Marsilio

americans in Florencesargent and the american impressionists

edited byFrancesca Bardazzi

carlo sisi

Marsilio

americans in Florencesargent and the american impressionists

Exhibition curated byFrancesca BardazziCarlo Sisi

Scholarly advisory boardKatherine BourguignonMarc SimpsonCarol Troyen

Exhibition realized byFondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Installation designLuigi Cupelliniwith the collaboration ofCarlo Pellegrini

Exhibition graphics and communication designRovaiWeber design

Exhibition installationGalli AllestimentiAtlas e Livelux Light DesignersStampa in StampaAlessandro TerzoFranco Bianchi

Accompanyng texts in the exhibitionLudovica Sebregondi

Translation of accompanyng textsStephen TobinLara FantoniXue Cheng Mila Alieva

Communication and promotionSusanna HolmSigma CSC

Press officeAntonella Fiori (national press)Sue Bond Public Relations (international press)

WebsiteNetribe

Multimedia applications NetribeOnde ComunicazioneResearchBenedetta Scarpelli

Graphic novel “Alla prima” Texts and illustrationsKevin HuizengaPrinted editionComma 22iPad editionZ-app

Family itineraryTextsJames M. Bradburne, Devorah BlockTranslationsLara Fantoni

Programming for families, youth and adults Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Groups and schools programsSigma CSC

Exhibition reservation officeSigma CSC

Exhibition and ticket office staffTML Service

Multichannel ticket office Vivaticket by Charta

Audio guidesSTART

InsuranceAON ArtscopeCS Insurance Service – Axa ArtLloyd’s

TransportAPICE Firenze srl

Palazzo Strozzi, FlorenceMarch 3, 2012 July 15, 2012

With the patronage ofConsulate General of the United Statesof America in FlorenceMinistero degli Affari Esteri Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali

americans in Florencesargent and the american impressionists

Promoted and organized by

with

and with the contribution of

with the support of

Preventive conservation and climate controlOpificio delle Pietre Dure, Settore Climatologia e Conservazione Preventiva Roberto Boddi, Director Sandra Cassi, Assistant Inspection of the conservational status of works Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Settore Dipinti Mobili Marco Ciatti, Director Chiara Rossi Scarzanella, Technical Director Condition reportsCaterina Toso, Francesca Bettini, Oriana Sartiani, Patrizia Riitano, Luisa Gusmeroli

Head of securityUlderigo Frusi

Head of preventionand protection serviceAndrea Bonciani

Electrical systems assistance and maintenanceSimone Bagnoli

Alarm systems assistance and maintenanceProfessional Security srl

Conditioning systems assistance and maintenanceR.S. di Rossi Sergio & C. srl

Supply of plants and floral decorations Giardino Torrigiani

LendersAndover (ma), Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips AcademyBuffalo (ny), Collection Albright-Knox Art GalleryChestnut Hill (ma), McMullen Museum of Art, Boston CollegeChicago (il), Terra Foundation for American ArtCincinnati (oh), Cincinnati Art MuseumDavenport (ia), Figge Art Museum Florence, The British Institute of FlorenceFlorence, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze Florence, Eredi GraziosiFlorence, Fondazione Carlo MarchiFlorence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Soprintendenza psae e per il Polo Museale della città di FirenzeFlorence, Galleria d’arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti, Soprintendenza psae e per il Polo Museale della città di FirenzeFlorence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Soprintendenza psae e per il Polo Museale della città di FirenzeFlorence, Grand Hotel CavourFlorence, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-InstitutFredericton (nb), Canada, The Beaverbrook Art GalleryGenoa, Raccolte FrugoneIndianapolis (in), Indianapolis Museum of ArtLivorno, E. Angiolini Bottega d’ArteLondon, Bank of America Merrill LynchLondon, National Portrait GalleryLondon, Royal Academy of ArtsLondon, TateMinneapolis (mn), Minneapolis Institute of ArtsNewburyport (ma), Lepore Fine ArtsNewport (ri), William Vareika Fine Arts LtdNew York (ny), Adelson GalleriesNew York (ny), Benjamin La FargeNew York (ny), Brooklyn MuseumNew York (ny), The Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York (ny), National Academy MuseumNew York (ny), Spanierman Gallery, llcNorfolk (va), Chrysler Museum of ArtOld Lyme (ct), Florence Griswold MuseumPhiladelphia (pa), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Philadelphia (pa), Philadelphia Museum of ArtProvidence (ri), Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of DesignRockland (me), Farnsworth Art Museum Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale “Vittorio Emanuele ii”Rome, Soprintendenza alla Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e ContemporaneaSacramento (ca), Crocker Art MuseumSan Francisco (ca), Fine Arts Museums of San FranciscoSaint Louis (mo), Saint Louis Art MuseumSheffield, Museums SheffieldViareggio, Istituto MatteucciWashington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of ArtWashington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian InstitutionWashington, D.C., National Gallery of ArtWashington, D.C., National Museum of Women in the Arts Washington, D.C., Smithsonian American Art MuseumWaterville (me), Colby College Museum of ArtYoungstown (oh), The Butler Institute of American ArtCourtesy Marco BertoliCourtesy Enrico Gallerie d’Arte, Milan-GenoaDrusilla Gucci CaffarelliThe Earl of Dalhousie

We are also grateful to the private lenders.

RestorationsDavenport, Figge Art Museum (cat. no. 70)Florence, Aviv Fürst (cat. no. 6 frame)Florence, Julie Guilmette (cat. no. 53)Florence, L’Atelier (cat. no. 95)Florence, L’Officina del restauro (cat. no. 6 painting)Florence, Letizia Nesi (cat. nos. 14, 56)Florence, Roberto Buda (cat. no. 6 frame)Genoa, Nino Silvestri Restauri s.n.c. (cat. no. 93)London, Hamish Dewar Ltd (cat. no. 1)

The exhibition is part of the “Vespucci Year”, Florence’s celebration of the 500th anniversary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci

Acknowledgments

This initiative has been made possible by the contribution of countless people, whom the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the curators would like to thank. In particular the directors of the museums, the public and private lenders and all those who have made personal efforts toward obtaining the loan of the works in the exhibition: Warren Adelson, Devon Cox, Gina Greer, Ginevra Marchi, Elizabeth Oustinoff, Maria de Peverelli Luschi, James Stourton, Eric Wyding.

Thanks are also due to Francesca Baldry, Emma Baudey, Allen Blevins, Katherine Bourguignon, Mario Calvo-Platero, Ron and Barbara Cordover, Judi Counts, Rena Desisto, Gwendolyn DeSilva, Linda Federici, Elizabeth Glassman, Vivien Green, Amy Gunderson, Carrie Haslett, Maria Manetti Farrow, Sarah C. Morrison, Richard Ormond, John Paulson, Emilia A. Puma, Percy Preston Jr., Kathryn A. Rakich, Jan Shrem, Marc Simpson, Carol Troyen, Anna Villari, Lawrence Weschler, Camilla Zalum, Luigi Zalum.

We would like to express our gratitude to the Gabinetto Letterario G.P. Vieusseux, and in particularGloria Manghetti, Laura Desideri and Caterina Del Vivo for theirvaluable collaboration.

The curators would like to thank Drusilla Gucci Caffarelli, Benjamin La Farge, Phyllis La Farge, Lionardo Lorenzo Ginori Lisci, Franca and Giampaolo Maestrucci, Giuliano Matteucci, Rosanna Morozzi, Giovanna Pistone, Ilaria Taddei, Susanna Weber.

Special thanks to Miel de Bottonand to Walter and Lucille Rubin.

Warm thanks for the generous contribution to

Thanks for making the uniforms of Palazzo Strozzi staff to

Catalogue edited byFrancesca BardazziCarlo Sisi

Essays bySilvio BalloniFrancesca BardazziMargherita CiacciGrazia Gobbi SicaCarlo Sisi

Biographies and entries byFrancesca BardazziLucia ManniniAnna MazzantiCarlo Sisi

We are also grateful to Wanny di Filippo - Il Bisonte for the suitcases for the family activities “Painter’s Satchel”; Lorenzo Villoresi for the perfumes inserted in the “Painter’s Satchel”; Francesca D’Anselmo, Giulia Giuffrida and Ilaria del Giudice of Saatchi & Saatchi Rome for the “Discover America at Palazzo Strozzi” campaign; Andrea Falcone and Floor Robert for the Kamishibai.

ENTE CASSA DI RISPARMIO DI FIRENZE

PresidentJacopo Mazzei

Honorary President Edoardo Speranza

Vice PresidentGiampiero Maracchi

Board of DirectorsDonatella CarmiMarco CarraiLuca GiannozziFranco LucchesiMaria Duccio TrainaRaffaello NapoleoneGiuseppe Rogantini PiccoPierluigi Rossi FerriniFranco ScaramuzziCarlo Sisi

AuditorsStefano CasagniFrancesco Corsi (President)Adriano Moracci

Director GeneralRenato Gordini

Project AnalysisAlessandra Bandini (Art and Culture Department)

FONDAZIONE PALAZZO STROZZI

Institutional Founders Comune di FirenzeProvincia di FirenzeCamera di Commercio di Firenze

FoundersAssociazione Partners Palazzo StrozziBanca CR FirenzeBanca Federico Del VecchioBanca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A.Fondazione Premio Galileo 2000

ChairmanLorenzo Bini Smaghi

Board of TrusteesCristina AcidiniRena DesistoRocco ForteJacopo MazzeiDaniele OlschkiLorenzo Villoresi

AuditorsGian Pietro Castaldi (President)Carlo RidellaMarco Seracini

Director GeneralJames M. Bradburne

Advisory BoardCharles Saumarez Smith (President)Hubertus GassnerMauro NataleAntonio PaolucciMaria de Peverelli LuschiAnnalisa Zanni

Major ExhibitionsPiano Nobile - Palazzo StrozziDirectorAntonella LoieroScholarly and editorial coordinationLudovica SebregondiOrganizational coordination/SeniorRegistrarLinda PacificiLogistical coordination/RegistrarSimona PuglieseAssistant RegistrarManuela Bersottiwith the collaboration ofSandra SerafiniImages management and visualcommunicationElena BottinelliCoordination of educational services Devorah BlockProgramming for families, youth and adultsIrene BalzaniCristina BucciLisa ColombiElena CrudoChiara LachiIlaria MeleChiara Naccarato

Centre for Contemporary CultureStrozzina (CCCS) - Palazzo StrozziDirectorFranziska NoriRegistrarFiorella NicosiaProject coordination Riccardo LamiEducational servicesAlessio BertiniMartino MargheriFrancesca Giulia TavantiInstallation coordination Rita Scrofani

Secretariat and assistant to the DirectorsGiulia Sabattini

Press office and public relationsLavinia Rinaldi

Events managementAlessandra Lotti Margotti

Research and statisticsMiriam Medel

AdministrationLuca BartoliAccountsRossana TrinciSimona Tecà

Fiscal AdvicePietro Longari

Legal AdviceGinevra Giovannoni(Studio legale Contri)

Associazione Partners Palazzo StrozziFounding Members Bank of America Merrill LynchBNL Gruppo BNP Paribas/FindomesticBrevan HowardFingenIntesa SanpaoloLeo FranceSaatchi & SaatchiSalvatore FerragamoThe Boston Consulting GroupThe Rocco Forte CollectionSupporting MembersAcqua PannaAeroporto di FirenzeBassilichiFirenze ParcheggiFondazione Banca del Chianti FiorentinoFondazione Nuovo PignoneKME GroupPubliacquaSaceThe Wine Families (Antinori, Folonari, Frescobaldi, Mazzei)Toscana Finanza Gruppo Banca IFISMembersAssociazione Giovani Industriali FirenzeAssociazione Industriali FirenzeEnicIED - Istituto Europeo di DesignFDE - Florence Discovery Experience

As the city of Florence commemorates the 500th anniversary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci, we join with you in celebrating the historical ties that have long united our two peoples and cultures. The relationship between the United States and Italy predates by almost three centuries the establishment of both our countries as independent, unified nations.For centuries, Americans have sought inspiration from the masterpieces of Italian art and have been drawn to Florence, the cultural heart of Renaissance Italy.The exhibition, Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists, is a celebration of some of the fin-est works of American art that were directly influenced by the great works and tremendous natural beauty of Tuscany.The United States of America is proud to join Florence and Italy in this commemoration of Amerigo Vespucci and to showcase the works of the many American artists who owe a debt of gratitude to Florence for the artistic vision they culti-vated there.

hillary rodham clintonSecretary of StateUnited States of America

Like the English before them, Americans have been coming to Florence for centuries. Just over a century ago, in 1909, the American writer Henry James, friend of John Singer Sargent (himself born in Florence), wrote about the “Florentine ques-tion” provoked—then as now—by the city’s constant desire to remain a dynamic, contemporary city.

I speak of course of the […] “improvement,” the rectification of Flor-ence is in the air, and the problem of the particular ways in which, given such desperately delicate cases, these matters should be understood. The little treasure-city is, if there ever was one, a delicate case […] It will take more tact than our combined tactful genius may at all prob-ably muster to convince them that their own is, by an ingenious logic, much rather ‘ours’.Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909

Already by the end of the 19th century, Americans considered Florence their own. There was a marked upswing in the num-ber of American artists travelling to Europe after the Civil War ended in 1865, and the trend continued into the early 20th century. Hundreds of painters took up residence in Paris while still others studied in Germany, without overlooking such des-tinations as England, Holland and Spain, all of which were considered crucial to a painter’s artistic education. No matter where else they studied, for most of them, Italy, quite natu-rally, was an inescapable pole of attraction. Florence, Venice and Rome had been at the heart of the grand tour for centuries and had become legendary for all modern artists eager to study the art of the past, quite apart from their appeal in terms of the varied landscapes that they offered, the atmosphere that they evoked and the picturesque qualities of the local people. Echo-ing these journeys of art and affection, this exhibition hosts the work of American artists who lived in Florence and Tuscany at different times and with results which, in many cases, had a clear impact on the figurative vocabulary of Tuscan artists and even on local tastes and lifestyles.America and Florence have always been closely bound by his-tory and affection. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who gave his name to two continents, this major exhibition explores American painters’ relationship with Italy. Focusing on the ar-tistic personality of John Singer Sargent, and on the Florentine circle around the influential young Italo-American collector

Egisto Fabbri in particular, the exhibition takes a close look at the influence Italy had on American painting in the decades spanning the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. It also looks at the impact of the Americans—fresh, young and boisterous—on Tuscan culture and its evolution. This was a difficult time for Florence. Post-Unification culture had seen the city transformed into a metropolis, with what we could call boulevards, and a clear division between historical centre and hillside, which became the favourite location for foreign visitors, who were decisive in making Florence a vital cosmopolitan cultural capital.In addition to all the professionals who helped bring Amer-icans in Florence to the Palazzo Strozzi, we would like to thank the public and private collections which generously loaned important works to the exhibition. Our thanks once again go to the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, the exhi-bition’s main partner, who as always generously contributed to its success. A special vote of thanks goes to the exhibition’s American sponsors—the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the Terra Foundation for American Art, Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Farrow, Paulson Family Foundation. We would like to thank the Founders of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi; the Province of Florence, the City of Florence, the Florentine Chamber of Commerce, and the Associazione Partners Palazzo Strozzi, on whom the Fondazione depends in so many ways. We would like to thank all the exhibition’s public and private sponsors, including the Regione Toscana, all of whom strongly supported the exhibition from the outset. Our thanks also go to the American advisors to the exhibition, whose advice was invaluable: Katherine Bourguignon, Marc Simpson and Carol Troyen, and we are grateful for the support and encourage-ment of Richard Ormond, who followed the exhibition from its earliest beginnings. Finally we would like to thank the en-tire Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi team—its Board of Trustees, its International Advisory Board, its Director and its staff—for having worked so hard to create an exhibition celebrating the continuing links that bind Florence with America.

lorenzo bini smaghiChairman Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

It is not just the fortunate coincidence with the celebrations for the centenary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci that moti-vates the participation of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio in the realization of the exhibition Americans in Florence: Sar-gent and the American Impressionists, staged by the Fon-dazione Palazzo Strozzi. In fact the plans for this event of international significance arose out of the success achieved, in 2007, by the exhibition Cézanne in Florence—sponsored by the Ente itself—which focused both on the personality of the Italo-American artist and collector Egisto Fabbri and on the in many ways novel aspect of a city that, at the turn of the 19th century, had shown itself to be in the cultural vanguard. The studies carried out by Francesca Bardazzi and Carlo Sisi on that occasion have led to a new and fascinating ex-ploration of art and civilization that we are presenting with particular satisfaction today, as it coincides with the hopes, shared by many of us, to make Florence part of the most live-ly circuit of international culture. In addition the exhibi-tion’s theme underlines the central role played by Tuscany in shaping those American artists and intellectuals who chose it as the preferred destination of their educational journey to the Old World and, at the same time, translated into paint-ing and literature their fascination with the works of the Re-naissance, with the harmonious contours of the surrounding

countryside and with the villas in the hills, occupied by for-eigners for entire seasons. Portraits, landscapes and scenes of conversation, represented in paintings of great beauty, have been loaned by the principal museums in America and docu-ment, in the exhibition, the activity in Florence of famous artists like John Singer Sargent, as well as the close dialogue they maintained with intellectuals of the caliber of Henry James and Vernon Lee. And they also evoke the crucial years that stretch from the unification of Italy to the eve of the First World War, presented as they are alongside the works of the Tuscan painters—from Signorini to Gordigiani—closest in style and taste to those “sentimental travelers.” An extraordinary opportunity, it seems to us, to recollect cul-tural developments that gave Florence an emergent position in the European panorama. A position that we would like it to gain once and for all in all the spheres in which the city has always exceled: the welcome given to an intelligent tourism, the care devoted to itineraries that are unique in their beauty and originality, the staging of events capable of fostering a new and much to be desired “renaissance.”

jacopo mazzeiPresident Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze

Bank of America Merril Lynch is proud to sponsor Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists. Spanning the late 1800s to the beginnings of the 20th century, this exhibition celebrates the work of those U.S. artists who were inspired by Italy’s artistic heritage and witnessed a radi-cal new style, ‘Impressionism’ which they embraced and made their own.In addition, we are delighted to be able to loan two paintings to the Palazzo Strozzi for inclusion in this show, both of which ‘bookend’ the Impressionist movement in America. Painted in the 1860s, William Morris Hunt’s Pasture by a Pond signals a move away for the Barbizon influence to a new Impressionist style in regional US painting. Julian Adler Weir’s Farmhouse was painted later in 1910, and bears the hallmarks of the East Coast tradition just before the onset of the Modernism.This loan is part of the Bank of America Merril Lynch Art in Our Communities® programme, which allows museums and non-profit galleries to borrow complete or costumised exhibi-tions from our corporate art collection, at no cost. Since its

launch in late 2008, more than 50 exhibitions have been lent to museums worldwide.Our commitment to art and culture is built on the belief that the health of this sector benefits both economies and societies, and help them thrive. This is achieved through the provi-sion of grants and sponsorships, our loaning programme, and our unique Art Conservation Project. Through our efforts to provide access to dynamic artistic experiences, we hope to be able to encourage greater understanding between people of all backgrounds and ages.Bank of America Merrill Lynch has been doing business in Italy for over 50 years. It is a pleasure to be able to collaborate with the Palazzo Strozzi, and in doing so, contribute to this country’s rich artistic landscape.

luigi gubitosiCountry Executive, Italy Bank of America Merrill Lynch

The Terra Foundation for American Art is proud to support Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impres-sionists at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. The exhibition focuses on the cultural scene of Florence in the decades of the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, and explores the complex relationship of American and Ital-ian artists of the time. We are also pleased to participate by lending five paintings from the Terra Foundation collection to the exhibition, where visitors will be treated to the artworks of such American artists as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and John Singer Sargent. The Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi’s goal of bringing interna-tional cultural events to Florence, to “think global, act local,”

mirrors the Terra Foundation’s mission of making historical American art presentation and study an international affair. Both institutions understand that multinational dialogue is an essential part of creating exciting ways for individuals to engage with art. Sargent and his contemporaries in Italy must have been of the same opinion. Their artwork has continued to attract admirers worldwide for generations; the Strozzi’s ex-hibition is an illustration of just why this is so.

elizabeth glassmanPresident and Chief Executive OfficerTerra Foundation for American Art

Maria and I have based our philanthropic efforts on three strong and simple pillars. We believe in a life of culture and that all of the arts enrich society. We believe in a lifetime of learning, in new possibilities and ideas being necessary to regenerate civilization. And we believe that the arts must be accessible to people of all ages and all social and economic stratas. Everything that Dr. James Bradburne and the Palaz-zo Strozzi is endeavoring to create with their innovative ap-proach to exhibitions, outreach and generosity of spirit, speaks to our philosophy. We are delighted to have this opportunity to support the Americans in Florence: Sargent and the Ameri-can Impressionists exhibition, and are particularly delighted to be underwriting the wonderful array of educational mate-rials being created to reach new audiences.

jan shrem

As a native of Florence and someone who still has a home here, this exhibition holds very special importance. My life has been shaped by two countries and two cultures. My world is not split by this fact but has been deeply enriched on every level. To support an exhibition that directly addresses how a cultural landscape influences the creation of art is something that not only speaks to me intellectually but also speaks directly to my own experience and to my heart.

maria manetti farrow

CoverJohn Singer Sargent, At Torre Galli: Ladies in a Garden, 1910, detailLondon, Royal Academy of Arts

pages 84, 90, 106, 132, 167, 173photo James O’Mara/O’Mara & McBride

Translations Huw Evans

Editorial coordination Martina Mian

Layout Stefano Bonetti

EditingRosanna Alberti, Paola Gaudioso

© 2012 by Marsilio Editori® s.p.a. in VeneziaFirst digital edition March 2012isbn 978-88-317-3327-4

www.marsilioeditori.ithttp://www.marsilioeditori.it/ ebook@marsilioeditori.it

Reproduction in part or in whole, also for internal educational use, by any means, including photocopying, is prohibited without specific authorisation

americans in Florence

sargent and the american

impressionists

American ForeverFrancesca Bardazzi

An American Pantheonat the Cimitero agli AlloriGrazia Gobbi Sica

“Like a Chiselled Jewel in a Case of Violet Velvet”Florence, the Little Treasure-city of the AmericansMargherita Ciacci

Tuscan HoursCarlo Sisi

Walt Whitman, Telemaco Signorini and American Literature in FlorenceSilvio Balloni

exhiBited works

Room with a View

Americans in Florence

The Circle of Egisto Fabbri: Scholars and Painters

16

40

52

66

76

84

90

106

contents

The Image of Florence and Tuscany

The Cult of Renaissance

America through the Lens of Painting and Literature

appendix

The Artists and their Works

Kodaks. Ernestine Fabbri between Photography and Painting Francesca Bardazzi

Bibliography

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americans in Florence

I still think the region around Florence is the one I like best. The light in Tuscany is specialbarack obama, in Il Corriere della Sera, July 8, 2010

The light of the day distributed “the colours in large and comfortable masses,” creating “a delightful composition,” and “all this brightness and yellowness was a perpetual de-light” wrote the New Yorker Henry James in “Italy Revis-ited,” describing Florence as if he were a painter.1 And his friend John La Farge was convinced that he possessed a “painter’s eye.”2 La Farge, who was not much older, had made the Grand Tour in Europe back in the fifties and the substantial fortune inherited from his father allowed him to devote himself entirely to art. The pair had met at William Morris Hunt’s school in Newport (Rhode Island), where in 1860 the very young Henry, just returned from a stay in Europe with his family, had enrolled with his broth-er William. James recalls how the fascinating company of his new friend cast a spell across comparatively blank New-port sands, making him a sort of European on American soil.3 He was struck by his intellectual open-mindedness, snobbish attitudes and precocious interest in Japanese art, while his painting, often in watercolor, moved between the refined classicism of the floral subjects of Thomas Couture and Henry Fantin-Latour and references to Oriental art: a genre and a technique considered feminine and a taste certainly not in line with the mindset of his fellow coun-trymen.4

James’s career as a painter soon came to an end, not without regrets. It was John who encouraged him to write instead, making him understand that “the arts were after all essen-tially one and that even with canvas and brush whisked out of my grasp I still needn’t feel disinherited.”5 Their friend-ship was crowned by the Portrait of Henry James painted by La Farge in 1862. In the plots and characters of James’s novels we find con-stant references to painting and the figurative arts: his elabo-rate literary style is the fruit of a highly personal capacity to “see” things, so that the narrative seems to vie with the pic-tures of the great painters in the transposition of reality.6 A “visual gift” made to a member of a family that fostered the free intellectual development of its children, far from school benches, catechism classes and even the prospect of a ca-reer in industry or finance. The other side of the coin was a lonely childhood, although one strewn with polyglot tutors: Henry was a “hotel child” like his compatriots Whistler, Sar-gent and Hunt, the son like them of well-off, cosmopolitan and farsighted families that were always on the move.7 Between the youthful Portrait of James painted by La Farge in 1862 and the one in which John Singer Sargent portrayed

the writer in 1913 lies the story that runs from one side to the other of the Atlantic and that this exhibition sets out to tell. Sargent represents his friend [cat. no. 19] in the same manner as many of the successful figures he had painted over the course of his career, but fortune smiled on the two men in different ways. The former’s pictures were much in demand by fashionable and famous clients in the Old and New Worlds alike, while the latter’s novels were greeted with coolness if not indifference. James himself, speaking of Sargent at the beginning of the 20th century, reveals with literary nostalgia how distant and out of reach he felt him to be: he now moves “in an orbit so much larger and higher than mine that I only see him as you see a far sail, at sea, passing on the horizon.”8

He sails over the rim and the great curve of the globe—straight for the Golden Isleshenry james on John Singer Sargent

Born in Florence in 1856 to American parents, Sargent remained an exile forever, first of the many artists and intellectuals from across the ocean who felt travel in Eu-rope to be so necessary that they sought it at any cost. The majority of them did not have the support of sophis-ticated and intellectually open-minded families like those of James and Sargent. Usually, in order to board the ship that would take them to Liverpool or Genoa, they had to struggle, to demonstrate their potential talent, as well as an unyielding determination to study and considerable initiative. Ready to face on this side of the ocean a future described in not always edifying stories that presented the customs of the inhabitants of the Old World (and in par-ticular the Italians) as strange if not downright dangerous. Most of them came from families living in New England, the first colony and by tradition the heart of the country. The influx reached its highest levels after the end of the American Civil War (1861-65), whose echoes had reached as far as distant Florence, where in 1891 Enrico Nencioni evoked a literary connection between it and Walt Whit-man, describing him as the “the poet of the great American War.”9 But some artists born in the 1820s and 1830s had arrived as early as the middle of the century. The art critic Charles H. Caffin, in his Story of American Painting pub-lished in 1907, associated John La Farge, George Inness and William Morris Hunt in a triad of “pioneers” who came to study in the Old World in that period, drawn above all, in his view, by Paris.10 Inness and Hunt were among the first of the artists covered in the exhibition to come to Florence: Inness in 1851, Hunt in 1868. The two men were almost

Francesca Bardazzi

american ForeVer

16american ForeVer

1. John La Farge,Portrait of the Painter, 1859New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[1.]

17american ForeVer

2. John La Farge, Portrait of Henry James, 1862New York, The Century Association

3. William Morris Hunt, Italian Boy, 1866New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[2.] [3.]

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the same age but the modes of their arrival in Europe are exemplary of the way different social origins could influ-ence the opportunities of individuals. Hunt, son of a Ver-mont Congressman, left Harvard College early to devote himself to art. On his first visit to Italy, in 1843,11 he took lessons in Rome from the American sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, but shortly afterward his experience of study with Thomas Couture in France oriented him toward painting. This shift in the direction of his training occurred in con-tact with nature at Barbizon and in close association with François Millet. When he returned home in 1855, after an absence of almost ten years, he became a champion of French painting and a leading figure in the refined cultural milieu of Boston,12 up until then attracted by the English aesthetics of idealized nature and the picturesque: thanks to him it began to show interest in the “real.”13 Italian Peas-ant Boy is an example of this in its attention to psychology and to detail: the subject is Tuscan, as the typical costume attests, but he is represented in the style in vogue at the Salons of the sixties (Corot, Bouguereau, Bastien-Lepage) while the neutral background, resembling that of an unfin-ished ancient fresco, which was to become characteristic of the artist’s work, may have been derived from Couture.14 The picture was probably painted in his Paris studio in the fall of 1866, before his return to Rome in 1867. There is nothing surprising about this: Hunt kept costumes of Italian peasants in Boston too.15 In Rome the painter had little patience with high society, preferring the company of the sculptor William Wetmore Story (whose Cleopatra is described in The Marble Faun, the novel that Nathan-iel Hawthorne had begun in Florence) and Elihu Vedder. On the advice of Vedder, a painter who spent almost the whole of his life in Italy, Hunt moved at the end of 1868 to Florence, whose sleepy tranquility was also appreciated by James: “without commerce, without other industry than the manufacture of mosaic paper-weights […] with nothing but the little unaugmented stock of her mediaeval memories, her tender-coloured mountains, her churches and palaces, pictures and statues,” and above all where “by eight o’clock at night, apparently, every one had gone to bed.”16 In his explorations of the Roman, Umbrian or Tus-can countryside, Vedder was continually on the lookout for original views, interpreted through his visionary clas-sicism, rather than the conventional commercial ones in demand overseas. He desired to get deeply in tune with the spirit of our country and did so by sharing his expe-riences with contemporary Italian artists, the macchiaioli and Nino Costa and Saverio Altamura. Following Vedder’s itineraries may have helped Hunt to develop a vision of the country that was not simply picturesque.

Italy, ideal landscape of the soulerica e. hirshler on George Inness

If Hunt’s résumé is typical of the American art student from a well-to-do family, George Inness’s situation was different: of humble origin, he took lessons at a very young age from John Jesse Barker, an “itinerant painter” (a common figure in the America of the time, where the profession of artist lacked connotations of idealism, the self-taught portraitist would travel around the country painting pictures to order). To come to Europe to study Inness had to find a patron who would fund the voyage and the stay: he found one in the art dealer Ogden Haggerty. The young “pioneer” arrived in Florence at the beginning of 1851 and stayed there for more than a year: at once fascinated by the “civilized landscape”17 of the place, he painted a great deal. He rented a studio on Via Sant’Apollonia in the same building in which lived the painter William Page (he too supported by Haggerty), who introduced him to the ideas of the Swedish philoso-pher Emanuel Swedenborg. The preparations for his sec-ond stay in Italy were made keeping the commercial aspect of the undertaking in mind: Inness tested the public’s taste in his American studio by presenting a preview of pictures of Italian subjects, probably painted after his return from the previous visit to the country and based on sketches and photographs made while he was there. The Italian subjects proved very popular and this justified some concessions to the “picturesque.” In Italy Inness, who was influenced by French models—the Claude Lorrain of the Italian period and the Barbizon painters—developed a new approach to the landscape: he did away with realistic observations in an attempt to evoke a mood, a sort of spiritual affinity with nature, offering beguiling and unconventional images. For this reason his landscapes, contemporary with those of the Hudson River School (whose founder Thomas Cole had visited Florence in 1831), got a cool reception from the crit-ics and his more conservative American colleagues, who did not approve of his lack of interest in the accurate reproduc-tion of nature and in the topographic recognizability of the locations, nor, more in general, of painters wielding the brush far from home since they could find inspiration in the “virgin charms of our native land.”18 The concern of the traditionalists for the pernicious effects that a stay in Italy could have on artists was countered by the enlightened view of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in 1841 had written: “In land-scapes, the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer crea-tion than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit and give us only the spirit and the splendor.”19 Inness seems to be holding one end of a thread that runs unbroken from himself to the American painters who werehis heirs in

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[He] determines wirh a wild heart-beat to go and see it allhenry james, in “Florentine Notes”, 1909

One evening “by a remote New England fireside” an un-sophisticated young American, with whom James to some extent identifies, is reading “some account of these anniver-saries and appointed revels [e.g. Carnival]” as old Catholic lands offer them to view. […] Into the quiet room, quench-ing the rhythm of the Connecticut clock, floats […] a med-ley of stirring foreign sounds.” Gazing “in the firelight at the flickering chiaroscuro of the future, [he] discerns at last the glowing phantasm of opportunity, and determines with a wild heart-beat to go and see it all.”24 If they landed in England, the route taken by Americans heading for Italy involved passing through Switzerland, often followed by a stop in Milan, then a visit to Venice, Florence and Rome, and more rarely to Naples and Sicily. To the protagonist of James’s At Isella, Switzerland seemed a limbo: “Little else but brute Nature surely, of which at home we have enough and to spare. What we seek in Europe is Nature refined and trans-muted to art.”25 “Italy,” on the contrary “is a magic word,” a “Platonic ‘idea.’” It is “the home of history, of beauty, of the arts of all that makes life splendid and sweet. Italy, for us dull strangers, is a magic word. […] We are brought up to think that when we have earned leisure and rest […] we may go forth and cross oceans and mountains and see on Italian soil the primal substance, the Platonic ‘idea’ of our consoling dreams and our richest fancies.”26 All the more deeply felt by those who have lived in our thirsty land, in “our crude and garish climate, our silent past, our deafening present.” “We poor aspirants must live in perpetual exile.”27 Exile: the fate of James, Sargent, Whistler and other expatriates like them: Mary Cassatt, Charles Loeser, Elizabeth Boott, Ger-trude Stein, Bernard Berenson. To the protagonist of James’s story The Madonna of the Future Florence appears “a very pretty Siberia.”28

It is art alone that triumphs over fatehenry james, letter to Francis Boott

In September 1847 the future painter Elizabeth Otis Lyman Boott, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, arrived in Flor-ence with her father Francis Boott. The main concern of the widowed Boott was his daughter’s education: she had to speak fluent Italian, French and German and to be well-versed in music and painting. Following a custom typical of Americans in Italy, father and daughter spent the winter in Rome while in summer the fear of malaria (which car-ried off foreign artists too) induced them to move to the

Italy: the discovery of the “civilized landscape,” illuminated by the radiance of an ideal but also concretely real light.

The glowing phantasm of opportunityhenry james, in “Florentine Notes”, 1909

With the Civil War (1861-65) the development of Ameri-can society underwent an acceleration that affected broad swathes of the population and many of the fundamental ideas of the young nation.20 Even its religion, hitherto a staunch enemy of outward appearances and fairly hostile to the fine arts, as Alexis de Tocqueville had observed, opened up to art thanks to the work of legitimation carried out by more liberal pastors, who recognized that it had a role in the cultural construction of a national awareness. Thus the reverend Samuel Osgood was able to assert, around 1860, that art played an eminent part in the shaping of a people and, hand in hand with the growth of large urban centers, commissions from the Protestant church flourished too.21

In the Northampton that is presented as a mirror of os-tentatiously pious and puritan America in Henry James’s novel Roderick Hudson, there is still no room for art and so the future patron and aspiring collector Rowland Mallett decides to leave the place and cross the Atlantic. As a good citizen of his country he has a dream: “to go abroad and with all expedition and secrecy purchase certain valuable specimens of the Dutch and Italian schools […] and then present his treasures out of hand to an American city, not unknown to aesthetic fame, in which at that time there prevailed a good deal of fruitless aspiration toward an art-museum.”22 He lets his imagination run away with him, picturing himself “in some mouldy old saloon of a Flor-entine palace,” looking at “some scarcely-faded Ghirlan-daio or Botticelli, while a host in reduced circumstances pointed out the lovely drawing of a hand.”23 Mallett has the generous and somewhat naïve spirit of the patron and decides to take with him to Italy the promising sculptor Roderick Hudson, whose life takes a dramatic turn as the story unfolds. It was not like that for everyone in reality, but for aspiring artists arriving in Venice, Florence and Rome the encounter with Italy was, without exception, an adventurous discovery, a sort of initiation, after which they went home transformed. James started to write Roderick Hudson, his first real novel, during a visit to Florence in 1873, when he stayed at a house on the corner of Piazza Santa Maria Novella and Via della Scala.

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