Art-life of William Morris Hunt

Front matter

Ulrich Middeldorf

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Parentage and Early Life — Couture — Millet . . i

II. Millet, concluded — Barye . 16

CHAPTER I Parentage and Early Life — Couture — Millet

WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT was born in Brattleboro’, Vermont, March 31, 1824.

He was the son of Hon. Jonathan Hunt, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who married Miss Jane Leavitt, of Suffield, Connecticut. His father was best known as Judge Hunt; and during the last years of his life was a member of the National House of Representatives. He died in Washington, D. C., in 1832. His mother was a woman of great beauty, with a natural aptitude for painting.

The home in Brattleboro’ was on the main street of the town, a large structure of painted brick, surrounded with shrubbery, and presenting a substantial and dignified appearance. There were five children in this house, four sons and a daughter: William, Richard, John, Leavitt, and Jane. William became a painter, Richard an architect, John a physician, and Leavitt a lawyer.

In her early years Mrs. Hunt had shown a strong desire to draw and paint, but the desire met with no encouragement in her father’s home, as it was hoped that she would develop a taste for music. While attending a boarding-school she found herself irresistibly drawn to the painting-class, and pursued her own studies with redoubled zeal that she might have the more time for watching its fascinating work. When asked why she did not join the class, she replied : —

“ I must not. My father would not allow it.”

“Take these paints,” said the teacher, “and try to sketch this flower. When your father sees that you really can paint, he surely will not object.”

That was a happy hour, but the dream had a rude awakening. When the child went home for vacation, she timidly placed her sketch upon the piano, and awaited results.

“Who did that?” asked her father.

“ I did it,” was the reply.

“ Take it away ! and, mind you, no more of this.”

The injunction was obeyed to the letter. Later in life, a widow with five children to educate, she resolved that they should have the advantages which had been denied her. An Italian artist was in the town, New Haven, looking for orders, or for pupils. His name was Gambadella, and, as a political refugee,

EARLY LIFE he brought letters from distinguished philanthropists. Mrs. Hunt gave him a room in the upper part of her house, and endeavored to find pupils for him. With enthusiasm she went from house to house, but not one pupil could she obtain. Nothing daunted, she declared that there should be a class, and it should consist of her children and herself.

The little class worked with zeal, and, at the end of the term, an exhibition of their work was given. It aroused much interest in the town, and there was a general desire for lessons.

“ You are too late ! ” was Mrs. Hunt’s proud and happy response; and no one outside of the family was admitted. Of her children, one was Richard M. Hunt, the eminent architect of New York. Another became a physician, spending his life' in Paris. A third, with all the elements of a successful lawyer, gave up his profession at the time of our Civil War, rendering good service as colonel of a Vermont regiment.

After the successful experiment with studies at home, Mrs. Hunt resolved to meet at once the question of the education of her children. They were sent to the best schools which the country afforded, but the mother was not content. William was in Harvard College for a while, but the life was not for him.

“ I was not interested ; ” was his remark, in later years. His lessons were easily learned, but made little impression upon him. He found continual entertainment in everything about him ; was fond of nature, of music, and of drawing, showing constantly the possession of an artistic temperament. In college he made many friends, who remained true to him through life.

He did not graduate. In his third year the authorities decided that he was “ too fond of amusement,” and he was rusticated, — to his evident satisfaction. That he might keep up with his class, he was placed in charge of Rev. Dr. S. P. Parker, of Stockbridge, Mass. There he enjoyed himself to the fullest extent, and was overflowing with buoyancy and delight. While in college his health had not been firm, and the family physician feared consumption. For this reason he was not overtaxed in his studies while at Dr. Parker’s, and was allowed much liberty in his choice of amusements. Music and drawing were the constant pursuits of his leisure hours. He sketched cleverly, and gave away his work to all who cared for it. He was in the midst of beautiful scenery, in which he took a keen delight, and was surrounded by charming and cultivated people. He was described as “ a soul let loose, — an inspiration for every one who met him.”

While serenading one evening he took a severe cold, and it was decided that he must avoid a Northern winter and go to a Southern climate. Mrs. Hunt decided to go with him to the south of France,

EARLY LIFE taking also her other children. Doubtless, this step changed the entire course of his life. It had been his intention to return in a year’s time, finish his college course, and enter upon the study of surgery. The profession of an artist would not have been chosen for any educated American at that period.

Of her journey to Europe with her young family, Mrs. Hunt said, later : —

“ People did not then go abroad to study, and I was regarded as venturesome in the extreme; and in truth I did not realize what I was doing until we were half way across the ocean. Friends had done their best to discourage me, and the greatness of the undertaking was indeed oppressive, yet there was no way but to go on.”

After visiting the large cities of Europe, the family tarried for a while in Rome. William drew and modelled in the studio of H. K. Brown, the sculptor, where he copied the head of the Naples Psyche, restoring the head as he imagined it might have been. So good was the work that his mother ordered it to be put in marble. Such was his love of art that a return to Harvard College was given up, and the plans of the family were wholly changed. The two youngest sons were placed in Geneva, at the school of Alphonse Briquet, where they remained until Richard had decided upon his profession, and began his work with an architect there.

To William’s sensitive nature the atmosphere of the city of the dead Past proved inimical, and he was taken to France. About this time, 1844, he seems to have studied for a short time with Antoine Louis Barye, the great French sculptor of animals. He was generally occupied with drawing, modelling, and cutting cameos. The latter art he had begun to study in Boston with a noted sculptor who was famous at the time for his busts and his shell-cameo profiles. Intending to go on with his study of sculpture, he was advised to go to Diisseldorf, then considered the art-centre of Europe, and to follow a course of study. The school was conducted “ upon the principle that the education of art-genius, of a mechanic, and of a student of science were one and the same thing, — a grinding, methodical process for the accumulation of a required skill. ”

The friend of William Hunt, whose words we have just quoted, goes on to say: —

“ Although Hunt’s surroundings were agreeable, socially and artistically, having for friends and companions Lessing, the president of the Academy; Sohn, Leutze, Schroedter and others, he was shocked at this system of study, and rebelled against it from the start. He accepted it, however, as a necessity, and forced himself to shut out to a degree the enjoyment of a pleasure which he had thought was inseparably connected with art study. He felt then what afterwards became an abiding belief, a part of his life, — that all the qualities of an artist should be educated together; and that the development of an artist required a system that was suggested by the nature of the art senti-

COUTURE ment. He believed that the study of art should be a pleasure ; and not a forced and hateful drill. As he anticipated pursuing a course of study in painting, he looked forward to the time when he should enter the painting-class as a moment of delight, — the entrance to a free field. But doubts began to arise regarding the value and future effect of the instruction he was receiving; and when the time came for him to enter the class, these doubts became a certainty, and he said to a friend : ‘ If this is painting, and it is to lead to work like that of the German school, I prefer to be a sculptor.’ He left immediately for Paris, with the intention of entering the studio of Pradier.”

While waiting for the opening of the modellingclass, in the autumn of 1846, he made a hurried visit to the United States, returning to Paris in December. While diligently searching the city for every possible object of artistic interest, he passed by Deforge's art store, where he chanced to see, in the window, Couture's beautiful Falconer . He stopped before it, and exclaimed : —

“ If that is painting, I am a painter ! ”

He found Couture, and entered his studio, working with all that abounding energy and enthusiasm that characterized him when his interest was aroused. To his surprise, Couture said to him: —

“Young man, you don't know how to draw."

This, after his forced application in Germany, astonished him; but he soon discovered the difference between the drawing of the school-room and that of a painter's studio, and in time produced drawings of marked excellence. Morris, as he was called in the class, was a great favorite. With Couture himself he was in perfect sympathy; and under his guidance, certain qualities in Hunt’s mind and work unfolded as they scarcely would have done under any other auspices. It was not long before he had so absorbed Couture’s manner of painting that the master declared that his pupil had carried it as far as it could go.

One day, Hunt’s fascinating head, The Jewess , was standing upon an easel, the admiration of both master and pupils. The painter Isabey came in, and on seeing it mistook it for a success of the master.

“ Good, Couture ! Do always like that and you will do well ! ”

“ Ah,” cried Couture, smiling, “ that is by Morris.”

The method of painting in Couture’s class was to make first a careful, and, if possible, a stylish or elegant outline drawing of the subject, adding only a few simple “ values,” or shades, with a frottee of thin color, and leaving them to dry over night. Next day, by a formula which can be found in Couture’s little book, “ Method of Painting,” another thin frottee was used in portions; and, with longhaired whipping-brushes, the color was laid on in its exact place, the darks where they belonged, and of the right depth of tone; the lights thickly, and with startling brilliancy. Not one stroke could be

COUTURE retouched, or mud would ensue. The middle tones required the utmost nerve, feeling, and decision ; but their quality, when good, was delightful and fascinating. No wonder that this method of painting attracted artists and students from every part of the world ! It was a sublime reaction from the dry-as-dust German painting then in vogue, and from the so-called classic painting of France in the early years of the nineteenth century.

Having carried this method of painting even farther than the master had done, Hunt’s earnest and progressive mind began to look about for other fields to conquer. Couture had painted his Decadence Romaine, and was now chiefly occupied in enjoying his first success, and proclaiming the merits of his own peculiar method. Hunt took a little trip into Holland; and while making a study of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, so called, in Amsterdam, found that his Couture palette was not sufficient. He must buy other colors. This led him to the study of the works of the old masters. Couture’s pictures were indeed brilliant compared with the works of contemporary painters; but could they vie with the great masters of Venice and of Holland? No ; those men still remained unapproachable. To this fact Hunt gave much thought, making some faithful studies, especially from Rembrandt, whom he greatly admired.

At the time when he felt that Couture could do xo ART-LIFE OF WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT no more for him, he began to be interested in the work of Jean Francois Millet, the French peasant-painter. He had seen his wonderful Sower in the Salon of 1852, and was greatly impressed by it.

“Why don’t you buy that picture?” he asked of of an art dealer.

“ Oh ! it is too sad a subject. Besides, it is not worth the three hundred francs which is asked for it.”

“ What ! ” cried Hunt, “ a masterpiece for sixty dollars, and you hesitate about buying it?” whereupon he went at once to the store-room of an artdealer, and became the possessor of the first painting of The Sower, one of Millet’s greatest works.

William Babcock, the Boston painter, who had passed most of his life in France, was probably the first American to appreciate Millet and his work. He it was who took Hunt to Barbison, and introduced him to the great painter. Millet was generally considered somewhat of a bear, and had little to do with other French artists, except perhaps Rousseau. William Hunt came into his life like a flash of sunshine. He became attached to him, and always treated him with respect. When Hunt first saw him, he found him, as he expressed it, “ painting in a cellar.” The picture on his easel was The Sheep-Shearers , — exquisite in color as a Correggio, and with all the pathos and grandeur of Michael Angelo.

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“ Is that picture engaged ?” inquired Hunt.

“Yes,” replied Millet; “ Deforge will take it for my color-bill. He thinks that I shall never earn money enough to pay what I owe him ; so he will take this for the debt.”

It is needless to add that Hunt paid the color-bill and carried away the picture, after giving several commissions for work not then completed. From that time his interest in Millet increased. He could not help contrasting him with Couture, who was then berating every one who did not follow his method. Of Millet, Couture made all possible sport; ridiculed his pictures, and said that a man who could not both lay in and finish his work at once was no painter. He drew caricatures of Millet’s subjects, and said that the artist was “too poor to give his peasants folds in their garments.” When he found that his favorite pupil, Morris Hunt, had left him for the peasant-painter, he became even more satirical and bitter. But Couture’s day was nearing its end. Whistler was in Paris, and was expected to praise the popular painter. All he would say was, “ chic, pure chic”

From Millet, Hunt had no particular instruction, but they liked one another, and delighted in each other’s society on all occasions. Hunt never intruded upon his seclusion, but was always ready for a walk in the forest or upon the plain. On these little excursions Millet would call his attention to the “ value ” of a figure in the field, to the way in which a cart-wheel settled into the ground, to an effect of sunlight, or of distance. He was never seen out-of-doors painting under an umbrella; but he took mental notes and used them in his work at the studio.

Of Millet, Hunt once said : —

“ His pictures have infinity beyond them. Couture’s have a limit. I am grateful to Couture for what he taught me, but it was well that I left him. When I came to know Millet I took broader views of humanity, of the world, of life. His subjects were real people who had work to do. If he painted a hay-stack it suggested life, animal as well as vegetable, and the life of man. His fields were fields in which men and animals worked ; where both laid down their lives; where the bones of the animals were ground up to nourish the soil, and the endless turning of the wheel of existence went on.

“ He was the greatest man in Europe. I give you his poetical side ; but he was immense, tremendous, — so great that very few ever could get near him. He read only such things as would help him ; knew Shakespeare and Homer by heart; and was like Abraham Lincoln in caring only for a few books. He loved Hamlet; and I once found him laughing over the Clouds of Aristophanes. It was splendid to hear him read the Bible.

“ ‘ Now the famine was great throughout the land

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‘ What a description that is ! ’ he would say. ' What a breadth there is in it ! It could be expressed in no other way.’ And yet people say that the Bible cannot be translated into French ! And to hear him read from the Book of Ruth ! He saw it all from a painter’s stand-point. He is the only man since the Bible was written who has expressed things in a Biblical way.

“ When I first saw his pictures in Paris I was walking through the exhibition with one of my friends, and we were delighted with them. No one else cared for them. They were called des tristes affaires. I was in Couture’s studio at that time. He cared nothing for them. I went to Barbison, where Millet lived, stayed there two years, and was with him all the time. I found him working in a cellar, three feet under ground, his pictures mildewing with the dampness, as there was no floor.

“ I bought as much of his work as I could, and after a while the idea was started in Paris that a rich Englishman was buying up all his pictures. The people in the city were alarmed, and began to come to Barbison and get from him what they could. It will give you some idea of the low prices at which his work was then sold to know that for The Sheep- Shearers, the most expensive picture of his which I bought, I gave ninety dollars. He never touched any of the money. The man from whom he bought his colors had written that he must either send him some money or a picture ; so he set to work to complete this painting. When I saw it I knew that I must have it ; so I paid the man ninety dollars, and took a receipt for his bill. When I thought that the picture was done, — when any one would have thought so, — he was still dissatisfied with the girl’s left hand, which pulls back the fleece from the shears. He thought that it had not the right action ; so he kept it ten days longer. Whenever I went to see him he was still at work upon it. I asked him why he put no wrinkles or markings into the girl’s cap. He said because he was ‘ trying to make it look like a tea-rose leaf.’ And that was the man whom the critics call ‘ careless and slovenly ’ ! I would n’t let them see my Millet drawings. Their dry eyes would burn holes right through them.

“ He had so little money in his life that he never owned a hundred-dollar bill until I gave him the money for one of his pictures. It was at the exhibition, and the government proposed to buy it for about fifty cents ; but I was sure that Mr. Brimmer would want it. When the exhibition was over I carried it off in its big frame, to my friend Hearn’s studio, — I had none in Paris then, — and took Brimmer there to look at it. Millet had told me that I might sell it for five hundred francs, or, possibly, it was less. He had meant to sell it for more, but had become discouraged about it. When Brimmer heard of the price he said, ‘That’s little enough for it!’

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and took it. He did not pay for it immediately, for he was going into Holland, and had altered his money arrangements. I told Millet that the picture was sold ; but, on hearing that the purchaser had not yet paid for it, and had left the country, he looked a little distrustful, for he did n’t know Martin Brimmer as I did. At last the money came. When I handed it to him he did not say much; but he told me next day that he could not try to thank me, but I might like to know that he had never before had a hundred-dollar bill.”

CHAPTER II Millet, concluded — Barye

“ X7"OU ask if he painted much out-of-doors. He used to take walks and look at things, and study them in that way. We would start out together, and perhaps come to a cart by the roadside. We would sit down, and he would make me notice how it sagged, how the light fell upon the wheels, and all sorts of things about it. Anything was interesting to him. We would be out all the afternoon, and perhaps walk no more than half a dozen rods.

“ Sometimes we would go up to Paris, to the Louvre, and he would lead me up to a Mantegna or an Albert Durer, and show me what were the great things. After Mantegna he would say : —

“ ‘ Now where ’s your Titian? ’

“ He always said that he did not care to go to Rome. He could see great pictures enough in the Louvre.

“ The country people about him did not understand him very well, and he was high and dignified with them. One day we hurried up to the railroad station at Fontainebleau after a long walk, in blouses and sabots, like workmen; for he was a workman, and I was proud to call myself one. We were hungry, and the train was going off in fifteen minutes. I gave an order to the waiter, and he was uncivil and laughed at us. Millet looked up, saying, deliberately and paternally : —

“‘Mon gar^on, vous etes d'une gaiete extraordinaire ! ’ And the waiter was entirely subdued, and served us as well as he could.

“I saw, last week, at the New York Loan Exhibition, his Woman Carding. I remember seeing that the first day that he worked upon it. He put it in with transparent color, — an excellent way, and at a little distance it looked entirely solid. The wool in that picture is just what Couture could not paint : — the lightness and indecision, yet the solid quality of it.

“ And then the air which Millet gets into his pictures, and the way things go back ! I cannot see how he does it. Of course he could not and did not care to paint the sort of thing that Couture liked best. For instance, The Boy with the Soap-Bubbles. It is certainly very pretty, but Millet would not have cared to paint it.

“‘Could he paint portraits?’ Yes, certainly he could. But they would have looked not as other people wanted them, but as he did.

“ He would not paint anything pretty or fascinating until the public should recognize his pictures of laborers. People said that his pictures were ‘ not elegant.’ Look at that woman in The Sheep-Shearers ! There is more elegance in that little foot than in all that Watteau ever painted.

“ It takes years to see the one-ness and sombreness of that group. It is most elaborately painted ; not only with feeling, but with intense and patient work. I bought this, and many more, — some of which Millet would not part with, and I left them in his possession.

“ When I found him he was desperately poor, but painting tremendous things. He felt that he could do strong, great work; but he said to me, ‘ How do you get that delicate, facile way of putting in little things?’ Of the Girl and the Kid , he said: ‘Nobody about here could do that.’ We got on wonderfully together, from first to last. He was such a giant that I was but a pigmy.

“He was called bearish, — never mingled in the conversation of others. The world had ill-treated him, and he never quite recovered from it. He would never assist me, except once about a drawing. His advice was, ‘ Hunt, you ought to work ! ’

“ I thought that I was working hard ; but he considered me a loafer.

“ A man who knows about pictures is one who picks up a good thing for the first time and says, ‘That’s good! It can’t be surpassed!’ Babcock, one of Millet’s firmest friends, could have bought collection after collection. He knows what is good i9 before the world pronounces upon it. Tailors, actors, and others bought Millet’s pictures. Rothschild’s cook was the first man to buy one. Actors and singers with money bought them ; and when they went away to St. Petersburg they sold them and made money on them.

“ Millet laughed at the idea of travelling. He went from Greville to Paris, from Paris to Barbison. He could find all that he wanted at home. He would say, ‘ Any artist can go to the East and paint a palm-tree ; but very few can paint an apple-tree.’

“ Crossing the fields one day, he came upon some men who were cutting grain. One called out, * Ah ! Monsieur Millet, this is very different from your work. I would like to see you take a sickle.’

“ ‘ I ’ll take your sickle, and reap faster than you and all your family.’ And he did it.

“ He knew the form of every tool used upon a farm, and knew its uses. Until his eighteenth year he had labored on his father’s farm in Gruchy. Although a peasant boy he had enjoyed superior advantages. His mother came from a family of influential yeomen who lost their property in the Revolution. This gentle, devotional woman, the mother of nine children, was forced by the strange custom of the country to work in the fields with her husband, while her mother-in-law took care of the children. The grandmother, a proud-spirited, deeply religious woman, had great influence upon the zo ART-LIFE OF WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT childhood of Jean Frangois, whom she named for St. Francis of Assisi. Her son, the Abbe Charles Millet, lived with the family, and taught Jean Francois to read. In the midst of his severe labors he thought of what he read, and unconsciously nourished aspirations which were to guide his future life. It was a serious, often a solemn existence which he led in Gruchy, perched upon the iron cliffs of La Hogue, which overlook the troubled waters of Cherbourg Roads. The terrible shipwrecks upon this northern coast of France sank deep into the soul of the young peasant, who in after years drew his inspiration as a painter from the remembrance of his early home. The tender pathos of some of his working women is depicted from remembrance of his mother’s patient endurance of her hard lot.”

When William Hunt first saw Millet’s pictures he was piqued, but he was fascinated. Millet had left Gruchy, and was living in Barbison, within easy reach of Paris. Hunt was leading the gay life of a cavalier, with his splendid horses and fine hounds; every moment a joy to himself and to others. His boyish gayety brought warmth and light to the humble Millet home, and he was always sure of a hearty welcome.

In return, the peasant-painter had a powerful influence upon Hunt, who cherished for him the greatest reverence and esteem. He began to take more serious views of life, and of art. Keenly alive to all beauty in nature, and to the wonders of art in every European country, he longed to work more earnestly than he had done. He moved from Paris to Barbison, inspired by the presence and friendship of Millet. The latter in turn must have enjoyed the companionship of the young man. But for him, and his own family, Millet was living the life of an exile.

Sometimes the two (fiends would go up to Paris to see the exhibitions ; and it was a feeling of comradeship that made young Morris clothe himself in peasant’s garb, including blouse and sabots, that he might feel the more in sympathy with the new master whom he had found. The Louvre was a favorite resort, — especially the long Italian gallery where hung Rembrandt’s Slipper at Emmaus , an especial favorite of Millet.

The companionship of this great painter and earnest man had an influence upon Hunt which produced a lasting effect. It awakened his sympathy in humanity. From that time the world to him became different. He developed an intense power of sympathy which largely helped to make him the remarkable artist which he was to become. Whatever he loved, he loved intensely. Whatever interested him moved him deeply. His work grew in strength, seriousness, and beauty. He had all the elements of a great painter.