never wholly recovers from his slavish devotion to boundary, the trail of the serpent is over it all, from first to last, and his bondage to it is of lifelong duration. 

What does Delacroix say?

'I am at my window, and I see the most beautiful landscape. The idea of a line never comes into my head.The lark sings, the river glitters, the foliage murmurs; but where are the 'lines' that produce these charming sensations? They(some people) can see proportion and harmony only between two lines. The rest for them is chaos, and the compass only is judge.'

M. Puvis de Chavannes commended a student once by saying, 'I like your work because you draw in light and shade.' Artists who have not been trained in that way from the first never quite reach the largeness and grandeur of which their work should be capable. 

Of Hunt's creed, as it might be called, he once gave the following statement, 'We begin with the study of values in order more readily to get the power of expressing the roundness and fullness of objects, the effect of light and shadow, and the mystery of distance and atmosphere. The definiteness of form and proportion should be constantly studied, and endless practice is required in order to obtain such power. The firmest outline drawing is most excellent exercise, but that alone will not suffice to render the impression which nature produces upon our mind.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt."

William Morris Hunt: Painting from Memory

"The Bather" by William Morris Hunt

"Emerson once said: 'A strong impression gives the power to paint it.' William Morris Hunt had great power of working from memory. In portrait painting this served him a good turn, for after his sitter had left, and he had returned from his luncheon, he saw with clear, frank gaze wherein his work might be improved, sometimes in the direction of likeness, oftener in that difficult combination of likeness and artistic quality.

In landscape painting his facility in working from memory was of the utmost importance. He received at once a strong impression of his subject, fastened it in his memory, and endeavored to hold fast to that as his guide, omitting any details that might weaken its strength.

One of the most distinguished examples of his power of working from memory was afforded by his picture of a couple of youths who were bathing in a sheltered cove of the Charles River. Hunt was driving at the time, and was powerfully impressed by what he had seen. Against a background of trees, full of the mystery of the woods, stood a beautiful figure on the shoulders of another youth whose feet rested upon the bed of the shallow stream. The top figure was poising itself before giving a leap into the water, and its action was one of sinuous grace. The flesh, with its tints of pearl and rose, gleamed softly in the shadow of over-hanging trees, and all this was shown in the painting. On seeing this, Hunt drove back into town, drew at once a small charcoal sketch of the subject, and from this made his painting.

He believed in painting his impressions, and little guessed what the word would come to mean in a few short years. Had he lived in the later years of Monet and his disciples, he would have entered heartily into their aims, gathered from them ideas of color vibration, waved a hearty God-speed, and gone on in his own way. Progress was his watchword, and every year his landscape work grew in breadth, light, color, and distinction." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt: Magnolia Studio

"Landscape" by William Morris Hunt

"On a sketching trip in 1876, William Morris Hunt's class had discovered the primitive fishing village of Kettle Cove, or, as it was later called, Magnolia, which occupied a part of Gloucester and of Manchester. The scenery combined much sketching material in a little space. In addition to a small beach there was a rocky shore of much boldness, and the cliffs were surmounted by well-wooded groves. 

In the following year while casting about for a desirable place in which to work, Hunt made inquiries about a location in Magnolia, and purchased a disused, two-story barn with an adjoining carpenter's shop. Hunt entered with zeal upon the necessary repairs and the additional construction. 

All the working force of the village and neighborhood was summoned to ensure rapid work, and in three weeks it was converted into a picturesque structure with galleries on the outside, one of them ending in a seat in an old willow. The carpenter's shop was turned into a studio, the chief light coming from the wide-open door, or a small window or two, which seemed rather insufficient. 

In the early spring Hunt would seize his color box and drive out to see his friend Levi Thaxter, painting perhaps from his doorway. Returning to town and to his classroom he would exhibit his study of the spring-like, opaline colors, and say: 'Go out into the sunshine, and try to get some of its color and light. Then come back here, and see how black we are all painting!'

That summer of 1877 was thoroughly enjoyed by the painter, whose landscape work evinced steady growth and remarkable originality. His color became fresh and light, and thus helped to prepare him for the work of the next year, which was to be his greatest and his last."

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton,'s book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.)

William Morris Hunt: An Aside

"Judge Lemuel Shaw," 1859
by William Morris Hunt

"Sometimes William Morris Hunt would throw aside his brushes, take a brisk walk, and drop into the studio of a friend, always sure of a hearty welcome. His ringing voice is easily recalled:--

'How d'ye do? What's the good word? Painting a portrait? Well, it is one of the hardest things in the world; takes the very life out of you. That's why I've run away from my own work. Bothers you? Let me sit there a moment. Good color, values all right; but it is a little 'out' in the movement. Take a plumb-line, hold it up fearlessly, and make your corrections with decision. Don't be afraid of it! 

Dare to put in a firm line, if you feel the need of it, and then work up to it. Don't get too anxious about the likeness! At the same time, you must get it! and you mustn't lose it! Queer old thing painting is; but we would rather die doing it, than live doing anything else. There! now go on with it, and if you find yourself going wrong, lay aside your palette and go off on the Common for a walk. Your sitter won't mind a respite, and you will both be fresher for the work. Good-bye: I'm going back now to my own painting, and it will go the better for my coming over here to scold you.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.) 

William Morris Hunt: Landscape Paintings

"Gloucester Harbor,"1877, by William Morris Hunt

"William Morris Hunt's first serious essay in landscape painting was probably made in the spring of 1874, and in the spring of 1875 he planned and superintended the construction of a painter's wagon, or van, as he called it, that he might make his summer sketching tours at will and in the most convenient manner. Every landscape painter has doubtless noticed that he finds his best views and compositions while driving. The subject that appeals to the eye from the seat of a wagon is often wholly different from that presented from a lower point of view.

The van was a large covered wagon, drawn by two horses, and equipped with everything pertaining to a painter's outfit. It carried not only canvases, paints, and easels, but had compartments for provisions, and long seats that could be used for sleeping-bunks. Hunt gleefully announced that it was "made by a man who built gypsy-wagons," and looked forward with delight to many a season of sketching tours.
For him work was a deep and continual pleasure, and whatever would help him in his work was seized upon with an avidity which counted neither expense nor pains.

The summer of 1877 was productive of much good work. The van was almost daily in requisition, and Hunt painted some excellent landscapes, marines, and wood-interiors. He would start off for the day's work, taking with him Tom, the wagon-boy, and Carter, the assistant. Carter was a man whom Hunt had found in Boston, painting decorations for wagons and signs. Entering into conversation with him in regard to his work, he conceived the idea that he might be useful as a painter's assistant, and invited him to Magnolia, where he subsequently engaged him to go upon sketching excursions, to prepare painting-grounds and surfaces, and to under-paint for him when necessary.

Arrived at the spot selected, Hunt would leap from the van, take a campstool and a block of charcoal paper, and, with a stick of soft charcoal seize the salient points of the subject to be rendered. While thus engaged the assistant would arrange an easel and select necessary paints and brushes. Sometimes he was told to "lay in" the first painting, reproducing the effect of the charcoal-sketch, while Hunt would watch intently for the right moment to come, when he would seize palette and brushes, and perhaps complete the picture in one sitting.

For example, his celebrated Gloucester Harbor was painted in a single afternoon. 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.) 

William Morris Hunt: Helen Mary Knowlton's Book

"Girl Reading" by Wiliam Morris Hunt

"When Helen Mary Knowlton took over the responsibility of William Morris Hunt's class, the well-known series of Hunt's 'Talks on Art' was begun. She felt that her instructions would carry more weight if quoted from the words of the master himself, so pencil and notebook were always at hand, and in his short, inspiring visits to the class, she would step behind a screen, and rapidly write down all that could be obtained of his words. Done solely for her own use in teaching, she had no intention of making the notes public until Hunt's visit to Mexico, when she found that the class seriously missed the magnetism of his presence, and so brought forward the manuscript notes of his instructions.

Their publication was brought about in this way: Mr. Lowes Dickinson, a portrait painter of London, was visiting the Boston publisher, Mr. James T. Fields. While at breakfast, he noticed, upon the wall of the room, a photograph copy of Hunt's portrait of Chief Justice Shaw. 'Who did that?' was his instant inquiry. 'Oh! that is by our artist, William Hunt. You do not know him?,' Fields replied. 'I must take you at once to see him!' Arriving at the studio, Mr. Fields tapped upon the classroom door, asking the teacher to speak to Mr. Hunt when he should arrive, and to present the distinguished stranger.

Casting about for some way of entertaining the visitor, the teacher showed him her manuscript notes of the Hunt 'Talks,' with which he was thoroughly delighted. 'Have it published at once, just as it is,' he said, 'and send me a dozen copies.' To Mr. Dickinson, more than to anyone else, is due the publication of the 'Talks.' 

Hunt disliked the idea of their being printed. He felt that they might not be understood by the public, but his objections were finally overcome by the London artist and several other American friends. After a course of vigorous pruning, the manuscript was finally approved by Hunt. And now these books are all that is left, in words, of his trenchant and salient teaching. They are a mine of wealth to the art student.

You may also read "W.M. Hunt's Talks on Art" by Helen Mary Knowlton by clicking here.

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.") 

William Morris Hunt: Women's Class in Boston, Pt. 2

"Portrait of William Morris Hunt"
by Helen Mary Knowlton

"One morning William Morris Hunt enter his class for women saying: 'Lay aside your work, all of you, and make me a drawing from memory.' Every pupil looked aghast. 'Impossible!' was written on every face. 'I give you ten minutes by the watch in which to draw something which you have seen this morning, at your homes, or on your way down to the studio.' There was no appeal from this order. No one was excused, and in ten minutes every pupil had drawn some reminiscence of the early morning. One had represented a breakfast table, one a hackney coach, one the roofs and chimneys from her Beacon Hill window, and each pupil had produced a sketch which was individual and original.

The order was subsequently given: "A memory sketch every day!" Hunt afterwards said that it was so difficult to enforce this regulation that he thought he should have to call in the Cadets. In time, however, each pupil was glad to make her daily contribution to the wall-space which was allotted to memory-sketches, and the collection was one of which Hunt confessed that he was proud. He considered it the most successful evidence of the good results of his method of teaching.

The class went on for three years. In that time Hunt found that his own work was suffering, portrait orders being postponed to the summer season, and giving him no opportunity for needful rest or change of work. He proposed to one of his pupils, [Helen Mary Knowlton], to take the classroom and see how many would return under the new management. He said, 'I will come in every day or two and correct, but will have none of the responsibility of the class.' After much persuasion, the pupil, herself a teacher, accepted the charge, and the class went on successfully for several years, Hunt continuing his interest in the students, especially in those who showed most ability or who seemed most seriously in earnest."

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.")

William Morris Hunt: Women's Class in Boston, Pt. 1

"Head of Woman" by William Morris Hunt

"While at work upon portraits and other subjects, Hunt had little idea that the time would come when he would summon to his studio a large class of women students. Scarcely had he become well established in Boston before he was earnestly besought to take a class of six or eight ladies who had pursued the study of art chiefly in Europe. 'Six or eight!' exclaimed Hunt. 'If I teach at all, I shall teach forty.' And the number forty was at once obtained.

In his generous enthusiasm he gave to the class his largest and favorite studio, taking, for himself, one that was darker and less attractive. The class proved an inspiration and a success. Charcoal was the medium used, and all were delighted with its easy and speedy results. Under Hunt's enthusiastic encouragement, drawing seemed, for the first week or two, a matter of possibility and delight. The class was taught that values were the all in all; that everything existed by its relative value of light and shade.

Models were introduced, and portraits and figure-studies were on nearly every easel. Perfect freedom of drawing and expression was encouraged, and soon the paint brush succeeded the charcoal stick. Here new difficulties arose, only to be successfully met by the master. No pupil knew such a word as fail. She was taught to have faith in her instructor, and in herself.

When perfect freedom had been attained, Hunt began to inculcate lessons of exactness and precision. Photographs from Albert Dürer, Mantegna, and Holbein were placed before the pupils, and they were told to trace them carefully, copy them exactly, and draw them from memory, making them a part of themselves. In this way he endeavored to make good, as far as possible, the lack of fine art in our country; to show how art is cumulative, every painter owing something to those who have worked before him."

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.) 

William Morris Hunt: "Anahita" or "Flight of Night"

William Morris Hunt's high-relief sculpture for "Anahita"

"In 1846 William Morris Hunt's brother Leavitt had sent him a translation of a Persian poem, 'Anahita,'  the nature-goddess whom the Persians borrowed from the Babylonians, and whom the Greeks identified with Aphrodite. The beginning of the poem reads:

'Enthroned upon her car of light, the moon
Is circling down the lofty heights of Heaven.
Her well-trained coursers wedge the blindest depths
With fearful plunge, yet heed the steady hand
That guides their lonely way. So swift her course
So bright her smile, she seems on silver wings,
O'er reaching space, to glide the airy main;
Behind, far-flowing, spreads her deep blue veil
Inwrought with stars that shimmer in its wave...'

Oil and chalk study for "Anahita" by Hunt

The subject at once took possession of Hunt's mind and continued with him nearly through life. Numberless studies and sketches were made in all these years, and the theme was never long absent from his mind. A general idea of the composition was settled upon at first, and many sketches from life and from memory were made as opportunity occurred. 

A large study was begun with reference to the final painting of the great picture. Just before the fire, Hunt had sent to Russia for canvas, and had planned for a painting that was to be fifty feet in length. The talented young artist, John B. Johnston, was engaged to underpaint the canvas, and assist in putting the design upon its new and large proportions.

When the great picture was well advanced towards completion, the fire came; and not a trace of the Anahita was in existence, with exception of a small photograph of the composition which Hunt had once given to the architect Rinn. From this all subsequent paintings of the composition were chiefly made.

While studying the three horses, Hunt had modelled them with great success, and as the mould was left at a plaster-worker's shop, it was possible to obtain copies from which to work. While at his sister's house in Newport for a few days, he had painted, on a Japanese tray, his conception of the group, mother and child, sleeping in the cloud-cradle. From these studies he continued his work so cruelly interrupted by the fire.

Almost thirty years later, when Hunt was fifty-four, he received a commission from the state of New York to paint two lunettes for the capitol building in Albany. One of the spaces gave him an opportunity to paint the "Anahita," only it was decided to call it "The Flight of Night." He returned at once to begin the work. The few who saw him at the time spoke of him as being upon the heights of classic and serene exaltation.

But he had also been given a very tight deadline - less than sixty days in which to paint the work before the opening of the Assembly Chamber on the 21st of December. During that time he spent every day at the capitol, having dinners sent up, the table being set in the corner of the scaffolding. The scaffolding prevented him from seeing his work from the floor until after its removal - and thankfully, at that point, his satisfaction was immediate and perfect, and his joy rapturous. He found himself victorious!"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt: The Great Boston Fire

"Portrait of Agnes Elizabeth Claflin"
by William Morris Hunt

"In November, 1872, the great Boston fire destroyed 776 buildings and countless works of art. As the fire swept through Summer Street it embraced William Morris Hunt's studio. All of his treasures were consumed. The loss to him was incalculable. 

One large closet, well filled with choice souvenirs of European art. 'Nest eggs for the children,' he called these pictures. Among the Millet pictures were five or six that still remained in their old French frames. The loss of Hunt's own work was very great. One wall of the studio was lined with cartoons of life-size, full-length portraits, which in their dusky corner seemed like studies made by Velasquez, Raphael, or Titian. Several finished portraits stood on different easels, ready to be sent to their owners.

One lady, more fortunate than others, had called at the studio the day before, and asked leave to carry home the scarcely finished portrait of her husband. Her zeal won the day, and the portrait thus escaped the flames. Three or four which were burned had to be again painted by the artist, a severe loss of time and money.

One exquisite portrait, ordered by Mrs. Claflin, had been a work of untiring devotion. This lady had lost her young daughter, and possessed but a single tin-type of the head. She had come to Hunt with such earnestness and simplicity, begging him to try to paint it, that, touched by her mother's love, and her confidence in his work, he resolved to succeed at any cost to himself.

He spared not himself in the least. He depicted the young girl dressed in white muslin, and standing thoughtfully in an out-door atmosphere, with a suggestion of white birches in the background. To get the idea needed he posed one of his own daughters on the driveway at his Milton home, and took rapid mental notes of the way the child looked against the sky, distance, and middleground. That idea was kept throughout the picture of Miss Claflin.

For the gown and for general effect, her young cousin posed in the studio; and after weeks of careful, loving work, the picture was completed, only to be destroyed in the Summer Street fire. It is said to have been thrown from a window of the studio, and trampled under foot in the excited crowd.

Fortunately, Hunt had begun the picture in his usual way, by making, on a white canvas, a charcoal drawing of the subject as he wished it to look in the painting. The sketch had been sent to Mrs. Claflin for a few days, and was thus saved from the flames.

So great was her sympathy for the artist in his loss that she said, 'Mr. Hunt, if you wish me to be satisfied with the charcoal sketch, I will not ask you to paint another picture.' Hunt replied, 'I do not wish you to be satisfied with the charcoal. I will repeat my work as soon as possible.

When the picture was completed, the family pronounced it to be quite as satisfactory as the first. When Hunt parted with it, tears came into his eyes, and he said, 'It is too much to believe. I did not expect them to be satisfied. It is hard to part with that picture. I have given a good deal of heart-work to it.' "

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt: Sensitivities

"Mary Elizabeth Robbins" by William Morris Hunt

"The sensitiveness which William Morris Hunt brought to his work was so great that the slightest friction disturbed him. It is much to be regretted that he did not complete his portraits of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The latter came for a sitting which he said must be short as he had an engagement in Cambridge. "How long must I sit?" inquired the doctor as he took his seat upon the artist's platform, and looked anxiously at his watch.

This threw Hunt off at once. He began, however, and was progressing with his usual rapidity and vim when the question was repeated and the watch once more consulted. Again was he thrown off, and it became a mental and physical impossibility to go on with the work. The distinguished sitter was dismissed, and another appointment was never made.

In like manner Mr. Emerson took the chair unwillingly. 'For myself,' said the great philosopher, 'I do not care to be painted. I sit to oblige my family and friends.' 'This remark,' said the artist later, "deprived me of the enthusiasm necessary for my work, and it was a wrong view for Mr. Emerson to take. As a man of genius and historic fame he should have felt that he ought to be painted.'

A lady asked him: 'Would you paint Mr. A. if I could persuade him to sit for his portrait?' and Hunt replied: 'I don't like persuaded sitters. I never could paint a cat if the cat had any scruples, religious, superstitious, or otherwise, about sitting!'" 

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.") 

William Morris Hunt: Social Influencer

"Priscilla" by William Morris Hunt

"On returning to America, William Morris Hunt devoted himself assiduously to portraiture, and for this was best known to the general public. By his marriage in 1855 to Miss Louisa Dumeresq Perkins of Boston, he entered at once into the charmed circles of what was considered the best society of the city. There he met with the most cordial reception. 

Hunt had all the elements of greatness, but his work was to lie in a direction that was comparatively new to the American mind. People sought him for his brilliant conversational powers, his originality of thought and action, and his rare wit. What Hunt said was on everyone's tongue. Enjoyable as all this was, perhaps it was not the life most to be desired for the fostering of genius. Millet, the masterly painter of peasants, Corot, Daubigny, and the rest - all these were living humbly and seriously, and for their art alone.

Had Hunt remained in Europe he would have left a name second to none. By his return to Boston, he entered upon a career that was difficult, depressing, and wearisome. There was no one here to whom he could look up as to a superior. He had known all the great artists of Europe. Here there were none that could feed his artistic hunger and thirst.  

Like all noble souls, he found consolation in helping those who needed encouragement and assistance. To almost every artist returning from European study or observation, he extended a cordial welcome. Each found in Hunt his first patron. The hospitable home in Beacon Street bore evidence of his taste and liberality. There were several valued paintings by Millet, a few of his own works, but more by his fellow American artists, Robinson, Cole, Babcock, Bicknell and Vedder.

At the same time he was inducing his wealthy and influential friends to purchase the works of Corot, Millet, Diaz, Barye, and other great French masters of the day. He exerted himself in every way to make his townspeople realize that they were living in an era of great art; and through his influence some of the best French pictures of the day were purchased for Boston homes and galleries. He was one of the first Americans to own bronzes by Barye, and to highly extol his genius."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt: Studies with Millet

"Shepherdess with Her Flock and Dog" by Jean-Francois Millet

William Morris Hunt said: "I bought as much of Millet's work as I could, and after a while the idea was started in Paris that a rich Englishman was buying up all his pictures. The people in the city were alarmed and began to come to Barbizon and get from him what they could. It will give you some idea of the low prices at which his work was then sold to know that for "The Sheep Shearers, the most expensive picture of his which I bought, I gave ninety dollars.

When I thought that the picture was done - when anyone would have thought so, he was still dissatisfied with the girl's left hand which pulls back the fleece from the shears. He thought that it had not the right action, so he kept it ten days longer. Whenever I went to see him he was still at work upon it. I asked him why he put no wrinkles or markings into the girl's cap. He said because he was 'trying to make it look like a tea-rose leaf.' And that was the man whom the critics call 'careless and slovenly'!

He had so little money in his life that he never owned a hundred-dollar bill until I gave him the money for one of his pictures. It was at the exhibition, and the government proposed to buy it for about fifty cents. When the exhibition was over I carried it off in its big frame and took a friend to look at it and who said, "That's little enough for it! and took it. When I handed the purchase price to him he did not say much, but he told me next day that he could not try to thank me, but I might like to know that he had never before had a hundred-dollar bill."   

"You ask if he painted much out-of-doors. He used to take walks and look at things, and study them in that way. We would start out together and perhaps come to a cart by the roadside. We would sit down, and he would make me notice how it sagged, how the light fell upon the wheels, and all sorts of things about it. Anything was interesting to him. We would be out all the afternoon, and perhaps walk no more than half a dozen roads.

Sometimes we would go up to Paris, to the Louvre, and he would lead me up to a Mantegna or an Albert Durer, and show me what were the great things. After Mantegna he would say, "Now where's your Titian?" He always said that he did not care to go to Rome. He could see great pictures enough in the Louvre. Rembrandt's 'Supper at Emmaus' was an especial favorite of Millet.

The companionship of this great painter and earnest man had a lasting effect. Hunt developed an intense power of sympathy which largely helped to make him the remarkable artist which he was to become. Whatever he loved, he loved intensely. Whatever interested him moved him deeply. His work grew in strength, seriousness and beauty. He had all the elements of a great painter."

To be continued

(Excerpts from Helen Mary Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.) 

William Morris Hunt: An Introduction to Millet

"The Sheep Shearers" by Millet

"At the time when William Morris Hunt felt that Couture could do no more for him, he began to be interested in the work of Jean Francois Millet. He had seen his wonderful 'Sower' in the Salon of 1852 and was greatly impressed by it. "Why don't you buy that picture?" he asked of an art dealer. "Oh! it is too sad a subject. Besides, it is not worth the three hundred francs which is asked for it." "What!" cried Hunt, "a masterpiece for sixty dollars, and you hesitate about buying it?" whereupon he went at once to the storeroom of an art dealer and became the possessor of the first painting of 'The Sower,' one of Millet's greatest works.

William Babcock, the Boston painter, who had passed most of his life in France, was probably the first American to appreciate Millet and his work. He it was who took Hunt to Barbizon, and introduced him to the great painter.

Millet was generally considered somewhat of a bear and had little to do with other French artists, except perhaps Rousseau. William Hunt came into his life like a flash of sunshine. He became attached to him and always treated him with respect. When Hunt first saw him, he found him as he expressed it, "painting in a cellar." The picture on his easel was 'The Sheep-Shearers,' exquisite in color as a Correggio and with all the pathos and grandeur of Michael Angelo. "Is that picture engaged?" inquired Hunt.

"Yes," replied Millet, "Deforge will take it for my color bill. He thinks that I shall never earn money enough to pay what I owe him, so he will take this for the debt." It is needless to add that Hunt paid the color bill and carried away the picture, after giving several commissions for work not then completed. From that time his interest in Millet increased."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.) 

William Morris Hunt: Studies with Thomas Couture

"Peasant Girl" by William Morris Hunt

"William Morris Hunt found Couture and entered his studio, working with all that abounding energy and enthusiasm that characterized him when his interest was aroused. To his surprise Couture said to him, 'Young man, you don't know how to draw.' In time, however, under Couture's instruction, he produced drawings of marked excellence. Morris, as he was called in the class, was a great favorite. With Couture himself he was in perfect sympathy, and under his guidance, certain qualities in Hunt's mind and work unfolded as they scarcely would have done under any other auspices. It was not long before he had so absorbed Couture's manner of painting that the master declared that his pupil had carried it as far as it could go.

One day, Hunt's fascinating head, 'The Jewess,' was standing upon an easel, the admiration of both master and pupils. The painter Isabey came in and on seeing it mistook it for a success of the master. "Good, Couture! Do always like that and you will do well!' 'Ah,' cried Couture smiling, 'That is by Morris!' 

The method of painting in Couture's class was to make first a careful, and, if possible, a stylish or elegant outline drawing of the subject, adding only a few simple values with a frottée* of thin color, and leaving it to dry over night. Next day, by a formula, which can be found in Couture's little book, 'Method of Painting,' another thin frottée was used in portions; and with long-haired whipping brushes, the color was laid on in its exact place, the darks where they belonged, and of the right depth of tone; the lights thickly, and with startling brilliancy. Not one stroke could be retouched, or mud would ensue. The middle tones required the utmost nerve, feeling, and decision; but their quality, when good, was delightful and fascinating. No wonder that this method of painting attracted artists and students from every part of the world! 

To be continued

(Excerpts from Mary Helen Knowlton's book "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt.) 

*"The term, "frottée" generally referred to a thin brown scrub-in without white, the lights instead being simply indicated by leaving the light ground more or less exposed. This stage was apparently left to dry before proceeding further..." from "The Technical Innovations of Rembrandt" by Virgil Elliot.)

William Morris Hunt: From Sculpting to Painting

"The Falconer" by Thomas Couture

"Of Jane Hunt's children, one became an eminent architect, another became a physician spending his life in Paris, a third gave up his profession of lawyer at the time of our Civil War, rendering good service as a colonel of a Vermont regiment - and William became a famous artist.

She sent her children to the best schools the country afforded, but still was not content. When advised to take William to a southern climate to recover from an illness, Mrs. Hunt took him to the south of France - with the rest of the family - and then to Rome where William drew and modelled in the studio of H.K. Brown the sculptor, where he copied the head of the Naples Psyche, restoring the head as he imagined it might have been. So good was the work that his mother ordered it to be put in marble. Such was his love of art that a return to Harvard College was given up, and the plans of the family were wholly changed. 

He seems also to have studied for a short time with Antoine Louis Barye, the great French sculptor of animals, then, intending to go on with his study of sculpture, he went to Dusseldorf, then considered the art center of Europe. A friend said, 

'Although Hunt's surroundings were agreeable, socially and artistically, he was shocked at the system of study and rebelled against it from the start. He felt then what afterwards became an abiding belief, a part of his life, that all the qualities of an artist should be educated together. He believed that the study of art should be a pleasure; and not a forced and hateful drill. He looked forward to the time when he should enter the painting class as a moment of delight. But doubts began to arise regarding the value and future effect of the instruction he was receiving.'

He left immediately for Paris. While diligently searching the city for every possible object of artistic interest, he chanced to see in an art store window French artist Thomas Couture's beautiful "Falconer." He stopped before it, and exclaimed, "If that is painting, I am a painter!"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton.)

William Morris Hunt, Beginnings

"Marguerite" by William Holman Hunt

"William Morris Hunt was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, March 31, 1824. He was the son of Hon. Jonathan Hunt, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who married Miss Jane Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut. She was a woman of great beauty with a natural aptitude for painting. In her early years she had shown a strong desire to draw and paint but the desire met with no encouragement. When she timidly showed her father a sketch that she had made he said, "Who did that?" "I did it," was the reply. "Take it away! and, mind you, no more of this!" he ordered.

Later in life, now a widow with five children to educate, Hunt's mother resolved that they should have the advantages which had been denied her. An Italian artist was in the town, New Haven, looking for orders or for pupils. His name was Gambadella.

Mrs. Hunt gave him a room in the upper part of her house and endeavored to find pupils for him, but not one could she obtain. Nothing daunted, she declared that there should be a class, and it should consist of her children and herself. The little class worked with zeal, and, at the end of the term, an exhibition of their work was given. It aroused much interest in the town and there was a general desire for lessons. "You are too late!" was her proud and happy response, and no one outside of the family was admitted.

Of her children, one was Richard M. Hunt, the eminent architect of New York. Another became a physician spending his life in Paris. A third gave up his profession of lawyer at the time of our Civil War, rendering good service as a colonel of a Vermont regiment. And William Morris Hunt became a famous artist."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art-Life of William Morris Hunt" by Helen Mary Knowlton