Howard Russell Butler An American in Paris: 1885-1887

The Smithsonian Institution

Howard Russell Butler An American in Paris: 1885-1887Author(s): Elisabeth StevensSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1977), pp. 2-5Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557441 .

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Howard Russell Butler, sketch for The Seaweed Gatherers, 1885, pencil on paper (2?/ x 5? in.). Collection Mr. and Mrs. Howard Russell Butler, Jr.

Howard Russell

Butler

An American in

Paris: 1885-1887

Elisabeth Stevens

On May 1, 1885, Howard Russell Butler sailed for France on the steamer Nor- mandie. Butler, who, in 1876, received one of the first Bachelor of Science de- grees granted by Princeton University and, in 1882, earned a law degree from Columbia University, was on his way to Paris to study art.

After abandoning a career in elec- trical patent law in 1884, Butler studied at the Art Students League in New York with J. Carroll Beckwith and George de Forest Brush. However, like a number of other relatively affluent artists of his generation (born in New York City in 1856, Butler was the son of a prominent lawyer), he had come to feel that further study abroad was essential.

Butler spent the next two years on the continent, living and studying in

Paris but making a number of side trips. During this period he wrote home regu- larly to his mother and sisters and sometimes to his father. These letters, which were saved by his family, later became the basis of a chapter titled "Student Life in Paris" in Butler's unpublished autobiography. The manuscript is now part of the Howard Russell Butler Papers at the Archives of American Art, but it is the correspondence, also at the Archives, that affords the fullest and most imme- diate picture of the expatriate art scene in Paris during Butler's era.

Although he had considered the Hudson River painters old-fashioned when he was studying in New York, But- ler was himself a conservative who, later in life, was to oppose the admission of "radicals" such as Maurice Prendergast to the National Academy. If Butler saw any impressionist paintings in Paris, it is not mentioned in his writings. Instead, he hastened to examine the works of es- tablishment artists such as Jules Bastien- LePage and John Singer Sargent and headed for the huge Salon exhibition that was held every spring at the Palais de l'Industrie on the Champs Elysees.

Butler visited the Salon as soon as he could after arriving in Paris and wrote his mother that "the first thing which impressed me was the immensity of the exposition. There are twenty two hundred and eighty eight pictures, and the majority of them large pictures-too large to be hung in private houses.... When you consider that no artist can get more than two pictures into the exposition and generally they only send one, you can form some idea of the number of

artists who compete for the honors of the Salon." 1

The Salon layout, according to But- ler, featured paintings in "just one half of the rooms on the second floor. The sculpture is picturesquely placed in the great center court on the first floor." 2

And how did one encompass such an exhibition?

Butler began by "making a rapid tour through the whole exhibition. It took me about three hours and a half, and in con- sequence I am exceedingly footsore today."3

Finally, he confessed to being a little disappointed, though he had discovered "an immense number of middling good pictures. This is necessarily so," he de- cided, "for if there are but say one hundred great artists in France, there could be at most but two hundred examples of their work." 4

Less than ten days later, Butler returned to the Salon. "I made notes on twenty-one pictures ...," he wrote his sister Hattie, "[and] a hasty sketch of those which impress me." A month later, Butler went back to the Salon with a friend. "We made sixty miles an hour," he recalled breathlessly, "and arrived ex- hausted at the finish exactly one hour after starting, having seen two thousand four hundred and eighty-eight pictures, to say nothing of a bird's eye view of eighteen hundred and fifty pieces of sculpture." 6

Butler's visits to the 1885 Salon bore fruit the following year. "News reached me today (though not official)," he wrote triumphantly to his mother on March 30, 1886, "that two pictures of mine

Elisabeth Stevens is a free-lance writer living in Princeton, New Jersey. She has written about art for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and many magazines.



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Howard Russell Butler, The Seaweed Gatherers, 1886, oil on canvas (46 x 96 in.). Collection Mr. and Mrs. Howard Russell Butler, Jr.

have been accepted by the Salon jury." 7 Since "nearly two thirds of the

works submitted" had been rejected and "many of the Americans" had been "rejected altogether," the acceptance was particularly gratifying." Despite his ela- tion, however, Butler took pains to de- scribe to his mother the Salon hanging process.

"After the jury has examined all the pictures submitted and selected those which are to be hung," he explained, "they proceed to divide the successful pictures into four classes. ... Class No. 1 is the highest. This is limited to a small number of the very best works, and these receive the places of special honor, such as the centers of the line. Class No. 2 comes next, and these receive the 2nd best places. Then comes Class No. 3, which fill up the larger part of the wall spaces, and lastly Class No. 4, which are skyed." 9

Butler's two pictures, however, were not "skyed." Rather than being relegated to the highest and least viewable row, his major offering, La Recolte des Varechs, a large, yellow sunset painting of peasants gathering seaweed on a Brittany beach, won honorable mention.10 At the same time, Butler's other canvas, Soir d'Octo- bre, a sunset view of meadows near Paris, was placed in "Class No. 2." 11 Since, as Butler related proudly to his father sev- eral months later, the "award of Honora- ble Mention" had only been "given to seven Americans," it was important.12 La Recolte des Varechs was widely mentioned by both American and European reviewers, and, in 1888, it took the Tem- ple Marine medal at the Pennsylvania Academy.l13

In 1887, Butler again had two works accepted at the Salon, both of which he had painted in England the previous summer. They were large pictures: "one a moonrise with sheen over the sea and sandy shore with three small boys in the foreground playing jack-stones; the other, a breaking wave crossed by the sheen of the afternoon sun." 14

In the fall of 1887, Butler returned to America. After a trip to Mexico, where he had studied with the well-known landscapist Frederic E. Church in 1884, Butler settled in a studio on 57th Street in New York.15

Though Butler was able to make a name as a landscape painter by showing for two years at the Paris Salon, the seemingly all-important standards and assumptions of this vast exhibition were but a part of his artistic education abroad. An important offshoot of the Salon-ori- ented French art scene was the almost obligatory summer painting excursion to picturesque places. As Butler wrote his sister Mary in July, 1885, "The Salon is over. The medals have been given. A new art fiscal year has begun. Paris has no longer any attractions to the artist. In a week's time, they will nearly all be gone." 16

"It is under the inspiration of one Salon that the subjects for the next are chosen," Butler explained further. "Many of the artists go with the intention of spending the whole year (i.e. till the opening of the next Salon) in painting a single picture, all working for the 'Me- daille d'Honneur.' " 17

Like the others then, Butler spent the summers of 1885 through 1887 away from Paris. In 1885, he established himself at a painting colony in Concarneau,

Brittany, and in 1886 and 1887 he worked in England at St. Ives, Cornwall.

The American seascape painter Thomas Alexander Harrison was "the most important" artist at Concarneau, Butler told his father in a letter written July 5, 1885. There, in emulation of Har- rison and other compatriots, Butler in- tended to "paint both shore scenes and street scenes" and spend "most of my time ... making small studies for the sake of practice." 18s

In Concarneau, Butler made the first sketches for his 1886 Salon picture La Recolte des Varechs, enjoying at the same time the relaxed atmosphere. "You can always get models to pose for you," he wrote Mary. '"The small boy is on hand to run your errands. The people are so used to artists that you are not always surrounded with a crowd of specta- tors." 19

Also in Concarneau, as he wrote his sister Hattie, Butler enjoyed "the strong sunlight which brings out all the colors

. and which develops transparent shades and shadows which are my de- light. ... My great aim this summer," he continued, "is to keep my paint clean, that is to produce any tints I want, but which when examined closely show their component colors in all their purity.... Harrison is a great man on clean color, and as I am with him a great deal, I ex- pect to learn much that I can apply in my own work." D

Thomas Alexander Harrison, an artist who in Butler's opinion was "going to stand high among marine painters" and who was "drawn on by love for his work and for nature," influenced Butler in- creasingly as summer progressed. "I think," Butler wrote his father, "that the



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American artists here are inclined to be lazy and to fritter away their time. [But Harrison] wastes neither time nor oppor- tunity. He studies almost every twilight, and he has the rare gift of taking in an effect without painting it - I consider his color very fine and very true to nature.'"1

The idyll at Concameau, months in which Butler absorbed artistic ideas and attitudes that were to serve him for the rest of his life, ended abruptly in October when, as he wrote his mother, he was "compelled to leave Brittany... by a slight cholera scare." 22

Once back in Paris, he settled in a studio on the Right Bank. "I could have saved considerable in the line of expenses by living on the other side of the river, but it would have been at the cost of happiness. My chief reason for settling here," added Butler, who was ever conservative, "is to avoid the Latin Quarter. Students' life there is of a kind in which I have no sympathy." 23

If Butler followed convention both in considering the Salon the pinnacle of artistic achievement and in spending his summers at work in picturesque places in preparation for this central event, he also followed the established pattern in studying, during the winter, at some of the well-known Paris ateliers. Enclosed, apparently, with one of Butler's letters to his family in 1885 was a folder from the Academie Humbert et Gervex, the first atelier he attended. According to this

document, the academy offered a model every day from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. except Sunday. The model took a pose for the week on Monday, and the students took their places.24

New students were obliged to pay an entry fee of 100 francs and were warned: "Nul ne peut entrer dans l'atelier s'il ne parle francais." 25

And what did Butler think of the French art education he experienced at the Academie Humbert et Gervex and later at the ateliers of Dagnan-Bouveret and Alfred Philippe Roll?

As he wrote Hattie soon after his arrival in Paris: "The French know how to draw. Boys are put into the ateliers at twelve to fifteen years of age and are made to draw steadily for ten years. It becomes second nature for them to draw. But such men are too apt to think that drawing is everything. The Salon is filled with pictures admirably drawn but be- yond that with nothing to attract." 26

Though Butler was to visit Europe many more times after he returned to New York in 1887, his artistic education was essentially complete. For the rest of his active life (he died in 1934), he continued to paint landscapes, seascapes (his chief delights), and portraits, which pro- vided a steady source of income. He ex- hibited in the large, Salon-like art shows in the various expositions of his era (the Atlanta Exposition of 1894, the Buffalo Exposition of 1901, the San Francisco

Exposition of 1915, and so on), and, during the summers, unless he went West or to Europe, he painted at East Hamp- ton, Long Island, until he acquired a house at Baldhead Cliff, Maine, in 1915.27

Besides living and painting in a man- ner that reflected the tastes and patterns of the Paris of his formative years, Butler spent a great deal of time working with art associations and in art-related busi- ness activities. He belonged to the So- ciety of American Artists, helped to or- ganize the American Fine Arts Society, and was eventually elected vice-president of the National Academy.2- Having be- come friendly with Andrew Carnegie, whose portrait he painted at least seven- teen times, Butler also served as president of Carnegie Music Hall from 1894 to 1905, supervised the land purchase and construction of Carnegie's 91st Street mansion, and obtained Carnegie's sup- port for the construction of Lake Carne- gie at Princeton University, which was completed in 1904.29

Butler also maintained a life-long interest in astronomy. He was chosen to accompany the United States Naval Ob- servatory party to Oregon to paint a total eclipse of the sun in 1918; he painted solar eclipses again in 1923 and 1925. He supervised exhibits for the Astronomical Hall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and was named an Honorary Fellow of that institution in 1926.30

Howard Russell Butler, Hayle, near St. Ives, Cornwall, England, 1886, oil on canvas (15 x 21%/4 in.). Collection Mr. and Mrs. Howard Russell Butler, Jr.

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Butler's many activities (he was of course a member of the Century Club) perhaps reflect both his own wide-ranging abilities and the conservative assumptions that were current during his formative years. He might be described as a gentleman artist in the best sense. To him art meant intensive observation in an established mode, not innovative self-expression. Within these limits, he was a competent portraitist and landscape painter who was sometimes able, particularly in some of his seascapes, to deal skillfully and subtly with sky tones and reflections in water. Also, some of his small pastel studies for full-scale paintings have an outstanding vitality of observation and freshness of color.

On September 13, 1885, Butler wrote from abroad: 'There are other careers more noble and important than art. But there must be some lives consecrated to this profession, and mine is one of them. I must do with all my might what my hand has found to do, and I propose to do it for all that I am worth." 31

Viewing his career as a whole, it would appear that he accomplished his aim. At the same time, he left behind letters, an autobiography, and other ma- terials that present an intimate and read- able account of the conservative art scene of his time.

NOTES

1. Butler to his mother, May 10, 1885, Howard Russell Butler Collection, Archives of American Art (unless otherwise cited all material is to be found in this collection).

2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Butler to Hattie, May 20, 1885. 6. Ibid., June 21, 1885. 7. Butler to his mother, March 30, 1886. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Butler to his father, July 8, 1886. 11. Butler to his mother, March 30, 1886. 12. Butler to his father, July 8, 1886. 13. The Howard Russell Butler Collection in-

cludes review clippings from newspapers ranging from Galignani i Messenger to The Boston Weekly Transcript. The winning of the Temple Marine medal is mentioned by Butler in his unpublished manuscript "Biographical Notes," p. 191.

14. Butler, "Biographical Notes," p. 167. 15. Ibid., p. 210. 16. Butler to Mary, July 3, 1885. 17. Ibid. 18. Butler to his father, July 5, 1885. 19. Butler to Mary, July 19, 1885. 20. Butler to Hattie, August 2, 1885. 21. Butler to his father, August 31, 1885. 22. Butler to his mother, October 22, 1885. 23. Butler to his father, November 8, 1885. 24. Unsigned folder, Academie Humbert et

Gervex. 25. Ibid. ("No one may enter the studio unless

he speaks French"). 26. Butler to Hattie, May 20, 1885. 27. Howard Russell Butler: An Exhibition of

His Oils, Pastels and Drawings, essay by Elisabeth Stevens, Princeton, N.J., 1977, pp. 30-31.

28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., p. 31. 31. Butler to Hattie, September 13, 1885.

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Rockwell Kent, Self Portrait, 1934, lithograph. Courtesy Rockwell Kent Legacies (Photo: Rosemary Ranck).

Art and Politics in 1912

David Traxel

The years just before World War I were lively ones in both politics and the arts. Rebel movements gave hope that the old orders were crumbling; change was in the air and seemed, to those involved, irresistible. Such optimism proved to be

only partly justified: the Great War maimed the political movements, but the arts successfully burst their old bonds and entered a period of wide-ranging freedom.

Actively involved in these struggles was Rockwell Kent, and in the rich and varied collection of Kent material at the Archives of American Art are letters that help us understand these movements, their times, and the personalities of three men who were closely connected with them.

David Traxel received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution from 1974 to 1975 and is currently writing a biogra- phy of Rockwell Kent.



Howard Russell Butler An American in Paris: 1885-1887

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