Charles Hawthorne: By Example

"Two-Hour Study of Blanche Stillson"
by Charles Hawthorne

"On Friday mornings my father would paint for the class; sometimes it would be a model on the beach, sometimes a portrait or a still life. These examples, greatly prized, were drawn for at the end of the summer. Several years after his death we had occasion to look over a good number of these studies, gathered from all corners of the continent. As we looked at them I was tremendously impressed - or better, impressed all over again - for since last seeing any of them I had acquired a boat and done a lot of sailing in the harbor. This had made me most conscious of the part the direction of the wind played on the general weather, the kind of day, and the quality of the atmosphere. Each study recreated a particular day so well (as well as the model!) that I could tell from which direction the wind was blowing when each one was painted. These quick sketches had always had a special place in my affections, but this quiet demonstration, in a field I now knew well, was a revelation.

One last observation should be made about the book: it is manifestly impossible for it to represent the total of my father's ideas on teaching. A more eloquent testimony to the power and foce of his ideas is the great number of former pupils, now painters of reputation, who hold him in the greatest esteem, no matter in what style they themselves now paint."

Joseph Hawthorne
Toledo, Ohio
November 1959 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Hawthorne on Painting" by Charles Webster Hawthorne.)