Studio: international art (55.1912)

American Artists in Paris

true to their own convictions there are none more
so than Alexander Harrison, Myron Barlow,
Parke C. Dougherty, and Henry O. Tanner. Like
many other artists who have gained distinction,
Alexander Harrison did not take up art until he
was over twenty years of age, after a varied ex-
perience in the United States Coast Survey on the
wild coasts of Florida. His only opportunity for
art-school study was in Philadelphia, when he was
off duty, and on his way to Paris at San Francisco.
He arrived in Paris in the spring of 1879; he became
a pupil under Gerome, and exhibited in the Salon of
the following year. In Mr. Harrison’s early friend-
ships and associations one can trace his influences
and follow his art. At Barbizon he was in close
touch with Robert Louis Stevenson, and an intimate
friend and fellow worker with Bastien Lepage, and
later with Whistler. These were but a few of his
friendships, and, to quote his own words to me,
they were “valuable and unforgettable.” Evi-
dences of a Lepage temperament, though ac-
companied by a distinctly personal interpretation,
are noticeable in his Misty Morning, and the later

subtilties of values that followed in his Sables
dore'es. To quote again his own words: “ The
first step in art is conception blended with tempera-
mental and genuine initiative. In my case the
delight in the simple and unconscious motif—
often the lonely motif—is perhaps a result of my
far-away coast-survey life. The sea and sky are
always simple, and often dreamily poetical, as are
certain landscape motifs, with running and rippling
and reflecting water about, combining the enchant-
ment of distance with the charm and mystery of
surface reflections.” In his early work he was
chiefly concerned with clothed figures of children
in the open air, later following with a series of
nudes, probably his most important being his
In Arcady, a study of nudes in a sunlit orchard,
which was purchased by the French Government
for the Luxembourg. His later work entirely
consists of marine subjects, the sea at night
appealing to his love for mystery and movement.
His art has been widely appreciated, and few of
the principal art galleries in Europe and America
are without a Harrison. He is a member of the

“evening at camiers ”
282

FROM THE PAINTING BY PARKE C. DOUGHERTY