International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

The Whipple School of Art


CHARCOAL ILLUSTRATION BY MISS ALICE KNAPP

ture of affairs in Russia if Sargent had ever had
occasion to paint the Czar. This artist, of course,
overtops the rest of our portraitists in his marvellous
ability to read the secrets of his sitter’s heart and
write them broadly on the canvas. But a series of
portraits of some of the leading men in this country
about the time of the Spanish War has a certain
interest and value over and above artistic considera-
tions proper; and, indeed, Mr. Whipple’s work
shows at its best in that most important index of
character and personality—the face. Several of the
portraits in question are to be seen in Washington.
That of the Hon. John Sherman hangs in the State
Department. A full-length of President McKinley,
painted at the White House, represents the Presi-
dent standing at the desk presented by Queen Vic-
toria to the United States during the presidency of
Garfield. In this the artist has almost prophetic-
allyembodied the device of the recognisable Symbol
which Reynolds exploited with authority and copi-

ous variety. The Suggestion of the
unhappy fate of Garfield in a por-
trait which was on exhibition at the
Buffalo Exposition when McKinley
was fatally assaulted there is poign-
antly appropriate. And the shadow
of the names of Guiteau and Czol-
gosz is somewhat lightened in the
recollection that this desk was made
from the timbers of the good ship
Resolute, in whose name is the cour-
age that outfaces panic and in
whose history is epitomised the
comity of the English-speaking na-
tions. The portrait of General Miles
reproduced herewith hangs in the
Military Academy at West Point.
There is a portrait of Senator Elk-
ins in the War Department at Wash-
ington, another of General Benjamin
F. Tracy in the Navy Department,
and among many others by Mr.
Whipple are those of Postmaster-
General Wilson, David R. Francis,
the late Ex-President Benjamin
Harrison, Major-General Granville
M. Dodge, which hangs in the re-
ception roomof the W aldorf-Astoria,
and Ex-Governor McCorkle for the
State House, Charleston, S. C.
If we have given considerable
attention to Mr. Whipple’s work
aside from the school, it is because
in a school of this sort the master is
the school. It is his theories, aptitudes, tastes and
methods of thought that will be communicated
to the dass. What the members gain from one
another, and such selection as they may con-
sciously make among the suggestions that come
to them, are bound to be coloured by the per-
sonality of the guide they have chosen. On the
other hand, however, lie the definite plans for
the school itself and these are ultimately of
greater interest.
In the several examples of students’ work seen
herewith the first prize life drawing strikes one
of the characteristic notes of Mr. Whipple’s
method of instruction. We have before noticed
instances of the older curriculum. We have
called attention also to a new method that with-
draws the established emphasis from antique
and life work, and centres the interest at once
on composition and the inter-relation of the
various arts. Here is still another development.

LXXVII