American painting and its tradition - as represented by Inness, Wyant, Martin, Homer, La Farge, Whistler, Chase, Alexander, Sargent (1920) (14589718009)

Identifier: ameng00vand (find matches)
Title: American painting and its tradition : as represented by Inness, Wyant, Martin, Homer, La Farge, Whistler, Chase, Alexander, Sargent
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Van Dyke, John Charles
Subjects: American Painting
Publisher: Charles Schribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO



Text Appearing Before Image:
e. But this is just the ordinaryChase—that is, an excellent and well-drawnand rightly painted girl of twelve moving acrossthe room with a smiling, somewhat unintelli-gent, face. The only thinking that Chase putin this picture was in regard to the action ormovement of the figure. The rest was merely somuch still-life painted for its surface texture asone might paint a brass bucket or the scales of afish. And yet the *Alice is an excellent pictureand exhibits Chases theory of art quite per-fectly. But it also demonstrates the truth thatthe sum of art does not lie on the surface, thatthe model alone is possibly not suflBcient in it-self to make up the highest kind of pictorialbeauty, and that the intellectual and emotionalnature of the painter is a potent factor in allgreat art. Chase at heart knew that. Titiansportraits had convinced him of it years before. Honors, prizes, and medals were coming tohim, his teaching was very successful, he had alarge following, and was thought the most
Text Appearing After Image:
The Woman witli the White Sliawl, ))v WilHam :\rerritlCliase. lu the IViiMsylvaiiia Aciuioiiiy of the Fiue Arts. WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE 20S considerable of our art leaders; but beneath thesurface all was not so placid or so pleasant.In 1895 he was no longer president of theSociety, he gave up his Brooklyn class, and alsohis Tenth Street studio. Artistic extravaganceor want of revenue or some other financial dis-ability had placed him in straitened circum-stances. All of his pictures and collections hadto be sold to pay his debts. With character-istic indifference he gave a farewell dinner in thebig studio before leaving it, gathered togetherwhat possessions remained to him in a house inStuyvesant Square, and shortly thereafter, withhis family and a number of pupils, went to Spain.In June he returned to Shinnecock, and in theautumn took a studio at Fifth Avenue andThirtieth Street, and opened at Fifty-seventhStreet the Chase School. This school soon be-came the New York School of Art, a