Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1913 — BOYISH BOASTINGS Now they were fulfilled almost literally [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BOYISH BOASTINGS Now they were fulfilled almost literally

by Earl Marble

| r rri HE recent exhibition at the i | [I Art Institute in Chicago of ’ the' portraits of the late " I je George Peter Alexander \ Q/> Healy, who, although a na- \ E—tive of Boston, afterward became a resident of Chicago, and really quite ‘.‘to the manner born,” In spite of his birth and his subsequent residence abroad for so ’many years, created more than a ripple in the art world, and showed again what a strong and representative man of his era he was. It may be said truthfully of him that he was a most conspicuous figure In the latter part of the second era of the art of portraiture in America, as Gilbert Stuart was of the first era. , Aside from the strong merits of the portraits seen at the Art Institute, their exhibition recalls to the writer a story told jhim many years ago by a boyish boon companion of Mr. Healy, the late George Loring Brown; so famous for his studies of atmosphere and poetical distance In landscape and still marines as seen under the skies of sunny Italy. Mr. Healy, at the time of which I speak, was about twenty years of age, and Mr. Brown a year younger. Mr. Healy had been studying art in a somewhat desultory manner-r----about the only way in which art could be studied in the New England city at that early day, and was making preparations to go abroad to enter upon his studies In an earnest way. He had attracted the attention of Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis the year before, that lady then being the queen of society In Boston. He had gone to her with a letter of Introduction, when she asked the shy boy what she could do for him, and his reply was, “Oh, sit for me, Madqme! Iso want to paint a beautiful woman!" She did so, and the portrait made quite a local reputation for the boy, upon which he made arrangements to go abroad. Mr. Brown, the constant companion of Mr. Healy, was born in Boston, February 2, 1814, and began to draw when eight years old. His father used to encourage the boy to make caricatures of people whom he did not like, and got the boy into many a scrape. If he drew the caricatures, as he told me once, he had trouble with the people thus travestied, and, if he did not, his father made it very uncomfortable for him, sending him out on the Back Bay In winter to cut holes in the ice, and fish for eels and other inhabitants of mud and water, among other things. But the boy survived it all, and finally went to the Franklin school, where he won the sliver medal, and at twelve years of age was apprenticed to the famous engraver, Peter Parley, where he learned the art of drawing thoroughly, which stood him in such stead In his later career. While with Parley, who, It may be remembered, was the wood engraver who Illustrated so many of the school books of a century ago, the boy experimented with colors, and when not at work at his engraving was experimenting constantly with colors, with the result that he attracted the attention of Isaac Rich, a wealthy merchant of that day, who one day asked him banterlngly how much he wanted to go to Europe. “One hundred dollars!” ,he replied enthusiastically, displaying a wonderful Ignorance of the world. But Mr. Rich advanced him the hundred dollars, and the boy began making preparations to go. It was about this time that the two boys began to see the world opening its doors to them, and in honor of this event, young Brown invested a dollar or two In beer and something eatable “on the side”—the beer portion of the menu being considered as something almost criminal in Boston in those days—and the boys made a night of it In honor of their early departure for Europe, and the taking up of their life work In earnest. The beer had a good deal of “head” on it, and it gave a good deal of "head" to the boys, with the result that the'two future great artists soon began to imagine themselves great already, and boasted of what they would do. “I will paint pictures of Italian scenery,” declared Brown, “and have my pictures in all the castles of Europe.” “And I,” said Healy, “will paint the kings and other notables of Europe, and have them In the castles side by side with yours.” . < I did not know Mr. Healy personally, but was acquainted Intimately with Mr. Brown for many years, and have heard him many times tell how he finally got away to Europe. He went down to the wharves, and Inquired around until he found a vessel that was ready to sail for Europe. He dM not stop to ask what part of Europe, thinking that once the other side of the water he would find everything easy. A married sister gave him a mattress, and he. marched down State street to Long Wharf with the mattrees on his back, having taken steerage passage. He found, after the boat set sail, that her destination was Antwerp, almost as far from Italy as Boston itself. When he landed there he had twenty-five dolars left. But he had made a friend of the captain of the vessel, who lent him fifteen more, and with this amount henfenaged to get to London, where he was befriended by Mr. Cheney, the American engraver, and he began at once his studies of Italian landscape, living almost on the verge of starvation for neterly a year, at the end of which time he sent a picture home to Mr. Rich, who sent him more money, and he continued his Studies. As an evidence of his conscientiousness in

study, it may be mentioned that he had secured a fine study of atmosphere by Claude Lorraine, but he never reached his ideal In his over it, and finally. In a fit of desperation, he slashed his copy into four pieces with his ra?or, and threw the pieces in the bottom of his trunk, where they remained for two or three years, only to be resurrected finally at the urgent solicitation of Mr. Rich, who begged him to mount the pieces on a fresh piece of canvas, and who liked it so well that he paid him a handsome sum for it. This copy really started him on hid Journey toward artistic eminence In America. Meam time he continued his work, mostly in Rome, where Hawthorne met and was attracted to him,« making mention of him in “The Marble Faun;" and he was a noted and welcome figure in the American colony, the Brownings making much of him. He soon had pictures In several of the castles in Italy, and here and there one in other countries, there being a poetical dreaminess about his atmospheric effects that appealed to the cultured taste. He came home In 1860, and took a studio for a time in New York, "Where he painted a view of Mount Washington, which hq called “The Crown of New England," and which a number of New York gentlemen, among whom was Henry Ward Beecher, purchased and presented to the prince of Wales, afterward Edward VII, who was on a tour of this country at that time. The painting pleased the prince so greatly that he ordered a companion picture, “The Bay of New York,” both of which he had sent home to him, and they were hung in Windsor castle, at that time being the only American pictures so honored. So much for one of the boasters. Mr. Healy first went to Lohdon, but did not remain there long, the French capital appealing to him more strongly. The American minister, Hon. Lewis Cass, interested himself In the young artist, and Induced the French king, Louis Philippe, to give him sittings, the portrait pleasing stoned him to visit Windsor castle, to copy some the French monarch so much that he commlsof the paintings there, and later sent him home to America to paint some of the American statesmen for the Versailles gallery. But the revolution of 1848 put an end to this royal patronage. A famous painting of his later was "Franklin Urging the Claims of the American Colonies Before Louis; XVI,” which was shown at the Paris International Exhibition of 1856. He came home that year, and in Boston exhibited the great historical picture of Reply to Hayne,” which contains a hundred and thirty portraits, and which has hung in Faneuil hall ever since. This painting and other works attracted the attention of William B. Ogden, who has been called the “father of Chicago." He induce the artist to remove to Chicago, where he remained till 1867, when he returned to Rome, and afterward to Paris He had portraits of M. Thiers, the princes of Roumania, Lord Lyons and Hon. E. B. Washburne in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and of General Grant in the Paris Salon of 1878. He painted portraits of a number of distinguished Americans, including Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, Generals Sherman and Me-

Clellan, Admiral Porter, William H. Seward, Pres ident Pierce, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ste phen A. Douglas, Archbishop McClosky, not for getting the famous one of President Lincoln. So much for the other boaster. Many of these portraits were shown at the Chicago Art Institute exhibition, having beer loaned by their owners, notably the Queen Eliza beth of Roumania, the Lincoln, the Grant, the Clay, the Calhoun, and others. While his vigor ous handling and strong effects made him par tlcularly successful with public men, he yet had equal success with the feminine character, at may be noted In the Queen of Roumania and other noted women; and one of the most re markable pictures of the late exhibition is that of a “Girl With Pitcher," which was painted at one sitting, at the studio of Baron Gros, in Paria in 1835, when he was but twenty-two years oi age, the color being marvelous, something llkt an echo, it might be said, of Thomas Couture then also a young man, but afterward a famoui one. The portrait of Franz Liszt, sitting at th« piano, witii a rapt musical expression, is the Liszt that the world knows —the musical and general world; the “Liszt Holding a Candle" be trays a rapt religious expression, quite anothei expression, such as this wonderful artist could discern and depict; the painting showed ths' great musical genius during his temporary re ligious madness, so to speak, when It will be remembered he renounced the world, and de dared he would end his days in a monkish institution, which of course he,did not do, but came forth again the musician par excellence. The romance of the two artists Is really quite a remarkable one, and the paintings they have produced illustrate most grandly the Ilves of twe earnest boys who were inspired by the high mo tlves that urged each to a most honorable ca reer, and "made the dreams come true” that were born of the boyish boastings.