Difference between revisions of "John LaFarge" - New World Encyclopedia
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== John La Farge == | == John La Farge == | ||
| − | (March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was one of the most innovative and versatile American artists of the nineteenth century, renowned as a painter; in oils and watercolors, a magazine and book illustrator, a muralist and designer of stained-glass windows. He was an author of articles and books on art and travel. La Farge was also known as one of the great conversationalists of his time. "He was quite the most interesting person we knew," wrote Henry James and compared to Whistler and others, he was quite the most brilliant talker, according to Royal Cortissoz. He seemed able to fascinate all levels of society and with Winslow Homer, the only person with whom he could talk about art. His son John was to say that 'everything that his father did was interesting.' Henry Adams gave the greatest compliment saying, "La Farge was great man-this is rarely true of artists, La Farge needed nothing but his soul to make him great." | + | (March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was one of the most innovative and versatile American artists of the nineteenth century, renowned as a painter; in oils and watercolors, a magazine and book illustrator, a muralist and designer of stained-glass windows. He was an author of articles and books on art and travel. La Farge was also known as one of the great conversationalists of his time. "He was quite the most interesting person we knew," wrote Henry James and compared to Whistler and others, he was quite the most brilliant talker, according to Royal Cortissoz. He seemed able to fascinate all levels of society and with Winslow Homer, the only person with whom he could talk about art. His son John was to say that 'everything that his father did was interesting.' Henry Adams gave the greatest compliment saying, "La Farge was great man-this is rarely true of artists, La Farge needed nothing but his soul to make him great." His influence of others embraced the writers, Henry Adams and Henry James both of whom may have turned out differently without his input. |
| + | As a result of the great variety of his work, some great and some not so, it has been difficult to assess his importance overall but it is thought that each work must be judged individually. | ||
He is known as a quintessential "Renaissance man" of the American Renaissance. | He is known as a quintessential "Renaissance man" of the American Renaissance. | ||
Revision as of 17:07, 21 February 2009
| John LaFarge | |
 John La Farge, 1902 | |
| Born | March 31 1835 New York City, New York |
| Died | November 14 1910 (aged 75) |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Painting, Stained glass art, Decorator, Writer |
| Training | Mount St. Mary's University |
John La Farge
(March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was one of the most innovative and versatile American artists of the nineteenth century, renowned as a painter; in oils and watercolors, a magazine and book illustrator, a muralist and designer of stained-glass windows. He was an author of articles and books on art and travel. La Farge was also known as one of the great conversationalists of his time. "He was quite the most interesting person we knew," wrote Henry James and compared to Whistler and others, he was quite the most brilliant talker, according to Royal Cortissoz. He seemed able to fascinate all levels of society and with Winslow Homer, the only person with whom he could talk about art. His son John was to say that 'everything that his father did was interesting.' Henry Adams gave the greatest compliment saying, "La Farge was great man-this is rarely true of artists, La Farge needed nothing but his soul to make him great." His influence of others embraced the writers, Henry Adams and Henry James both of whom may have turned out differently without his input. As a result of the great variety of his work, some great and some not so, it has been difficult to assess his importance overall but it is thought that each work must be judged individually. He is known as a quintessential "Renaissance man" of the American Renaissance.
Biography
Born in New York City, New York, of French parentage, he grew up speaking several languages in a home full of books and paintings. His interest in art was aroused early by his grandfather, Binsse, who, had him accurately copy engravings, at age six. Later as a teenager at Columbia Grammar School, he was taught by an English watercolorist and a few years later he studied drawing with Regis-Francois Gignoux, who had also taught George Innes. During his training at Mount St. Mary's University[1] and St. John's College (now Fordham University)he had only the study of law in view until he left for the Europe for the Gand Tour. There he met his cousin, Paul de Saint-Victor with whom he enjoyed the most brilliant literary society of the day. In France he also briefly studied painting with Thomas Couture, visited French medieval cathedrals and then travelled in Germany, Belgium and Denmark copying drawings in the print rooms of museums. In the Fall of 1857, he returned home, his father seriously ill and attended his father's funeral a year later. La Farge now made friends with the architect Richard Morris Hunt, a brilliant student from L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, who recommended him to his brother William Morris Hunt, who, Newport, Rhode Island, was looking for pupils to teach painting. He'd also studied with Couture and had been influenced by Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon school and its principles. La Farge felt that it was a chance to study painting more seriously. Even his earliest drawings and landscapes, done after his marriage in 1861 to Margaret Mason Perry, sister-in-law of Lilla Cabot Perry, show marked originality, especially in the handling of color values, and also the influence of Japanese art, in the study of which he was a pioneer, in tandem with the French Impressionists, the difference being that he actually spent time in Japan.
La Farge's inquiring mind led him to experiment with color problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He succeeded not only in rivaling the gorgeousness of the medieval windows, but in adding new resources by his invention of opalescent glass and his original methods of superimposing and welding his material. Among his many masterpieces are the "Battle Window" at Harvard and the cloisonné "Peacock Window" in the Worcester Art Museum. Two of his largest windows are located in Unity Church in North Easton, Massachusetts. The earliest of these, the "Angel of Help" was completed in 1887 while the "Figure of Wisdom" dates to 1901. Both of these windows were restored by "Victor Rothman for Stained Glass Inc" of Yonkers, New York in the 1990's.
Between 1859 and 1870, he illustrated Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Robert Browning's Men and Women. Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of color are shown by his mural decorations. His first work in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Church, New York. For the State Capitol at St. Paul he executed, in his seventy-first year, four great lunettes representing the history of religion, and for the Supreme Court building at Baltimore, a similar series with Justice as the theme. In addition there are his vast numbers of other paintings and water colors, notably those recording his extensive travels in the Orient and South Pacific.
His labors in almost every field of art won for him from the French Government the Cross of the Legion of Honor and membership in the principal artistic societies of America, as well as the presidency of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1899 through 1904. Enjoying an extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art, by his cultured personality and reflective conversation he greatly influenced all who knew him. Though naturally a questioner he venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved always his Catholic faith and reverence.
In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. On his passing in 1910, John LaFarge was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. During his life, he maintained a studio at 51 West 10th Street, in Greenwich Village, which today is part of the site of Eugene Lang College.[2]
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Children
His eldest son, Christopher Grant LaFarge, was a partner in the New York-based architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge, responsible for projects in Beaux-Arts style, notably the original Byzantine Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Yale undergraduate society St. Anthony Hall (extant 1893-1913) pictured at,[3] and the original Astor Court buildings of the Bronx Zoo.
His son Oliver Hazard Perry LaFarge I became an architect and real estate developer. Part of his career in real estate was in a Seattle partnership with Marshall Latham Bond, Bond & LaFarge. During the year 1897 to 1898 Seattle real estate which had gone through a bubble was in a slump. The partners left and participated in the Klondike Gold Rush. Among the camp fire mates at Dawson City during the Fall of 1897 was Jack London who rented a tent site from Marshall Bond. In Seattle the Perry Building designed after LaFarge returned is still standing. Later on in life O.H.P. LaFarge designed buildings for General Motors.
Another of his sons, John LaFarge S.J. became a Jesuit priest and a strong supporter of anti-racial policies. He wrote several books and articles before the war on this subject, one of which caught the eye of Pope Pius XI who summoned him to Rome and asked him to work out a new encyclical, Humani Generis Unitas, against Nazi policies. John LaFarge completed work on the encyclical, but unfortunately it reached the pope only three weeks before the pope's death. It remained buried in the Vatican archives and was only rediscovered a few years ago. John LaFarge S.J. was born February 13, 1880 and died November 25, 1963. His most famous books are The Manner is Ordinary (1953), Race Relations (1956), and Reflections on Growing Old (1963).
Selection of LaFarge's writings
- The American Art of Glass (a pamphlet)
- Considerations on Painting (New York, 1895)
- An Artist's Letters from Japan (New York, 1897)
- The Great Masters (New York)
- Hokusai: a talk about Japanese painting (New York, 1897)
- The Higher Life in Art (New York, 1908)
- One Hundred Great Masterpieces
- The Christian Story in Art
- Letters from the South Seas (unpublished)
- Correspondence (unpublished)
Notes
- ↑ Works by Mount Saint Mary's Alumnus to be Featured in Exhibit. emmitsburg.net. Retrieved 2007-07-06.
- ↑ Kenneth T. Jackson:The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 650.
- ↑ Yale's Lost Landmarks at www.yalealumnimagazine.com
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Adams, Foster, La Farge, Weinberg, Wren and Yarnell, John La Farge, Abbeville Publishing Group (Abbeville Press, Inc.), NY, NY 1987 ISBN 0-89659-678-8
- Cortissoz, Royal, John La Farge: A Memoir and a Study, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1911
- Forbes, David W., "Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941," Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 201-220.
- Gaede, Robert and Robert Kalin, Guide to Cleveland Architecture, Cleveland Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Cleveland OH 1991
- Kowski, Goldman et al, Buffalo Architecture:A Guide, The MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1981
- Waern, Cecilia, John La Farge: Artist and Writer, Seeley and Co. Limited, London 1896
External links
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
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