File:Benjamin Curtis Porter - The hour-glass.jpg

Identifier: americanpainters00shel (find matches)
Title: American painters: with eighty-three examples of their work engraved on wood
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Sheldon, George William, 1843-1914
Subjects: Painters Painting, American
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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an.The motive of the representation had the disadvantage of being consideredby some spectators to be a little stagy. Other persons preferred the dog tothe woman ; others still liked the attitude of the woman best of all; but thepicture, as a whole, met with popular and academic recognition. It was fullof delicate realization and of linear grace; in its treatment there was neitherbaldness nor artificiality; and if, as a piece of character-painting, it was some-what wanting in dejith and precision, in evidences of artistic insight at thedisposal of a brush used to the rendition of difficult and subtile phases ofpsychologic interest, it possessed other merits sufficient to entitle it to intel-ligent respect, and to justify the frequently-expressed wish to buy it. Mr.Porter, who was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, August 27, 1843, has theadvantage—or disadvantage—of having studied regularly under no master.Contrary to the usual practice, he did not enter any art-school, nor the studio
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THE HOUR-CLASS.From a Painting by Benjamin Curtis Porlei p. 77. BENJAMIN CURTIS PORT El;. 77 of any painter, nor did he receive set lessons in painting. He went to Bostonearly in life, and picked up, as chance or inclination threw them in his way,the principles of his profession. In 1872, when twenty-nine years old, hospent six months in Europe, principally in Paris and in Venice; but, althoughhe studied considerably, he attached himself to no particular artist. In 1875he again spent six months in those cities; and in May, 1878, made his thirdtrip across the Atlantic. One morning in that month he was in the east-roomof the National Academy in New York, putting some turpentine on the por-trait of Mrs. T. F. Gushing, of Boston, on exhibition there, the varnish ofwhich had bloomed, as the painters say. This picture, while not scoring an advance on the Portrait of a Lady,with Dog, has nevertheless several commendable features. Mrs. dishing isrepresented life-size, and descending a flight

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