Browere's Life Masks of Great AmericansHart, Charles Henry
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Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans
Hart, Charles Henry
Browere, John Henri Isaac, 1792-1834; Masks (Sculpture); Sculpture, American; United States -- Biography -- Portraits
The very illiberal and ungentleman-like manner in which Col.
Trumbull treated the execution, &c., of my portrait-busts of
Ex-President Adams and Honorable Charles Carroll with the statue of
Ex-President Jefferson, late displayed in the banquetting hall of
the Hon. Common Council of New York, has evidenced a personal
ill-will and hostility to me that I shall not pass over in silence.
The envy and jealousy inherent in your nature and expressed in
common conversations intimate to me a man of a perverse and
depraved mind.
Rest assured, Sir, I fear not competition with you as a portrait or
historic painter; I know your fort, and your failings. To convince
you that I know somewhat of the Arts of Design, I shall
immediately commence an analysis of your four pictures painted for
Congress, and shall endeavor therein to refer to each and every
figure plagiarized from English and other prints. Your assertion to
me that you made your portraits therein to correspond with their
characters, will assuredly go for as much as they deserve. In my
opinion, ideal likenesses ought not to be palmed on a generous
public for real ones.
Remember what was said on the floor of Congress in reference to
your four celebrated pictures: “Instead of being worth $32,000 they
were not worth 32 cents.” In remembering this remember that “nemo
me impune lacessit.” And by attending to your own concerns you will
retain a reputation or name of being an able artist and not a
slanderer.
BROWERE, _Sculptor_.
Colonel Trumbull has endorsed this letter: “_Browere. Poor man! too much
vanity hath made him mad._”
However, from a letter written three years later to the Directors of the
American Academy of the Fine Arts, and “_Favored by Col. Trumbull_,” it
would appear that the two artists had healed their differences; but
Browere’s feeling of resentment toward the National Academy of Design
knew no abatement. He was kept out of the National Academy by Dunlap,
who also ignored him in his malevolent and unreliable “History of the
Arts of Design in the United States.” The cause for this, as stated by
Browere’s son, was that before Browere had ever met Dunlap he was asked
his opinion of Dunlap’s painting of “Death on the Pale Horse,” then on
public exhibition. He replied: “It’s a strong work, but looks as if it
were painted by a man with but one eye.” This remark was reported to
Dunlap, who actually had but one eye. He was mortally offended at the
sculptor’s insight, and became his undying enemy. Browere wrote to the
Academy as follows:
NEW YORK, 31 July, 1829.
_Gentlemen_:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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