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THE MENTOR 1917.01.15, No. 123


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LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY

[Illustration]

JANUARY 15 1917

SERIAL NO. 123

THE
MENTOR

AMERICAN
MINIATURE
PAINTERS

By MRS. ELIZABETH LOUNSBERY
Author

DEPARTMENT OF
FINE ARTS

VOLUME 4
NUMBER 23

FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY




Art and Life

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We are close to realizing the greatest joys to be found in this
workaday world when we accept art as a vital part and not a thing
separate and distinct from our daily lives. Then we come to know the
true values of things--to "find tongues in trees, books in running
brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

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"Art, if we so accept it," says William Morris, "will be with us
wherever we go--in the ancient city full of traditions of past time,
in the newly cleared farm in America or the colonies, where no man has
dwelt for traditions to gather round him; in the quiet countryside as
in the busy town--no place shall be without it.

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You will have it with you in your sorrow as in your joy, in your
working hours as in your leisure. It will be no respecter of persons,
but be shared by gentle and simple, learned and unlearned, and be as
a language that all can understand. It will not hinder any work that
is necessary to the life of man at the best, but it will destroy all
degrading toil, all enervating luxury, all foppish frivolity.

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It will be the deadly foe of ignorance, dishonesty, and tyranny, and
will foster good-will, fair dealing, and confidence between man and
man. It will teach you to respect the highest intellect with a manly
reverence, but not to despise any man who does not pretend to be what
he is not."




[Illustration: JOHN LAWRENCE.

BY JOHN TRUMBULL.

Actual size 3-3/4 inches high.

IN THE POSSESSION OF

THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY]




_AMERICAN MINIATURE PAINTERS_

_John Trumbull_

ONE


The work of John Trumbull as a historical painter has already been
considered in The Mentor (No. 45), and in that number, too, the main
facts of his life are told. John Trumbull was a patriotic American and
a leader in the artistic and public life of his day, both in England
and in America. His position was much more than that of a painter.
His attitude toward painting was not one of complete and whole souled
devotion. "I am fully sensible," he wrote at one time, "that the
profession of painting as it is generally practised is frivolous,
and unworthy a man who has talents for more serious pursuits. But to
preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which
have ever presented themselves in the history of man is sufficient
warrant for it." We see accordingly that John Trumbull's idea of the
work of a painter was to _write history on canvas with a brush_--and
his pictures bear out his idea.

His life governed and controlled his art. He was born in Lebanon,
Connecticut, in 1756, a son of the Colonial governor of that
State, and from early years he revealed a mental vigor that was
extraordinary. He was an infant prodigy in learning. He entered
Harvard College in the junior year at the age of fifteen, and the time
he spent there was occupied in omniverous reading and study--which
finally came near wrecking his health. When he was a student he
visited the great painter John Singleton Copley, and became impressed
with that great painter's idea of the dignity of an artist's life. He
determined to study art, and he was learning to paint when the War of
the Revolution began. This event determined the character of his art
life. His skill in drawing being noted by General Washington, he was
set to work making plans of the enemy's works. He was then promoted
