Inman (Henry).
HENRY INMAN was born at Utica, New York, 20th October, 1801. His parents were English. His father removed to the city of New York, in 1812, at which early date Inman’s taste for drawing was manifested, and cultivated to a certain extent at the day-school he attended. The arrival of Wertmuller’s picture of Danæ, about the year 1814, first suggested the art to him as a profession. It was exhibited at Mr. Jarvis’s rooms, in Murray Street, and Inman gives the following account of his second visit to it:—
“On a second visit, when I went alone, I saw Mr. Jarvis himself, who came up from his painting room into the apartment in which the Danæ, with other works of art, were placed. On observing his entrance, with maulstick in his hand, and palette on his arm, I removed my hat and bowed, presuming that he was the master of the establishment. At that time I regarded an artist with peculiar reverence. Without noticing my salutation, he walked rapidly towards me, and, with his singular look of scrutiny, peered into my face. Suddenly he exclaimed, ‘By heavens, the very head for a painter!’ He then put some questions to me; invited me below stairs, and permitted me to examine his portfolios. He shortly after called upon my father, and proposed to take me as a pupil. I was at this time preparing for my entrance to the West Point Institution, as a cadet, for which I had already obtained a warrant. My father left the matter to myself, and I gladly accepted Mr. Jarvis’s proposal. I accordingly entered upon a seven years’ apprenticeship. Notwithstanding his phrenological observations upon my cranium, a circumstance connected with my first effort in oil colours would seem to contradict his favourable inference. Another of his students and myself were set down before a small tinted landscape, with instructions to copy it. Palettes and brushes were put into our hands, and to work we went. After much anxious looking and laborious daubing, Mr. Jarvis came up to see what progress we had made. After regarding our work for some moments in silence, he astounded us with these words: ‘Get up! get up! These are the most infernal attempts I ever saw. Here, Philip! [turning to a mulatto boy, who was grinding paints in another part of the room], take the brushes, and finish what these gentlemen have begun so bravely!’ All this took place in the presence of several strangers, who had come to look at the gallery. You can imagine what a shock our self-love received. Such mortifications are the most enduring of all remembrances. Notwithstanding this rebuff, I managed to make other and more successful efforts.”
At the expiration of his apprenticeship, he married Miss O’Brien, and began business for himself as a portrait and miniature painter. It is stated that in this latter branch he was very successful, although he afterwards entirely abandoned it. On his removal to Philadelphia he painted a portrait of Mr. Rawle for the members of the bar of that city. At this gentleman’s house he saw a copy of Stuart’s celebrated portrait of Washington, of which he mentions the following anecdote:—
“Mr. R. informed me, while we were looking at the head of Washington, that on one occasion, when that great man dined at his house, he sat immediately beneath the picture, and that position gave Mr. R. ample opportunity to satisfy himself of the correctness of the resemblance. I was much pleased with this testimony in favour of its truth, as of late years an attempt has been made to impeach the justice of Stuart’s representation of Washington.”
In the midst of his success, Inman appears to have been discontented with city life; and throughout the journal which he kept, “intended,” as he says, “for the reception of miscellaneous notes on passing events,” we find interspersed, longings for the green fields. In a letter to a friend, he says: “I have always panted to live in the country, where I can be surrounded by something pleasanter to look upon than the everlasting brick walls of a city;... and moreover, I shall then be better enabled to withdraw myself gradually from mere face-making: to practise in the more congenial departments of art—namely, landscape and historical painting.”
He suffered much from attacks of asthma, which visited him in the summer or autumn of every year, until his death. In 1841 he was attacked with more violence than he ever experienced before, and he describes his suffering with characteristic cheerfulness. He speaks of the grinding agony he endured as his “bosom fiend,” and compares it with the “vulture gnawing into the vitals of Prometheus.”
In February, 1842, we find him one of the guests at a dinner given to Mr. Chas. Dickens, at the Astor House; on which occasion Mr. Inman made a speech, from which it will be seen, though so great and so recent a sufferer from his complaint, he still retained his cheerful social qualities. The following is a part of the speech referred to:—
“I would invite your attention, sir, in the first place, to the great value which the arts of design must attach to the peculiar literature of the author we delight to honour in the person of our cherished guest; insomuch as it affords so many admirable themes for pictorial illustration. The great schools of art, of painting in particular, are divided into the classical, the romantic, and the picturesque, the last of which is by far the most popular and most cultivated in this department of taste. The two first appeal for their sources of interest to associations connected with the history of the remote past; but the latter addresses itself to every feeling that links us to ‘the world we live in,’ with all its thrilling contrasts of happiness and misery, of vice and virtue.
“Mr. President, I will venture to claim for the writings of Mr. Dickens, in especial manner, this attribute of the picturesque. He has sought and found, in the humble walks of life, those unequalled scenes of pathos, of humour, and of sentiment, which so eminently characterize his productions. Passing by the abodes of wealth, luxury, and rank, where the passions are all concealed beneath the mask of cold convention, he has flashed the light of his genius upon the gloomy haunts of squalid poverty and suffering virtue, the dark dens of reckless guilt and crime, until every salient point of interest is revealed in a thousand glowing objects of contemplation to the student of morals, of human nature, and of art.
“Another quality which enhances the analogy which I have attempted to establish, is to be found in the graphic force of his delineations. For all the purposes of fame, his fictitious personages have already become intense realities. For instance: who does not firmly believe that those charming people, Messrs. Winkle, Tupman, Snodgrass & Co., are at this moment ‘Pickwicking’ it about London in veritable flesh and blood? Let me ask who that wears a heart does not weep over the memory of poor Nell, as over one we have known and loved in actual life?
“In conclusion, this picturesqueness, this artistic power, will, perhaps, sanction the parallel I have introduced in the toast I now beg leave to offer. I will give you, sir, the ‘Boz’ gallery of written pictures—may Charles Dickens long live to add new master-pieces to the imperishable collection!”
On New Year’s Day, 1843, the following singular medley of mirth and melancholy is entered in his diary: “Stayed home all day. The zest and cream of life are gone. Two hundred thousand dollars and travelling would revive me—nothing else; ditto fishing.” On the 3rd January, he writes: “Fine prospect of starving to death this year. Not a soul comes near me for pictures. Ambition in art is gone. Give me a fortune, and I would fish and shoot for the rest of my life, without touching a brush again.”
In 1844 he came to England, when he was engaged to paint the portraits, among others, of Dr. Chalmers and Wordsworth. With respect to his visit to the latter, Inman, in a letter to a friend, says: “Mary and I had a very pleasant time in Westmoreland, I can assure you; fine weather, glorious scenery, and a very kind reception from the great poet. Mr. Wordsworth, who is now a hale old man of 75 years, accompanied me on one or two of my sketching excursions, for which I feel highly honoured, as he is not only a good poet, but a most intelligent and long-headed man in conversation.... I heard from Mr. Carey, of Philadelphia, who wishes me to paint for him the portrait of the celebrated writer, the Rt. Hon. Thos. B. Macaulay, M.P., instead of the fancy piece originally ordered, I have heard from the great man, and he, in a very complimentary note, has consented to sit in about five weeks. I shall then come up to London again for this purpose.”
Having finished the portrait of Macaulay, he thus writes to a friend:—
“You would have laughed to-day, could you have stood by and heard the courteous battle-royal of words which took place between me and my sitter—the witty, learned, and all accomplished Mr. Macaulay, M.P. He is fond of taking the other side of the argument, even though ’tis paradoxical. He loves to differ and defend his difference, and he wields a well polished, logical Toledo, I can tell you! He is too well read and too intelligent to entertain many of the absurd opinions respecting our country and its institutions that are so rife in the English newspaper press: but still I find he loves to bring on a discussion of some one or other of those puzzling questions that belong to our side of the water, namely, state-sovereignty, repudiation, slavery, etc. I congratulate myself upon having met in him one of those persons of renown for brilliant writing, whose attainments as poet, scholar, and reviewer, cause him to stand amongst the highest in modern English literature. Will you believe it? Noodle as I am, and albeit unused to the controversial mood, I rather flatter myself that ‘this child’ held his own in the fight! One touch of fence I used (and ’tis a custom I am generally fond of) was never directly to answer a Socratic query, but always to evade it, by begging him to state his position affirmatively. It worked to a charm. However, we had a delightful sitting of it. Only think! I had double duty to perform—namely, fight with the inside of his head, and paint the outside of it!”
In his letters from this time to that of his death, which took place in January, 1846, he constantly expresses the greatest anxiety respecting his pecuniary affairs. He found some professional employment, but barely enough to meet his expenses. He died of disease of the heart. He left a wife and five children. His kindness of heart, his intellectual attainments, his social accomplishments, his conversational power, his brilliant imagination, and his technical ability, were eulogized by the newspapers of all classes throughout the country.