Harrison S. Morris

“ But the young man was resolute and met the elder with a firm front and a determination which, while not melting the stern old Quaker, who perhaps looked upon art as an immorality, was not to be put aside. The marriage took place in spite of the interview, and a long career of brilliant success justified the step and reconciled opposing views. It was, perhaps, this self-reliance and quiet courage of attitude toward daily life which gave the slender frame, the unadventurous cast of mind, a bias for painting the most savage seas and the most overpowering cliffs. ”

“ Richards is so much of a part of the intellectual career of Mr. Richards, so inwoven in his fibre, that to describe her is further to personify him.
But even so rare a flower, so beautiful and difficult of growth, as a home like his and hers, must fade. It seems a waste of nature to rear such associations, such delicate and fragile ties, mingled of high aims and affectionate hopes, fair counsels and firm convictions, and then let them dissolve. ”

“ He was clad in demurest colors and often wore a soft black hat dented at the top, which crowned his benign white hair as an artist likes. There was nothing of the pose of his craft about him, no eccentric hue or fashion; and yet his manner, the cast of keen observation in his face, and the easy grace of his carriage, denoted the man of original thought and unconstrained opinion, the artist who sees a little deeper into objective life than most people, and whose instincts are, therefore, less confined to convention. ”

“ He always modestly put praise aside with an apt estimate of his own talents. He knew he could draw matchlessly, and yet there were elements in the portrayal of a breaking wave that he had never achieved to his own satisfaction. If you pressed him with commendation on the side of drawing he would shield his modesty behind his struggles with that miracle of color under the curving wave. ”

“ Richards should restrain himself in the use of color. His whole life was one of salutary restraint. He was half-Quaker in his treatment of the alternatives which life presented to him. He liked simple clothes, and plain surroundings; why should he not see nature in her simpler colors; or, when confronted with a choice, cleave to the subdued and quiet and unsensational? He had his own wise ways and he followed them whether they led from convention or not. He would no doubt have admired Lumenaise or Ryder for glorious and precious color ”

“ Richards' removal to Newport in the seventies was for the express purpose of studying the sea and shore at home, and his wise choice was manifest both in his work and in his investment, for in addition to his talents as a painter, he was remarkably shrewd as a business man. He was also an indefatigable and prolific worker, which was rendered possible by his uniform good health. He was intellectual in his tastes, affable in disposition, and though not particularly social in his habits, was a firm and true friend, whose loss will long be felt by those who enjoyed his intimacy. ”

“ It was always a problem to me why this small, quiet gentleman should have found his joy along the wildest of coasts. We associate the big muscular man with such employment. But Mr. Richards, light and delicate of mould, was fascinated by the grim scenery of Tintagel and Staffa and loved the cliffs he found in Maine and Rhode Island.
Indeed, it was he who first built a house on the bare granite front of Conanicut Island opposite Newport, and it is told of him that he was one day painting on this rugged shore when a tidal wave rolled in and almost carried him back with it. ”

“ In the terrible excitement of the first year of the war there was no demand for art. He was painting out-of-doors the largest canvas he had ever painted directly from nature and struggling with the difficult problems of it, while he kept an eye on his two little boys, who always accompanied him."
Another close friend of this period—indeed, his chief patron—who has already been mentioned, was Mr. George Whitney. Every man of genius has had his Maecenas. Heaven seems to watch over her chosen children, and no doubt Mr. Richards owed much to the taste and liberality of this greatly prized friend. ”

“ How can a delicate creation like that arise again in a world which opposes simplicity and makes light a moderation? Nature, I repeat, seems prodigal of her best fruits when she allows a hallowed and tranquil fireside to fade into forgetfulness.
Mrs. Richards died at Newport in November, 1900, and from this separation Mr. Richards never quite recovered. He painted and travelled, even to the bleak north coast of Norway, but his home on the rocks was gone and she was gone who had embodied its spirit in herself. ”

“ Of this movement, William T. Richards was a beginner and a leader. If we stand now for anything in art it is for the straightforward conveyance of facts. This is not the utmost limit of any art. There are ideals beyond facts and imaginative truths beyond ideals.
But no national art has ever begun at the top and grown backwards. Method must be learnt before the thing to be expressed and the thing expressed comes before imaginative excursions. ”

“ Indeed, he was glad to express his obligation to this modern school for help when he felt that he could well accept it; although he abhorred the prevalent neglect of careful drawing and inattention to form and modelling. His always progressive mind was thus alert for what could add to his equipment even when he had passed into the sixties.
It was in drawing that Mr. Richards was a master. From the first this seems to have been implanted in him. I do not mean that it came instinctively; no such trait ever comes without work and thought. ”

“ No artist had ever before studied the wave motions in an exact and scientific manner, so as to understand the relations of one wave to another and of all to the undercurrents and the wind and the tide, and all those varied forces which make the water on one shore, or under one sky, so different from the water on another shore or under another sky. ”

“ In the fullness of time, the independence of judgment with which the eager young artist had started out was shown in the blessed choice of a wife, and in the events which brought fulfilment and made a home never to be forgotten by those who knew it. We are told that Dr. Matlack, the father of Mrs. Richards, was not easily reconciled to the marriage of his daughter with an obscure young artist, whose career might lead to trials and severities. ”

“ Why should he be supplying additions or trimmings to a sight already so overpowering in its beauty and mystery? If he could get the facts stated in a language every eye could recognize—that was a great thing, that was the duty nature was fulfilling through him. ”

“ But as his powers grew and his knowledge of art and life expanded, it became necessary to add experience to teaching, and in 1853, Richards left the designing-room of the Archer & Warner firm and devoted himself exclusively to his art.
Thus he went on with such self-training and local aids as were available until he became of age. He then resolved to see more of the world and its stores of art than were afforded by the narrow vistas of Philadelphia, and with his accustomed pluck he set forth for Europe. ”

“ George Whitney, who became a most enthusiastic patron, and for whom he did some of his very best landscape work. Nothing can exceed the wonderful painting of tree trunks in some of his wood pictures.
"During all this time I have no recollection of his painting the sea. His first efforts in this direction were remarkable for differing from the usual method of painting it but were indifferent in quality when compared with his later work, but he gradually gave his attention to it more and more, until the sea and coast occupied nearly all his time, his very best work being among his latest. ”

“ Afterwards, if any aspiring young artist asked him, "How shall I learn to paint?" his answer always was, "Learn to draw! "Unlike some advisers, he took his own advice; and the number of his careful drawings which are still preserved is little short of marvellous.
Concerning this time, Miss Bridges writes: "In the year 1860 I went to Philadelphia to study art. Mr. Richards, who was ever ready to render help, especially to women, kindly proposed my coming to paint in his studio, where there were then some half-dozen pupils—the younger Lambdin; Bispham, the animal painter ”

“ Archer, was born on April 30, 1857, and a little later they moved to Germantown, probably by May or June, 1857, and lived in Church Lane, near Mill Street, for nearly two years.
It was not until the latter part of 1857 or 1858 that the work on gas fixtures was wholly abandoned, and the self-reliant young art student pushed out for himself. Hardly can we conceive in our period, when native art receives some patronage, the boldness of such a step in the Philadelphia of 1858. The early seventies developed in young men a restlessness for other ideals than those of trade or the professions. ”

“ The facts must all be stored in the memory and the effect worked out by a mental process. To do this and at the same time add to the result of an intellectual process the vigor and robustness which comes from work done directly in the presence of the thing depicted was an impossibility all at once, and the earlier attempts were marked by a thinness and smallness of style, which gave great offense to the learned art critics. ”

“ This he alternated with "Gray Cliff" and with seasons in Europe between 1885 and 1890. He would disappear for a time to come back laden with canvases and a smiling and genial vitality which made his welcome glad and warm. He rarely spoke of his absence, sometimes to point an anecdote or explain a picture; and I remember, once, how he brought back a series of bewitching water-colors trellised all over with roses, of a country house in England and its lovely court-yard, where he had been staying. ”

“ This was meant only for the summer, when it is possible to paint outdoors on that wild coast. But the needs of the incessant student of nature induced the exchange of the Germantown house for a large farm six miles from Coatesville, in the Chester Valley, Pennsylvania, where landscape could be overtaken in its more surly moods of autumn and winter. For some reason Mr. Richards was curious about Mt. Tacoma, and in 1885 he took a trip to the Pacific coast to see it. ”

“ I had not formed a very high opinion of his ability; but his drawings quite astonished me, and I recognized his talent. There were few young men who aspired to paint in those days, and our mutual interest drew us together and developed into an abiding friendship. ”

“ Everyone on board, including the captain, almost gave up hope, but the ship pulled through safely and staggered into New York after a voyage of seventeen days." Among the fellow voyagers on this exciting trip were Mr. Samuel P. Avery, the New York picture dealer, and his family and the congenial friendship made at that time with this generous and intelligent man was a source of pleasure and encouragement through all the rest of Mr. Richards' career. In yet another way this remarkable voyage greatly influenced his subsequent life. ”

“ He was an old fossil, they declared, and would never get anywhere in the world if he stuck so fanatically to his work. 'To succeed you must be a man of the world,' said one, who was later, alas! a tragic and pathetic failure. Of the others none in any way approached his success, but for all of them he kept an unabated and loyal friendship."
Perhaps the trait of self-preservation which is so often omitted from the equipment of artists, and which in the early days of Mr. Richards' youth was conspicuously so, may be of kin with the capacity to see justly, which Mr. ”

“ The young people were a part of the group, literary and artistic, that the Pearsall Smiths attracted to their hospitable house, and it was out of the association thus formed that they came to know each other better and to prize each other for likable traits. ”

“ His labors for the firm occupied nearly all his daylight, but he followed the bent of his ambition by drawing on wood at night. I had seen some crude pictures which he exhibited at the Art Union Galleries, which adjoined the building subsequently occupied by the Earles, but was not favorably impressed. ”

“ Thus he emerged upon a barren horizon, and he made for himself those opportunities for study and association which are needful aids to talent.
I can do no better, from this stage of Mr. Richards' career, than give the outline of his early years furnished me, with characteristic kindness, by his friend and fellow painter, Mr. W. H. Willcox, of Germantown, Philadelphia. Mr. ”