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Cross-references to numbered bibliographic entries are presented as See references within brackets.
Pages numbers pertaining to the immediately prior citation appear in parentheses.
A Proper Name Index to the bibliography appears at the end.
1.
The American Desert.
The Mentor 12.6 (
July 1924):
1-22. This article
should dispel any doubt that Van Dyke was a bamboozler
when he wrote about his travels in the desert. While assuring us that he is
telling the truth (14), he claims that "no one" knew about the lands he
explored (3), that most desert animals shun water (7), and passes on other
multiple absurdities. It is a blatant performance.
2.
American Painting and Its
Tradition.
Retrospective Exhibition of Important Works of
John Singer Sargent,
February 23rd to
March 22nd, 1924.
New York:
(Grand Central Art
Galleries,).
1924.
3, 12. Van Dyke's four paragraphs on Sargent
in this handsome catalogue (12) are somewhat revised portions from
Van Dyke's
American Painting and Its Tradition
[See 3, p. 245, 248-49, 253-54, and 256-57].
Back to the item at hand, note the curiously astute organization of this
non-profit gallery, designed to benefit both artists and admirers (Foreword
3).
3.
American Painting and Its Tradition, As
Represented by Inness, Wyant,
Martin, Homer, La Farge, Whistler, Chase, Alexander, Sargent.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1919. If Van
Dyke's views of art can be precise and honed to the classical when it
comes to the Old Masters, they can be narrow concerning his own era. Before the
arrival of the influence of French
Impressionism, he says here, there is no art in the
United States worth talking about. And there isn't much
worth talking about after its heyday. Sadly,
Van Dyke shakes his head: "in these days ... all
painting seems going to the dogs" (268). So much for modern art. The youthful
rebel had grown into a hidebound orthodoxy.
4.
American Painting and Its Tradition, As
Represented by Inness, Wyant,
Martin, Homer, La Farge, Whistler, Chase, Alexander, Sargent.
1919.
Freeport, New York:
(Books for Libraries
Press,).
1972. This modern reprint contains no
new material.
5.
Amsterdam, The
Hague, Haarlem: Critical Notes on
the Rijks Museum, The Hague Museum,
Hals Museum.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914. [For an overview of this failed
series see the lead volume in 66].
6.
Angels In Art.
The Mentor 1.40 (
1913):
1-11, 13-24. An
impressive survey of the artistic treatment of angels through the centuries.
"Realism rather scorns things spiritual, and besides religious feeling and
sentiment in art passed out several centuries before the coming of the modern
realists.... [Painters] saw things with the eye of faith" (1).
7.
An Appreciation.
Timothy Cole: Memorial
Exhibition,
November Ninth to
Twenty-Eighth, Nineteen
Thirty-One.
Philadelphia:
(The Print Club of
Philadelphia,).
1931.
3. Van
Dyke introduces the catalogue with generous words for the man who did the
engravings for Van Dyke's
Old Dutch and Flemish
Masters and
Old English Masters.
8.
Art and Congressional Legislation.
The American Architect and Building News
23.638 (
March 17, 1888):
128-30.
Van Dyke turns his high dudgeon over the thirty-percent
import duty on art into a white-hot piece of refined rhetoric. Wary of an
ignorant Congress sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, he argues that
politicians should "leave American art to follow the even tenor of its
way unmolested by legislation of any kind" (130). [For further complexities
See 166].
9.
Art for Art's Sake: Seven University Lectures on the
Technical Beauties of Painting.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1893. Pleasure is art's excuse for
being. Anticipates his next step with
Nature for Its Own Sake. That's the overall
theme. However, to engage the eye, then train it, in this series of lectures
delivered both at Columbia and Rutgers, Van Dyke, claiming he is
seeing the art of painting as painters do, concentrates on the practical, the
techniques, such as color, shading, and perspective, with which artists hope to
capture the beautiful.
10. Art in Primitive Greece. Review of History of Art in Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art, by George Perrot and Charles Chipez. The Dial 18.209 ( 1 March 1895): 142-44. Bringing to bear his own wide knowledge of archaeology--an aspect of Van Dyke often overlooked--he shows his generosity in praise (another Van Dyke feature, less often practiced but also often forgotten), clapping his hands that this
two-volume work marks "the most complete and thorough history of ancient art ever written" (142).11.
The Art Students' League of New
York.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine
83.497 (
October 1891):
688-700. Established
in
1875, when the National Academy of Design temporarily closed its
doors, the League has since developed a curriculum that trains the hand without
stultifying creativity. The piece reflects Van Dyke's
impressive intimacy with the florescence of the New York
art world of his day. In the broader picture, the League was but one of many
such organizations born from America's new fascination
with art. Van Dyke's
The Increase in the Appreciation of Serious Art in
America and Lathrop's
The Progress of Art in New
York are companion pieces giving the larger context of the art
phenomenon [See 53 and 359].
12.
Artistic Nature.
The Studio 2.46 (
17 November 1883):
219-21. An early
statement that art is nature idealized; it will become a major theme in
Van Dyke's writing. Charmingly written, sensitively
illustrated,
The Studio presents an important view into
the happy ferment and openness of the fluorescing art movement during
Van Dyke's youth. According to "Van
Dyke, John C[harles]" in
The Reader's Encyclopedia of American
Literature,
Van Dyke (ed.) edited
The Studio
1883-
1884. I suspect otherwise.
However, precisely identifying Van Dyke's
involvement with the magazine presents something of a challenge. The first
The Studio piece definitely associated
with him is the one above (signed, but his name misspelled). The second,
published a week later (this time with his name correctly spelled), is
Wanted--The Data of Criticism.
Then on
22 December 1883,
‘‘J. C. Van Dyke, Editor’’ appears on the
masthead, as it does the week after. It may be, as Van
Dyke claims in his
Autobiography, that he wrote many of the
magazine's articles during this short period (56), but if he did, they went
unsigned. As far as can be demonstrated, that ends Van
Dyke's brief connection with
The Studio. Thereafter, the best I can
tell--a calculation supported by the somewhat unclear entry in the
Union List of Serials--
The Studio foundered, temporarily ceasing
publication. Seven months later, according to the opening pages of the
2 August 1884 issue, it was revived
under new ownership and a new editor. In his
Autobiography, from the perspective of old
age Van Dyke modestly chided his blind enthusiasm as he
plunged youthfully into editing art magazines (56-58). Sources for
The Studio may be found in the Archival
section, under the New Brunswick Theological
Seminary, the New York Public Library, and the
University of Arizona.
13.
The Autobiography of John C. Van
Dyke: A Personal Narrative of American Life,
1861-
1931. Introduction by
Peter Wild, (ed.)
editor. Foreword by
Philip L. Strong.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1993. Helpful, indeed, in piecing
together the details of Van Dyke's activities and
friends but more than usually fanciful for an autobiographical work. A gallery
of photographs follows 127. [See 83].
14.
The Beauty of Paint.
The Art Review 3.1 (
July-
August 1888):
25-30. All this is a
long way from celebrating nature as the highest art, but here it is. The
echt connoisseur goes to galleries to gasp over the true
artist's handling of paint. Gives a brief history of brushwork; Titian was the
pivot, and Rubens' use of the brush points to a new
element, the artist expressing "the individuality of the painter" (27). Like a
cautious lover, soon to fall head over heels, Van Dyke
is still hesitant about the "extravagance" of
Impressionism and its "meaningless splashes of light"
(30). However, something is unresolved here, for seven months earlier in the
same magazine he was telling us "A painting should appeal to no other sense
than sight" [See 136, p. 67]. Nevertheless, reviewing
this issue of
The Art Review in his column
Current Literature, Kingsley has special praise for Van
Dyke's
The Beauty of Paint.
15.
Berlin, Dresden: Critical Notes on the Kaiser
Friedrich Museum and the Royal Gallery, Dresden.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
16.
Books and How to Use Them: Some Hints to Readers and
Students.
New York:
(Fords, Howard, and
Hulbert,).
1883. Van
Dyke's first full-length volume. Its first sentence shows the
sentimentalism he later disguised: "The true philosopher's stone, that by its
magical touch converts existence into golden success, is Knowledge" (7).
17.
Brussels, Antwerp: Critical Notes on the Royal Museums of
Brussels and Antwerp.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
18. Catalogue: Exhibition of the Works of Elihu Vedder at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. New York: (American Academy of Arts and Letters,). 1937. This exhibition catalogue, published five years after Van Dyke's death, presents some problems, none of them, however, of great moment. The first section, Elihu Vedder (9-17), carries Van Dyke's byline, and, with some revisions, reprints his Commemorative Tribute to Elihu Vedder. There follows a second section, also titled Elihu Vedder
(19-26). It bears no author. The remainder of this little book is the catalogue proper.19.
A Catalogue of a Memorial Exhibition of the Works of
Joseph Pennell (Kindly Lent by Mr. John F. Braun of Philadelphia) at the
American Academy of Arts and Letters.
New York:
(American Academy of Arts and
Letters,).
1927. Introducing the catalogue
(5-21), Van Dyke gives a rundown of
Pennell's career, hailing the artist who illustrated
Van Dyke's
The New New York for
the conservative values he shared with Whistler and
lamenting, in contrast, that "the rush and greed of modern life [has] spoiled
everything" (6). [See 74].
20.
The Century's American Artist
Series.
The Century Magazine 51.6 (
April 1896):
802, 954-55. Purist
Van Dyke here generously states, "In all good
portraiture the expressive and the decorative are both present, and because
they are happily united in Mr. Brush's
Mother and Child is sufficient reason for
declaring it good portraiture" (954).
21.
Change Poem.
Poems of New Jersey,
edited by
Eugene R.
Musgrove. (ed.)
New York:
(Gregg,).
1923.
45-46. For a further
sampling of Van Dyke's poems, his
Guinea Hens,
The Piazetta, and
Return of the Victorious Pharaoh to Thebes are listed below. Also, see Archival Sources, Rutgers
University. Van Dyke was something of a closet
poet, some of whose results were admirable enough, others abysmal. Nonetheless,
the poetic ink was not to be staunched; my
Van Dyke's Little
Trick analyzes such efforts and gives sources for still further poems
[See 624]. Nevertheless, Van Dyke
published relatively little verse under his own name; given his waywardness, I
suspect, but cannot prove, that he might have published further poetry under a
pseudonym.
22.
Commemorative Tribute to Elihu
Vedder.
New York:
(American Academy of Arts and
Letters,).
1924. Van Dyke
knows how to make a sermon over a grave resound and in the course of things
expresses his own romantic sentiments. Despite their popular, narrative
content, he praises the works of Vedder, an artist who
reveled in rhythmical lines used in the service of telling a story.
Van Dyke considers Vedder's
drawings for Omar KhayyÁm's RubÁiyÁt the painter's masterpiece. Putting a
more complex edge to judgment, Vedder biographer
Edward Dewey calls the illustrations "ponderously
beautiful" (245).
23.
The Court of Last Resort: A Department of
Authoritative Answers to Questions.
Ladies' Home Journal. During the early
years of the twentieth century,
The Ladies' Home Journal ran this
question-and-answer page, with Van Dyke, who was also
writing articles on painters for the Journal, fielding
the issues on art. He does so admirably, responding to queries about
Impressionism and the pronunciation of artists' names
directly and authoritatively and without the tinge of condescension found in
his books. See, for example, 21.3 (
February 1904): 17; 21.5 (
April 1904): 20; and 21.6 (
May 1904): 19.
24.
Desert Animals.
Pathway to Western Literature, edited
by
Nettie S. Gaines. (ed.)
Stockton, California:
(Nettie S. Gaines,).
1910. A teacher in the
Stockton school system, hoping her students not only will
"gain power in reading" but also achieve a love for California and its "local color" (vii), reprints an excerpt
(235-37) from Van Dyke's
The Desert (151-55). The anthologist had
a good eye to the future, for many of the selections--from
Jack London, Bret Harte,
Helen Hunt Jackson, and Van
Dyke's brother Theodore--are by writers
today securely in the region's literary canon.
25.
The Desert: Further Studies in Natural
Appearances.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1901. Second volume of his
Natural Appearances Series. In
Van Dyke's most famous book, one sees "the most
decorative landscape in the world ... a dream landscape" (56). The many
reprints during Van Dyke's lifetime bear only slight
revisions. Those changes likely were due to the sting of a complaint letter
from a professor of agriculture with a good deal of knowledge about the desert.
[See 524, p. 6-7 and Van
Dyke's squid-like reply p. 59-61]. [For more on the complex publishing
history of
The Desert, see 524,
p. 42 and p.42-43 note 8; and 30, p. lvi-lviii note 15]. The following
editions of
The Desert are the most worthy of
note.
26.
The Desert: Further Studies in Natural
Appearances.
1901. Photographs by J.
Smeaton Chase.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1918. Although the inclusion of
photographs violated Van Dyke's aesthetic principles
holding realism in contempt, the author applauded the addition of photographs
as likely increasing sales. [For this and what appears to have been the rather
bad usage of the penurious photographer, see 524, p.
11-12, 14, 43-53].
27. The Desert: Further Studies in Natural Appearances. 1901. Photographs by J. Smeaton Chase. Notes by Dix Van Dyke. New York: (Charles Scribner's Sons,). 1930. In his notes in the back matter (235-57), Dix, a rancher who knew the desert well, skirts challenging the many errors in natural history made by his imperious uncle. (See Dix's handwritten comments on his own printed notes in his personal copy of this edition, in the private collection
of Mr. John C. Van Dyke, of La Jolla, listed in the Archival Sources.) Revenge would come later [See 539, p. 106, 135]. More telling is Dix's hilarious manuscript The Cynic in the San Bernardino Public Library's Norman F. Feldheym branch (Folder U-281).28.
The Desert: Further Studies in Natural
Appearances.
1901. Introduction by
Lawrence Clark Powell.
Tucson:
(The Arizona Historical
Society,).
1976. The Introduction applauds
Van Dyke's book as "a love poem ... distinguished by
precise observation and profound knowledge" (no pagination).
29.
The Desert: Further Studies in Natural
Appearances.
1901. Introduction by
Richard Shelton.
Salt Lake City:
(Peregrine Smith,).
1980. As to Van
Dyke as a traveler through the desert, the Introduction takes its cue from
Powell's admiration, stating that Van
Dyke: "was in love, and the book is a by-product of that love affair"
(Introduction xxvii).
30.
The Desert: Further Studies in Natural
Appearances.
1901. Introduction by
Peter Wild.
Baltimore:
(The Johns Hopkins University
Press,).
1999. "Neither the man nor his
much-praised book are what people popularly have imagined through a century of
reading" (Introduction xxviii). Note that the pagination in Van Dyke's Preface-Dedication differs from that of the
original imprint. This edition contains the first index ever printed to
The Desert.
31.
Desert Sky and Clouds. Broadside.
Flagstaff, Arizona:
(Northland Press,).
1979. Quotes four paragraphs from
The Desert (102-04). According to
Van Dyke, desert clouds form "Great bands of orange,
green, and blue that all the melted and fused gems in the world could not match
for translucent beauty" (104). A note below the quotation on the broadside, to
bottom right, reads: "This passage from
The Desert,
1901, was chosen by Lawrence Clark Powell and designed by Ward
Ritchie as Northland Press Occasional
Broadside Number 1, Flagstaff, Arizona,
1979."
Travelers through the Southwest will wonder that the skies there
often fall far short of Van Dyke's moving fantasia in
prose. In any case, this broadside is extremely rare. I located it in only two
holdings. See Archival Sources, Indiana University and Yale
University.
32.
The Development of the History of Art.
Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition,
St. Louis, edited by
Howard J. Rogers. (ed.)
Boston:
(Houghton Mifflin,).
1906. 3:
577-88. Wielding his
two-handed broadax, Van Dyke charges forth, bloodying
art historians from Furtwä#x00E4;ngler to
Berenson who make the facts fit their theories. There is
a noble place for the imagination in art history, but it "has by continuous
abuse become little short of a vice."
The hope lies in people, such as himself, who practice
‘‘impartial investigation’’ (586) and thus can tell the
ignorant public
‘‘what is good and what is bad, what is to be admired, and what
is to be shunned’’ (587). But Van Dyke is a complex
man. Counterbalancing this noble goal was Van Dyke's
rascality, for Professor Furtwä#x00E4;ngler was
in the audience, a delicious moment for Van Dyke [See 13, p. 85, 130].
33.
Dutch Masterpieces.
The Mentor 1.17 (
9 June 1913):
1-10, 12-24.
Analyzes works by Rembrandt, Hals, and others. "The pictures are valuable to the present
generation because of their style, their spirit, their truth to a point of
view, and most of all for their superb workmanship" (3).
34.
Editor's Note.
Autobiography of Andrew
Carnegie, edited by
John C. Van Dyke. (ed.)
Boston:
(Houghton Mifflin,).
1920.
vii-viii.
Van Dyke says that he did "little more than arrange"
Carnegie's notes (vii). This is doubtful, witness
Van Dyke's retelling in his own words of the
McLuckie story (236-39). [See
also 13, p. 96-97]. My
The Homestead Strike and the Mexican
Connection contradicts the above stories, follows McLuckie's activist career after the strike, and states the
case why neither Carnegie nor Van
Dyke are to be trusted on this vicious case of vengeance. Always worried
about maintaining a positive public image, after this bloodiest of
American strikes Carnegie was at pains to wash
the stains of it from his hands for the rest of his life.
35.
The Education of Teachers: Memoranda Prepared for
the State Board.
Trenton:
(State Board of Education,).
1913. "The New
Jersey State Schools for the training of teachers need enlargement,
coordination and systematizing" (1). This rare little monograph, buried in
Van Dyke's own library, shows the other side of the
romantic writer, the earnest public servant who spent many unpaid years
laboring to improve education for the masses. Backing himself with ample
statistics, Van Dyke sounds downright progressive in
lobbying to expand the school system and provide special courses for farmers
and handicapped children. It's hard to believe that the same man also could
write with hot, damaging bile elsewhere, as in
The Money God.
36. An Exponent of Pre-Raphaelites. Review of Tuscan Songs. Translation and Illustrations by Francesca Alexander. The Dial 24.282 ( 16 March 1898): 177-78. Reviewing this collection of peasant
songs, Van Dyke concentrates on the illustrations and turns his review into an attack on the Pre-Raphaelites and their "prophet," Ruskin. The movement has its charms, but they are small ones because adherents misunderstood the early Italian painters, imitating their faults rather than their virtues. So, too, with these illustrations, done by one of Ruskin's "disciples" (177). With their fixation on detail, they catch "the leaves upon the tree" but miss the "significance of the forest" (178). That is, basically, Van Dyke's complaint with Ruskin; fidelity to Nature's truths by an overweening recording of realistic details can turn into a hodge-podge missing Nature's greater, and far more satisfying, unities.37.
Florence: Critical Notes on
the Galleries of the Uffizi, the Pitti, and the Academy.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1927. An effort to complete the series
even after the bulk of it, published in
1914, had foundered.
38.
Genre Painting in Literature.
The Critic (
4 October 1884):
157-58. In the modern
day, both painting and literature have abandoned ideas in favor of
technique. Van Dyke argues for a
fusion of the two. Here is delicious sarcasm involving frogs and cans of
sardines. Yet it seems a spate, Van Dyke's pen running
away from him with the glory of its words, for he is countering his own bold
advocacy elsewhere of beauty for its own sake and his often rough put-downs of
realism, as in his
Principles of Art (176).
39.
George Inness.
Outlook 73 (
7 March 1903):
534-44. "He was very
fond of moisture-laden air, rain effects, clouds clearing after rain." (539). A
sympathetic appreciation of the landscapist's task and a keen evaluation of how
he accomplished it.
40.
The Grand Canyon of the
Colorado.
The Southwest in Literature: An Anthology for High
Schools. eds.
Mabel Major (ed.)
and
Rebecca W. Smith. (ed.)
New York:
(Macmillan,).
1929.
321-26. This
anthology reflecting the growth of regional pride reprints the first chapter of
The Grand Canyon of the
Colorado (1-10). Van
Dyke's good company includes Mary Austin,
John A. Lomax, and Charles F.
Lummis.
41.
The Grand Canyon of the
Colorado: Recurrent Studies in Impressions and
Appearances. Fifth volume in his
Natural Appearances Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1920. Likely with an eye to the recent
establishment of the national park and the increased tourism in the
American West during World War I, Van Dyke
arrives pen in hand. The resulting book is something of an outlier in the
series for combining rosy aesthetic passages with practical suggestions for
viewing the Canyon. Modern aficionados praise Van Dyke
for objecting to the alien names imposed upon canyon features (13-17) [See 179; 244; 263].
42.
The Grand Canyon of the
Colorado: Recurrent Studies in Impressions and
Appearances.
1920. Foreword by
Peter Wild.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1992. "[O]ne of Van
Dyke's fortes was the ability to adjust his prose to fit the subject"
(xviii). The Foreword goes on to discuss Van Dyke's
peculiar personification of nature as a Great Goddess (xxii) and urges a
comparison of Van Dyke's 18-21 with
Dutton's 140-56 (xxvi) for their curious
similarity.
43.
Great Galleries of the World: The Louvre.
The Mentor 3.14. (
1915):
1-11, 13-24.
Surveying The Louvre, Van Dyke
shows delicate discrimination by placing this treasure in the context of
Europe's other great collections.
44.
Great Galleries of the World: The National Gallery,
London.
The Mentor 4.4 (
1916):
1-24. From this
exploration of a great gallery one senses Van Dyke's
excitement at viewing genius.
45.
Grimm's 'Michael
Angelo'. Review of
The Life of Michael
Angelo, by
Herman Grimm.
The Book Buyer 13.11 (
December 1896):
737-39. This obscure
book review shows Van Dyke capable of bright and
generous intelligence, with fetching yet revelatory turns of phrase thrown into
the bargain. The fine holiday edition confirms the excellence of a study
published thirty years earlier: "It gives the period and the civilization that
made Michael Angelo a possibility; it shows his
intellectual atmosphere and his artistic elbow-room" (739).
46.
Guinea Hens Poem.
The Autobiography of John C. Van
Dyke.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1993.
215 note 3. One of
Van Dyke's less successful poetic efforts:
| The guinea hens would run each day |
| Into the field of clover, |
| Pattering, chattering on their way |
47. The High Alps. Scribner's Magazine 43.6 ( June 1908): 669-89. In this miniature of The Mountain, Van Dyke is at his sure ease in analyzing aesthetic seeing. The wonder we perceive in mountains springs from physics but exists independently of it, an arbitrary wholeness of pleasure divorced from its origins. So, once again, the "appearances" theme. Declares the alpenglow of morning the "perfect" picture (686). This fits with the influence of Turner.
48.
The Holiday Art Books.
The Book Buyer 10.10 (
November 1893):
493-95. When he
chose, Van Dyke overrode his stout dictum against the
human element in art. In this exquisite piece on books for Christmas, he shows
himself bibliophile, linguist, and art critic with nice tastes all at once.
Emphasizing books whose illustrations illuminate the text, he doesn't ignore
the text itself, commenting on the fluidity of translations from
Hugo and Daudet, yet recommending
(alas!) with good heart several volumes of his fellow poets, forgotten with
great justification today.
49.
How to Judge of a Picture: Familiar Talks in the
Gallery with Uncritical Lovers of Art.
New York:
(Chautauqua,).
1888. Van Dyke
holds forth with considerable technical detail on "the difference between
pictures good and bad" (3). [For a note on some confusion surrounding the date
of publication, see 13, p. 64, 224-25 note
3].
50.
In Egypt: Studies and Sketches
Along the Nile.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1931. Van Dyke
ends his tour of Egypt by cooking up, almost surely out
of his imagination, a preposterous but engaging drama. Threatening gunplay, he
compels his Arab guides to take him off the tourist track and into the
wilds of the Egyptian desert (187-90). There, the
seventy-five-year-old writer has a vision; a prepubescent peasant girl becomes
a lute-strumming beauty (197-202). This second desert book makes an
interesting comparison with his first [See 611].
51.
In Java: And the Neighboring
Islands of the Dutch East Indies.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1929. Approves of Dutch
colonialism, the lush tropical scenery, and the beautiful native women.
52.
In the West Indies: Sketches
and Studies in Tropic Seas and Islands.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1932. His last book. Contrasting with
In Java,
Van Dyke criticizes exploitation of the natives
(39-41, 90-92). Although his
Autobiography growls about Winslow Homer's tropical palette (183), here
Van Dyke nonetheless uses a Homer,
The Coconut Palm, for his
frontispiece.
53.
The Increase in the Appreciation of Serious Art in
America: A Paper Read before the Rembrandt Club.
Brooklyn:
(The Club,).
1889. In this printed speech, here he
is, the gently witty and informative lecturer on his mission to uplift people
through art, making a sharp distinction between art as clever entertainment and
art that moves by speaking from the very soul of the artistic genius. However,
be careful not to misunderstand Van Dyke here. He is not
praising, as might first appear, realism or representational art per se but the
artistic profundity expressed by a painting. In this, Van
Dyke makes a good case, as reflected in his later
American Painting and Its
Tradition, that there was no true art in America
before the European influence of his own day (15) caused an
"awakening" (23) of the "present art-spirit" (25). Interestingly,
Van Dyke takes a shot at Wilde
and Whistler (15). [See 387 to
compare with F. D. Millet's
What Are Americans Doing in Art?
published two years later. See 182 for Baldwin's happy notice of this presentation.]
54. Introduction.
A Grammar of the Arts, by Sir
Charles Holmes.
New York:
(Macmillan,).
1932.
vii-xi. Introducing a
glossary of artistic terms, Van Dyke takes the
opportunity to huff about the traditional values of craftsmanship: "The old
masters! They were not great because they were old but because they were
masters" (ix). And now that he has his tie loosened, he gives us a special
treat. Now he lets us know what he really thinks of modern art, as seen in the
works of Modigliani and Picasso--names so horrid he rarely allows himself to
utter them (x).
55. Introduction.
Memoirs of Benvenuto
Cellini. Translation by
John Addington Symonds.
New York:
(D. Appleton,).
1899.
iii-xi. The spirit of
this swashbuckling Renaissance sculptor was "more fiery than Hotspur's, and he was always dropping tools and taking to
horse to escape the consequences of some fatal fight" (v). Yet, as the bodies
piled up, Cellini was proud of his deeds, never once
thinking himself "a common rascal or sneak." In fact, "He told the truth as he
knew it" (vii)--and there's virtue in that (and perhaps some of
Van Dyke's rationalization of himself as well?).
56.
Italian Painting.
Boston:
(A. W. Elson,).
1902. "This short monograph was
written to accompany a series of fifty-nine large carbon photographs
illustrating the progress of Italian painting, and is intended to be
used as an introduction to the study of the pictures" (Publisher's Note,
unpaged). The pictures appeared two years later in the gallery
Renaissance Painting in Italy.
58.
John Ruskin.
Library of the World's Best Literature,
edited by
Charles Dudley
Warner. (ed.)
New York:
(International Society,).
1897. 32:
12509-16. Although
Van Dyke went beyond Ruskin's
fidelity to nature, he writes an even-tempered and informed appreciation of
Ruskin, praising his "stimulus and hopeful inspiration
in many fields" (12516).
59.
Joseph Pennell.
Commemorative Tributes of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters:
1905-
1941.
New York:
(American Academy of Arts and
Letters,).
1942.
200-07. Illustrator
and Van Dyke's long-time friend, Pennell advocated "a bettering of that which had been
received from the past" (200).
60.
The Last Will and Testament of John C. Van Dyke. Dated
8 April 1932. Proved
12 December 1932.
(Surrogate Court of Middlesex
County,).
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Although the powerful Van Dyke family is assumed to have
been well-off, he must have garnered a good income from his vigorous book
sales, and the course of Van Dyke's life certainly
indicates little concern for finances, his will does not enumerate his wealth.
Van Dyke bequeaths $1,000 to his housekeeper and the
same sum to each of his five nephews and nieces. Beyond that, the rest of his
estate, "real and personal," goes to "god-child" (daughter) Clare Van Dyke Parr. This important hint, however, has not
panned out in tracing the whereabouts of the bulk of Van
Dyke's personal papers. Some years ago, an elderly Van
Dyke relative, now deceased, told me that after Van
Dyke died Clare arrived with a truck and hauled off
his possessions, supposedly to Yonkers, New York, where
she lived. [See 414 and 415 for more of this trail,
leading to at least one fruitful discovery, in the wills of Clare Van Dyke Parr and of her husband, Harry L. Parr.]
61. Letter.
Bulletin of the College Art
Association of America 4 (
September 1918):
75-83. Not without
his own humor, Van Dyke thunders back to iconoclast
Dana: "There are plenty of principles of art. Didn't I
write a whole book full of them" (76)?
62. Letter.
New York Times (
30 January 1924):
18. In response to
Van Dyke's
Who Painted This Old Woman?,
Bryson Burroughs claims in the
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
that the Old Woman Cutting Her Nails was not repainted
by an unknown restorer as Van Dyke asserts. Not to let a
target slip him by, Van Dyke shoots back by enclosing a
letter from Maximilian Toch, a specialist in the
chemistry of painting, supporting Van Dyke's
case.
63.
The Life and Times of Correggio. Review of
Antonio Allegri da Correggio:
His Life, His Friends, and His Times, by
Corrado Ricci.
The Dial 20.230 (
16 January 1896):
41-43. Although no
brilliant breakthrough, Dr. Ricci's work sums up past
scholarship, producing "the best [book] yet published" about the Renaissance
painter (41). The review's sympathy for the subject's fascination with "form
and color" and his tendency toward sentimentality perhaps correspond with the
reviewer's own bent? (43). Note on this page the echo of the "lover" theme from
Van Dyke's
The Desert (xi).
64.
Life of the Sea.
The Mentor 9 (
August 1921):
24-28. Two poles of
Van Dyke's thought, science and aestheticism, are seen
here as not necessarily in conflict. In at least implying that he believes life
sprung from "an opalescent mucus" in the sea (24), Van
Dyke signals his acceptance of evolution (24, 26); yet this does not
diminish the mystery with which he regards the oceans (26).
65.
Lincoln's Reading and
Modesty.
Century Magazine 81.4 (
February 1911):
597-98. Contrary to
the myth of the book-starved young Lincoln,
Van Dyke asserts "there were plenty of books in
Illinois in Lincoln's day" (597).
Although perhaps he would object to the word "plenty," Western historian
Wallace Stegner generally seconds Van
Dyke. In any case, both agree that Lincoln was a
relatively well-read young man.
The piece also reflects Van Dyke's pride
in his family's association with Lincoln. [See 13, p. ix, x, 11-15, 31-32, 40, 213 note 3].
Here, Van Dyke notes Lincoln
memorabilia owned by the family and that rancher brother Theodore owned a Lincoln letter (13).
It likely went up in one of the several fires that plagued the isolated ranch.
[For a tour of the ranch with Theodore's grandson and a
discussion of these issues, see 602, Addendum of 1996,
p. 96-118].
66.
London: Critical Notes on the
National Gallery and the Wallace Collection, with a
General Introduction and Bibliography for the Series.
New
Guides to Old Masters
Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914. This is the flagship volume in a
series of handy, pocket-sized guidebooks to some of Europe's most famous art museums. In this series,
Van Dyke scrutinizes "every picture from
Madrid to St. Petersburg" [See 13, p. 155]. The
guides' concise and powerful comments direct American tourists, their
numbers increasing but their eyes unschooled, toward the special features of
each painting. As fate would have it, Scribner's
published the bulk of the series in
1914, just as World War I began, thus
creating Van Dyke's worst publishing failure. The pain
of it was too great even for Van Dyke to hide
(155-56).
67.
The Lotto Portrait of
Columbus.
Century Magazine 44 (
October 1892):
802, 818-22.
Van Dyke rushed manfully and gleefully into public
disputes over art. Here, while being "shot at," he argues for the authenticity
of a portrait of Columbus, by Italian
Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto. For some reason,
Van Dyke had gotten it into his head to push the
portrait to be the emblem of the upcoming Chicago World's
Fair of
1893. Years later, Van
Dyke gloated at his success. At his urging the image was put "on all the
tickets, diplomas, medals, and coins of the Fair" [See
13, p. 83]. Regarding such triumphs, Van Dyke both
disdained the crowd and gloried in its applause. As he put it, he liked "the
shout of the man in the street" (181). [As to the Lotto
tempest, see 13, p. 82-83. See
also 192; 232; 233; 295; 391; 428; 525; and 639. The listing in the
Archival Sources for the James W. Ellsworth Papers at
the Chicago Public Library provides further background.
Together, they reflect the uncertainty surrounding the adamancy of
Van Dyke's stance].
68.
The Madonna in Art.
The Mentor 5.4 (
1917):
1-11, 13-24.
Assesses the various artistic treatments of the Madonna
down through history.
69.
The Madonna in
Italian Art.
The Ladies' Home Journal 21.1 (
December 1903):
32-33. Six months
after "The Story of ..." series he wrote for this popular magazine ends,
Van Dyke appears again, this time with a big
splash--a two-page spread of ten Italian Madonnas by Italian masters, captioned and
illustrated with wreaths of holly for the Christmas season.
70.
Madrid: Critical Notes on the
Prado.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
71.
The Making of Library Catalogs.
The Library Journal 10.6 (
June 1885):
126-27. Mounting the
pedestal of the enlightened iconoclast, Van Dyke storms
against catalogs using ramifying classifications. Instead, he promotes an
encyclopedic system arranged alphabetically by author, title, and subject. This
way the holdings of a library, he assures us, will be accessible even to "the
veriest dunce" (127).
72.
The Meadows: Familiar Studies of the
Commonplace. Sixth and final volume in his
Natural Appearances Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1926. Pleasant strolls with the aging
professor over the fields and hilly woodlands surrounding the spires of
Van Dyke's beloved college town. A book of winning
modesty and aesthetic grace. [For modern changes visited upon Van Dyke's idyllic landscape, see
598].
73.
The Meaning of Pictures: Six Lectures Given for
Columbia University at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1903. "The 'real' is nature itself,
and 'truth' is merely the report of nature made by man" (4).
74.
Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the Late
Joseph Pennell: Held Under the Auspices of the
Philadelphia Print Club and The Pennsylvania Museum, in Memorial Hall, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, from
October 1st to
October 31st, 1926.
15-20.
Van Dyke praises Pennell for his
precocious admiration of Martin Rico, a fascination
setting the young artist on the right course (16-17). Of Pennell's prodigious output, Van Dyke
tips his hat as one who knows: "Almost anyone can do one thing fairly well if
he hammers at it long enough, but to do a thousand things and do them
well,--that is quite another story" (19).
75.
Modern Art and Isms.
The Mentor 9 (
October 1921):
32-33. A brief but
important article because it shows that Van Dyke,
despite his ignoring them almost completely elsewhere in his writings, studied
such new movements as Cubism and Futurism and at least partially understood
their techniques while not grasping the impulses behind them. "Attempts to
follow the recent movements in painting lead nowhere, because the movers
themselves do not quite know where they are moving. There is Babel and discord" (32).
76. Modern Art Criticism. Review of Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, by Adolf Furtwängler. The Dial 19.219 ( 1 August 1895): 70-74. As would a wrathy parent, Van Dyke praises one moment, damns the next. Professor Furtwä#x00E4;ngler's revisionist study changing the attributions of some Greek sculptures is pretty good, but it should be better. The problem is that in using the "scientific method" to identify artists, critics swell up until they're blinded by their
own "vast superfluidity of arrogance" n="41"/> own "vast superfluidity of arrogance" (71). Commanding far more virtue, Van Dyke will show us how to do it right, avoiding such personal failings when he applies the same method in his Rembrandt studies.77.
The Money God: Chapters of Heresy and Dissent
Concerning Business Methods and Mercenary Ideals in American
Life.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1908. If
The Meadows is one pole of Van Dyke, this is the other. In his embarrassing tantrum,
Van Dyke rends his garments over people's stupidity and
greed and in the process manages to damn just about every race, class, and
occupation--all except Andrew Carnegie,
presented as a model of tolerance and generosity. The magnate gives his
full-blown ideas about the purpose of money in
The Gospel of Wealth.
78.
The Mountain: Renewed Studies in Impressions and
Appearances. The fourth volume in his
Natural Appearances Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1916. A treatise on the aesthetics of
mountains around the world. Stretching the bounds of the book's scope, the
first chapter is a fictional, if colorful and convincing,
account--actually, the best I've ever read--of hunting buffalo
across the great plains with a band of Sioux Indians (1-19). [For
a Van Dyke article offering
The Mountain in miniature, see 47].
79.
The Mountain: Renewed Studies in Impressions and
Appearances.
1916 Foreword by
Peter Wild.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1992. The Foreword explores how
Van Dyke "manages to write whole books about the
aesthetic pleasures of viewing oceans or mountains without boring his reader"
(xii).
80.
Mr. Sargent's Most Popular
Picture.
The Ladies' Home Journal 21.6 (
May 1908):
25. Want to know which
painting Van Dyke thought was "the very last word in
skill, style and learning"? It's Sargent's
Carnation Lily, Lily
Rose. The execution perfectly fits the subject, two little girls
lighting Japanese lanterns at dusk in a garden of flowers. More
abstractly, the canvas is "a tale of light and color". Rightly so,
Van Dyke's exuberation knows no bounds. And don't miss
the rare reference in Van Dyke to music, here to the
Götterdä#x00E4;mmerung(Is this
telling?).
81.
Munich, Frankfort, Cassel: Critical Notes on
the Old Pinacothek, the Staedel Institute, the
Cassel Royal Gallery.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
82.
My Experiences on the Desert: Extracts from an
Unpublished Autobiography.
Progressive Arizona
11.11 (
October 1931):
3-5, 18, 19. Excerpt
from the manuscript of
My Golden Age, appearing long after
Van Dyke's death as his
Autobiography (118-23) but first
published here, somewhat curiously, in a rather obscure magazine. One wonders
if for some reason Van Dyke was having difficulty
finding a publisher for
My Golden Age. On the other hand, about this
time Scribner's continued to issue his travel books,
such as
In Egypt (
1931) and
In the West Indies (
1932), certainly a risk as the Great
Depression lengthened and few people could afford to travel. In any case, this
magazine publication follows the handwritten revisions on the original,
holograph manuscript of
My Golden Age.
83.
My Golden Age: A Personal Narrative of
American Life from
1861 to
1931. Manuscript published
in
1993 as
The Autobiography of John C. Van
Dyke: A Personal Narrative of American Life,
1861 to
1931. The manuscript exists in
various forms and may be found in several places. The original, holograph
manuscript is at the New Brunswick Theological
Seminary's Gardner A. Sage Library. The original
typescript is owned by a Van Dyke relative. Photocopies
of the typescript are at the New Jersey Historical
Society and at the Western Theological
Seminary. A photocopy of the original holograph manuscript and a partial
transcription in typescript made from it are in the holdings of the
University of Arizona. See
also Archival Sources. [For the history and editing of the manuscript
see the editor's Introduction in 13, p. xxiv-xxvii.
See also 615].
84.
Nature for Its Own Sake: First Studies in Natural
Appearances. The first volume in Van Dyke's
Natural Appearances Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1898. Echoing his
Art for Art's Sake, yet going beyond it,
Van Dyke celebrates nature's beauty as the highest good.
By stating that "The forms and colors of this earth need no association with
mankind to make them beautiful" (x), Van Dyke
establishes a fruitful contradiction running throughout his life. On the one
hand, the beauty of nature is sufficient to itself; on the other, art consists
of the artist's modifications of what he sees. Given Van
Dyke's later track record, one does wonder, at least in passing, if by
this stage of his life the author had, indeed, visited all the exotic places
around the world whose beauty he hails in these pages.
85. The New New York: A Commentary on the Place and the People. Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. New York: (Macmillan,). 1909. From New Brunswick Van
Dyke had a convenient commute by train to New York City, where he spent considerable time socializing and politicking in the arts. Somewhat startlingly, from this volume one would think traditionalist Van Dyke had become a neoteric. While including some frank discussions of the city's urban problems, the lovely book compares the picturesqueness of skyscraper New York City with the glories of Constantinople--quite a leap, but Van Dyke is convincing nonetheless in his aesthetic achievement. I have often suspected, but cannot prove, that this book was a lovely sop thrown to those, many of them living in New York City, upset by the savagery of The Money God, published the year before.86.
Notes on the Sage Library of
the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick.
Reformed Church Seminary Publication, No.
1.
New Brunswick:
(The Reformed Church in America,).
1888. Two years after he was appointed
director of the august Gardner A. Sage Library, young
Van Dyke shows that he has hit the deck running by
issuing this pamphlet celebrating the collection and asking for donations. At
the time, the library's holdings were remarkable, ranging from hermeneutics
through the fine arts, from the
Egyptian Book of the Dead on
papyrus to a copy of the double-elephant folio of Audubon's
The Birds of America.
And don't miss Van Dyke's inimitable humor (25). An
activist librarian and the greatest fundraiser the Seminary has ever seen,
Van Dyke would turn the Sage into
a wonder of light, installing stained-glass windows and completing the original
architectural plan of the Library by adding its transept [See
also 112 for his later
The Sage Library].
But not everyone, including Rev. Daniel Meeter, has been
pleased with Van Dyke's aesthetic drive and secular
emphasis. Much more on Van Dyke and his surprising
relationship with the Reformed Church is in the first and second installments
of my
Interviews and Notes Regarding John C. Van Dyke [See
602].
87.
Of Truths and Beauties.
The Critic 10 (
28 July 1888):
37. Taking the issue
quite seriously, a young Van Dyke argues that artistic
truth is not the singular possession either of the realists or the idealists
but particular to each individual artist. Each should act upon "the truth of
his own impressions and convictions." This slippery stance illustrates at once
the appeal and the sogginess of
Art for Art's Sake. It also shows why
Van Dyke shrugs in
The Desert that all he can do is give his
"impression" of what he sees (xi)--an impression which, contradicting
all this, he came to believe was finer than anyone else's. Some animals are
more equal than others.
88.
Old Dutch and Flemish Masters,
Engraved by Timothy Cole.
New York:
(Century,).
1895. The artists discussed range from
Frans Hals to David Teniers, the
Younger. Van Dyke knew about grace. As with the
following, this volume is a delight to hold and leaf through.
89.
Old English Masters, Engraved by
Timothy Cole.
New York:
(Century,).
1902. Successfully applies the
approach of the earlier
Old Dutch and Flemish
Masters. Artists discussed range from Hogarth to
Landseer. In this achievement of comprehensive art
criticism, Van Dyke treats most of his subjects with
Apollonian equanimity. However, the nearly dithyrambic chapter on
Turner (173-87), of anything anywhere else, best
reveals Van Dyke's excited way of seeing when writing
The Desert [See
601].
90.
Old Masters that Are Not Old Masters (Part 3
of the series,
Plain Talks about the Old Masters).
The Ladies' Home Journal 23.12 (
November 1906):
23. For the bewildered
ladies of the Journal, now all is as shifting sand. They
can't trust the labels in museums, many of them harboring works falsely
attributed to the Greats, at times deceptions purposefully continued to
maintain the institutions' prestige. For an alexipharmic, Van
Dyke in particular recommends Bernard Berenson's
guides. All this foreshadowing the upset years later of
Rembrandt and His
School [See 106].
91.
The Opal Sea: Continued
Studies in Impressions and Appearances. Third volume in his
Natural Appearances Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1906. The beauties of the world's seas
described with a painterly eye.
92.
The Open Spaces: Incidents of Nights and Days Under
the Blue Sky.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1922. Showing how he got the drop on
bandits and rode wildly over the plains with the toughest of cowboys,
Van Dyke would lead his readers to believe that he was a
stalwart frontiersman. He likely was embroidering stories told him by brother
Theodore, a true outdoorsman, and offering them as his
own in print. Consult the Archival Sources for copies of correspondence between
the two in the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural
Association.
93.
The Open Spaces: Incidents of Nights and Days Under
the Blue Sky.
1922. Foreword by
Peter Wild.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1991. "The achievement of
Van Dyke's books is not so much that they inform us as
that they change us, teaching us to see and hear more and in ways that ever
after enrich our own experiences in nature" (Foreword xiii).
95.
Paris: Critical Notes on the
Louvre.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
96.
Philadelphia Art
Exhibition.
New York Evening Post
(
6 January 1896):
7. Van
Dyke's even-tempered and mostly favorable review of the exhibit especially
praises Winslow Homer for his
Northeaster, a marine. Van
Dyke also likes a canvas by a Mr. Deming, of
Indians on horseback, for "the feeling of night and danger in
it."
97.
The Piazetta Poem.
The Autobiography of John C. Van
Dyke.
Salt Lake City:
(University of Utah Press,).
1993.
153-54. In this piece
of moving nostalgia in the Ubi sunt? mode, the aging poet
wanders the streets of Venice remembering old friends and
more gracious days:
| I walk alone, I am the last. |
| I know not this new ebb and flow, |
| But--was that wrinkled hag that passed |
| The flower girl of long ago? |
98.
Plain Talks about the Old Masters (Part 1).
The Ladies' Home Journal 23.10 (
September 1906):
6. Galleries often are
responsible for our false viewing of pictures. The Old Masters created canvases
to be hung in specific places and under specific conditions in churches and
palaces. Now gathered in museums, the paintings exist in a great jumble, at war
with one another, often under the wrong lighting, and not seen from a
sufficient distance. On this affliction to art, some progress is being made, as
at the Louvre.
99.
Plain Talks about the Old Masters (Part 2).
The Ladies' Home Journal 23.11 (
October 1906):
23. "Many of the noblest
and the best of pictures have been almost destroyed by time and bad
restoration. The Mona Lisa... is
only a pale ghost of its former self. All the carnations of the face have flown
and given place to leaden hues... almost scrubbed out of existence by cleaners'
hands and a whatnot of chemicals." There follows a short course on the dangers
and benefits of restoration.
100.
Principles of Art.
New York:
(Fords, Howard, and
Hulbert,).
1887. In this discourse on art history
and theory, Van Dyke thumps that realism is "the lowest
and most contemptible form of art" (176).
101.
Raphael.
The Mentor 4.14 (
1916):
1-11, 12, 13-24.
Raphael "appeared in the noontide of the Renaissance,
drew all eyes by his radiant genius, and then, before twilight had set in,
passed out in splendor as a star in the blue" (1). Van
Dyke explains the why of all this.
102.
The Raritan: Notes on a River and a
Family.
New Brunswick:
privately printed,
1915. A family history rich with
moving sentiments about how generations of Van Dykes
lived close to the land. Essayist, poet, and Van Dyke
cousin, Henry van Dyke, however, politely questioned its
accuracy [See 524, p. 58-59]. In any case, don't
miss the surprisingly frank self-portrait. Although "Nature has proved the most
lasting love of all" (86), Van Dyke and his brothers
inherited "a nervous morbidity," "a bleak pessimism," and a sense of failure
(87). Interestingly for a family history, the dedication is "To
C. V. D. P., With Much Love," that is, to
Clare Van Dyke Parr, Van Dyke's
daughter out of wedlock.
103.
Recent American Sculpture.
The Century Magazine 52.1 (
May 1896):
89, 158-59.
Considering all his storms against representational art, it's a little
unsettling to behold Van Dyke here praising the
execution of a monument presenting the figures of Poetry and Patriotism
flanking the dour form of Mother Ireland. What to make of
it? Recall his own clichéd poetry? Or perhaps, as in
Old English Masters, he bent his
theories when convenient to accommodate popular taste [See 20 for his more sophisticated analysis, emphasizing the
abstract beauties, in
The Century's American Artist
Series].
104.
Rembrandt.
The Mentor 4.20 (
1916):
1-11, 13-24. In
this appreciation of the Master, Van Dyke gives inklings
of his stormy Rembrandt book to come: "Northern art has
not had a critical search-light turned upon it. . . . When it does, the present
catalogue of Rembrandt's will crumble" (11).
105. Rembrandt Again. Review of Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time, by Emile Michel. The Dial 16.185 ( 1 March 1894): 139-41. The biography reminds Van Dyke of Agassiz, who reconstructed a rare fish on the evidence of a single bone. "Unfortunately, M. Michel's historic method is not so satisfying" (139). Nonetheless, Van Dyke separates the metal from the dross, pointing out the book's areas
of usefulness. Again, a reflection of Van Dyke? He honors Rembrandt for his wayward individualism and his beauty-creating distortions (140).106.
Rembrandt and His School: A
Critical Study of the Master and His Pupils with a New Assignment of Their
Pictures.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1923. The book caused the greatest
public furor of Van Dyke's writing career by greatly
reducing the number of works by Rembrandt, thus not only
wounding critics' pride but collectors' pocketbooks. Van
Dyke took the heat well, all but rejoicing in the stir he'd created [See 13, p. 174-79]. Van Dyke may
have been wrong in a number of the particulars but right in his main thrust.
The debate over Rembrandt's oeuvre continues [See 160, 181].
107.
The Rembrandt Drawings and
Etchings, with Critical Reassignments to Pupils and Followers.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1927. A companion volume to the above.
"It was received with hostility like its predecessor," but "I had...set people
thinking" [See 13, p. 178].
108.
Renaissance Painting in Italy:
A Catalogue of Carbon Photographs with Descriptions by John
C. Van Dyke, L.H.D.
New York:
(A. W. Elson,).
1904. This gallery of illustrations is
intended to be introduced by Van Dyke's monograph
Italian Painting. Here, the famous
paintings of the Italian Renaissance printed one to a page, each with
Van Dyke's one-page comment opposite. These would be
handy for the courses in art history then appearing in college curricula.
Consequently, the publisher offers the photographs for sale enlarged in "A and
B sizes, at $10 and $5 respectively" (xi). The idea is to "raise the public
appreciation of the best in art" (v), although, despite this high aim,
Van Dyke had a sharp eye out for schemes to turn a few
extra shekels now and then to supplement his two regular incomes. For example,
see The Frick Art and Historical Center, in the Archival
Sources.
Van Dyke held no earned academic degree.
The L.H.D. (Doctor of the Humanities) attached to Van
Dyke's name here is the honorary degree conferred on him by
Rutgers.
109.
Return of the Victorious Pharaoh to Thebes Poem.
The Critic 23 (
August 1884):
91. A valiant poetic
effort:
| In a cloud of dust, in a brazen flame, |
| The conquering monarch of Egypt came! |
Yet to be fair, although the poem fails to explore any new intellectual or aesthetic territory, once it warms to its subject the piece begins rumbling, gaining power, stretching the reader's vision out to see--almost in anticipation of a Cecil B. DeMille film--a vast panorama of soldiers advancing until "the earth and the sky seemed one helmeted rim."
110.
The Romance of Rembrandt's
Life.
The Ladies' Home Journal 23.8 (
July 1906):
20. With a powerful
opening paragraph, Van Dyke shows that romance is an
illusion, although a sustaining one, even when imposed on past figures. Thus,
our humanity deepened, we follow the trajectory of Rembrandt's life, from the whirl of his great love,
Saskia, and through her early death to the painter's sad
and bankrupt closing years. A moving piece revealing a glimpse of human
comprehension not often seen in Van Dyke's
writing.
111.
Rome: Critical Notes on the
Borghese Gallery, the Vatican
Gallery, the Stanze and Loggie, the Borgia
Apartments.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1924. Another attempt to revive the
failed series.
112.
The Sage Library: Its Books,
Manuscripts and Portraits. Special issue of
New Brunswick Seminary
Bulletin 6.1 (
April 1931). A history of the
library from the beginning of the Seminary of the
Reformed Church in America in
1784 through Van
Dyke's tenure. He took the Gardner A. Sage Library,
originally a rather dour affair, and converted it into a cathedral of airy
light, its statuary and fine paintings bathed in the colored glow streaming
down from high, stained-glass windows. And so it remains today.
113.
Sargent the Portrait
Painter.
Outlook 74 (
2 May 1903):
31-39. "Mr.
Sargent's whole style is more Parisian than
anything else .... He has never been led away by new movements, nor has he
sympathized with mere fads" (39).
114.
The Silent River That Runs Through the
American Wonderland.
Los Angeles Times (
1 January 1905):
10. Reprints
Van Dyke's powerful
The Silent River
chapter from
The Desert (63-76). Whoever wrote the
brief introduction to the piece expresses a popular attitude of the day by
having it both ways. The Colorado River is a noble giant,
and although we may shed a tear for its passing, this exemplum of wild nature
must give way to something better, the "throb and hum ... that accompany
civilization and progress."
115.
St. Petersburg: Critical Notes
on the Hermitage.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
117.
The Story of Corot and the
Orpheus.
The Ladies' Home Journal 21.3 (
February 1904):
19. Picking up on his
piece in the issue from the month before, Van Dyke
compares the dour, earth-stained Millet with the airy
Corot, who painted "a dreamland of Olympian
groves." However, Van Dyke might thump his critical
dicta elsewhere, he now impresses with his generosity in wide taste and the
depth of his background knowledge.
118.
The Story of Correggio's Holy
Night.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.7 (
January 1903):
19. Besides the usual
aesthetic analysis, Van Dyke gives us the tang of
intrigue. The picture was so envied that the reigning family in the area tried
to get its clutches on the altarpiece, but the clergy resisted. Finally, a
conniving duke had it stolen and spirited off to Modena.
The previous month's issue announced this article as the last of the
series.
119.
The Story of Leonardo's
Mona Lisa.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.3 (
February 1903):
4. Contrary to the
legend, Leonardo was not the dreamy, dilatory artist of
painting lore who took four years to complete this picture. Rather, he "saw
much of the fair lady and .. .painted her in those four years not once but many
times." Explains the wonder of the Mona Lisa's hands and
why she has lost her lovely coloring.
120.
The Story of Millet's
Gleaners.
The Ladies' Home Journal 21.2 (
January 1904):
18. America's housewives aspiring to "culture" receive
instruction on the fine points of art. Surrounded by ads for radiators and
Amour's Extract of Beef, Van Dyke shows that he will do
so without condescension. Using a famous painting as his subject, in this first
lesson he makes careful distinctions between everyday and artistic truths and
trains unschooled eyes how to perceive the niceties of color and
composition.
121.
The Story of Rembrandt's
Night Watch.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.6 (
May 1903):
17. Van
Dyke straightens us out on a number of points concerning this well-known
work. The painting neither takes place at night nor is it of a watch but of "a
group of portraits of the Civic Guard of Amsterdam," for
which Rembrandt received sixteen hundred florins. Even
at that fee, however, he botched the job. As "the slave of his own method," he
could not make his usual handling of light, successful in single portraits,
work in this larger canvas of many figures. For all that, his brilliant
textures and sense of dashing men would in themselves "make the reputation of a
dozen artists."
122.
The Story of Rubens's Descent
from the Cross.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.4 (
March 1903):
19. American
tourists in Europe's museums walk past "miles and miles
of canvases" without understanding them. Van Dyke will
be our corrective. First, viewers need to appreciate the religious impulse of
the time. Paintings were meant to inspire holy awe in illiterate peasants.
Second, the technical aspects affecting this: "Rubens
planned the long diagonal line in this group that you might feel the fall of
the body."
123.
The Story of the Pine.
New York:
(Authors Club,).
1893. As is true of many a cynic, the
later Van Dyke hid, but did not overcome, a thick swatch
of sentiment in his heart. This brief early tale is about a love affair between
a pine tree and a birch tree. Note the dripping sentiment of his childhood
memory in the
Autobiography [See
13, p. 26]. For how he curbed, but never conquered, this streak in his writing
[See 13, p. 225-26 note 5].
124.
The Story of the Sistine Madonna.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.2 (
January 1903):
6. Not "one person in a
hundred fully understands" this eminent oil by Raphael.
Therefore, Van Dyke instructs us, telling how (so it is
said) Raphael saw the painting in a dream; how it was
designed to fit its place as an altarpiece, the Child held high by the
Madonna so that the congregation could see Him; why
Santa Barbara is there and why she is kneeling, etc. A
clear and thorough exegesis.
125.
The Story of Titian's
Entombment.
The Ladies' Home Journal 20.5 (
April 1903):
4. The cover for this
Easter issue features a huge rabbit looking out with a magisterial eye, but
Van Dyke has serious business at hand.
The Entombment seems dull, offering little
of story interest. But "Look at the figures merely as figures, and have you
ever seen, aside from Greek sculpture, grander, fuller, more imposing
forms than these? Note the strong heads and necks and shoulders, the firm hands
and arms and feet."
126. The Story of Watt's Love and Death. The Ladies' Home Journal 21.12 ( November 1904): 26.
Sawing back and forth on the issue of realism versus pure asethetics, Van Dyke contradicts his candescent statements elsewhere by asking Why not have both? The he does a second radical thing. For the first time in the series, he offers negative words for the subject before the article, in this case a work of clumsy skills--as clunky as a poem by Walt Whitman!127.
Studies in Pictures: An Introduction to the Famous
Galleries.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1907. A guide for unschooled tourists
to European galleries, educating them to see the paintings "truly,"
"adequately," and "justly" (v).
128.
Suggestiveness in Art.
The New Englander 14.1 (
January 1889):
29-42. Science is
fine enough in its own realm, but its successes have led "the masses" to honor
factualness in art, too. Arguing to the contrary, Van
Dyke points to broken fragments of Greek statuary that lead the
mind on beyond the actual. His reminder: "the expressive arts have to do with
the realm of the imagination, and their province is to please by stimulating
the imagination of the beholder" (29).
129.
Syllabus of Lectures on Old Italian and
Modern French Painting, Historically and Critically Considered,
Delivered during the Second Session,
1891-
1892.
New York:
(Columbia College,).
1892. A study in contrasts,
Van Dyke created tensions both in his life and work by
opposing a hyperactive romanticism with a compulsion for order. The latter
clearly is evident in the details of this twenty-three-page syllabus for a
course in art history. Many tables of contents in his books exhibit the same
drive. Interestingly, from the outline of the last lecture it seems that
Van Dyke saw much of art as a back-and-forth battle
between romanticism and classicism.
130.
A Text-Book of the History of Painting.
College Histories of Art Series.
New York:
(Longmanns, Green,).
1894. A textbook discussing hundreds
of painters throughout the centuries of Western art. In addition to writing
this volume on painting for the series, Van Dyke served
as editor for two related studies, one on architecture by Hamlin, another about sculpture by Marquand and Frothingham.
In his
Autobiography Van
Dyke rejoices over the success of the three books and tells how it
inspired the idea for putting together
Modern French Masters [See 13, p. 108-10].
131.
The Times Home Study Circle. The World's Great
Artists. Rubens.
Los Angeles Times (
19 April 1899):
7.
The Times invited authorities in the field
to contribute articles in a series on famous artists. In this two-part
discussion Van Dyke shows his keen way with words and
thought. By Rubens' time pietism was out, exuberance in:
"There was no more of painting soul well by painting body ill."
132.
The Times Home Study Circle. The World's Great
Artists. Rubens.
Los Angeles Times (
26 April 1899):
7. Van
Dyke concludes the Rubens lecture with a drum roll.
Rubens' colors are "radiant with light and will make the
hues of any other master look washed out."
133.
The Times Home Study Circle. The World's Great
Artists. Rembrandt.
Los Angeles Times (
3 May 1899):
7. In this second
two-parter, Van Dyke explores how culture and economics
shaped Rembrandt's work. For instance, because of their
Protestant misgivings the Dutch did not decorate their churches with
paintings. Without that income enjoyed by many of his Italian
brethren, Rembrandt turned to the business of
portraiture and income from taking on students.
134.
The Times Home Study Circle. The World's Great
Artists. Rembrandt.
Los Angeles Times (
10 May 1899):
7. Concluding his
comments on the Great Master, Van Dyke shows himself the
romantic by arguing that Rembrandt's paintings reflect
the emotional changes of his life. "[A]s he advanced in years he kept growing
more profound in his thoughts, his emotions, his art."
135.
Titian's Flora.
Century Magazine 51.2 (
December 1895):
318-19. A splendid
example of Van Dyke's scalpel-knife seeing.
136.
Two Private Collections in Paris.
The Art Review. 2.4 (
December 1887):
61-73. This is, bar
none, the best art criticism by Van Dyke, showing his
keenness of vision, primitive strength, and catholic comprehension. And all
this at the age of thirty-one!
He may say that
‘‘A painting should appeal to no other sense than sight’’
(67), but his emphasis points to a profundity beyond mere optical excitements.
A painting may be realistic, but its sentimental story or technique aside, what
really counts is that a canvas reverberate with the essence of the subject
and/or with the passion of an artist's soul worthy of being revealed. (Such was
his approach in
The Desert.) With this liberality he
praises what matters in painters as different as Millet,
Delacroix, and Constable.
Van Dyke's sweet generosity here almost has us forgiving
his slipperiness elsewhere.
138.
Vienna, Budapest: Critical Notes on the Imperial Gallery and
Budapest Museum.
New Guides to Old Masters Series.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1914.
139.
Wanted--The Data of Criticism.
The Studio 2.47 (
24 November 1883):
232-35. Even as a
youth, Van Dyke could be a volcano blowing its top.
Critics, "knights of the order of the grey goose quill," sling their unfounded
opinions about at will, while the public is "quite willing to have the critics
suggest what it should think" (232). There is a humorous aspect to this
blustering, since Van Dyke staunchly saw
himself--not as a volcano--but as a fount whose truths should
be accepted simply on the authority of their source.
140.
What a Burne-Jones Picture
Means.
The Ladies' Home Journal 21.5 (
April 1904):
23. Usually on hair
trigger for the Pre-Raphaelites, Van Dyke here eases up
a bit for a painter of medieval romance whose sentimentalism likely struck a
chord with Van Dyke's own maudlin streak. Then, too,
Burne-Jones took reality as a departure point for the
imagination, a reminder of words from
The Desert: "The reality is one thing, the
appearance quite another" (109).
141.
What Do These Old Pictures Mean? (Part 4 of
the series,
Plain Talks About the Old Masters).
The Ladies Home Journal 24.2 (
January 1907:
21. The frequent
question, "What does this picture mean?", often may be the wrong one. We may
well not share the religious significance a canvas had for its time, or,
indeed, the significance may be entirely lost. What counts is our pleasure at
its artistry. And there's another benefit. The Old Masters painted the scenes
and people they knew and loved. The glowing angel's face may be that of the
artist's mistress. Hence, we have not only an historical record of dress and
furnishings but vibrant, human portraits. Also knocks the Pre-Raphaelites: "The
grasp at the little things of fact is a gain in trifles." Yet in the next
month's piece,
The Workmanship of the Great Artists, he
praises crafted detail as "art in its very best sense."
142.
What Is All This Talk About Whistler?
The Ladies Home Journal 21.4 (
March 1904):
10. Only when "goaded by
ignorant criticism ... as by Ruskin" did
Whistler turn from a "sensitive man" into a "waspish
character." So says Van Dyke. The public also has
misunderstood Whistler's paintings, ingeniously
contrived to transform a realistic subject into the different reality of "a
harmonious scheme of color."
143.
What Is Art? Studies in the Technique and Criticism
of Painting.
New York:
(Charles Scribner's Sons,).
1910. In his defense of
Art for Art's Sake, Van
Dyke scowls on "anything that is of popular interest" (87) and seems to be
responding to Tolstoy's book of the same title.
144. Who Painted This Old Woman? New York Times ( 16 December 1923), Section 4: 3. The Rembrandt painting most familiar to New Yorkers in Van Dyke's time was the Old Woman Cutting Her Nails, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Coolly, steadily, point by point, in this large spread with photographs illustrating the details, Van Dyke expl