commemorative tributes to...

COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTES TO

JO H N W HITE ALEXANDERBy EDWIN H. BLASHFIELD

GEORGE BROW NE POSTBy THOMAS HASTINGS

BRONSON HOW ARDBy AUGUSTUS THOMAS

READ IN

THE 1917 LECTURE SERIES OF

T H E A M ER IC A N A C A D EM Y O F A RTS A N D LET T ER S

REPRINTED FROM VOL. X PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY

A M E R IC A N A C A D E M Y O F A R T S A N D L E T T E R S

1 9 2 2

Copyright, 1917, 1922, by T h e A m e r i c a n A c a d e m y o f A r t s a n d L e t t e r s

T H E D E V I N N E P R E S S N E W Y O R K

CONTENTS

PAGE

J o h n W . A l e x a n d e r ...............................j

Edw in H. Blashficld

G e o r g e B r o w n e P o s t . . . . . i i

Thomas Hastings

B r o n s o n H o w a r d ......................................17

Augustus Thomas

M52231

i

JO H N W. ALEXANDER1

B y E d w i n H. B l a s h f i e l d

In John W hite A lexander a frail body lodged a tireless, eager spirit— tireless and unquenched by illness to the very end, eager not only in search for beauty, but in service to his fe llows. A m ong artists, some are recorders, some arrangers, some are creators, and some are dream ers o f dreams.

N ow and then comes a man who may belong to any one o f these groups, but who adds to his artistic g ift and his technical acquirement a capacity for communication o f enthusiasm to others and an instinctive desire to stimulate, to push at the wheels where-

1 Read March 8, 1917.

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ever he .sees .that they turn slowly. Such" a; tfian :soon becomes a leader.

‘ Tow ard leadership John A lexander gravitated -Instinctively, and in it he established him self solidly, using the experience o f one official position to affirm that of another, touching the circle o f the arts at many points in its circum ference, and strengthening himself by every fresh touch. I f a man is strong enough physically to withstand the demands o f such arduous effort, he gains enormously in the power to syn- thetize that effort and to build up from one department to another.

A lexander was not strong enough, and he paid the physical penalty; but while his life lasted he never relaxed that effort, and he made it fru itfu l, feeding it alw ays with persistent enthusiasm.

F or an instance in this synthetizing of effort, he worked first as a member o f the M etropolitan M useum ’s board


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at increasing and safeguarding that museum’s treasures ; next as a member o f the School A rt League he worked at the provision o f intelligent appreciation o f those treasures— appreciation planted in the minds o f the children o f the city to grow till it should reward the museum’s effort with understanding adult and trained.

H e talked to the children who flocked to see the painting and sculpture and the art objects o f all kinds. And when the children went aw ay, he followed them, to their E ast Side clubs and schools and talked to them again, encouraging them to try experiments of their own in painting and modeling, and he stimulated them with prizes that adjudged and sometimes instituted. H e loved this w ork among the children, and he told me, with a twinkle, and more than once, o f how these very young people managed to fo rtify the doubtful experim ent o f a

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journey into art by the; undoubted pleasure of at least beginning that journey on roller-skates. “ Dozens of them /’ said he, “ skate to their lecture." I f he was busy with the children’s welfare, the interests o f his comrades of all ages busied him still more. H e was a painter through and th rough ; nevertheless, the sister arts of music and the drama claimed and obtained his time in one o f his favorite fields o f effort, the M acDowell Club.

To the plastic presentation o f the drama, its costuming, lighting, and colors, he gave enthusiastic attention, aided almost alw ays by M rs. A lexan der. It was an easy progression for him from his canvases to the moving- pictures o f a pageant or a play, and his sw ift inventiveness enabled him to get through a prodigious amount o f work in a short time, in such productions, for instance, as M iss M aude A dam s’s Jeanne d ’A rc at the H arvard Sta-



dium, or in the many series of tableaux which he arranged for charity. “ I f you have a fram e and some gau ze/’ said he to me, “ you have no idea how much you can do in a moment with a few colored rags.” I had an idea, for I had seen him juggle with them and had admired the effects which he produced so easily, fo r he seemed to take pains easily, and with a geniality which relieved his beneficiary from a sense of too great obligation. This gracefu l suavity was a potent factor in his helpfulness ; but he was so sm iling and kindly that I fear one did not alw ays realize how much his ready service sometimes tired him.

D uring the last year o f his life I saw him many times a week, and we often came home together from the A cademy council or from other committee meetings.

Although, as I have said, his spirit was not tired, his body was. A gain and



again he rose from a sick-bed to preside upon a platform . H is delicate features, which recalled some cavalier’s portrait by Vandyke, were at times during his last year almost transparent-looking. And yet he was so resilient, he so responded to the stimulus of work to do. he had recovered so many times from severe attacks, that his death, when it came, was not only a great shock, but was a surprise.

Critics, writers o f books, will talk to us at length o f his a r t ; there is time to-day for only the briefest impression o f it. One would say that a refinement rising to distinction was its most obvious quality. Pattern and lighting were what seemed to interest him most of all. Long, sweeping, curving lines he sought for or rather seemed to find without searching, and they gave a decorative character to all his portraits.

In his color restraint was a notable quality, a notable preservative, a nota-


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ble insurance against either crudity or lushness, against vu lgarity o f any kind. N ow and again he composed large and elaborated groups, as in his panels for the Carnegie Institute o f Pittsburgh, which make up one of the most considerable extensive series o f decorations ever painted. B ut he loved simplicity, and thought simply in his painting, and he seemed to like best and be happiest in his treatment of single figures. It was peculiarly in these that his sense o f pattern and o f line, o f long, sweeping curves, never failed him.

H e was very personal in lighting, which was simple and large, yet at the same time was often extrem ely picturesque in its arrangem ent. Its effect was not a little enhanced by his predisposition toward masses o f reflected . light, which he used with great skill.

R estraint reaching to sobriety marked most o f his color. H e liked to use a


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warm gra y in wide planes, and then to strike into it one or two dominant spots o f rich or brilliant colors. Ju st before his death he built a very large studio in the Catskills, and I believe that the trees and hills o f his beloved Onteora got into the color of his pictures and helped toward that predilection for a whole gam ut o f greens which one may easily note on the walls o f his exhibitions— gray greens, blue greens, olive greens, yellow greens, greens of the color of thick glass. H is pigment was brushed easily and flow- ingly. Sometimes he painted a whole portrait with what artists would call a “ fat brush/’ but usually the color was thin, with occasional loaded passages, the canvas being sometimes hardly more than stained.

The sureness o f his recording was remarkable, and its sw iftness was phenomenal. This o f course was an ex traordinary insurance against any kind



of heaviness in his color, since overpainting is one o f the worst enemies to freshness o f surface. H is sw iftness of recording must be emphasized again. I should hardly dare to say in how short a time he executed one or two portraits that hung upon the walls of his drawing-room , and which he called unfinished, though they were very satisfying, certainly, to me.

Much as I should like to linger over his painting, I cannot keep aw ay from the subject o f his eagerness to help other artists to find a gallery adequate to the housing o f their painting. The search for a home for the National Academ y o f Design was the central preoccupation o f the last years o f his life. It was interesting, indeed, when he spoke upon any platform and any subject, to see how many angles of approach he could find to that one subject which was nearest his heart, the new gallery, which should some day


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house a dozen different societies of artists.

I have said that some artists are recorders, some creators, and some are dreamers o f dreams. Recorder and creator he certainly was. W hile he was still a child he was fo r a while a little messenger-boy, and he never ceased to be a messenger, bringing stimulus o f words and example, w riting his name with Ben A dhem ’s as a lover o f his fellow-men. A nd a dreamer he was of dreams— of a dream which we fu lly believe will come true, when New Y o rk will have a great gallery all its own, and which we may link in our thought with the memory o f that brilliant artist and devoted president of the National Academ y o f Design, John W hite A lexander.



GEORGE BROWNE POST1

B y T h o m a s H a s t i n g s

George Browne Post, the son o f Joel B. and Abbey M. Post, was born in N ew Y o rk City, December 15 , 1837. His career was most intimately associated for almost sixty years with the architectural development of this metropolis. In order to provide for the rapid increase o f population during this time, there was an unparalleled growth in building. A n endless variety o f new problems had to be solved in order to meet the vast diversity and multiplicity o f demands. Not only was the city reaching out along new avenues and over new areas o f what



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were once fertile pasture-lands, but, a la s ! for want o f legislative restraint, and not for want o f space, one city was actually being builded over another, several times in height, reaching into the clouds, like so many Tow ers o f Babel, scattered about in a confusion of styles. D uring this period M r. Post was perhaps the most active and successful architect in finding a solution which would best meet the constructive difficulties o f the modern tall building, involving the engineer's method o f skeleton fram ew ork construction, accompanied by the development and general use of the passenger- elevator.

W hen designing the old Produce Exchange, one o f our notable buildings, he employed for the first time, in tjie inner court o f this building, iron columns and beams to support several stories of floors and walls. This was one o f the first contributions to the


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evolution o f the modern steel-fram e building.

There were no traditions in the history o f the art which would seem to suggest the solution o f this problem, and there was a real demand for o rig inality to meet such a hopeless situation. It is difficult to realize to what an extent M r. Post paved the w ay for others to follow. In the art of architecture more than in any other creative pursuit, perhaps, the general public ofttim es finds it difficult to discern the true author o f what may be a very original conception. Lost in the many modifications and slight variations, the same idea is so often reproduced by others that it becomes commonplace. A conspicuous exam ple might be cited in M ichelangelo’s dome of St. P eter’s, one o f the most original designs ever conceived by the genius o f man. Its originality can be appreciated only when one realizes that other domes,



such as the Val-de-G race, Les Inva- lides, Soufflot’s Pantheon, 01* W ren ’s St. P au l’s were all built at a later date, and that no dome o f this character, with the pendentive and the drum, preceded this most original m asterpiece o f architecture.

M r. Post was really doing pioneer work at a time when the educational advantages and the condition o f A m erican architecture were not to be compared with those o f the present day. In his early life he served his country in the Civil W ar as aide on the staff of General Burnside, who commanded the A rm y o f the Potomac in 1862, at the first battle of Fredericksburg. H e was at one time colonel o f the Tw enty- third Regim ent o f the National Guard o f N ew Y ork .

M r. Post was first educated as an engineer, being graduated from the scientific school o f New Y o rk U niversity in the class of 1858. W hat we


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now recognize as engineering, with the innovation of steel and railroad construction, is com paratively a modern science, which rapidly becailie d ifferentiated from the art of architecture. A t that time there was little design in construction. A s M r. Post saw rather the qualitative than the quantitative side o f construction, he was attracted to architecture, and he studied for three years with Richard M orris Hunt. Perhaps his first conspicuous work was the old Chickering H all, on lower F ifth Avenue, now destroyed. He was one o f the principal architects who conceived and constructed the Columbian Exposition o f Chicago. I might almost say, without further mention, that we need only to look about us to see his many works. A s a man he was fearless and strong, with a true sense o f proportion and justice. H e had unusual executive and adm inistrative ability, and notwithstanding his


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great enthusiasm and impulsive temperament, there were alw ays a quiet restraint and dignity which made him one of the most representative men of his profession. H e was frequently called upon by both federal and municipal governm ents to render public service, both because o f his generous willingness to g ive his valuable time and because o f his distinguished personality, which made its impression upon men. The long and eventful life of our friend and fellow-Academ ician was ended Novem ber 28, 19 14 .



BRONSON HOW ARD1

B y A u g u s t u s T h o m a s

Bronson H ow ard died in A ugust of 1908 in his sixty-sixth year. H e was at that time, and had been for thirty years, the forem ost dram atist of Am erica. H e was a vice-president of the National Institute of A rts and L etters, which he helped to organize, and he was a member of this Academ y.

H e was the son o f a prominent m erchant o f Detroit, and the great-grandson o f an English ensign who fought under General W olfe at the capture of Quebec and who in later manhood died in the sight o f General W ashington, whom he followed at Monmouth. Behind that Revolutionary soldier the



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fam ily traced itself directly to the H ow ards o f N orfo lk , premier dukes o f England.

A t the usual age Bronson H ow ard prepared for admission to Y a le U niversity, but, ow ing to a serious trouble with his eyes, did not enter. A s a later writer has said o f him self, he was forced to choose between journalism and an education. H e turned his attention to humorous w riting fo r the Detroit F ree P ress.

In 1865 he came to N ew Y o rk City to work as a reporter on the Tribune under the direction of H orace Greeley. Mr. H ow ard was then twenty-three years old. H e worked for the Tribune and later for the E ve n in g Post. On these two papers, before he left them to embark altogether upon play-w riting as his profession, he labored seven years, the historic time o f service that Jacob agreed upon with Laban.

Between the years 1870 and 1899 he



was the author o f seventeen plays, the greater part o f which were successful. In a profession that has no curriculum but sympathetic living and understanding, and no diploma but the smiles and tears o f his fellow-men, he won a first distinction.

V ery soon a fter he began to write for the stage his accurate observation, his fine apprehension o f motive, his delicate measurement o f effect, his truthful transcription and vivid presentation o f life, placed him in a class by him self among Am erican playwrights. In an epoch o f hurried and commercial and very conventional production his careful, lifelike, and unhackneyed offerings were in the main artistic masterpieces, valuable not only fo r the refreshing qualities that they served to the public o f that time, but as exam ples o f considered workm anship, and as models to men already in his profession and to those preparing



to join it. This is especially true of the w ork o f his matured and ripened years. H is painstaking amounted almost to genius, and its effect upon a play was a finish less enamel than it was bloom. The body of the play was solid, too. It gave an impression o f life. The happenings seemed not only true, but intimate and inevitable. The people were like ou rse lves; like us not only in their better and heroic moments, when we hoped they were our very kindred, but like us in their shortcomings, their failings, and their meannesses, when we knew they were.

The blue pencil of the city editor had taught Bronson H ow ard the unpardonableness o f being dull. H e had learned our general incapacity for sustained attention, our thirst for variety, our delight in surprise, our readiness to laugh, and our blindness to the ambush o f the pathetic. H e knew that skilful counterpoint was the w ay to


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keep us rocking and susceptible, and he could sit at his table and dramatize not only the people o f his play, hut those dim gatherings beyond the barrier o f the footlights that should lean and listen, gasp and inhale and laugh, frow n and be tender, weep and clap hands, like reflected moods invoked in a m agic, but shadowed, m irror.

The older theater-goers will remember with respect and affection his great successes, The B an ker s D aughter and Y ou n g M rs. W inthrop, S h en andoah and The H en rietta ; and while his reputation will probably rest upon these four fine plays, his other w ork was o f wide range and high merit.

M r. Brander M atthews, the w riter most qualified by acquaintance with the man and his epoch and with the theater to write o f them all, has called our attention to the fact that Bronson H ow ard ’s career as a dram atist cov-



ered the transition period o f the modern drama, when it was changing from the platform stage to the picture-fram e sta g e ; that period that was dism issing “ the rhetorical emphasis, confidential soliloquies to the audience, and fre quent change o f scene in the course of an act.” A nd almost as though he were being guided by the wisdom of Polonius on fashions, he was

. . . not the first by whom the new is tried,

Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

H e moved with his time, and so discreetly that men w orking under the tacit acceptance o f his leadership su ffered neither martyrdom nor neglect.

H is associates were the leading managers and the forem ost actors o f the time. H is material circumstances changed from the em barrassing lack of an overcoat during his reportorial adventure in N ew Y o rk to a life o f



com fort and the means to make an endowment to the Am erican D ram atists’ Club, with substantial bequests in other directions.

The D ram atists’ Club was an outgrow th o f the unusual modesty that was a Bronson H ow ard characteristic. He had had some success in England, and our insular brethren there insisted on regarding him not only as an A m erican playw right of prominence, but as the only one existing. W ith the avowed purpose to answ er and inform and correct this attitude, he got together in 1890 fifty men in A m erica who had professionally produced their plays. A society was form ed that still exists, and includes in its membership the principal dram atists of the United States. M r. H ow ard was its first president, and held that office until his death. H e left to the society his dramatic library, one o f the largest in the country, and also left a fund to main-



tain and to increase it. H e so arranged his affairs that upon the death o f M rs. H ow ard a sustaining endowment came to the society itself, together with the valuable rights to his plays.

But if Bronson H ow ard had never written a play or delivered a lecture upon that art, or established and endowed a society of dramatists, he would still be a notable figure in the history o f the drama in Am erica, as it was ow ing to his initiative and persistence, his advocacy and persuasion, that dramatic compositions finally obtained proper protection under the United States copyright law, and in the various States sim ilar protection under the common law for plays that had not been copyrighted. This achievement was the work o f many years, em bracing repeated trips to W ashington, many appearances and contests before committees, and volumes o f correspondence with authors,


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journalists, attorneys, and legislators. This monument to the man is the finer from the fact that for many years before its accomplishment he personally had virtually retired from the field.

To commemorate only this professional side o f his life, however, would be to neglect the larger and the finer part o f the man. P lay-w ritin g seemed rather the avocation o f a full and broad and deep and vibrant soul, the chief expression o f which was life itself. H is understanding was so complete, his sympathy so general, his patience so detached and yet so fraternal, his justice o f such even balance, his humor so lubricant and healing, that any business he m ight have chosen would have seemed an equal abdication o f his larger rights. H e looked like a successful general who had quit the arts o f w ar to practise medicine. H e smiled like a righteous judge who hesitated to convict because he understood



the prom ising humanity o f the offense. H e listened like a father who had been a playm ate, and all who knew him remember, and many have commented in some fashion upon, his singularly blue eyes, and the steadiness o f their gaze, encouraging, not disconcerting, and which seemed not to pierce, but to infiltrate. H e was an adequate and noticeable factor of any assembly, the most delightful associate in the ideal companionship o f two, and perfectly sufficient to him self in the longest hours of self-chosen solitude.

I remember visiting him for two or three short consultations during a winter in the middle nineties, when it was his daily custom to leave New Y o rk in the morning, with his lunch in a paper, and spend the day in a little, eight-by-ten-foot wooden cabin built in the corner o f the back yard of a cottage he had owned at N ew Rochelle. The furniture o f this cabin was two



wooden chairs, a deal table, a little cannon stove, a coal-hod, and a brier- wood pipe. H e found there the isolation and the quiet that his w ork required, and traveled in a virtually empty train both ways, as the commuting tide was opposite to his direction at his hour. T his was at the period o f his greatest artistic and financial success. H is home in N ew Y o rk at that time was a com fortable, but unpretentious, apartm ent in a quarter not fashionable. Both the apartment and the cabin could be closed and left at the shortest notice, and their owner was free to follow where his whim invited. H e knew that real happiness did not attach to things, and Fortune in her most enticing moods could deceive him no more than she had frightened him with her frow ns. W e must record him a man equipped with the emotional power o f an artist, the generosity o f a cavalier, and the temperance of a gentleman.


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