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SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, THE PAINTER

By Edward L. Morse

Illustrations from paintings by Morse

IN a corner of one of the work-rooms of the Yale School of the Fine Arts hangs a large canvas, unframed, depicting Hercules on his funeral pyre tearing at the fatal shirt of Nessus.

In another room is a small plaster cast of this same mythological hero in his death agony, and there is also in the possession of the Art School a gold medal, testifying that to one Samuel F. B. Morse had been awarded in 1813 the Adelphi gold medal for the best original cast of a single figure.

The history of the circumstances leading up to the painting of this picture and the moulding of this tiny statuette, gleaned from century-old letters and manuscripts, is an interesting one. Just a hundred years ago a young American was enthusiastically pursuing the study of painting in London. In after years he achieved undying fame as the inventor of the system of telegraphy which is still in universal use, and his renown as an inventor has so overshadowed his career as an artist that but few at the present day know that he is counted among the very best of the American painters of the first half of the nineteenth century.

At that time there was practically no encouragement of the fine arts in America; there were no schools of art where even the rudiments of the profession could be learned, and there was nothing left for the aspiring neophyte to do but to take the long trip in a sailing vessel to Europe, and sit at the feet of the masters of the old world.

London was the natural Mecca for many of these pilgrims, for at the head of the Royal Academy was Benjamin West, an American; there was no need to learn another language, and patrons were many and intelligent.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse had just graduated from Yale College, in 1810, and his wise parents, seeing that his heart was set on an artistic career, and being assured by Washington Allston and other competent critics that the young man had decided talent, made many sacrifices of the heart and the purse to enable him to pursue the study of his art in Europe.

Morse in 1811 was twenty years old, of a frank, amiable disposition, making friends wherever he went, some of whom he kept until death severed the bond. He was impulsive, strong in his likes and dislikes, but withal remarkably self-controlled, having been reared in the stern Puritan school of Congregationalism, of which his father was a militant clergyman. In reading over the letters of the parents to the children of that time there is much that seems formal and even harsh to us of the twentieth century, but they reared giants in those days, and filial piety, reverence, and courtesy were the rule and not the exception, and self-control was insisted on as the first essential in success. 

The years from 1811 to 1815, which young Morse spent in London, were years of great unrest in the political world. On the Continent the Allies were gradually checking Napoleon Bonaparte's triumphant career, the campaign culminating in Waterloo and the Treaty of Paris in 1815. In England, George III was a hopeless imbecile, and the Prince Regent, afterward George IV, and his ministry, by their odious Orders in Council, were goading the young United States toward a declaration of war. There were great contrasts in England: court balls, drawing-rooms, and lavish expenditure at the top; misery, poverty, hoarse mutterings, and open revolt at the bottom. Then came the brave declaration of war by the United States, and the War of 1812, lasting till 1814.

Young Morse, while diligently pursuing his studies, took a deep interest in all these affairs, and his letters home at that time are filled with patriotic sentiments and resentment against the English government.

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Samuel F.B Morse, the Painter                              347
He upheld the justice, the absolute necessity of the war, whereas his father and friends in America deplored it.
    But it is with his artistic life that I have to deal with at present.
    His master was Washington Allston, twelve years older than himself, and a man of great beauty of character, and of conspicuous talent as a painter.
    Benjamin West, then at the zenith of his fame, also took a deep interest in his young fellow-countryman and gave him wise counsel and encouragement. Morse's friend and room-mate was Charles R. Leslie, a few years younger than himself, and afterward one of the best of the American painters of those days. Among his other intimates were Coleridge the poet, Fuseli the eccentric artist, Rogers, Charles Lamb, and others; and among the older men of note at that time, at whose houses he was always welcome, were William Wilberforce and Henry Thornton, illustrious philanthropists and members of Parliament; Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian; the two Grants, one of whom was afterward raised to the peerage as Lord Glenelg, and many others.
    His letters to his parents, his brothers, and his friends during his student years in London full of intense interest. He was a fluent writer and his style is remarkably clear. He writes to his parents on October 21, 1811:
  "I mentioned in one of my other letters that I had drawn a figure (the Gladiator) to admit me into the Academy. After I had finished it I was displeased with it and concluded not to offer it but to attempt another. I have accordingly drawn another from the Laocoon statue, the most difficult of all the statues, have shown it to the keeper of the Academy, and am admitted for a year without the least difficulty. Mr. Allston was pleased to compliment me upon it by saying that it was better than two-thirds of the drawings of those who had been drawing at the Academy for two years."
                                               "May 17th, 1812.
  "Mr. West is very kind to me. I visit him occasionally of a morning to hear him converse on art. He appears quite attached to me, as he is, indeed, to all young American artists. It seems to give him the greatest pleasure to think that one day the arts will flourish in America. He says that Philadelphia will be the Athens of the world. That city certainly gives the greatest encouragement of any place in the United States. Boston is the most backward, so if ever I should return to America, Philadelphia or New York would probably be my place of abode."
    In a letter to his parents of March 24, 1813, he says:
    "My greatest expense next to living is for canvas, frames, colors, etc., and visiting galleries. The frame of my large picture, which I have just finished, cost nearly twenty pounds, besides the canvas and colors, which cost nearly eight pounds more, and the frame was the cheapest I could possibly get. Mr. Allston's frame cost him sixty guineas. Frames are very expensive things, and on that account, I shall not attempt another large picture for some time, although Mr. West advices me to paint large as much as possible. The picture which I have finished is 'The Death of Hercules'; the size of eight feet by six feet and six inches. This picture I showed to Mr. West a few weeks ago and he was extremely pleased with it and paid me many compliments.
    "I sent the picture to the exhibition at Somerset House, which opens on the 3d day of May, and have the satisfaction not only of having it received, but of having the praise of the council who decide on the admission of pictures. Six hundred pictures were refused admission this year, so you may suppose that a picture (of the size too of which mine is) must possess some merit to be received in preference to six hundred. A small picture may be received, even if it is not very good, because it will serve to fill up some little space which would otherwise be empty; but a large picture, from its excluding many small ones, must possess a great deal in its favor in order to be received.
    "If you recollect I told you I had completed a model of a single figure of the same subject. This I sent to the Society of Arts at the Adelphi to stand for the prize which is offered every year for the best performance in painting, sculpture, and architecture and is a gold metal. Yesterday I received the note accompanying this, by which you will see that it is adjudged to me in sculpt-