THE MENTOR 1914.09.15, No. 67,
American Mural Painters

The Mentor Association

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THE PLEIADES, by Elihu Vedder. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

American Mural Painters
ELIHU VEDDER

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course

Elihu Vedder said of his parents, “My mother went to
church; but I know that wherever a fish was to be found
my father went fishing,” and of his mother he said further,
“It had always been my mother’s wish that I should be a
great artist, and for her sake I wish it could have been so.”

Vedder was born in New York City on February 26, 1836, and as a
boy attended the Brinkerhoff School in Brooklyn. In this institution
the greatest virtue was a good memory; the pupil who could best memorize
his lessons stood highest. Consequently Vedder, who always had
a bad memory, stood at the foot of his class. Nevertheless he showed
early evidences of his talent.

He first studied under the genre (jonr) and historical painter Tompkins
H. Mattison, at Sherburne, New York. Then he went to Paris to study
in the atelier of the French painter Picot. He went to Italy in 1857,
where he worked for some years, and then returned to the United States
and remained there until 1865. In that year he was elected to full
membership in the National Academy of Design, New York City. He
went back to Paris and spent one winter there; but in January, 1867,
moved to Rome, where he has ever since resided. He has made many
visits to the United States; but Italy is his favorite dwelling place.

At first Vedder devoted himself to the painting of genre pictures.
These, however, attracted only a little attention until 1884, when he
illustrated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This immediately gave
him a high place in the art world. His important decorative work came
later. These subjects are principally imaginative.

A pen picture by H. T. Carpenter, of Vedder in his Italian home,
gives a good idea of the personality of the man: “The picturesque personality
of the painter would impress one, whatever and wherever the
surroundings. As he came down those stone steps” (of his studio in
Rome), “a bunch of large keys in his hand to open the gate, explaining
the while the reason for the absence of the porter and attendant of all
work, with a gentleness born of a natural sympathy for the under dog,
he looked the man one might imagine the creator of such work as is
shown in the series of drawings of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, or
the Congressional Library and the Bowdoin College decorations, or the
mural work in the Huntington house, with its incomparable central figure,
Luna,—his abundant wavy white hair, features of marked strength,
penetrating blue eyes, which alternately twinkled and analyzed, a long,
flowing white mustache, a striking head on massive shoulders, tall in
height; in fine, a picture of rugged picturesqueness that stood out even
in that land of artistic individuality, but never for a moment taken for
anything but a fine type of American. His manner was cordial, frank,
sincere, and unaffected, and one soon found out he was a good hater of
shams.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
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DETAIL OF THE ANTHONY DREXEL MEMORIAL CHANCEL, by E. H. Blashfield.

In the Church of the Savior, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

American Mural Painters
EDWIN HOWLAND BLASHFIELD

Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course

Edwin Howland Blashfield has a place in the front
rank of American mural painters through his elevation of
thought and his masterly execution. His imagination is
fertile and his treatment of subjects highly decorative. He
has been able to paint both history and legend, and has
placed them side by side in the same compositions.

He was born on December 15, 1848, in New York City. He is a son
of William Henry Blashfield, and a brother of Albert Dodd Blashfield,
the illustrator.

Blashfield studied first at the Boston Latin School. Then, in 1867,
he went to Paris to study under Leon Bonnât. He also received valuable
advice from Gérôme and Chapù. He exhibited for many years at the
Paris Salon, and also at the Royal Academy in London. In 1881 he
returned to the United States and married.

For some years he was a painter of genre pictures; that is, pictures
of common life and its associations. Then he turned to decorative work,
which was marked by rare delicacy and beauty of color. At the World’s
Fair in Chicago in 1893 he painted mural decorations for a dome in the
Manufacturers’ Building. Later he did the great central dome of the
Congressional Library at Washington, the drawing room for the Huntington
residence, the decoration for the courtroom in the courthouse at
Baltimore, the decoration of the entire chancel in the Church of the
Savior at Philadelphia, and many other masterpieces of mural art.

Blashfield is well known as a lecturer on art, and has written many
articles dealing with the subject. With Mrs. Blashfield he wrote, in
1900, “Italian Cities,” and together, with A. A. Hopkins, they edited
Vasari’s “Lives of the Painters.”

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. Louis
Exposition in 1904, a Carnegie prize in 1911, and others.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
COPYRIGHT, 1914. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

American Mural Painters
EDWIN AUSTIN ABBEY

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course

Walk into the Public Library at Boston, and you will find
yourself in the midst of some of the most magnificent mural
decorations in America. There we find the great frieze of
The Prophets, by John Sargent, and in the delivery room is
the great decoration by Edwin Austin Abbey which is called
“The Quest of the Holy Grail.”

In the early part of his life Edwin Abbey was an illustrator, celebrated
chiefly for his pen drawings. In later life his work became larger
in character, and he turned naturally to mural painting.

Edwin Austin Abbey was born in Philadelphia, April 1, 1852. He
studied first at the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts;
but at the age of nineteen left this and entered the art department of
the publishing house of Harper & Bros., New York City, where he became
successful as an illustrator. Associated with him were such artists
as Howard Pyle, C. S. Reinhart, and Joseph Pennell. In 1878 Harpers’
planned to publish the poems of Robert Herrick, and sent Abbey to
England to gather material for the illustrations. These were published
in 1882, and attracted much attention. Illustrations for Goldsmith’s
“She Stoops to Conquer,” for a volume of old songs, and for the comedies
and a few of the tragedies of Shakespeare, followed. His water colors
and pastels were successful in the same degree.

Abbey by this time had become closely identified with the art life
of England. In 1883 he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters
in Water Colors. His first oil painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy
in London in 1890, which was called “A May Day Morning.” He
became a full Royal Academician in 1898.

His mural decoration called “The Quest of the Holy Grail,” in the
Boston Public Library, on which he was occupied for several years, deserves
special mention. In 1901 King Edward VII commissioned him
to paint a picture of the coronation. During his life many honors were
showered upon him. Abbey died in 1911.

In “The Apotheosis of Pennsylvania,” below to the left are Sir Walter
Raleigh, who had a grant in Pennsylvania; Henry Hudson, who discovered
and sailed up the Delaware River; Captain Minuit, the explorer
and navigator, and others. To the right are a pioneer and representatives
of various religious sects that settled in Pennsylvania. Below
these, beginning at the left, are ships on the stocks, the city troopers,
General Wayne, Atkinson (the first American judge), the first provost
of the University of Pennsylvania, Bishop White (the first American
bishop), and others, among them Dr. Caspar Wistar, Benjamin Franklin,
William Penn, and Robert Morris. At the left are Governor Curtis
and Thaddeus Stevens cheering the soldiers of 1861 marching to defend
the state, officered by Generals Hancock and Meade. On the right are
miners and workers in steel and iron, machinery, and so forth.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
COPYRIGHT, 1914. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

American Mural Painters
EDWARD EMERSON SIMMONS

Monograph Number Four in The Mentor Reading Course

Edward Emerson Simmons had many disappointments
to contend with during the early part of his life; but
he overcame them all, and has made for himself a place in the
foremost rank of American artists.

He comes from good old Massachusetts stock. His
mother was a sister of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous American
poet and essayist. Simmons was born at Concord, Massachusetts, on
October 27, 1852. He went to Harvard University, and graduated from
there in 1874 with great honor. It is a fact worthy of remark that the
class of 1874 contains many men who have achieved distinction.

After graduating Simmons went to Paris to study art, where his
teachers were Lefebvre and Boulanger. At the schools he was very
popular, and his easel was the favorite loafing place for the other members
of his class.

In 1881 he exhibited at the Salon a portrait of a gentleman in Highland
costume, which attracted great attention. The following summer he
went to Brittany, where he remained for sometime. He made his home
at Concarneau in Finistère, a fishing port famous for its sardines. There
Simmons experimented with all kinds of painting,—landscape, marine,
and figure,—and took the lead in the art life of the colony, among whom
were painters from France, England, and America.

In 1882 he sent to the Salon a painting called “La Blanchisseuse,” a
picture of a Breton girl carrying the clothes from the brookside, where
she had been washing them, which is a custom in Brittany. The picture
received honorable mention.

In 1891 his class at Harvard decided to give a memorial window, and
Simmons got the commission. Then came the World’s Fair at Chicago
in 1893, and Simmons obtained the commission to decorate the dome of
the Liberal Arts Building. He chose for his subject four objects of American
labor,—wood, iron, stone, and fiber. This painting shows strength,
directness, simplicity, and dignity. It was his first mural decoration,
and was a good experience. He saw his opportunity and made the most
of it.

Almost immediately came the commission to decorate the Criminal
Court Buildings of the Courts of Oyer and Terminer in the city of New
York, which he worked out with enthusiasm. The subject represented
is Justice, in the shape of a stately, dignified figure with a globe in one
hand and the scales in the other. 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.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
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“Hosea,” a detail of the frieze of “The
Prophets,” by John Singer Sargent, in
the Public Library, Boston, is the
subject of one of the intaglio-gravure
pictures illustrating “American Mural Painters.”

JOHN SINGER SARGENT

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course

John Singer Sargent has been
called the most “modern of moderns,
one of the most dazzling men of talent
of the present day.”

Sargent is in reality an American only
by parentage; for he was born at Florence,
Italy, on January 12, 1858, and
since 1884 has lived in London. Sargent’s
father was Dr. Fitzwilliam Sargent,
a distinguished Boston physician.
Sargent as a child was very sensitive, and
was greatly influenced by the art treasures
of his birthplace. He received his early
education in Italy and Germany, and his
impressionable nature amid such surroundings
was shaped by the atmosphere
of the famous Tuscan city, which left its
refining mark upon all his work. 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.

In 1874, when Sargent was only eighteen,
he went to Paris to study, entering
the atelier of Carolus-Duran. A portrait
of his teacher painted toward the
close of his studentship won the commendation
of the best judges. He received
an honorable mention in the Salon
in 1878, and in 1881 a second-class medal
for his “Portrait of a Young Lady,” which
has been made famous by the appreciation
of Henry James, the distinguished
American novelist. As an artist with a
future he turned his steps to Spain. In
Madrid he studied the canvases of Velasquez
carefully, and this master has influenced
his entire art career. He seemed
to come so close to this great painter that
he was enabled to bring into the nineteenth
century the power of the most
modern of fifteenth century painters.

Sargent returned to Paris in 1882 and
exhibited “El Jaleo,” a picture representing
a Spanish woman dancing, which
attracted a great deal of attention, and
is now in the Boston Art Museum. Soon
afterward Sargent drifted to London, and
in 1886 his “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”
brought him immediate recognition. He
rapidly became known in London as a
brilliant portrait painter, and year by
year his Academy portraits were the
features of the exhibitions. His success
was now assured, and his sitters included
the men and women of greatest distinction
in the literary, artistic, and social life
of both Europe and America.

He is best known as a portrait painter;
but at the same time he has done much
excellent decorative work, and his decorations
for the Boston Public Library,
“The Pageant of Religion,” among which
was the frieze of “The Prophets,” which
were completed in 1903, placed him
among the leading mural painters of
America.

Sargent was elected a member of the
Royal Academy in London in 1894, and
in addition to this he has won many other
honors. And unlike many American artists
residing in Europe, he has always
retained his directness and independence.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
COPYRIGHT, 1914. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

American Mural Painters
KENYON COX

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

Not only has Kenyon Cox placed himself in the front rank of
American artists through his paintings, but he has also
made a name for himself as an art critic.

He was born at Warren, Ohio, on October 27, 1856. His
father was General Jacob Dolson Cox. He studied art when
quite young, first at Cincinnati and Philadelphia, and then at the age of
twenty-one went to Paris to study. There for five years he was under
Carolus-Duran and Gérôme.

In 1882 he returned to New York and opened a studio there. Shortly
after this he began teaching in the Art Students’ League, and had much
success in that line. In 1892 he married Louise Howland King, who is
well known as a painter herself.

The earlier work of Cox consisted mostly of the nude. He received
little encouragement for these pictures, however, and turned to mural
decoration, in which he has achieved prominence. His first step toward
mural work was the painting of two decorations for the Library of Congress
at Washington. In two tympanums (the flat, triangular part of a
pediment) each thirty-four feet in length, he has painted the Arts and
the Sciences. Among his better known examples are the frieze for the
courtroom of the Appellate Court, New York City, and the decorations
for the Walker Art Gallery at Bowdoin College, for the Capitol at St.
Paul, Minnesota, and for other public and private buildings. His decoration,
“The Beneficence of the Law,” in the Essex County Courthouse
at Newark, New Jersey, is one of his best-known paintings.

Of late years Mr. Cox has spent much time on wall decorations. He
is a maker of pictures and a master of line; but is not an interpreter of
life nor an exploiter of ideas.

He is the author of a number of books on art, among which are “Old
Masters and New,” and “Painters and Sculptors,” in addition to some
poems. He was elected to the National Academy in 1903, and has received
many medals and honors.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 2, No. 15. SERIAL No. 67
COPYRIGHT, 1914. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

Copyright, by Hotel Imperial

Bowling on the Green, by E. A. Abbey. In the grill of the Hotel Imperial, New York City

AMERICAN
MURAL PAINTERS

By ARTHUR HOEBER

Author, Artist, and Critic

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS · SEPT. 15, 1914

MENTOR GRAVURES

• RETURN OF THE BATTLE FLAGS
  By Edward Simmons
• THE APOTHEOSIS OF PENNSYLVANIA
  By E. A. Abbey
• THE BENEFICENCE OF THE LAW
  By Kenyon Cox
• HOSEA—DETAIL OF THE PROPHETS
  By John Sargent
• DETAIL OF THE ANTHONY DREXEL MEMORIAL CHANCEL
  By E. H. Blashfield
• THE PLEIADES
  By Elihu Vedder

DAWN, by T. W. Dewing

Ceiling decoration in the grill of the Hotel Imperial,
New York City

“Oh, tenderly the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire!”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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. 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.” 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.

With the name of John La Farge must begin any account of the history
of mural painting in America. The name is an honored one in the
annals of our art development, and he has been dead only a few years,
after a long life of devotion to high artistic ideals. It was in 1861 that he
completed a panel for the church of the Paulist Fathers, in New York.
The theme was “Saint Paul Preaching at Athens.” The architects, however,
rejected the work for reasons
that seem never to have been recorded,
and the next year La Farge
began a large triptych[1] of “The
Crucifixion”; though he completed
only two of the smaller
divisions of the composition.
These he kept in his studio for
many years, until they were purchased
by the late William C.
Whitney. But his work in the
meantime had been remarked,
and he received an order for some
decorations for a dining room;
while the architect H. H. Richardson,
in 1876, offered him a commission
to take charge of the
interior decoration of Trinity
Church, Boston. This work was
completed in about four months.
La Farge chose as assistants Francis Lathrop, Francis D. Millet, George
W. Maynard, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens the sculptor, among others.
The work was satisfactorily completed, and remains today one of the
great accomplishments in this country. After this La Farge was asked
to decorate Saint Thomas’ Church in New York, which was followed
by his decorations for the Church of the Incarnation in the same city.

Copyright, 1904

THE EDICT OF TOLERATION, by E. H. Blashfield

This is the central section of a decoration in the courthouse at Baltimore, Maryland

THE LIGHT OF
LEARNING

By Kenyon Cox

Lunette in the
public library
at Winona,
Minnesota

LA FARGE’S MASTERPIECE

In the Church of the Ascension, however, is La Farge’s masterpiece,
without doubt the greatest piece of church decoration in this country.
The theme is “The Ascension of Our Lord,” a composition arranged in
two groups, one of the ascending Christ amid the clouds, the other of the
disciples with Mary the Mother standing on the ground gazing upon the
wonder passing beyond their vision. 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.

The work was immediately followed by many others, including a
music room for the residence of the late Whitelaw Reid, rooms in the residence
of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and many churches; while later was to
come the work for great public buildings, culminating in the decorations
for the Supreme Court room of the new capitol at St. Paul, Minnesota, a
colossal undertaking comprising many large panels. La Farge did not,
however, confine his activities entirely to mural painting; for during his
long career in art he was identified with work in stained glass, to which he
gave great attention. His achievements in this direction were among the
most distinguished that have ever been attained in the history of the world.

EGYPTIAN
DANCE

By William De L.
Dodge

In the Majestic
Theater at
Boston,
Massachusetts

WILLIAM M. HUNT

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. The result was
a fine series of pictures, well composed; but unfortunately they survive
only in reproductions, the originals having been painted directly on the
walls. These, owing to faulty construction, did not long remain intact,
falling out of plumb, and they had to be supported by beams until they
were finally entirely destroyed. Hunt had been a pupil of Thomas Couture
(koo-toor´) in Paris, a man who had strong influence on his work, and these
decorations were very reminiscent of his master. The pictures were fifteen
by forty-five feet in size, and the themes were “The Flight of Night”
and “The Discoverer,” of which only photographs remain to tell the tale.

Today the mural painter produces his work on canvas instead of on
the wall, a process that enables him to do most of the labor in the studio,
and in case of necessity this, after being attached to the walls, can be
taken down again and so preserved.

MURAL ART AT “THE WHITE CITY”

It was on the occasion of the planning of the World’s Columbian
Exposition of 1893 in Chicago that the first real impetus to mural decoration
was given in America. This occasion disclosed to the citizen the
possibilities of the native
artist, as well as the
esthetic value of such
embellishment in public
edifice and in private
home. The administrative
body of the fair,
determining upon a decorative
scheme to be
properly carried out,
appointed to take
charge of the mural
painting Francis D.
Millet, and as assistant,
Charles Yardley Turner.
A selection of
artists was made to execute the work, who were J. Alden Weir, Edwin
Howland Blashfield, George W. Maynard, Robert Reid, Edward Simmons,
Charles Stanley Reinhart, Carroll Beckwith, Kenyon Cox, Gari
Melchers, William De L. Dodge, and Walter McEwen.

THE CUMÆAN SIBYL, by Elihu Vedder

At Wellesley College

Copyright, 1898, by E. Vedder. From a Copley Print, copyright, 1899, by Curtis & Cameron, Inc.

SAMSON, by Elihu Vedder

Blashfield and Maynard had had some slight experience in decorative
work; but the rest were practically novices, though all had been serious,
capable students in Paris, and were familiar with examples of the decorative
arts of history. Millet was a rare executive, a man who was subsequently
to do an enormous amount of just such work. It will be remembered that he went
down to his death in
the ill-fated Titanic. Of
the rest of the group
Weir, Reinhart, Beckwith,
Melchers, and McEwen
returned to their
easel picture work after
the Chicago fair, with
only an occasional decoration.
Blashfield,
Maynard, Simmons,
Cox, and Dodge have,
however, continued to
be strongly identified
with mural work, and
these men must receive
closer attention. 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”; but in reality
nothing like it was ever seen before and probably never will be again.

THE PROPHETS, by John Sargent

In the Boston Library. Center panel, showing Elijah, Moses, and Joshua

EDWIN HOWLAND BLASHFIELD

Of this group Mr. Blashfield has been more largely identified
with decorations all over the land than the rest. The list of his
mural work is a large one. A pupil of Bonnât’s (bo-nah´) in Paris, a writer of
great charm, and a most serious student of his profession, Mr. Blashfield
brought to his art scholarly endowments of a high order. After his work of
decorating the dome of the Manufacturers’ Building at Chicago came a
series of commissions to embellish various homes of private individuals,—Collis
P. Huntington, the Drexels, the Vanderbilts, Adolf Lewisohn, and
others,—with work for the Library of Congress, the Appellate Court of
New York, the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Prudential
Life Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey, the state capitols of Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Idaho, and other states, with innumerable courthouses
at Baltimore, Newark, Hudson County (New Jersey), Youngstown (Ohio),
the Federal Building at Cleveland, some schools, and many more. In
these he disclosed enormous invention, great facility, a good pictorial sense
of composition, and
generally a scholarly
grasp of decorative
requirements.

KENYON COX

Kenyon Cox,
likewise a pupil of
the Paris schools
under J. L. Gérôme
(zhay-rome´), has
been largely identified
with decorative
work throughout
the land. A distinguished
draftsman
and a writer on
art as well, Mr. Cox
is represented with
decorations in the
Walker Art Gallery,
Bowdoin College, in
various state capitols
and public libraries, in the Appellate Court of New York and other
courthouses throughout the Union, and was awarded the medal of honor for
mural painting by the Architectural League in 1910. He too is represented
in the mural decorations of the Congressional Library at Washington.

THE LIGHT OF
LEARNING

By Robert Reid

Copyright, 1909,
by Robert Reid

JOHN SINGER SARGENT

Mr. 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. 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. His work here, says William A. Coffin, “as a whole
is like a casket of jewels.” It consists of a frieze, a lunette,[2] and an
arched ceiling. In the latter are depicted the gods of polytheism and
idolatry; there are panels of the Prophets in the lunette, and the Jews
are represented by twelve nude figures in subjection to the Egyptians
and Assyrians, typified by figures of Pharaoh and the Assyrian king.
It is a most elaborate symbolism, thoroughly consistent, wonderfully
worked out, and of absorbing interest.

EDWIN A. ABBEY’S DECORATIONS

Edwin A. Abbey, in another chamber of this Boston Library, the
delivery room, has his now world-famous decoration, the story of the
Holy Grail, perhaps the most popular mural work in this country, certainly
the best known, and the shrine for many years of the tourist. It is
a series of panels narrating the history of the knights of the Arthurian
legend, exquisitely
told, for Abbey
was a master illustrator,
and there
is great charm of
arrangement and
color, all making a
popular appeal. Mr.
Abbey was further
commissioned to
decorate the state
capitol at Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania.
He attacked this
work with great interest
and enthusiasm,
but his labors
were interrupted by
his death. The task
was then taken up
by Miss Violet Oakley,
herself a distinguished
mural
painter, who, though
handicapped by the
circumstances of having to follow out the scheme of another artist, nevertheless
disclosed great capacity and has made a success of the performance.

FAMOUS WOMEN, by Barry Faulkner

Decoration for the house of Mrs. E. H. Harriman at Arden, New York.
From left to right the women pictured are Cornelia, Beatrice, Judith,
Queen of Sheba, Joan of Arc, Helen of Troy, and Pocahontas

PUBLIC LIBRARY DECORATIONS

The Boston Library, it may be stated, offered opportunity for decorative
work of an unusual nature, which was taken advantage of by several
of the better known men. Elmer E. Garnsey made remarkable designs
for the Pompeian lobby, and John Elliott a ceiling in the children’s
reference room. The Congressional Library at Washington offered still
greater opportunities, engaging the attention of a long list of painters.
Here again is seen the hand of Mr. 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. Mr. Brownell places Vedder in the front rank
of the imaginative painters of the day, adding, “Their name is not legion.”
Other men who contributed to the Library of Congress include
John W. Alexander, who is further represented at Pittsburgh, in the Carnegie
Institute, with most important wall decorations; Gari Melchers;
Robert Reid, whose list of other work is extensive, including decorations
for the capitol at Boston; Henry O. Walker, also represented in
the Appellate Court in New York.

PENNSYLVANIA EXCAVATIONS, by Fred Dana Marsh

EDWARD SIMMONS, ROBERT BLUM, AND OTHERS

In addition to these was a painter who has also been one of the most
prominent of the decorative men, Edward Simmons. Years ago he won
the competition for a decoration for the Criminal Court room in New York,
a prize awarded by the Municipal Art Society. A pupil of the Paris
schools, a master draftsman, a singularly capable man, his three panels
of the Fates won him instant place, and when he further made two
decorations for the Massachusetts state capitol there was opened to him
a field which he has since followed with distinction. Decorations for the
ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, panels for the Appellate Court, for various
state capitols and public buildings, and finally enormous embellishments
for the Panama fair in San Francisco, place the man in the front rank.

For pure beauty of invention, for charm of drawing and delicacy of
vision, no American decoration has surpassed the two lovely panels
executed by the late Robert Blum for the frieze of the assembly room of
the Mendelssohn Glee Club in New York. They attracted enormous
attention when they were first completed, and have been reproduced in
many forms. Blum was a highly original painter, and these many figures
representing “Music” and “The Dance” have a grace quite their own.

Reproductions of these paintings made by The Detroit Publishing Co.

Copyright, 1912, by The Curtis Publishing Co.
Copyright, 1914, by The Detroit Publishing Co.

THREE PANELS, by Maxfield Parrish

These three panels are part of a series called “A Florentine Fête,” which decorates the entire front of
the dining room of the Curtis Publishing Company’s building in Philadelphia

Thomas W. Dewing, more identified with easel work, has nevertheless
executed several charming decorations, one in the Imperial Hotel, New
York, “Dawn,” ranking high indeed. It has all the man’s personal
color vision, and is exquisitely dainty and graceful.

Several men were concerned in the wall decorations of the Appellate
Court, among them H. Siddons Mowbray and Willard L. Metcalf. The
first named chose for theme “The Transmission of the Law,” which he
rendered in a scholarly as well as artistic manner. Mr. Mowbray has
executed a ceiling for the library of the University Club of New York, a
large work for the Newark courthouse, and many private commissions.

The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel gave early opportunities for the work of
Will H. Low and Frank Fowler, both of whom carried out interesting
schemes of decoration; while work in the church of the Paulist Fathers in
New York offered a similar chance for William Laurel Harris. Fred Dana
Marsh showed the possibilities of large engineering achievements for decorative
material in a large panel in the rooms of the United Engineering Societies.
It is an apotheosis[3] of labor, of the pick, the shovel, and the iron and
steel worker, and Mr. Marsh was singularly original in the composition.

THE CITY OF NEW YORK, THE EASTERN GATEWAY
OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENT

By Taber Sears, in the New York City Hall

John W. Alexander, better known as a portrait painter, also chose
similar themes with which to decorate the Carnegie Institute of Art in
Pittsburgh, a successful piece of work. Robert van V. Sewell, for the
home of George Gould, at Lakewood, did a fine frieze representing “The
Canterbury Tales.” And a later
man is Barry Faulkner, whose
panel for the home of Mrs. 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.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

• MURAL PAINTING IN AMERICA
  By Edwin Howland Blashfield.
  Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.
• AMERICAN MURAL PAINTING
  By Pauline King.
  Noyes, Platt & Co., Boston.
• THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN PAINTING
  By Samuel Isham.
  The Macmillan Company, New York.
• THE STORY OF AMERICAN PAINTING
  By Charles H. Caffin.
  Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.

THE MENTOR READING CIRCLE

CHARITY, by Abbott Thayer

In the Boston Museum

A mural painting is a decoration intended
for the adornment of a wall or
ceiling. As a rule, it is painted in more
or less simple, flat tones, so as to carry
some distance, and under the old methods,
known as fresco painting, it was a process
of painting in water colors on wet plaster,
the portion of the wall on which the
artist was to paint being prepared over
night, so as to be in proper state to receive
the color. The painter had to work
from a scaffold. He
was also hampered
by awkward positions
and, frequently, bad
lighting facilities.
This method was in
general use from the
early days of Giotto
(1266-1337), to those of
Raphael (1483-1520).
Some of the Italians
use it even now.

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. When this is
thoroughly dry it becomes practically a
part of the construction, though it is possible
at any time to remove it, by peeling it
off, should it be necessary. As a rule, the
painter of a great mural work makes first
a small sketch. This is subsequently enlarged
by himself, or his assistants, by the
process of “squaring up,” and so it is
brought to the correct size. These enlargements
are known as “cartoons,”
which are traced on the canvas or the
plaster, and when thus drawn in are
ready for the painter’s brush.

Almost the first efforts of primitive
man in picture making were decorations
of the walls of his rude house, and later
his temples and public buildings. There
are examples from the civilizations of
Egypt, Greece, and Rome wherein the
work was carried to the greatest perfection.
We have splendid specimens of
brilliant coloring from the great temples
in the land of the Pharaohs, on their
tombs and palaces, that have remained
fresh and well nigh
perfect all these centuries,
while throughout
Italy, in palaces
and churches the work
of the Renaissance
artists challenges the
greatest admiration.

Upon the walls of the
buried city of Pompeii
still are frescoes that
seem painted yesterday,
so fresh is the
color. The work of
Michelangelo and of
Raphael in the Vatican
at Rome is perhaps
the greatest of any
known decorative efforts.
Throughout
France and Germany
the work has been
greatly fostered by
commissions from the
state for public buildings
of all sorts, for
splendid mansions and
palaces of royalty. In France, particularly,
great attention is given to mural work.
The work of the French painter Puvis de
Chavannes today is a return, to a certain
extent, to the ideals and methods of expression,
to the simplicity of theme and
treatment of the early masters. He remains
by general consent the greatest of all
modern decorators, and we are fortunate
in America in having admirable specimens
of his work in the Boston Public
Library. Our modern men, in their mural
work, use as a rule oil paints mixed with
wax, in order to secure a flat effect and to
do away with any reflection on the surface.

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