Part 12

Honors, prizes, and medals were coming to him, his teaching was very successful, he had a large following, and was thought the most considerable of our art leaders; but beneath the surface all was not so placid or so pleasant. In 1895 he was no longer president of the Society, he gave up his Brooklyn class, and also his Tenth Street studio. Artistic extravagance or want of revenue or some other financial disability had placed him in straitened circumstances. All of his pictures and collections had to be sold to pay his debts. With characteristic indifference he gave a farewell dinner in the big studio before leaving it, gathered together what possessions remained to him in a house in Stuyvesant Square, and shortly thereafter, with his family and a number of pupils, went to Spain.

In June he returned to Shinnecock, and in the autumn took a studio at Fifth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, and opened at Fifty-seventh Street the Chase School. This school soon became the New York School of Art, and Chase was at its head for eleven years. He also went on teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, going over to Philadelphia every week for the purpose. Then for half a dozen years he taught and painted at Shinnecock with little travel interspersed. It was during these years that he did the “Grey Kimono” and the “Red Box,” portraits arranged with Japanese accessories that showed brilliant coloring, swift handling, and rather superficial characterization. There was none of the Japanese spirit or even method about them. Then, too, he did many shore pieces and views of the sea with the Shinnecock dunes in the foreground. In these pictures he often placed in the first plane small children in white, with a note of color in hats or ribbons, or a reading woman with a bright parasol. The bright spots of color lent brilliancy of effect and the white dresses gave a high pitch of light. They were very attractive pictures, and some of the seas put in the backgrounds had notes of power about them; but usually the product was merely a handsome decorative pattern--just what the painter intended it should be.

Occasionally, too, while at Shinnecock, Chase painted views of the sea, unadorned or unalloyed by beach or shore or people, that were very effective in wave movement and color. He had a finer feeling for color and texture than Winslow Homer but he never had Homer’s grasp of power. In his studio at Shinnecock he painted portraits, genre, and still-life--some of the last being fish. Here, in still-life, with his cunning handling and with color and texture as the chief motive, he appeared to great advantage. By many people his fish-painting is regarded as his highest achievement. In no less than half a dozen museums in the United States he is represented by still-life pictures in which the bulk, the weight, the limpness of dead fish are convincingly shown, but where perhaps greater emphasis is thrown on the slippery wet surfaces with their iridescent colorings. A few years before he died, in showing a new fish-picture in his studio he remarked to me with some deprecation in his manner that he supposed after he was gone he would be known as a fish-painter! He had made the same protest to others.

A short trip to London was taken in 1902. His pupils had asked him to sit to Sargent for his portrait and he did so. The portrait was afterward given to the Metropolitan Museum, where it now hangs. Chase greatly admired Sargent’s sureness and facility and often referred his students to Sargent’s portraits for their study. He was always generous in recognition of good work, even where perhaps he did not like the worker’s point of view, as with Boldini, for example. Sargent and Boldini could outfoot him on his own ground, but that did not matter. He could still cheer for them.

It was during 1902 that Chase conceived the remarkable idea of not only going to Europe himself for the summer months but taking with him his entire class of students. The first contingent went with him to Holland, and at Haarlem one night at dinner he gave me an account of the venture and its success. His pupils had not only profited by foreign scene and museum but he had taken them to see certain well-known painters in their studios and shown them the modern methods of painting. The next year he took the class to England, located it on Hampstead Heath, and introduced it at the studios of Sargent, Abbey, Lavery, Alma-Tadema, Shannon. The year of 1905 the class was in Madrid and after that for a number of years in Florence. Chase bought a villa in Florence, but apparently it was little more than a storehouse for objects of art which he was still collecting. He spent much time at Venice, and both there and at Florence would take his pupils to the great galleries and point out to them what was excellent in the old masters. It was a new method of art teaching and satisfactory results came from it.

Chase’s winters had been spent in New York and he kept moving in both his habitations and his occupations. He left the Fifth Avenue studio for a large rambling place on Fourth Avenue, where rooms opened into rooms, and where he continued painting people and fish. He again took up teaching at the Art Students League, sent pictures to the International Exhibition at Berlin, held an exhibition of his own at Cincinnati, went to California where he had a summer school at Carmel-by-the-Sea, served as a member of the Panama-Pacific Exposition jury. His energy and his interest were unflagging. He painted and taught and talked, he came and went and came again, as no other painter in American art-history. His industry alone would command respect. Even when he fell into his final illness and was taken to Atlantic City for change of air he had canvases and brushes packed and sent with him. He might be able to paint down there. At the last, when too weak to read, it pleased him to go over, with his wife, all the beautiful pictures they had seen together and compare their likings. His enthusiasm was always something to be remembered; and when in October, 1916, he died, there was a pronounced feeling in art circles that not only a torch-bearer, but a devoted lover of art had gone on.

There was nothing complicated or hidden or mysterious about either Chase or his art. He frankly stated his aim, faith, and practice more than once and adhered to his beliefs for more than forty years. He cared nothing about theories or philosophies or ideals and was not led off by realism, impressionism, or cubism. He talked much on art, not only to his classes but to miscellaneous audiences; but he indulged in no metaphysical flights and spoke a language that all could understand. As a practical painter his primary concern was with the ability to paint. The picture should be technically and mechanically a good piece of workmanship. The grammar of art first, and what you may have to say with it afterward. At times he intimated that things, by no means technical, could be said with the paint-brush, as, for example, this utterance: “The value of a work of art depends simply and solely on the height of inspiration, on the greatness of soul, of the man who produced it.” But, generally speaking, Chase cared not too much for “soul” in art and produced little of it in his own pictures. His creed of painting was better stated in another sentence. “The essential phases of a great picture are three in number, namely: truth, interesting treatment, and quality.” By truth he meant that the picture should give the impression of a thing well seen. By interesting treatment he meant verve, spirit, enthusiasm, the interest of the artist--an interest which should express itself in his manner of treatment. Regarding this he continued:

“To my mind, one of the simplest explanations of this matter of technique is to say that it is the eloquence of art. When a speaker has the gift of fine oratory we hang upon his words and gestures, we are spellbound by his intensity and his style, no matter on what subject he chooses to address us. I fear some people confuse technique with the use of a slashing brush and big rough strokes of paint. Let me refer them to the works of the Primitives or to Holbein, whose calm surfaces show us one of the world’s greatest masters of the technical side of art.”[13]

[13] “Notes from Talks by William M. Chase” in _The American Magazine of Art_, September, 1917.

It will be noted that Chase in his pertinent likeness of painting to oratory eliminates the content or thing said and puts the art and the oratory all in the manner of saying. And therein he is perhaps right so far as the matter can be separated from the manner. He puts the subject aside as one might say there is no poetry in Darwin, nothing æsthetic or artistic, though he says much of great value, whereas there is poetry in Swinburne though it is often difficult to find out whether he is saying anything at all or merely putting out a pretty run or rhythm of language. It was a pretty run of the brush that Chase fancied above everything else.

“Subject is not important. Anything can be made attractive. Not long ago I painted a pipe, a loaf, and a bowl of milk.... I would not be unwilling to rest my reputation on it.... Let your brush sweep freely. Better to lose it than to give way to timidity which soon becomes a habit.... Better be dashingly bad and interesting.”[14]

[14] _Ibid._

It was thus he talked to his pupils trying to convince them that art lay in an enthusiastic individual manner. He believed that--believed that the art of painting lay in clever manipulation, in gusto, in manual dexterity. But that did not mean a slashing about at haphazard with a heavily loaded brush.

“Too many are hurrying on to give what is called ‘finish’ before they have grounded their work in the truth which must inform and uphold the entire structure.... Digest the subject fully before beginning. See it fully done and well done--perhaps as some special painter whose work you admire would do it. To begin to paint without deciding fully what your sketch is to be, would be like a lecturer beginning to talk before knowing what he was going to say.”[15]

[15] _Ibid._

Now that is excellent doctrine and Chase himself followed it in his own practice. In 1890 I sat to him for a portrait and I recall his saying then before he put brush to the canvas: “I try to see you on the canvas all finished and then I start in to paint you as I see you in my mind.” Later on in the painting he was fussed by the collar being askew; he damned it, said it was not rightly seen or drawn, scraped it out and did it over again. He was concerned about getting a certain amount of realistic truth as well as easy brush-work, and talked much about the right seeing of the model. But there was a contradiction in temperament just here that came in to invalidate his aim only too often.

Enthusiasm is usually impatient of delay or restraint; it is always eager for action. Yet one cannot fully understand even so obvious an object as the model on the stand without reflection. It must be seen and thought over and contemplated before one takes up the brush. Nothing very great comes from dashing down on canvas something seen for an instant only. But Chase, in spite of his talk, was not one who reflected long or had the contemplative mind. He seldom fell into a revery or lost himself in a labyrinth of thought. He had virtuosity and was an _improvisateur_. The lilt and fling of his work were brilliant in the extreme; and it is perhaps foolish to criticise it because lacking in thought or reflection, and yet that is the comment oftenest heard regarding it. His pictures are declared to have neither depth of feeling nor depth of thought, and the works that are accounted his best are the exceptions that prove the rule.

It has been noted also that Chase’s paintings were never very elaborate in composition. He did nothing of a historical or academic nature--nothing even in figure-painting beyond two or three figures. Putting figures together with line and light, in plane and pattern, perhaps called for too much reflection. It was easier to place a model in a kimono against a screen or to arrange a fish in a plate or on a table, or to put together a pipe, a loaf, and a bowl. He was in a hurry to get at the canvas, and wanted none of the enthusiasm to evaporate. Just so with his color scheme. He would not think over it until he could feel it swell like a symphony, but instead put in unconsidered colors that were perhaps agreeable enough in themselves, and then added a dash of sharp red to catch the eye and make the picture “sing.” But it was usually a common enough song that it sang. Distinction of color is not obtained by merely arranging studio properties on canvas. Some instinct and a good deal of feeling go to the making of the finest color projects. So, again, we find that perhaps the common objection to Chase’s color that it has no quality is more or less well-founded.

He knew how to draw, for he had a severe enough schooling at Munich, but in later life he oftentimes ran over drawing, hid it under that easy brush-stroke which he liked so much and which he usually handled so effectively. Sometimes it went astray. It was not the premeditated sweep of Rubens or the infallible touch of Velasquez. It was more like Goya or Stevens or Vollon--painters whose brushes were not always impeccable. However, the brush of Chase was sure enough, and with its spirit and swift movement it certainly gave that oratorical effect to which he compared painting. It is vivacious and with its facility creates the feeling of knowledge and mastery. That was something achieved at least. A surface by Chase usually shows that a skilled workman has left his mark upon it.

His idea about quality in art was that it came: “As a result of perfect balance of all the parts and may be manifested in a color or tone or composition. In the greatest pictures it is found in all three, and then you may be sure you are before the most consummate of human works.”[16]

[16] _Ibid._

The definition is not a good one, and he apologized for his inability to define quality by saying that it is like trying to “tell the difference between music and mere sound.” But quality is not precisely either melody or harmony, though it _is_ the difference between music and mere sound. It is the difference also between silk and gingham, between an air blue and a baby-blue, between a luminous shadow and gray paint, between a forceful, telling line and a halting, rambling one. Quality is the badge of distinction--that something which puts a _cachet_ of authority upon a work of art and places it among the masterpieces of all time. Did Chase have it? Yes, occasionally. Such works as the “Woman with a White Shawl” possess it. From which it may be inferred that quality is more or less dependent upon thinking, reflection, mood--things which were not always apparent in Chase’s art.

Yet he did much thinking along certain paths and had something very important to say to his age and generation about sound technique, good workmanship. In a literary or illustrative sense he recorded no more romance, history, passion, power, or pathos than Whistler. He told no story in paint, indulged in no dramatic climaxes, was guiltless of emotion, and perhaps incapable of poetry. He was a workman, a consummate craftsman in a goldsmith sense, and he did his thinking about his work, put his storm and stress and soul into his palette and brush. As a workman he was distinguished by a manner of his own which is sometimes referred to as his style--his individual style. His method, rather than his style, he passed on to his pupils, and his influence upon them was perhaps greater than upon the community at large. He taught more young people how to handle a brush than any painter of any time, not excepting Rubens. Several thousand pupils came under his influence, were stimulated by his enthusiasm, and encouraged by his words. He was an excellent teacher, and American art is perhaps more beholden to him for what he taught than for the things he painted.

For the pupils now carry on the teaching, and perhaps from them may come a greater and a loftier art than Chase himself was able to produce. The force of good teaching is cumulative and eventually it develops into that body of belief and practice which I have called tradition. Chase, like Whistler, was not an inheritor of any American tradition, but he established one of his own and passed it on to his followers. He based his pupils in good technical workmanship and taught the fundamental value of craftsmanship. It was a teaching badly needed in his America; he gave it importance and place in the schools and became, perhaps without his knowing it, a master leader in the craft.

Chase’s painting is the concrete embodiment of his teaching--the illustration of it. It has the obvious limitations of his method and belief. To pass it by because it has not the romance of a Ryder or the poetry of a Martin or the significance of a La Farge is to miss its meaning entirely. He is just as frankly dealing with the surface as Whistler, with the mere difference that Whistler asks us to regard him decoratively and Chase desires to be looked at technically, as one might consider a Stevens, a Vollon, a Fortuny, or a Boldini. We surely are not so narrow in outlook as to deny admiration and high rank to such masters of the brush as these. They are artists in the narrow sense that they deal with art alone and consider painting only from the æsthetic point of view, but who shall say they are not precisely and exactly right? Each turn of the screw, each new generation in art, pins us down more narrowly and positively to the material. Perhaps Whistler and Chase were wrong only in being ahead of their time.

At any rate, the belief in material and method as art _per se_, however it may jar preconceived notions, will have to be reckoned with. And here in America its most considerable advocate will have to be taken seriously. By certain standards we may judge his art as merely clever, but he conceived it and wrought it in all seriousness. Does a sword-hilt by Sansovino, or a salt dish by Cellini, or a screen by Utamaro lack in either seriousness or art? Why not then a canvas, in the same spirit of the skilled workman, by Whistler or Chase? Why not?

IX

JOHN W. ALEXANDER

Chase and Alexander were of the same faith in art though they varied in ritual. They both believed in the finality of good workmanship decoratively displayed. They had differing views of what constituted design and color, their atmosphere and light were not the same, and each had his peculiar handling; but with all this latitude for variation in method there was no essential difference in æsthetic aim or purpose. The portrait of a lady was to both of them not primarily a revelation of the lady but a presentation of a decorative pattern in which the sitter and her garmenting held large place because conforming happily to an “arrangement.” This, of course, was the Whistlerian point of view with which Chase and Alexander were in sympathy. All three of them frequently rose above their creed and told tales of the lady’s charm, or womanly instincts, or perhaps gave suggestion that she was a lady and not merely a studio model dressed for the part; but usually they were content with arranging her in a pattern as an entomologist might spread and pin to advantage a golden butterfly on a blue-green ground.

To question their practice is to take sides in a very old quarrel in art. For they were the David and Ingres of the new dispensation. Their works were based in method, though the method was brush-work rather than drawing, and they were pronounced in arrangement though the arrangement was a pattern of light and color instead of line and group composition. Set over against them are the Delacroixs and Millets of to-day who are no longer romantic and dramatic, but lay stress on sentiment, feeling, significance, character, strength rather than mere pattern. It is not necessary to name them, for every one will recognize the species and call to mind the types. There are always two sides to a quarrel, and there are several sides to art. It may be a symphony of color as Whistler insisted, an arrangement of line or a matter of facile workmanship as Alexander and Chase contended. No one will deny that. In fact there is a modern disposition to locate the art of a picture strictly within the limits of craftsmanship. But a picture may express something more than the skill of the painter. Many of the craft have shown that it is a means of expressing moods, passions, feelings, sentiments, emotions; they insist that line and color, and all the what-not of technique, are merely the means to an end and not the end itself. Both arguments have merit and are abundantly exemplified in practice. And why not something worth while, something acceptable, in both?

There was good reason why Chase and Alexander should be accepted, because they came at a time when method in America was in sad need of reconstruction. Modern craftsmanship was practically unknown. They brought it into vogue, established it as the grammar of art, gave it the prominence it deserved. It was then, as now, the _sine qua non_ of art. One must know how before he can say very much of moment. There have been painters and poets with very limited skill who have said things the world is glad to remember, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. The Shakespeares, Goethes, Titians, and Rembrandts were all highly trained craftsmen. They had great things to say, surely; but should we have heard them had they belonged to the unskilled? How many in all the arts have had

“The vision and the faculty divine Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse!”

We need not, then, think lightly of the craftsman in American art. He has proved a much-needed person in the school. And his work has also turned out to be a very agreeable factor in the home. Art of a decided quality does lie in the eye and the hand. It can be greatly enhanced in significance by the addition of a mind and a soul, but these latter must be approached through the former to attain their full expression. For, to repeat, technique or craftsmanship is at the bottom of all artistic expression.