Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1925-08-13
WORK OF LITERARY
PORTRAIT PAINTER
Wholesome Realism Should
Be Sole Aim.


the portraits Of the master of the
Hermitage and his wife painted in an
article by Meade Minnegerode again
raises the question of the value of the
work of the new school of portrait
painting. Nothing is so drab and
dreary as the unrelieved eulogy in
which all the human blemishes of the
subject are painted out and nothing
more deceptive and unjust than giving
to these blemishes such exaggerated
Importance as to make them domi-
nate the whole. But the general ten
dency toward realism in biography is
altogether wholesome. Men, and the
best of men, are made up of elements
OF strength and weakness, and there
can be no honest portrait of a man
or woman in WHICH both elements are
not given their proportionate place.
We want no more Parson Weems and
no more biographical portraits paint
ed to order to satisfy the sensibilities
of the subjects family, a writer in
the New York World af1irms.
There is one danger, however, in
the tendency of some of these por-
trait painters. Because there is some
thing in human nature which Graves
to know the worst of a fellow-being
who has attained distinction, the biog-
rapher seeking popularity is tempted
to seek the weaknesses and to min
imize the elements of strength. 1t is
easy to paint grotesque Jackson,
a supercunning Jefferson and black
Burr. Easy to paint a portrait of
Lincoln, uncouth, awkward, socially
crude, commonplace, even vulgar.
Easy to paint Washington cold, ma
terialistic, uninspiring and offensive.
Easy thus to paint these men if the
writer sets out with the determina-
ton to paint them so, through the
Overemphasis of their shortcomings
and the rejection of other and over
shadowing qualities.
And what John Adams could be
painted His childish vanity, his
almost puerile love of show, his pas
sion for distinctions and titles, his
petty jealousies, his strutting pomp
and ridiculous pose, his RACES of
temper-use these qualities, unques-
tionably his, to the exclusion of others
and what laughaole creature we
havel But that would make carl
cature and not a portrait Into hon.
est realistic portraiture must likewise
go his real ability, his superb moral
courage, his manly independence, his
robust patriotism. A portrait of the
first sort would make inexplicable his
high position in the state; one of the
second kind, without his weaknesses
painted in, would make Incompetent
sible his unpopularity and fall; and
the only portrait which would explain
the man, his greatness and his fall.
would be that including all the quail
ties that made him.
Along with this disposition to over
emphasize the failings of a subject,
to which too many modern literary
portrait painters are prone, is the
less offensive tendency in others to
twist traits to the justification of their
preeonceptions. Here even Gamaliel
Bradford is not wholly free-albeit
usually 50 and always conscientious.
His conception of Aaron Burr as a
mar who looked on life as a gay adj
venture for the extraction of fun may
be possible but it was scarcely just
to cite his action in carrying the body
Of Richard Montgomery, his loved
commander on his shoulders through
rain of tullets to the American line
No such extraordinary explanation is
necessary. Burr's natural gallantry,
his devotion to his friends, his love of
Montgomery, offer explanation enough,
and he is surely entitled to the credit.
On that occasion Burr was not playing
child's game, he was doing brave
mans work
Many years ago Cromwell gave the
best possible advice to the literary
portrait painter-"warts and ALL" He
did not say just warts" but warts
and ALL" Only thus can We have a
living likeness painted with fidelity to
truth. 1t is q wholesome tendency to
paint in the warts, but it can be cas-
lily overdone-when nothing but warts
are shown.