Charles Sprague Pearce: A Winding Road

"Prelude" by Charles Sprague Pearce

"In the salon of this year two pictures by an American artist attracted universal attention. They were 'The Water Carrier' and 'The Prelude' by Charles Sprague Pearce, of Boston. It was the art in these pictures, the refined and poetic feelings, the solidity and earnest strength of the handling that drew the notice of French critics and American and English visitors alike. But it was not the learned way of handling color any more than the academic drawing or the well-known subjects that made the two paintings so very remarkable. It was their expressiveness - all those elements of skill and knowledge being used to a proper end, not displayed for themselves. 

The artist who has already achieved such a great success is now only thirty-two years of age. He was born in Boston, the grandson and namesake of the late Charles Sprague, a poet and great grandson of Samuel Sprague, one of Boston's Revolutionary Tea Party, a soldier under Washington at Trenton and Princeton.

Mr. Pearce's proclivities toward art were strongly marked at a very early age, and in the winter of 1872-73 he was sent to Paris for an education. While preparations were being made, however, he was seized with an alarming illness, and after a month's confinement had to go to Florida for the winter. He was not sufficiently strong to undertake the journey until the following August. His original intention was to study at Munich, but by the emphatic advice of his friend, the late William M. Hunt, he changed his mind and proceeded to Paris. There he at once entered the studio of M. Bonnat.

With the approach of winter came a recurrence of his trouble. Before he had been a month at work he was ordered by his physician to the south of France. There, however, he was in a measure compensated for the interruption in his studies by making the acquaintance of F. A. Bridgman, with whom he went in the winter of 1873 to the Nile. The two passed four months of boating life, sketching and gathering artistic material."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Charles Sprague Pearce," an article from "The Art Amateur, Volume 10.