American drawing books and their impact on Winslow Homer

Winterthur Portfolio

Volumn 31, Issue 2-3, 1996, Pages 141-163

  Davis, Elliot Bostwick ^a  

^a METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 55649091684     PISSN: 00840416     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/496683     Document Type: Article

References (110)

1. William Howe Downes and Frank Torrey Robinson, "Some Living American Painters: Critical Conversations by Howe and Torrey, Second Paper," Art Interchange 32 (May 1894): 137,
2. as quoted in Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., "Winslow Homer's National Style," in Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Heinz Ickstadt, eds., American Icons: Transatlantic Perspectives on Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century American Art (Santa Monica, Calif.: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1992), pp. 247, 264.
3. For a thorough discussion of the development and use of American drawing books, see Elliot Bostwick Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Drawing Books in Nineteenth-Century America (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1992).
4. See also James P. Haney, Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States (New York: American Art Annual, 1908);
5. Francis B. Belshe, A History of Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1946);
6. Foster Wygant, Art in American Schools in the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati: Internood Press, 1983);
7. Sally Gross, American Manuals for Art Instruction in the Public Schools: Progress, Prophecy, and Art for the Millenium (Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1987).
8. Several of Homer's early drawings survive in his early books. Those works and texts have been documented by David Tatham in "Winslow Homer's Library," American Art Journal 8 (May 1976): 38-51.
9. For a discussion of the amateur drawings in early American drawing, see Diana Strazdes, "The Amateur Aesthetic and the Draughtsman in Early America," Archives of American Art Journal 19, no. 1 (1979): 15-23,
10. See also Theodore Stebbins, Jr., American Master Drawings and Watercolors (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 93-100.
11. John Hill, Drawing Book of Landscape Scenery (New York: H. I. Megarey, 1821).
12. Benjamin H. Coe, Coe's New Drawing Book of American Scenery (New York: Saxton and Miles, 1845);
13. Benjamin H. Coe, Easy Lessons in Landscape Drawing (New York: Saxton and Miles, 1845);
14. Benjamin H. Coe, New Drawing Lessons (New York: George P. Putnam, 1851);
15. Benjamin H. Coe, New Drawing Lessons: Drawing for Schools by Which All the Members of a Large Class Are Taught to Draw at Once with Neatness, Uniformity, and Accuracy (New York: George P. Putnam, 1858).
16. For reproductions of Lucy Treadwell's drawing and the relevant plate from Coe's Drawing Book of Trees,
17. see Elliot Bostwick Davis, "American Drawing Books and Their Impact on Fitz Hugh Lane," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 105, pt. 1 (April 1995): 91-92.
18. Peter Marzio, The Art Crusade: An Analysis of American Drawing Manuals, 1820-1860 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1976), p. 1.
19. For descriptions of specific drawing books, see also Carl Drepperd, American Drawing Books (New York: New York Public Library, 1946);
20. Carl Drepperd, "Art Instruction Books for the People," Antiques 41, no. 5 (June 1942): 356-59;
21. Janice G. Schimmelman, American Imprints on Art through 1865: Books and Pamphlets on Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Aesthetics, Art Criticism, and Instruction (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991).
22. William H. Downes, The Life and Works of Winslow Homer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), p. 26. Downes wrote that Homer was "even as early as 1847, when he was only 11 years old, fond of drawing sketches. Thirty years later he told his friends that he had still kept a heap of crayon drawings of his own, made in the Cambridge school-days, each drawing being carefully signed and dated" (p. 25).
23. Louis Benjamin Francoeur, An Introduction to Linear Drawing: Translated from the French of M. Francoeur, and Adapted to the Use of Public Schools in the United States, trans. William B. Fowle (Boston: W. B. Fowle, 1825).
24. Horace Mann, ed., anonymous article, Common School Journal 4, no. 14 (1842): 210.
25. Downes, Life and Works of Winslow Homer, p. 26.
26. A copy of Julien's drawing book, published in London during the 1840s, can be found in the Print Division, New York Public Library. For more on Mount's views on studying abroad, see Alfred Frankenstein, William Sidney Mount (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975), p. 49;
27. William Sidney Mount, Journal (1848-57), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, microfilm, reel SM 2, frame 788.
28. Ernest Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 161-62.
29. For a discussion of Venetian drawing books of the seventeenth century, see David Rosand, "The Crisis in the Venetian Renaissance Tradition," L'Arte 3, nos. 11-12 (1970): 5-53.
30. John R. Smith, A Key to the Art of Drawing the Human Figure . . . (Philadelphia: Samuel M. Stewart, 1831);
31. John G. Chapman, The American Drawing Book: A Manual for the Amateur . . . (New Jersey: J. S. Redfield, 1858).
32. Nathaniel Dearborn, "Scrapbook," Graphic Arts Collection, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
33. For a reproduction of Homer's Study of a Cavalry Officer's Boot,
34. see Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., and Franklin Kelly, Winslow Homer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 19.
35. David Tatham, John Henry Bufford: American Lithographer (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1976), p. 47;
36. David Tatham, "The Lithographic Workshop, 1825-1850," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 105, no. 1 (1995): 72.
37. Elliot Bostwick Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Fitz Hugh Lane and Nineteenth-Century Drawing Books (Gloucester, Mass.: Cape Ann Historical Assoc, 1993), p. 13;
38. David Tatham, "The Pendleton-Moore Shop: Lithographic Artists in Boston, 1825-1840," Old-Time New England 62, no. 2 (October-December 1971): 29-46;
39. Truman H. Bartlett, The Art Life of William Rimmer (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882), p. 8.
40. Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Fitz Hugh Lane, pp. 13-14;
41. George W. Sheldon, "American Painters - Winslow Homer and F. A. Bridgeman," Art Journal 4 (August 1878): 226.
42. See Lois Fink and Joshua Taylor, Academy: The Academic Tradition in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975);
43. Donald Thayer, "Early American Instruction at the National Academy of Design," American Art Journal 8 (May 1976): 38-51.
44. Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, p. 19.
45. There is another extant Homer drawing of a female nude; it survives in the context of a sheet related to Homer's design for a wood engraving, On the Beach - Two Are Company, Three Are None, in Harper's Weekly (August 17, 1872),
46. reproduced in Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, p. 87.
47. Paul Raymond Provost, Winslow Homer's Drawings in "Black-and-White," ca. 1875-1885 (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1994), pp. 102-5.
48. Although Provost cites John Gadsby Chapman's reluctance to endorse a particular model of the ideal proportions for drawing the figure, he appropriately notes the importance of drawing books in disseminating proportional systems. Rembrandt Peale, Graphics: A Manual of Drawing and Writing for the Use of Schools and Families (New York: J. P. Peaslee, 1835), p. 75.
49. William Rimmer, Elements of Design (Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1864);
50. Bartlett, Art Life of William Rimmer, p. 84.
51. Schimmelman, American Imprints, p. 285.
52. Smith, Key to the Art of Drawing, facing pl. 19.
53. Asher B. Durand, "Letters of Landscape Painting: Letter Three," The Crayon 1, no. 5 (January 31, 1855): 66.
54. Durand's personal engagement with American drawing books is further documented by his contribution of an engraving for Chapman, American Drawing Book, p. 169.
55. Moreover, as president of the National Academy of Design, where Homer studied life drawing, Durand endorsed Sigismond Schuster's Practical Drawing Book for Schools and Self-Instruction (New York, 1853) by noting that "so far as I have been able to examine your 'Practical Drawing Book,' it gives me much satisfaction. It commends itself to the student by its simplicity and conciseness. . . . At the same time, it appears to me to embrace all that is essential in an elementary work" (p. 1).
56. See also Linda S. Ferber, "Luminist Drawings," in John Wilmerding, ed., American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850-1875 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1980), pp. 244-48.
57. Asher B. Durand, "Letters on Landscape Painting: Letter One," The Crayon 1, no. 1 (January 1855): 2.
58. Durand, "Letter Three," p. 66.
59. Diana Korzenik, Drawn to Art (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1985), frontispiece;
60. Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., "Winslow Homer's School Time: 'A Picture Thoroughly National,' " in John Wilmerding, ed., Essays in Honor of Paul Mellon, Collector and Benefactor (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1986), pp. 58-59.
61. Bartholomew wrote several popular drawing books, including Bartholomew's Drawing Lessons (Boston: Tappan and Bradford, 1853);
62. and Bartholomew's Sketches from Nature (Boston: H. Bradford, 1855).
63. Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education Together with the Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1871), p. 153.
64. On legislation, see Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Drawing Books, pp. 127-70.
65. Louis Bail, "Letter to D. H. Mason et al. [Committee of the Board of Education]," reprinted in Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education, p. 187.
66. Fortieth Annual Report of the Board of Education Together with the Fortieth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board, 1875-1876 (Boston: Albert J. Wright, 1877), p. 37.
67. "The Great Exhibition: American Education Exhibits in the Galleries of the Main Building," Public Ledger Supplement (Philadelphia), November 1876, p. 1.
68. See also Korzenik, Drawn to Art, p. 220, for a discussion of the popularity of the Smith drawing books as a result of the Centennial Exhibition.
69. See Elizabeth Johns, "Drawing Instruction at Central High School and Its Impact on Thomas Eakins," Winterthur Portfolio 15, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 139-49;
70. Kathleen Foster, Writing about Eakins: The Manuscripts in Charles Bregler's Thomas Eakins Collection (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989).
71. Easy Lessons in Perspective, Including Lessons for Sketching from Nature (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, 1830).
72. For an excellent analysis of the predominance of geometry in American painting, see Lisa Fellows Andrus, Measure and Design in American Painting, 1760-1860 (New York: Garland, 1977);
73. Lisa Fellows Andrus, "Design and Measurement in Luminist Art," in Wilmerding, American Light, pp. 31-56.
74. On Homer's use of geometry, see Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), p. 180.
75. Rembrandt Peale, Graphics: The Art of Accurate Delineation: A System of School Exercise for the Education of the Eye and the Training of the Hand, as Auxiliary to Writing, Geography, and Drawing (Philadelphia: E. C. and J. Biddle, 1853), pp. 78, 79.
76. See especially the case of Fitz Hugh Lane described in Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Fitz Hugh Lane, pp. 29-33.
77. Archibald Robertson, Elements of the Graphic Arts (New York: David Longworth, 1802), p. 5.
78. Henry Williams, Elements of Drawing (Boston: Henry Williams, 1814), pl. 12.
79. Peale, Graphics (1835), p. 75.
80. Chapman, American Drawing Book, p. 22. Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 15-16.
81. Peale, Graphics, p. 29. For a discussion of Homer's signature in the context of his schoolroom subjects,
82. see Cikovsky, "Winslow Homer's School Time," pp. 59-62.
83. On the use of the blackboard, see Cikovsky, "Winslow Homer's School Time," p. 57;
84. Davis, Training the Eye and the Hand: Drawing Books, p. 86. Many American drawing books, including those by Peale, Coe, and Chapman included examples of writing. Church and Eakins are 2 artists who studied penmanship along with drawing during their school years;
85. see Johns, "Drawing Instruction," pp. 139-49.
86. On Pestalozzi, see Clive Ashwin, Drawing Education in German-Speaking Europe, 1800-1900 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1981), pp. 1-50.
87. Pestalozzi's approach to drawing instruction is also presented in excerpts in the preface to Peale, Graphics (1838), pp. 7-9.
88. There are several excellent sources documenting Homer's watercolor technique; see especially Helen Cooper, Winslow Homer Watercolors (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1986);
89. Marjorie Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 1977);
90. Judith Walsh, "Innovations in Homer's Later Watercolors," in Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, pp. 283-300.
91. On black and white, see Paul Raymond Provost, "Drawn toward Europe: Winslow Homer's Work in 'Black and White,' " Master Drawings 31, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 35-46.
92. On the comparison to Whistler, see Cikovsky and Kelly, Winslow Homer, p. 155. When Homer's image is measured against the ruler, certain proportional relationships, including the ratio of the width to the height of the blackboard itself, approximate the golden mean.
93. Henry James, Jr., "On Some Pictures Lately Exhibited," The Galaxy (July 20, 1875): 93.
94. For a discussion of the increasing frequency of female teachers employed in American public schools following the Civil War, see Cikovsky, "Winslow Homer's School Time," pp. 53-54.
95. Louis Bail, The Human Head: A Correct Delineation of the Anatomy, Expression, Features, Proportions, and Positions of the Head and Face: with Numerous Plates and Explanatory Text (New Haven: By the author, 1859), pp. 29, 30.
96. On physiognomy, see Barbara Stafford, Body Criticism: Imagining the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991);
97. Mary Cowling, The Artist as Anthropologist: The Representation of Type and Character in Victorian Art (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1989);
98. Stephen J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1982);
99. Constitution and By-laws of the National Academy of Design and Schedule of Property (New York: By the academy, 1852), pp. 36-49.
100. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859).
101. Pieter Camper, The Works of the Late Professor Camper, on the Connexion between the Science of Anatomy and the Arts of Drawing, Painting, Statuary: Translated from the Dutch by T. Logan (London: C. Dilly, 1794).
102. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (New York: D. Appleton, 1873).
103. Lloyd Goodrich, William Rimmer, 1816-1879 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1946), pp. 17-18.
104. William Rimmer, Art Anatomy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1877), p. 4.
105. Twentieth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools, State of Maine (Augusta, 1874), p. 95, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. Scientific investigation suggests that symmetry in animals such as horses indicates superior performance;
106. see Elizabeth Pennisi, "Does It Really Matter If the Right Ear Is Bigger Than the Left?" Science News 147, no. 3 (January 21, 1995): 46.
107. Bartlett, Art Life of William Rimmer, p. 64.
108. See also Goodrich, William Rimmer, pp. 63-64;
109. Jeffrey Weidman, Neil Harris, and Philip Cash, William Rimmer: A Yankee Michaelangelo (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1985), pp. 14-19.
110. Korzenik, Drawn to Art, p. 237. The Church drawings in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum are identified as follows: 1917-4-1531; 1917-4-1532; 1917-4-1533; 1917-4-1534; 1917-4-1535; 1917-4-1536; 1917-4-1537; 1917-4-1938.