International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

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INTERNATIONAL
STUDIO
VOL. XXXIII. No. 131 Copyright, 1907, by John Lane Company JANUARY, 1908

A

BBOTT H. THAYER
BY HOMER SAINT-GAUDENS

Abbott H. Thayer paints the es-
sential spirit of man. Obviously he can-
not reproduce this spirit in the literal sense, since
painting may accomplish no more than to visibly
represent visible objects. But potentially he
effects the result both by searching in the fashion
and play of the features, and in the lines and poise
of the solid human figure for every fleeting trace
and hint of the ethereal and perishable, and by con-
trolling a sincere and truthful emphasis of those
elusive suggestions to direct to other eyes all the
import latent in the bodies of men and women.
And the power in him that urges him so to imbue
with spiritual significance this indwelling rhythm of
color and form seems to act by virtue of his faith in
the doctrines that “ God created man in His own
image,” and that the image of God is Nature.
From Nature Thayer early learned an appeal so
elemental and so deep that no one should resist or
analyze it any more than they should the primitive
appeal of music. For Thayer understands, as few
others understand, that though Nature when ex-
amined casually presents scarcely any colors or
shapes vivid in comparison to the externals of
artifices created by man, yet that Nature when
made friends with arouses the only sensations that
truly revive, the very sensations that man strives to
ape. Take an illustration patent to all eyes.
Every one readily admits that while out-of-doors
New England verdure would appear sadly pale if
compared to the “property” vegetation of the
theatrical stage, yet the stage scenery, for all its
brightness, looked upon in its appropriate sur-
roundings, would pall long before the sober note of
a bit of woods seen even during a gray day. Of
course, we appreciate that this occurs because the
trees when examined possess a remarkable clarity
and an unfathomed quality of truth that inevitably
invokes our original instincts. It needs no argu-

ment to convince the most superficial observer that
though the buds on hemlock branches in them-
selves manifest most temperate tones, yet when
discovered in the clear darkness of a grove they
cause an uplift such as may rise with the smell of
damp earth, or the touch of moss, or a drink of
spring water, or the sound of a breeze in the
branches. This fact, rightfully judged a platitude
when presented in its common form, Thayer studies
and applies to a degree quite out of the ordinary
range. For while he displays no traces of the
realist, in the accepted meaning of the word, he so
possesses himself of the craft of seeming uncon-
scious, that in his knowledge of the restrained
methods of mother earth lies the touchstone of his
art.
Abbott H. Thayer was born in Boston in 1849,
but early in life his parents took him to live in
Keene, N. H. From the beginning with him, as
with all other successful painters, art held as great
a proportion of his being when he played a child as
when he worked a man. He never became an
artist, for he always was one. About Keene he
scarcely grew old enough to wander in the woods
before he attempted to draw deer and foxes. Near
Keene he certainly experienced his first true
painter’s thrill at seeing the orange sunset light
reflected from the sandy bottoms of the lagoons of
the Ashuelot. In Keene he knew the first joy of
using oils in copying a dead upland plover and
learnt the first artist’s lust to do justice to his sub-
ject. So there he progressed until, in his seven-
teenth year, he definitely mapped out his future and
the two branches of his aspirations by his first
professional efforts, the stuffing of birds and the
painting of fox-terriers with exaggerated and tender
eyes, after the fashion of the time.
Then, in 1866, he approached his task more
seriously, to begin with, studying for two years at
the Brooklyn Academy of Design, and later, for
six years, devoting himself to the painting of cattle
and landscapes. From that date his honest per-

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