Birge Harrison: Infirmity

"Clair de Lune sur la Riviere" by Birge Harrison

"Four years after going to Paris, that is, in 1880, Birge Harrison achieved his first success with a picture entitled "Novembre." It was a delightful composition, painted entirely in the open as the Plein-air School was in full vogue. Later the French Government bought this work and it now hangs in the Museum at Marseilles. It was for this picture that the artist received a medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889.

Just at this moment, at the very opening of his career, and when success seemed assured to the young painter, his health gave way, and he was forced to abandon all serious work. Then followed a series of nomadic years, during which his only artistic produce was a series of illustrations for articles on travel written by himself. His wanderings led him more than once around the world, and included leisurely travel in many far lands. He touched all of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and spent some time in India, Australia and the South Seas. He passed two years among the Pueblo and Navajo Indians in Northern New Mexico, and finally settled for five years at Santa Barbara, in Southern California.

These ten long and apparently unproductive years were not all wasted, for when with improved health he finally took up his work again, it was with a broadened vision and a mind enriched. The period of seeming idleness was in reality a period of incubation. His artist's eye had been always on the alert, studying, observing, comparing and sifting. Besides this, he had acquired a wide-ranging habit of mind which counted for much in the development of that later and finer art upon which his future reputation as a painter will stand."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Birge Harrison: Poet Painter" by Charles Louis Borgmeyer.)