From the collection of J. J. Albright, Esq.
A. Hearn; and a “Winter Evening” and “Early Spring,” the property of Mr. N. E. Montross.
These are masterpieces,--and the list is incomplete,--pictures that you may study from the strictest standpoint of technical excellence, and that exert an influence upon the imagination which one may believe will be felt by those who come after us as fully as by ourselves.
In considering American landscapes, there is more than a little tendency to dwell upon the names of the painters who are dead, regardless of the fact that the traditions which they established are being maintained. Among those who are maintaining them, Tryon is conspicuous, and in a way that is, perhaps, more distinctive than theirs. He represents much more closely the kind of contribution that the American temperament may be expected to make to the progress of painting. For unless painting can continue to reflect the evolution of human progress, it is, after all, only a “dead language.” But it is landscapes such as Tryon’s that prove its vitality. They represent the combination of qualities that differentiate American civilization in its worthiest form from that of other countries and of past times. They combine a largeness of outlook with alert sensibility to impressions; being, at once, big in character and minutely subtle.
Upon his first appearance last year as a contributor to the exhibition of the British Institute of Water Colours, Horatio Walker’s picture, “The Potato Pickers,” was prominently hung, and he himself was elected a member. Considering the fine record of the Institute and its high rank among water colour societies, such instant recognition of a newcomer was very notable.
But it is just the way in which an artist of Walker’s calibre is likely to make his impression--at once and authoritatively; for he is a painter of unusual personal force, and of a persuasiveness quite as remarkable, qualities not always found in combination, but, when united, irresistible. And these artistic qualities are the counterparts of similar elements in his character as a man. His is a forceful personality of moral as well as mental force. How much this means! There is a kind of forceful person who slaps you on the back in the street, and you probably consider him a nuisance; and there is a kind of painter who would violently arrest your attention by the bravery of his brush strokes or some surprising crash of colour scheme or chiaroscuro.