Part 10

In 1775 he again set out for Great Britain, and this time reached London. It was not until he had suffered much privation that he summoned up courage to call upon his countryman, Benjamin West. The great man was entertaining friends and not disposed to be interrupted; but the gentleman who left the party to interview the caller, found him to be a connection of friends of his in Philadelphia, and ushered him into the assemblage. The young man’s demeanour pleased West, who invited him to bring his work for inspection, admitted him as a pupil, and in 1777 installed him in his own household. By this time, besides painting under West, with Trumbull among his fellow-students, he was attending the discourses of Sir Joshua and studying anatomy in Dr. Cruikshank’s classes at the Academy. His sojourn in West’s studio extended over eight years, although during that time he was engaged on some independent work; the Duke of Northumberland, for example, sending for him to Sion House, on the Thames, to paint two portraits. From being the pupil he became the assistant of his master, until the painter Dance advised him to set up a studio of his own, which, with West’s approbation, he did in 1785.

His success was immediate; people of wit and fashion thronged his rooms; he “tasked himself to six sitters a day,” then flung his work aside and devoted himself to society, living in great splendour and spending freely. During this period he painted Louis XVI, George III, and the Prince of Wales, subsequently George IV; while among his other sitters were John Kemble, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Benjamin West. He had married Charlotte Coates, daughter of Dr. Coates of Berkshire, and with her moved, in 1788, to Dublin, where he painted many eminent people and was welcomed in society for his personal gifts. But he was eager to paint George Washington.

It is memorable that Stuart, when once his position was assured, indulged himself in the privilege of refusing many sitters. Notwithstanding his enormous expenses and the embarrassments to which they frequently led, he kept his artistic conscience intact from the smudge of mere money-making, and confined himself to those sitters who appealed to his particular temperament and afforded him the best opportunity of making a good picture. So he was willing to throw up all the golden opportunities which Europe presented, that he might have the privilege and satisfaction of painting the one man whose heroic qualities had most fascinated his imagination.

He reached New York in 1792, and two years later proceeded to Philadelphia, where Congress was in session. Establishing his studio on the southeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets, he painted three portraits of Washington from life. The first, which showed the right side of the face, was destroyed by the artist as not being satisfactory, and only three, or perhaps four, copies are known to exist. Then followed the full-length portrait, painted for Lord Lansdowne, which shows the left side of the face and is now in London. The third, against Washington’s own desire, was executed at the earnest solicitation of his wife and was left intentionally unfinished. This picture, which shows the _left_ side of the face, was purchased from Stuart’s widow and presented to the Boston Athenæum. Known as the “Athenæum” head, it now hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and over fifty copies of it by Stuart’s hands have been traced.

Unlike Charles Willson Peale, who made, in all, fourteen portraits from life of Washington, and painted him in the prime of his vigour, Stuart depicts the late autumn of his life, when the fruitage of his activity had been gathered in; a face on which the lines of character are softened; the energy of expression mellowed; a face chastened by responsibilities; infinitely sweet and with a tender melancholy of exalted seriousness. It is the face of one who has conquered himself as well as others; it has the yearning solicitude of a father for his children; it represents him as indeed the Father of his people. The painter Leslie is quoted as having said that it was fortunate that an artist existed in the time of Washington who could hand him down to posterity looking like a gentleman; and, while the remark seems at first sound a trifle flippant, there is much in it, after all. For it is indeed the gentle qualities, those evidences in word and deed of high breeding and elevated mind, the prevailing graciousness and lofty seriousness of the true gentleman,--that _rara avis_ among the indiscriminate flock of so-called gentlemen--that must have been preëminently distinguishable in Washington. One feels that, I think, so sensibly in visiting Mount Vernon to-day.

Set upon that fine bluff overlooking the Potomac, it has the dignity of elevation; a certain aloofness above the level, self-centred within its own appanage of outbuildings, gardens and grounds, and yet such a modest dignity, suggesting the sweet amenities, the little graces and quiet refinement of cultured country life. Certainly it is the most completely interesting memorial home of a great man anywhere to be seen, inasmuch as it is pervaded by the flavour of the old times and by the spirit of its former occupant. And the whole association of the place is of the choicest kind of gentle living. Assuredly it was a good thing that there should be an artist of the period who could record these qualities.

Stuart brought to the task a keenly comprehending mind, and a large experience in the acquaintanceship with men of affairs, of wit and learning, and brilliant, varied accomplishments. Himself a man of brilliant parts, he had ceased to be dazzled by brilliance; could look at the individual example of manhood that he was studying in its own separate perspective; could take in the complexities of his character and give a complete, instead of a fragmentary, record. Neither in his whirl of success, we may believe, had he lost touch entirely with the gentle associations that surrounded his early life. There was much in the riot of those times to hurt a sensitive susceptibility, and Stuart so often refused a sitter, or threw up a commission partly executed, that it is not unreasonable to assume that such acts were due in some measure, at least, to a certain preciosity in his own feelings. Certainly no other man of his time could have presented this fine side of Washington. West would have given a grandiloquent rendering of the hero; if not bombastic, probably theatrical; whereas it is the reticence of Stuart’s portraits that is so admirable. “I copy the works of God,” he said, “and leave clothes to tailors and mantua makers.” Without admitting the general desirableness of such a painter theory, we may acknowledge its value when tested on such a subject as Washington. We are glad to be free of the curtains and columns and all the other stock paraphernalia of the painter of the period, and to be left in uninterrupted possession of the man and nothing but the man.

Such reserve on Stuart’s part is the measure of his ranking as an artist. He worked, as he said himself, to express sentiment, grace, and character. In Washington he found all three; with many of his sitters he was less fortunate. Consequently, he is not a painter of great pictures, but of some great portraits. Yet the limitation is in a way an evidence of greatness. It was the fashion of his time to try and paint great pictures. From this he had the hardihood to separate himself, reaching with a true originality of feeling after what really interested him, the big essentials in the subjects that he studied. Thus he put himself in line with the great painters, shaking himself free of the fads and nostrums of his time, and betaking himself straight to nature. In the story of American art he holds a unique and dignified position.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

End of Project Gutenberg's American Masters of Painting, by Charles H. Caffin