Knowlton, Helen M. ; Emerson, Edward Waldo ; Dickinson, Lowes
Synopsis "Talks About Art"
New reformatted edition (not low-quality scans of an old book) which includes a biography of William Morris Hunt and 18 b/w illustrations of his art not found in earlier editions. "Talks About Art" presents a compilation of quotes from William Morris Hunt's inspirational advice to his art students, emphasizing a painterly technique with visible brushwork, using values for the modelling of form, and the importance of the rough sketch and working from memory. Very well received when first published in 1878, the format of using snippets of inspirational advice used in "Talks About Art" was later employed with great success in Robert Henri's book "The Art Spirit", and Charles Hawthorne's book "Hawthorne on Painting." Out of print for several decades, "Talks About Art" deserves to be returned to its rightful place on every aspiring artist's book shelf next to these later books which emulated it. This new Peruse Press edition also includes a biography of William Morris Hunt written by Edward Waldo Emerson, the son of the eminent American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson (both Emersons were close friends with Hunt). Hunt attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and studied painting for five years under Thomas Couture, and also painted with Jean-François Millet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, from whom he learned the principles of the Barbizon tonalist style of painting. Upon returning to the US, Hunt established art schools at Newport, Rhode Island, Brattleboro, Vermont, and at Boston, and gained a very popular reputation as a portrait painter. As the leading painter and art teacher in Boston in the mid-19th century, Hunt was highly instrumental in influencing American artists to work in a more poetic approach to painting, toward tonalism and impressionism, and away from the descriptive form of realism practiced by the then prevalent Hudson River School artists. Hunt is credited for influencing the styles of Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, John La Farge, and John Joseph Enneking, among others. Hunt was also instrumental in introducing the work of the French Barbizon and early Impressionist painters to American collectors. Sadly, many of Hunt's paintings and sketches, together with five large Millets and other art treasures collected by him in Europe, were destroyed, along with his studio, in the Great Boston Fire of 1872.
