Identifier: artinamericacri00benj (find matches)
Title: Art in America; a critical and historical sketch
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Benjamin, S. G. W. (Samuel Greene Wheeler), 1837-1914
Subjects: Art, American Art
Publisher: New York, Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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whose works there is more of the raciness and flavor of bluewater. When we turn to the department of animal-painting, we discover whathas been hitherto the weakest feature of American art, both in the num-ber and quality of the artists who have pursued this branch of the profes-sion. T. II. Hinckley at one time promised well in painting cattle andgame, but his efforts rarely went beyond giving us Denner-like representa-tions of stuffed foxes with glass eyes. The hairs were all there, the colorwas well enough, although perhaps a little foxy—if one may be permittedthe term in this connection ; but there was no life, no characterization,there. William Hayes showed decided ability in his representations ofbisons and prairie-dogs and other dogs. Weak in color, he yet succeededin giving spirit and character to the groups he painted, and holds amongour animal-painters a position not dissimilar to that of Mount in genre. Walter M. Brackett, who has been able rarely well to enjoy the triple
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SHIP OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. (JAMES HAMILTON.) pleasure of catching, painting, and eating the same fish on a summersmorning by the limpid brooks of New Hampshire, has justly won a repu-tation as an artistic Walton. If he would but paint his rocks and trees as S6 ART IX AMERICA. cleverly as he renders the speckled monarch of the stream, his composi-tions would leave little to be desired. Henry C. Bispham has given ussome spirited but sometimes badly drawn paintings of cattle and horses;and Colonel T. B. Thorpe, an amateur with artistic tastes, in such semi-humorous satires as A Border Inquest, representing wolves sitting onthe carcass of a buffalo, struck a vein peculiarly American in its humor,and carried to a high degree of excellence by William II. Beard, whosebrother, James Beard, can also be justly ranked as an animal-painter ofrespectable attainments. Mr. Beard, although remarkably versatile, hasmade a specialty, if it may be so termed, of exposing the failings andfoibles of our

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