Hi Subscriber,
Today's edition is an interesting comparison of artists "then" and
"now". It also touches on the benefits of having peers to learn from,
as well as having critiques done by other artists of high caliber.
Some things never lessen in value and we are not meant to do this
journey alone. If you have your group, be grateful and if you are solo,
you should see if there is something that can be joined or formed. You
will benefit.
Enjoy today's selection,
BoldBrush Studio Team
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Alfred Stevens, In the Studio, oil on canvas, 1888
Alfred Stevens, In the Studio, oil on canvas, 1888
Young Artists in New York, Then and Now
One of the great attractions of art is its timelessness. A great work
of art transcends fashions and trends - it's great forever. One of the
things I discovered to my surprise when I went to art school was that a
large amount of that timelessness carries into the practice and life of
the artist. If you look back into art history, the motivations,
lifestyle, and practices of artists haven't changed so very much, even
though nations, cultures, and technologies have. I recently came across
an article written nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, in 1880,
that reminded me of this.
Titled "Young Artist's Life in New York", it was published in the
January 1880 issue of Scribner's Monthly, a popular New York magazine
featuring a mix of reporting, agricultural how-to, fiction, and
slice-of-life, with plenty of black-and-while illustrations reproduced
using the latest technology. As a young artist in New York today, I was
curious to see how the young artist's life of 1880 compared with my
own, and it was a pleasant reminder that in a swiftly turning world,
some things don't change. And for the things that did change, it's an
instructive exercise to consider how they changed and why. The article
was written by New York art critic William H. Bishop, pleasingly
well-researched, and illustrated by members of the Salmagundi Club, a
young art club that was making a splash in 1880 New York with their
high spirits, revolt against the establishment, and wildly successful
'Black-and-White' exhibitions, which were garnering the attention of
the New York publishing world as well as the art world.
The author was interested in describing the day-to-day existence of the
young artists, many of whom had moved to New York from other parts of
the country to study art, leaving family and careers behind. Like many
art students today, these students faced financial hardship, difficulty
finding work, and the challenge of finding personal inspiration amidst
tedious drawing exercises and long working hours. But like the art
scene of today, Bishop describes a group of people who are both
fun-loving and tireless workers, practical jokers who are also
relentlessly practical about finding ways to pursue their art. I loved
his description of the typical artist's attitude: "There is nothing
heavily oppressive in the daily conduct of affairs, though the
underlying purpose is serious. Indeed, the art-student is inclined to a
practicality and sometimes to an incorrigible levity of speech which
makes it appear to be his direct purpose to disillusioning those who
may have been inclined to sentimentalize about his exceptional position
in our common-place life."
Couldn't have said it better myself. His description of the sketch
groups that formed outside of school, another feature of artist life I
am very familiar with, could also be from today (with the exception of
the model fees!):
"An improving diversion outside the schools is the social sketch clubs,
which from time to time flourish and fall into decadence. A congenial
circle meets one evening a week from eight o'clock till ten, at the
houses of members in turn, or at some one which offers peculiar
advantages; the model is placed in a corner, often on a small
improvised platform, and the ordinary chandeliers serve well enough for
purposes of illumination. Others hold morning sessions for three hours.
At one which we have particularly in mind there were sometimes
volunteer but generally paid models -- make-believe fisherman,
brigands, sultanas and dairy-maids, and real newsboys, coachmen,
flower-girls and walking advertisements. At the ruling rates of payment
for this kind of professional service,-- fifty and seventy-five cents
an hour, --the assessment of cost was not over ten cents to each
person." Having both drawn and modeled at such gatherings many times, I
can attest that these groups, though they do form and disband quickly,
remain 'improving diversions' down to the present day.
John Ferguson Weir, An Artist's Studio, oil on canvas, 1864
John Ferguson Weir, An Artist's Studio, oil on canvas, 1864
One significant difference between the art scene today and then is New
York's place in the art world. Back in 1880, the United States had only
just celebrated its hundredth birthday and was still trying to
establish a cultural identity independent of Europe's. The ateliers of
France, Germany, and Italy were still revered as 'the' place to go,
and, in the days before color reproduction, the European tour was the
only option for the serious student who wanted to study the work of the
Masters. Mr. Bishop complained that the American art student sometimes
carried this European admiration to a fault, even down to choice of
subject, saying the American student "has not discovered, for instance,
the picturesque capabilities of New York, which has a glow of color and
an irregularity of outline with which neither London nor Paris can
compare; for New York has made more of the arrangements for purely
modern life than any other city in the world. Brow-beaten as the
student naturally is by the traditional American reverence for foreign
parts, perhaps it would not be fair to expect the discovery from this
source." Compare that with today's New York, which is not only the
artistic capital of the United States but stands shoulder-to-shoulder
with London, Paris, and Rome, cities that in its early days were only
distant role models. And is itself, with its charming avenues and
magnificent skyline, the model and subject of inspiration for countless
works of art. Mr. Bishop would be proud. We've come a long way and it
was in the 1880s that the groundwork was being laid for New York's
artistic autonomy.
At that time the majority of serious American students were still
traveling to Europe at some point in their career to study in the
established schools of Paris, London, and Munich, and it was these
students, returning to America with a greater depth of education and
experience, who built the New York art scene into the unique identity
it carries today. Bishop describes the energy of the students newly
returned from Europe: "They are graduates of Paris and Munich, and are
the main supporters of the new "American Art Association." They have
lived long enough in Europe to see something of its commonplace side,
and are content to discuss it chiefly from the point of view of its
comparative practical advantages… Their talk, when it is not jocose,
is of a practical character by preference. They discuss technical
points, the manner of this and that artist, new methods of laying paint
with a palette knife instead of brush, and the disproportion in this
country of the artist's expenses to his returns. The newest arrival
complains that he finds $400 and $600 the ruling rates for studios,
while he could have had the best in Munich for less than $200. Their
position as pioneers in a new period of art development, and the
prospective results, are touched upon. The American subject, the
simple, the nude, the historical in art, such a one's new propositions
in perspective, all come in for a share of attention." A conversation
like this might be heard in any modern-day New York drawing group, and
it's both comforting and stimulating to think about the artistic
revolutions brought about through just such conversations in the past
150 years.
Highly thorough in his survey, Bishop touches on the actual living
conditions of the young artist as well, and here again it's not
significantly different from today - I, for one, have experienced three
to a studio and if we still used coal boxes would not be remotely
surprised to see it doubling as both lounge and bed. "The studio of the
poorer class is sleeping room, and generally more or less kitchen as
well. Disregard of conventional forms sometimes reaches the point of
actual squalor. Here in one costing fifteen dollars a month, three
persons are sleeping, two on a lounge--which also serves as a coal
box--and one on a shelf conveniently placed at night on trestles.
Coffee is drunk from a tomato can. A chop or steak is cooked by
lowering it down with a wire through the top of an ordinary cylinder
stove. The collection of dust-covered clothing, old boots and shoes,
withered ferns, half dry sketches, plaster busts, groceries, books, and
oil-cans, presided over by a battered lay figure in a Roman toga and
slouch hat, would do little violence to the ideal of symmetry in a rag
and bottle shop."
So much for a taste of life as a New York art student in 1880. As an
example of what it felt like to be in the New York art scene, Mr.
Bishop closes his article with a vivid description of the Salmagundi
Club, which at that time had been in existence for just nine years and
counted about thirty members. The Salmagundi Club still exists to this
day, with over a thousand members now, scattered across the country and
united by technology and the U.S. postal service. Although the Club is
different in some respects, being now an established organization --it
has a president and board and official title and a brownstone house all
its own-- it has not changed as a gathering-place for artists to work,
play, and exercise friendly competition.
In 1872 a knot of rather the most irregular young fellows of the
irregular kind described was in the habit of gathering at the studio of
a confrere, now a successful sculptor. He did his own cooking, like the
others, but it was genuine cooking. It reached lofty flights of soups
and oyster-pie undreamed of by the rest. Neither improvident nor
niggardly, he had something like a tangible hospitality regularly to
offer. Once a dance was given at which a paid fiddler was employed. A
sort of sketch class was formed in time which brought in all kinds of
random subjects from the street. Some minor actors and newspaper men
who had come once were pleased to return again to the evening
assemblies. Fencing and boxing went on in one corner and declaiming in
another, while the fine arts pursued their way as best they could.
The five original members increased to twenty. The plan first adopted
is still pursued; designs are prepared on a given subject and brought
down to a meeting each week for display and criticism.
The boisterous early surroundings were adverse, however, and after the
first year, upon the departure for Europe of some of the leading
spirits, the club suspended. Three years ago, several of these having
returned, it was reorganized on a much more serious basis, and became
the Salmagundi club, brought favorably into public notice by its recent
"Black and White" exhibitions. It was gathered in now some thirty
members, and included an array of talent of no common order. The work
shows a vast improvement over that of the early period, yet so great is
the range of subject for which illustration is required by the
increasing demand, that it will be long before the occupation of the
club is gone.
The Salmagundi convenes at nine of Friday nights at the studio of a
young marine painter in Astor Place. The appurtenances are somewhat
dingy, and there is a mellow atmosphere of smoke in the room. A long
table, spread with a white cloth and having shining pots of chocolate
and coffee upon it, makes a cheerful high light in the center. A
mixture of the two, the Italian mischio, has been adopted as a happy
solution of the refreshment problem. The pots are the peculiar emblem
of the club.
The members are gathered from occupations, each of which would furnish
an entertaining special study. The marine painter has lately been
daring shipwreck on the coast of Labrador, and his room is full of
trophies of the sea. The speciality of this one is animals in quiet
pastures; of that, men and animals in violent action. The latter keeps
a bull-dog to worry the garments used in his military pieces into
semblance of having passed through a campaign. He resorts to
stable-yards to perfect the details of the motion he has first noticed
in the street or the park. The illustrated paper artist is there, too.
HIs is a career of universal adventure. He takes down the leading
points of a fire at night, with the end walls tumbling uncomfortably
near him. He is waist-deep in snow at the Port Jervis ice-gorge, or in
water at the Mill River disaster. There are labor-saving inventions to
help him, but this merely increases the scale of his rapidity. It is
necessary now that the cut of the boat-race or the inauguration
ceremonies should be on the news-stands the day the event occurs. By an
occasional inadvertence it is there the day before!
With such experiences to draw from, it would seem that the designs need
not lack variety. The easy traditions of the past are continued in an
absence of formality in the proceedings. Red-tapeism is made odious.
Public sentiment was at one time opposed to a president, a
constitution, or even a title. The official business consists merely in
balloting for the choice of the next week's subject. Suggestions are
handed in and recorded on a list, which the chairman reads as a
preliminary. "Yes or No," "Spring," "Idolatry," "Silence," "Blood,"
"Homeward-Bound," give an idea of their character and scope. "The Lay
of the Forsaken Heart," attributed to a diffident member, has long been
passed without adoption, and is now cursorily disposed of as "the Lay."
A member with an especial penchant for horrors is distinguished as
"Calamity" ---.
The submitted designs, tacked upon the wall, are turned to with a
lively attention. The remaining possibilities in the theme, after each
has drawn from it what seemed to him its most striking aspect, are a
matter of general curiosity and an enlarging experience on each
occasion. The sketches are of all shapes and sizes. Careful finish is
not a requirement, the conception being the important thing. They are
done in chalk and charcoal, distemper, oil, pencil, India ink, pen and
ink, any and every material, but not often in colors. Among the most
interesting is the manner in which the ideas of the sculptor first take
form. On another evening of the week the designs are placed before the
Art Students' League, for a formal exposition by a professor of the
principles of design exhibited in them. With all this the once
happy-go-lucky Salmagundi Club may well flatter itself on having become
one of the most improving agencies in the whole artistic community.
And the fact that the same can be said of the Salmagundi Club one
hundred and fifty years later, in a vastly different New York, is a
prime example of the timelessness of the artists' life.
If you'd like to read the entire article by William H. Bishop (yes
there's more!), you can go to the archive of Scribner's Monthly (later
renamed The Century) here
.
A Modern Meeting of the Salmagundi Club, engraving, H. P. Share
A Modern Meeting of the Salmagundi Club, engraving, H. P. Share
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