Arthur Hoeber

“ As one appreciative critic has put it, “he attempted to recreate the spacious, empty world in which they lived a life that was truly primitive, unmixed with any alloy of the white man’s bringing; and to interpret not only the externals of their life, but its inwardness, as with mingled stolidity and simplicity these men-children looked out upon the phenomena of nature, fronted the mystery of death, and peered into the stirrings of their own souls.” ”

“ The story of mural painting in America dates back just a trifle over half a century; yet so rapidly do we develop things in this country that today the names of half a hundred men and women who have done distinguished work in this direction come to mind in any review of native accomplishment. However, the art of decoration is one of the oldest in the history of the world, examples of which have been handed down from almost prehistoric times. ”

“ The man who had never taken a lesson in an art school and had had very little opportunity to see fine art work, who had no critic more severe than himself, took one of the big galleries in New York City for a “one-man exhibit.” Russell had the courage of his convictions, and his convictions were soon shared by art lovers; for he took his place at once among the best painters of the West.
Charles Russell was born in St. Louis in 1865, and, like Remington, had a deep-seated objection to the rules and routine of schools. ”

“ The legends and traditions of the Indian have attracted Remington Schuyler. The pictorial aspect of his active life in the open, together with his contact with wild animal life, has supplied subjects for Philip Goodwin; while the life of the frontiersman and the pioneer has inspired the sturdy work of Allen True and Harvey Dunn. These five men have pictured the West in the same large spirit in which their master worked in rendering the buccaneers of the sea and the continental soldier. Most of the painters of the West have been illustrators first and painters later. ”

“ The composition is one of great dignity and deep religious feeling; the vision of the painter is most distinguished; while there are both balance and harmony, and the color scheme is highly decorative and rich. ”

“ We are conscious of the rush of sound, vibrating through the vast isolation. The Indian looks up, but does not cease his paddling. He kneels in the boat, “a figure of monumental composure.” It is in pictures like this that Brush conveys in eloquent terms on canvas an impression of the solemn romance of those primitive human creatures.
Mr. Brush has his studio in New York City, and usually spends his summer in New Hampshire. His work will receive attention again in The Mentor when the portrait painters of America are considered. ”

“ Traditions reach us—examples too—from the great civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, in Europe; while on our own continent there remain records of art in the way of wall decorations in Mexico and Central America, of beauty, taste, and invention, that baffle all efforts to classify as to their age. Says a great art writer, “No society, however rudimentary, has altogether ignored art.” ”

“ The Painter of the Plains at Work
THE INDIAN AS AN ART SUBJECT
There is still infinite opportunity to make the subject of the Indian an important factor in American art. His decorative costume gives an element of color, while his life of action gives rhythm and movement, and the background of prairie and mountain provides dignity and grandeur for the composition. ”

“ Sargent, perhaps the most prominent figure in the modern world of art, a man whose success has rarely been duplicated, a painter of the portrait above all, has confined his mural work to the decorations in the Boston Public Library. ”

“ Since some years now stern men in blue and khaki have seen to it that the Indian is kept on his reservation; business men with the wire fences now look after the interests of investors in ranch property; life in the West has lost much of its picturesqueness; civilization and order control affairs. But Russell’s memory of all these earlier conditions remains. So distinctly were his first illustrations of the soil that they attracted the attention of some of the English weeklies, which made arrangements for his work. From this to painting was an easy transition. ”

“ The information is imparted by interesting reading matter, prepared under the direction of leading authorities, and by beautiful pictures, produced by the most highly perfected modern processes.
The object of The Mentor Association is to enable people to acquire useful knowledge without effort, so that they may come easily and agreeably to know the world’s great men and women, the great achievements and the permanently interesting things in art, literature, science, history, nature, and travel. ”

“ All painters of the West regard that country and its life with a deep reverence, and this feeling shows in their work. “God’s Country,” though the familiar phrase of all, expresses their enthusiasm and their devotion. In subject it is the most distinctly American of all themes, and enthusiasm for the theme will go on producing the technical skill to render it adequately. ”

“ Before we come to the group of present workers in mural painting it is necessary that we consider an earlier man, again one of the pioneers, the artist William M. Hunt of Boston, who in 1878 obtained the commission to decorate the New York state capitol at Albany. ”

“ CHARLES M. RUSSELL Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course
Mr. Russell belongs to no established school of art. His work is distinctly his own, and he is known as the “cowboy artist.” This does not mean, however, that there is anything careless or hasty about his art. He works with great care. His hand is trained to note every detail of his subject, and he has a memory that never lets go. Several years ago Russell had an exhibit in a gallery in New York City which he called “Pictures of the West That Has Passed.” ”

“ These are of such superlative quality as to cause regret that the man, in the course of a most active artistic life, could not have found time to do more. Mr. Sargent’s parents were Americans. They are his sole claim to nationality; for he was born in Italy, received his art education in France, and has resided for many years in England. Sargent, in short, is thoroughly cosmopolitan in himself and in his art. His Boston Library decorations are singularly original, of profound symbolism, disclosing deep intellectuality and serious study. ”

“ It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. ”

“ So mural painting differs materially from a picture painted on an easel. The easel picture has more detail, is placed in a frame when finished, and is destined to make a decorative spot on the walls. The modern mural painter now executes his design directly upon canvas in his studio, and when it is completed it is applied to the wall space by a composition of glue and white lead. ”

“ In recent water color exhibitions still another illustrator, Frank Tenney Johnson, has had many distinguished showings of the present day Indian. His oil paintings, too, are full of the poetry of the open. Moonlight and sun-glare are to him equally alluring. Two painters who glory in showing vast sketches of the open, who use the human figure, but minimize it in their pictures, are Frank Vincent Du Mond and Fernand Lungren, both permanent residents of the Southwest. ”

“ The decorative scheme at Chicago was a remarkable achievement, all things considered, and the grounds were referred to as “The White City,” “The Fair City,” “The City of Dreams,” and finally, alas! as “The Vanishing City” ”

“ In art, to be conventional, one must start out penniless.” So he made some drawings which the Harpers accepted. The material was fresh and full of spirit; so Remington got an order to go west and get up illustrations for a series of articles on the life of the plains. He was lucky enough to strike in on an Indian campaign. His success as an illustrator was so great that he never after lacked for commissions. He even went as far as Russia in 1892. Gradually people came to know that a new and vigorous personality had taken his stand in the field of art, and that his name was Frederic Remington. ”

“ The parents of many artists of genius have attempted to dissuade their sons from becoming painters. On the contrary, however, Sargent’s parents encouraged him to draw from the canvases of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto. ”

“ The modern men do not by any means scorn taking a hint from him. In the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, a great showing of Catlin’s work was more or less in the nature of a sensation.
The next painter of the West was William de la M. Cary, who in 1861 made a trip across the plains with an army officer. There was still plenty of excitement, and the traveler had to be prepared against both wild man and beast. Mr. Cary made many sketches in the manner of Catlin, and sent home illustrations to the magazines, occasionally recording the humorous side of his adventures. ”

“ Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? ”

“ Harriman, “Famous Women,” is a happy arrangement of the many celebrated feminists. The work of Albert Herter is specially noteworthy. Hugo Ballin has executed large decorative work, and Howard G. Cushing has made strikingly original panels. Other men are Taber Sears, with altar pieces, Joseph Lauber, Charles M. Shean, Douglas Volk, and William B. Van Ingen. Walter Shirlaw occupied himself at times with decorations, and Abbott H. Thayer has likewise executed a few notable mural paintings. ”

“ Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. ”

“ Within the last few years prehistoric paintings by men who probably lived on reindeer flesh have been discovered in caves of the Pyrenees, paintings of no little artistic merit and surely artistic instinct. ”

“ Outdoor life and athletic sports were always a hobby of his. When he was at Yale he was on Walter Camp’s original football team, when Camp was practically inventing the American game, and Remington assisted him.
Frederic Remington was born at Canton, a little village in St. Lawrence County, New York State, in 1861. His father, a newspaper man, wanted to train him to follow the same profession; but Remington’s taste for dabbing at art was too strong. In the Yale Art School he picked up a little about art and a great deal about football. He could not accommodate himself to college routine ”

“ He draped this figure in an American flag; a hard problem, but cleverly worked out. The side panels to the right represent the Three Fates; those to the left, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
Then came the commission for decorating the Congressional Library at Washington. He chose as his subject the nine muses.
Following this he received many commissions for work in private residences, and for a series of paintings for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City.
Simmons was one of the original members of the Ten American Painters, and is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. ”

“ At one time Blashfield was president of the Society of American Artists. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and many other societies. He makes his home in New York City.
Blashfield has received many honors and medals, including a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition in 1900, a gold medal at the St. ”

“ But also we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows delight in strength. ”

“ Taos is the northernmost of the Pueblos, and consequently became the “buffer state” between the fierce Apaches and the no less warlike plains tribes. Warrior bands from either side, returning from a raid into the other’s country, were sure to fall upon the inoffensive Pueblos of Taos, either to remove the sting of defeat or to increase the glory of victory. ”

“ Garnsey, who planned the color scheme; while prominent among the decorations are the works of Elihu Vedder,—six large panels representing Government in its various phases, good and corrupt, of much invention in their allegorical way; for the artist is a highly imaginative man. ”

“ This was Charles M. Russell (1865) . In Great Falls, Montana, where he lives and has a home and studio, he is one of the institutions. Few travelers in that part of this country fail to pay him a visit. They call him the “Cowboy Painter,” and with reason; for during several years he followed that profession. Also he lived long among the Indians, sharing their camps, their food, riding after game, winter and summer, dwelling with them as a brother.
CHARLES M. RUSSELL
The Cowboy Artist
Though he always drew pictures, he never saw the inside of an art school, nor had he ever a teacher. ”

“ E. H. Harriman, at Arden, New York, with the title “The Hunt,” showing the red men after big game. Similarly Maynard Dixon has executed decorative work of the Indian for some California homes. His training was through several years of illustrative work for the magazines, and in this work he always had a distinctly decorative composition of his subject, though his rendering was realistic and virile.
WISEMAN, WARRIOR, YOUTH
By E. L. Blumenschein
Howard McCormack, who studied the Southwest as far as Mexico, has also given attention to decorative work with the Indian for his theme. ”