My eyes are closed, yet still I see And hear the care-free singers pass, And she is pleading, "Wait, O, wait!" Eternal youth untouched by scars! Vast lances gemmed with yellow stars. O sacred, luminous Music Land! No rain-wet, weary mortals stand, With numb, cold heart and haggard eyes. Thy wars are only pictured wars, Thy very woes but pageantries; Thy stately heroes bear no scars, And silver songs thy maidens' cries. Would we might lose our way, and stand A AN AMERICAN LANDSEER. By Frank T.. Robinson. MONG the many artists who are deserters from their original commercial employment, none stand more prominent in their professions than Alexander Pope, the animal painter. Like Quentin Matsys, who began with wroughtiron in his native Antwerp and ultimately painted the "Banker and his Wife," now in the Louvre, he departs from the narrow limits of his original, ordinary occupation, and seeks with anxious mind to elevate himself above the low horizon to the more creative sphere; becomes an interpreter of sketches of horses before he was seven years old, and these disclose a fair idea of how a horse looks both in repose and action. They were not awkward scrawls, hurried scratches; they were studies, showing a desire to locate the parts where they belong. Later on, birds, game of all kinds, dogs, insects, every creature which Alexander Pope. tine matters, albeit the ultimatum proved that there was nothing lost in the training. As a youth, when but an aproned boy, he evidenced his love for a horse, not alone for the fun he could have with him, but for the character, nobleness, and spirit of the animal. He drew many pencil might be associated with the life of a sportsman, attracted his eye, and he never was contented until he had either made a drawing of them or reproduced them in some intelligible form. We find him at the age of twenty engrossed in an earnest way with wood carving; and nat urally enough, being fond of out-of-door life, riding, and hunting, he invariably selected game for his models. In this specialty, Pope gained quite a noto riety, and for cause. I have before me a couple of his pheasants, carved and colored to the life. The modelling is perfect, the feathery textures as light as air; the birds seem to be only temporarily inanimate. Works like this found their way into many collections, conspicuous among his patrons being the Czar of Russia, who along, endeavoring to control the impulse as it escaped from his finger tips, he essayed several commissions, and in 1881 and '82 executed a number of meritorious busts, perhaps the best being the portrait of Father Merrill, now hanging in Wesleyan Hall. Pope's work in clay was characterized by sensitiveness of touch, was not in the least mechanical, and yet it showed the amateur at tools, though always animated by intelligence and love; it was progressive. The defiant palpability of material not only gave Pope an idea of his own conventional powers, but it awoke within him the consciousness of the fact that at best he could not attain eminence in that specialty. Indeed, he things, he was well prepared to study into that fascinating and tempting realm, color. For several years he had, aside from the rendering of plumage tints, and fashioning clay, used pigments; and up to 1886 had painted a number of dog portraits more or less interesting as portraits and generally pleasing in ensemble. His first important commission, or rather his first publicly recognized canvas, was that of the game cocks, "Blood will Tell," owned by Mr. Allen of the Astor House, New York. Several worthy groups of still life-birds, baskets, and sportsmen's implements, comprising the compositions - followed this effort; then came the St. Bernard dog, painted for a Portland gentleman, which attracted the attention of dog fanciers, and to such an extent that Pope received several commissions, among them being one from Mr John E. Thayer, of his Gordon setter, "Argus," and a life portrait of Mr. Bayard Thayer's pointer, "Rue." The latter was shown at Goupil's New York galleries, and unquestionably paved the way to his success in that city. considered, part for part, and the whole balanced remarkably well. In large collections where it was shown, it would be the first to be noticed, and the last also, "Rue." PAINTED FOR MR. BAYARD THAYER, LANCASTER, MASS. In the fall of 1886, the artist took up the canvas which really established his reputation as an animal painter and by which he made his debut as an artist. In company with Emil Carlsen, who laid in the background, Pope executed the heroic canvas which is now hung in the Boston Tavern, and which shows a hunting party just forming. The picture was full of color, of manly vigor, and from the first public exhibition of the work, which was entitled "Calling out the Hounds," Pope's art future seemed assured. The canvas was shown in several galleries, and it was conceded by the artists and critics to be not only a decorative work, but to contain the elements of "go" and insight into composition quite beyond the grasp of the average painter of the day. Here was displayed much knowledge of the hunt, of costumes, of anatomy, of the action of dogs, their characteristics and earnestness in the time of action; the details were carefully for it started and ended the color note of the exhibition. This fact was not due particularly to the red-coated huntsmen, whose colors were arrayed against the autumn gray of clouds, and the barren, brown tree-branches, but was largely attributed to the freshness of the color, its liveliness, newness of subject and airy naturalness. At all events, the painter gained the respect of his contemporaries for his endeavor, and of the critics for his promise. Following this work, Pope produced several realistic exhibition pictures of still-life, which were shown in New York and were the means of bringing him into contact with many prominent gentlemen, lovers of animals, who were able to comprehend the artist's interpretations as well as his artistic ability. In 1888, Pope began to enlarge his sphere of action, outgrew the mere portrait phases of his art, became a picture painter, introducing incident and appropriate surroundings in all his works. He executed in the winter of 1887 and '88 a commission for Mr. Whitney of Rochester, N. Y., entitled Waiting," which was the beginning of a series of interesting canvases. |