DOI issue:
No. 201 (December, 1909)
DOI article:Mechlin, Leila: Some american figure-painters
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20968#0209
American Figure Paijiters
Abbott H. Thayer, whose work has already been
the subject of an article in this magazine (see The
Studio, January, 1899), is without doubt one of
the strongest of the living American figure-painters
and one of the most individual. Neither a specially
good colourist nor a finished technician, he yet gets
into his pictures a kind of sculpturesque dignity
which invariably lifts them above the general mass.
As one of his colleagues has said, his draughtsman-
ship is large and ample, his colour held in big, simple
masses, and his compositions are well balanced and
decorative. He was a pupil of Gerome, but has
departed far from the teaching of his master, laying
on his paint heavily and giving little heed to either
surface finish or unimportant details. Mr. Thayer
is not a prolific producer, nor is he one who passing
from stage to stage has gradually evolved a style.
Comparatively few works stand to his credit, but
all of these betray the same marked individuality.
It is, however, as an interpreter of Virginity that
this painter is especially distinguished. In his
Caritas, of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
The Virgin, given by Mr. Freer to the Smithso-
nian Institution, at Washington, and the Virgin
Enthroned (reproduced in the article just men-
tioned), he has set forth a distinct type of
womanhood—a noble ideal embodying national
characteristics. His Virgins, it has been well
said, are obviously intended to be adored, but
they are at the same time essentially human.
They are feminine but not coquettish; womanly
but not weak; in expression courageous, un-
abashed and serene—the American girl at her best,
the comrade as well as the helpmate of man.
George de Forest Brush, who also studied under
Gerome, is a less forceful painter, but a more
skilful technician. His method is precise without
being subtle—his canvases are more reminiscent,
let us say, of Van Eyck than of Whistler.
Mistaking the letter for the spirit, Mr. Brush, like
so many other painters, wishing to give voice to
a national instinct, turned his attention, when he
first came back to America, to the painting of
Indian pictures, and there ^is now in the Evans
"the family"
[Art Institute of Chicago)
by george de forest brush
187
Abbott H. Thayer, whose work has already been
the subject of an article in this magazine (see The
Studio, January, 1899), is without doubt one of
the strongest of the living American figure-painters
and one of the most individual. Neither a specially
good colourist nor a finished technician, he yet gets
into his pictures a kind of sculpturesque dignity
which invariably lifts them above the general mass.
As one of his colleagues has said, his draughtsman-
ship is large and ample, his colour held in big, simple
masses, and his compositions are well balanced and
decorative. He was a pupil of Gerome, but has
departed far from the teaching of his master, laying
on his paint heavily and giving little heed to either
surface finish or unimportant details. Mr. Thayer
is not a prolific producer, nor is he one who passing
from stage to stage has gradually evolved a style.
Comparatively few works stand to his credit, but
all of these betray the same marked individuality.
It is, however, as an interpreter of Virginity that
this painter is especially distinguished. In his
Caritas, of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
The Virgin, given by Mr. Freer to the Smithso-
nian Institution, at Washington, and the Virgin
Enthroned (reproduced in the article just men-
tioned), he has set forth a distinct type of
womanhood—a noble ideal embodying national
characteristics. His Virgins, it has been well
said, are obviously intended to be adored, but
they are at the same time essentially human.
They are feminine but not coquettish; womanly
but not weak; in expression courageous, un-
abashed and serene—the American girl at her best,
the comrade as well as the helpmate of man.
George de Forest Brush, who also studied under
Gerome, is a less forceful painter, but a more
skilful technician. His method is precise without
being subtle—his canvases are more reminiscent,
let us say, of Van Eyck than of Whistler.
Mistaking the letter for the spirit, Mr. Brush, like
so many other painters, wishing to give voice to
a national instinct, turned his attention, when he
first came back to America, to the painting of
Indian pictures, and there ^is now in the Evans
"the family"
[Art Institute of Chicago)
by george de forest brush
187