Studio: international art (21.1901)

W. M. Chase

AN AMERICAN PAINTER-
WILLIAM M. CHASE. BY
ERNEST KNAUFFT.

To those who knew the condition of art in
America at the time William M. Chase returned,
in 1877, from study in Munich, it does not seem
surprising that the mere art school studies which
he exhibited electrified the public and caused him
to be hailed as a master. For they knew that the
condition of art in America was then at a low ebb.

Self-taught painters then held sway, or painters
of the Diisseldorf school, with technique like that
of Meyer von Bremen, Verbroeckhoven, Achenbach
and Sir John Gilbert. True, occasionally William
M. Hunt, John la Farge, Winslow Homer, or
George Inness exhibited at the Academy of Design
pictures that were far above the prevailing standard,
though showing no brilliant brush work; but
painting worthy of being styled art was seen in
hardly a tithe of the pictures exhibited. So, about
1878, when there appeared a number of young
men who had studied at Munich, among whom were
Walter Shirlaw, Frank Courier, Frank Duveneck
and William M. Chase, and another group from
Paris, of which F. A. Bridgeman was a member,
the public immediately awakened to the value of
the new things they brought, seeming to realise
instantly that little had hitherto been known of the
technical possibilities of oil painting, and that
these men had at their disposal a means of expres-
sion entirely unknown to the older painters.
Indeed, the effect of the work of these men upon
the younger art lovers was such as would follow
if, having known only the paintings of Lucas
Cranach, they had been suddenly introduced to
Velasquez and Hals—or, to make it less flattering,
let us say, to Tiepolo, Greuze and Munkacsy. It
was quite evident to all that these younger men
tainted with a brush—that they spoke in the
language of paint.

Mr. Chase's influence on American art has,
perhaps, been more potent through his teaching
than through his painting. His ministrations have
neither been confined to one place nor restricted
to one branch of instruction. In addition to con-
tinued teaching of some twenty years in New York
City art schools, he instructs occasionally in Phil-
adelphia, and now and then carries his gospel
600 miles westward to Chicago. For eight years
he has had a summer class at his Long Island
home among those Shinnecock Hills, which he
loves so well and paints so often. Several times
he has taken to Spain a band of students who
XXI. No. 93.—December 1900.

delightfully commingle sketching from nature with
studying the old masters in the galleries—especially
Velasquez—in the Prado at Madrid.

In his teaching, Mr. Chase often gives advice
that might be thus summarized : " Take care of
the form and the likeness will take care of itself,"
and in the artist's own work we see him practise
upon the same principle.

The Portrait of Mr. Rittenberg that we repro-
duce exemplifies the very apogee of this method.
With Rembrandt's lavishness, he makes the lights
and shadows roll over the head in great changing
waves that seem to come from a basso-profundo of
the brush. It is one of the best of his recent
portraits. The colour of the flesh is vibrating
against a grey-green background, full of air.

This head is typical of a large number of Mr.
Chase's portraits Though it be little more than
an afternoon sketch of a friend, an exchange with
an artist, though the likeness may not be quite
exact, it is assuredly the work of a painter who
loves to and knows how to paint.

The foreign reader who is familiar with the work
of Alfred Stevens can form a tolerably just concep-

wii.liam m. chase from a photograph

by edward t. steichen