. John La Farge : a memoir and a study . ful pictures. V HALF A CENTURY OFPAINTING THE title of this chapter points to theunity in the life of a great artist whichhis biographer always comes so soon to recog-nize. In the years of preparation external in-cidents stand out in sharp relief and there issome difficulty in so coordinating them as toshow their formative influences. Then, withthe maturing of a mans gifts and their finalconsecration to a single purpose, the miscel-laneous events of his career, if I may so de-fine them, fall into a more or less subordi-nate relation. Where he was once d
. John La Farge : a memoir and a study . ful pictures. V HALF A CENTURY OFPAINTING THE title of this chapter points to theunity in the life of a great artist whichhis biographer always comes so soon to recog-nize. In the years of preparation external in-cidents stand out in sharp relief and there issome difficulty in so coordinating them as toshow their formative influences. Then, withthe maturing of a mans gifts and their finalconsecration to a single purpose, the miscel-laneous events of his career, if I may so de-fine them, fall into a more or less subordi-nate relation. Where he was once dominatedhe now dominates. Experience may have itsinitiatory significance, but on the whole itcounts more as supplying the raw materialfor creative processes. The La Farge of Paulde Saint-Victors Paris and of wide Europeanwanderings, the La Farge of the ManchesterExposition and pre-Raphaelite contacts, is atemperament feeling its way. The La Fargeof the half-century with which I have now todeal is simply a genius in action. The Ascension. I 12v 3 All that happens to him in this period is ofinterest more particularly as it finds expres-sion in his work. His cup of sensation was wellfilled. In the early seventies he went again toEurope, which, indeed, he was not infrequentlyto revisit. Later he made two memorable jour-neys, to Japan and to the South Seas. At homehe played a constructive part in the buildingup of an American school of art, constantlyfiguring in the world of exhibitions and gen-eral organization, training assistants and trans-mitting his knowledge not only directly topupils but through lectures and writings. Hiswork in glass and mural decoration had alsothe effect of immensely increasing the numberof those episodes which diversify the purelyhuman side of an artists life. On more thanone of those episodes we shall have occasion topause. But it is LaFarge the artist, specifi-cally, who now engages our study, and, aboveall, La Farge the painter. He first assumed that c
Size: 1212px × 2062px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherbostonhoughtonmiff
