The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-12-07
An Hour with an Artist.

dawdlng than dawdling away an hour in an
artists studio, filling ones eyes with color and
tobacco smoke, and listening to half understood
but wholly enjoyed talk about pictures. Most
people think themselves gifted by nature with
technical knowledge and appreciation of art.
Fortunate is he who sits with Harry Brown and
finds the errors of his half knowledge disspate
themselves one by one in the light OF the ar
lists kindly criticism. With fine tact that is
the perfection of courtesy the genial painter
persuades you that the hints he carelessy
drops are supplementary to and called forth by
your own profound remarks, and you carry
away with you the comfortable conviction that
your abilities as an art critic have produced a
favorable impression upon him, and that the
suggestion you ventured to make will be turned
to account in his next picture. You leave him
feeling that, if possible, you know more about
art than you did when you came Be assured
you do much more; for the painter in that quiet
way of his, has been teaching you all the
while.
AT any time Mr.. Browns studio offers great
attractions. At present he has Christmas tide
in mind, and so larger number of pictures
than usual reward the visitor. The studio it,
self, with its brown walls, which make so adj
mirable background for paintings, its glories
of color in border and ceiling, its nlaid floor
its rare prints and bronzes is pleasure to look
at.
Very likely the visitor will find the artist
seated before his easel, palette on thumb and
brush in hand, touching up a rare sunrise, the
motif of the picture upon which he is now at
work. The sky is a mackerel sky, flaming
with color. The green sea craw!s beneath,
while in the foreground is a stranded bark,
half dsmantled, standing out black against
sea and sky. In all probability he is smoking
Perhaps is putting at new and huge mer-
schaum, over which faint yellow dlscoloration
is beginning to creep, perhaps at a favorte
brierwood of grotesque shape, black with use
and soaked with the juices of the great plant
In Difference to the visitor he may toy with a
cigar for half hour. But rest assured that he
will return to the pipe when the visitor is gone.
A cigar is very well to amuse ones self with,
but for the serious business Of life we require
pipe. 1t is difficult to conceive of an artist
without pipe, and one often falls to wonder
ing how there could have been great painters
before the Indian weed became known to the
white man.
From his sketching tour Mr.. Brown has
brought back many fine studies. There are
dainty bits of color from Mt. Desert, from Nova
Scotia, from the valley of the Saco. An unfin-
ished picture of Artists Falls, of much prom
Use, stands on an easel. Brown rocks, of that
Gothic architecture in which nature has seen fit
to build at Cape Split, rise up from the en-
croaching sea on canvas which hangs against
the wall. All about are other sketches; a heap
of sand dunes at Old Orchard with the rank
water-grass sprinsing up from them and the
stunted evergreens in the back ground; "a sketch
along the Saco, the stream gayly leaping down
over the rocks, while on either side broad, quiet
meadows extend away; or huge cliff in the
bay, against which the waves angrily chafe and
throw their white caps in impatient impotence.
In anticipation of the holiday demand Mr..
Brown has been very busy with his brush of
late, aud has produced some charming pictures
suitable for oval frames. Some of these are
marines, such as Brown loves to paint, with
the well-known yellowish green where the light
strikes the waves,-a tint which one so often
sees on summer day at the islands Some
show Turneresque audacity of color and treat
ment. In some, wood scenes, the trees are
brilliant with an autumnal splendor of foliage
In others the blue Mediterranean smiles up at
ruined castles, to whose dismaptled walls the
ivy clings.
One passes his hour in the studio pleasantly
and proftably, smoking, chatting little, look
ing about great deal. One of tie pleasantest
pictures to look at is the artist himself with his
kindly eyes and great beard,-a beard peculiar
to painters and patriarchs-and head with its
strongly developed ideality and sense of form
and color