Marcus Waterman: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|American painter}} |
{{Short description|American painter}} |
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{{Infobox artist |
{{Infobox artist |
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| name = |
| name = Marcus Waterman |
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| image = |
| image = Marcus Waterman (1834-1914).jpg |
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| caption = |
| caption = Waterman, self-portrait {{ca.|1890}} |
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| native_name_lang = |
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| birth_name = |
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| birth_date = |
| birth_date = {{birth-date|September 1, 1834}} |
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| birth_place = [[Providence, Rhode Island]], |
| birth_place = [[Providence, Rhode Island]], U.S. |
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| death_date = |
| death_date = {{death-date and age|April 2, 1914|September 1, 1834}} |
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| death_place = Maderno, Italy |
| death_place = [[Toscolano-Maderno|Maderno]], Italy |
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| resting_place = |
| resting_place = |
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| residence = |
| residence = |
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| education = [[Thomas Hill (painter)|Thomas Hill]] and [[William Morris Hunt]] |
| education = [[Thomas Hill (painter)|Thomas Hill]] and [[William Morris Hunt]] |
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| alma_mater = |
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| notable_works = |
| notable_works = |
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| style = |
| style = |
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| movement = [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] |
| movement = [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] |
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'''Marcus''' ( |
'''Marcus''' ('''"Mark"''') '''Waterman''' (1 September 1834 – 2 April 1914) was an American painter, mainly of [[landscape painting|landscapes]]<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004">{{cite book|author1=David Bernard Dearinger|author2=National Academy of Design (U.S.)|title=Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826–1925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHH45aYubp4C&pg=PR20|year=2004|publisher=Hudson Hills|isbn=978-1-55595-029-3}}</ref> and [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] subjects.<ref name="Ackerman1994">{{cite book|author=[[Gerald M. Ackerman]]|title=American Orientalists|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=onraQlj_C7wC&pg=PA233|year=1994|publisher=www.acr-edition.com|isbn=978-2-86770-078-1|pages=233–}}</ref> |
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==Life== |
==Life== |
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Waterman was born in [[Providence, Rhode Island]] to William Henry and Martha Burrill Pearce Waterman, oldest of six siblings, including a brother, William Clarence Waterman, who survived him.<ref name="Jacobus1939">{{cite book |last1=Jacobus |first1=Donald Lines |title=The Waterman Family, Volume 1, Descendants of Robert Waterman |page=101 |date=1939 |publisher=Edgar F. Waterman |location=New Haven, CT |
Waterman was born in [[Providence, Rhode Island]] to William Henry and Martha Burrill Pearce Waterman, oldest of six siblings, including a brother, William Clarence Waterman, who survived him.<ref name="Jacobus1939">{{cite book |last1=Jacobus |first1=Donald Lines |title=The Waterman Family, Volume 1, Descendants of Robert Waterman |page=101 |date=1939 |publisher=Edgar F. Waterman |location=New Haven, CT |url=https://archive.org/details/watermanfamily01jaco |via=Archive.org |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref><ref name=Brown>{{cite book|title=The Brown Alumni Monthly|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DEFFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA277|year=1914|publisher=Brown University|pages=277– }}</ref> He graduated from [[Brown University]] in 1857 and moved to New York, where for twenty years he kept a studio in the New York University building.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> His training is unclear; some sources claim that he was entirely [[autodidact|self-taught]],<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> while others, including Waterman himself, claim that he either worked with or was influenced by [[Thomas Hill (painter)|Thomas Hill]] and [[William Morris Hunt]].<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> Before moving to New York he was part of a group of "art enthusiasts" in Providence, including Thomas Harris Robinson, [[John N. Arnold]], [https://www.whitemountainart.com/about-3/artists/james-morgan-lewin-1836-1877/ James Morgan Lewin], and Frederick Stone Batcheller;<ref name=Brown/> Robinson would go on to be a friend of his for many years.<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> |
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Waterman is known to have attended a life drawing class at the [[National Academy of Design]] during the 1858–1859 academic year. In the former year he began exhibiting at the |
Waterman is known to have attended a life drawing class at the [[National Academy of Design]] during the 1858–1859 academic year. In the former year, he began exhibiting at the academy as well, a habit which he kept up as long as he lived in the city.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> Early on, he chose to specialize in landscape painting, and many of the pictures he showed at the academy were in this vein.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> He was elected an associate of the academy in 1861.<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> |
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In 1874 Waterman accompanied a group of painters including Hunt on a sketching trip along the [[Massachusetts]] coast, and as a result resettled in [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]].<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> He maintained studio/apartments on Washington Street and Hamilton Place in |
In 1874, Waterman accompanied a group of painters including Hunt on a sketching trip along the [[Massachusetts]] coast, and as a result soon resettled in [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]].<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> He maintained studio/apartments on Washington Street and Hamilton Place in Boston's theater and art district from 1877 through 1909.<ref>''The Boston Directory'', 1877 - 1909. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from {{cite web |title=U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 |url=https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/categories/dir_city/?name=Marcus_Waterman&name_x=1&residence=_Boston-Suffolk-Massachusetts-USA_4668&residence_x=_1-0|url-access=registration|website=AncestryLibrary.com |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="Philpott1914">{{cite news |last=Philpott |first=A. J. |title=MARK WATERMAN, PAINTER OF LIGHT: Some Consider Him America's Greatest Colorist--He Went to Europe to Die Broken Hearted After Destroying Many of His Paintings--The Romance of His Marriage |newspaper=Boston Daily Globe |date=12 April 1914 |page=55 |id={{ProQuest|502572566}} }}</ref> He also spent much time traveling in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s; among his destinations were the Netherlands, France, southern Spain, and North Africa.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> Visiting [[Algiers]] was a revelation to the artist, and he said in an 1894 interview that "for the first time he felt at home".<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> Having first visited in 1879, he returned there a second time, staying between 1884 and 1886.<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> He continued depicting American subjects as well, favoring the beaches of [[Cape Cod]] and the mountains of [[Vermont]].<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> |
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[[File:Marietta_Ambrosi_(1852-1921).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|right|<div style="text-align:center;">Marietta Ambrosi (1852-1921)<br />1890 frontis portrait from ''Italian Child-Life''</div>]] |
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At some point early in his tenure in Boston, Waterman began a romantic relationship with artist's model, costumer and Italian language teacher, Marietta Ambrosi, that lasted the rest of his life. Maria “Marietta” Giacinta Massimigliana Ambrosi was born in 1852 in the northeastern Italian city of [[Rovereto]], which at that time was a municipality in the County of Tyrol in the Austrian Empire.<ref>''Baptism, San Marco Evangelista, Rovereto, Trento, Italia'', p. 86. Archdiocesi di Trento. Transcribed record from {{cite web |title=Italia, Trento, Diocesi di Trento, Registri Parrocchiali, 1548-1937 |url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZTV-8CX |website=FamilySearch.org |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="Passport1920">’’Passport Application, Massachusetts, United States, certificate #96970. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Digital image from {{cite web |title=United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9X3-3ZJ3 |website=FamilySearch.org |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref> Her father was born in [[Brescia]], Italy, but her mother was from [[Dorchester, Boston|Dorchester]], Massachusetts.<ref name="Ambrosi1892">{{cite book |last1=Ambrosi |first1=Marietta |title=Italian Child-Life |date=1892|publisher=D. Lothrop Company |location=Boston, MA |page=8 |url=https://archive.org/details/italianchildlife00ambr |via=Archive.org |access-date=17 March 2022 }} A second edition of Ambrosi’s account of her childhood and teenage years, retitled [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZX8VAAAAYAAJ ''When I was a girl in Italy''], was published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston, MA,1906.</ref> She immigrated to Boston in 1871.<ref>''Immigration, ship David Bugbee''. National Archives and Records Administration, 1969. Digital image from {{cite web |title=Massachusetts, Index to Boston Passenger Lists, 1848-1891 |url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV5B-5LKG |website=FamilySearch.org |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref> She returned to Europe for extended periods in 1878 and 1882,<ref name="Passport1920"/> and in Paris, she reportedly “became very popular among the big artists as a model. She was an especial favorite with [[Luis Ricardo Falero|Falero]], the Spanish painter.”<ref name="Philpott1914"/> Back in Boston in 1884, she set up shop as teacher and translator of Italian and French in the same building as Waterman<ref>''The Boston Directory'', 1884 - 1906. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from {{cite web |title=U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 |url=https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/categories/dir_city/?name=Marietta_Ambrosi&pg=2&name_x=s&residence=_Boston-Suffolk-Massachusetts-USA_4668&residence_x=_1-0|url-access=registration|website=AncestryLibrary.com |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref> and soon became “a good deal of a pet among the artists [...] Her naturalness – her genuineness – appealed to Mark Waterman from the beginning [...] And there is no doubt but she brought a great deal of sunshine into the life of this quiet man years before they were married. She was the one person who understood him.”<ref name="Philpott1914"/> Ambrosi posed for at least four extant Waterman paintings in the 1880s and 90s – [[media:Waterman, Portrait of a Young Woman.jpg|''Portrait of a Young Woman'']], [[media:Waterman, Spanish Toreador.jpg|''Spanish Toreador'']], [[media:Waterman, Yasemeen.jpg|''Yasemeen'']], and [[media:Marcus Waterman, Portrait of the Artist's Wife, 1897.jpg|''Portrait of the Artist’s Wife'']]. Waterman and Ambrosi eventually married in Boston in 1908.<ref>''Marriages Registered in the City of Boston for the Year 1908'', vol. 581, p. 193, no. 4424. Massachusetts State Archives. Digital image from {{cite web |title=Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915 |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-XXFW-HGW|url-access=registration|website=FamilySearch.org |access-date=17 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="Philpott1914"/> Waterman reportedly “wanted to marry Marietta years before, but his mother did not desire that he should, and out of his deep love for his aged mother he put off the marriage until she died” in 1907.<ref name="Philpott1914"/><ref name="Jacobus1939"/> |
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In spring 1909, Waterman attended an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist [[Joaquín Sorolla]] and was deeply shaken by his immediate recognition that Sorolla had mastered with apparent ease a style of painting that he himself had struggled with his entire life. He was so disturbed by the experience that he reportedly returned to his studio to close his paintbox, never to open it again, and destroyed all but a few of his pictures there.<ref name= |
In spring 1909, Waterman attended an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist [[Joaquín Sorolla]] and was deeply shaken by his immediate recognition that Sorolla had mastered with apparent ease a style of painting that he himself had struggled with his entire life. He was so disturbed by the experience that he reportedly returned to his studio to close his paintbox, never to open it again, and destroyed all but a few of his pictures there.<ref name="Philpott1914"/> Wishing to leave behind what he felt was his failure in America, he and Marietta retired later the same year to [[Lake Garda]], Italy, near Marietta's childhood home in Brescia, returning to Boston only briefly in 1911 to settle business affairs.<ref name="Philpott1914"/> He died in [[Toscolano-Maderno|Maderno]], Italy, on 2 April 1914, and was cremated and inurned at [[Monumental cemetery of Brescia|Cimitero Vantiniano]] in Brescia on April 8.<ref>''Cremazioni Exeguite nel Cimitero di Brescia, no. 89.</ref> His brother Clarence erected a cenotaph to him at [[Swan Point Cemetery]] in Providence, Rhode Island. Marietta returned to Boston and lived with her sister in [[Watertown, Massachusetts|Watertown]], Massachusetts, until her sister’s death in 1920. She revisited Brescia in 1921, caught pneumonia and died there on 5 June 1921, and was inurned next her husband at Cimitero Vantiniano.<ref>''Registro dei Tumulati nel Campo Santo d Brescia'', Anno 1921, Mese Giugno, no. 31.</ref> |
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Waterman was described after his death as a man of broad intellect and a deep thinker, something of a philosopher; he was said to hold the average American art buyer in contempt, and was well-off enough to enjoy the art of painting for itself, rather than for any pecuniary reasons.<ref name=Brown/> |
Waterman was described after his death as a man of broad intellect and a deep thinker, something of a philosopher; he was said to hold the average American art buyer in contempt, and was well-off enough to enjoy the art of painting for itself, rather than for any pecuniary reasons.<ref name=Brown/> [[Boston Globe]] art editor A. J. Philpott wrote in his obituary: |
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{{blockquote|Mark Waterman was a proud man and considerable of a recluse […] Yet, though dignified and reserved to strangers, [… he] was always cheerful, companionable and helpful to those who knew him well and had his confidence. Many artists when sorely troubled in their work benefited by his sympathetic and helpful advice and by the free-will offering of the results of his own studies and experiences.<ref name="Philpott1914"/>}} He was a member of the Paint and Clay Club of Boston, of the [[American Watercolor Society]], and the Artists Fund Society.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> |
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==Career== |
==Career== |
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<blockquote>I regret to confess that I am the guilty party who painted the frightful portrait in question. I never saw it but once since I did it & it filled me with horror & remorse. If there is any survivor of the scores of painters who were friends of mine in New York some fifty years ago, he will oblige me by taking the said painting & giving it a good glaze of ivory black, wiping out a spot somewhere & thus converting it into a Whistler. I was a boy in my twenties when I did it & had never painted a head before. I hope I may be forgiven.</blockquote> |
<blockquote>I regret to confess that I am the guilty party who painted the frightful portrait in question. I never saw it but once since I did it & it filled me with horror & remorse. If there is any survivor of the scores of painters who were friends of mine in New York some fifty years ago, he will oblige me by taking the said painting & giving it a good glaze of ivory black, wiping out a spot somewhere & thus converting it into a Whistler. I was a boy in my twenties when I did it & had never painted a head before. I hope I may be forgiven.</blockquote> |
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The self-portrait, too, survives, in the |
The self-portrait, too, survives, in the academy's collection.<ref name="Dearinger(U.S.)2004"/> |
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Waterman turned to Orientalist subjects after his visits to Algiers, and his paintings in this arena have been described as "rather literary"; many of them depict scenes from ''[[The Arabian Nights]]'', while others are based on landscape studies made during his travels in [[Oram]], Algiers, [[Andalusia]], and the [[Sahel]].<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> It was already noted during his career that his paintings, though praised by critics, were out of step with trends in the contemporary artistic scene; within three years of his death his work was described as "old-fashioned" when it was shown in Boston.<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> Even so, at his death he was remembered by |
Waterman turned to Orientalist subjects after his visits to Algiers, and his paintings in this arena have been described as "rather literary"; many of them depict scenes from ''[[The Arabian Nights]]'', while others are based on landscape studies made during his travels in [[Oram]], Algiers, [[Andalusia]], and the [[Sahel]].<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> It was already noted during his career that his paintings, though praised by critics, were out of step with trends in the contemporary artistic scene; within three years of his death his work was described as "old-fashioned" when it was shown in Boston.<ref name="Ackerman1994"/> Even so, at his death he was remembered by A. J. Philpot as "the greatest colorist this country has produced, and far and away the greatest painter of light."<ref name="Philpott1914"/> |
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Besides the National Academy, museums which include work by Waterman in their collections include the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/hillside-in-autumn-31728|title=Hillside in Autumn|work=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston| |
Besides the National Academy, museums which include work by Waterman in their collections include the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/hillside-in-autumn-31728|title=Hillside in Autumn|work=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/wood-interior-32144|title=Wood Interior|work=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/interior-of-a-wood-the-past-and-the-present-32832|title=Interior of a Wood: The Past and the Present|work=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref> the [[Addison Gallery of American Art]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://accessaddison.andover.edu/Obj9187?sid=13207&x=67273|title = Phillips Academy - Addison Gallery of American Art - Marcus Waterman, Landscape}}</ref> the [[Worcester Art Museum]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vqs61.v3.pair.com:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/search@/0/title-desc?t:state:flow=ee990c19-2dec-45ae-843d-8690864f1377|title=Worcester Art Museum|work=pair.com|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref> the [http://www.pilgrim-monument.org Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum], the [[Boston Public Library]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/search/Search_Grid.aspx?searchtype=MUSEUMS&artist=21438#|title=Marcus Waterman – Fine Art Museums for Marcus A. (Mark) Waterman|work=askart.com|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref> and the [[Indiana University Art Museum]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iub.edu/~iuam/online_modules/grand_tour/image_details3.php?imgID=81&ptID=6|title=Indiana University Art Museum: The Grand Tour: Image Details|work=iub.edu|access-date=2 May 2015}}</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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*[https://books.google.com/books?id=Fd_lAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA269 Review of Waterman's work] in the ''Magazine of Art'' (1895) |
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=Fd_lAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA269 Review of Waterman's work] in the ''Magazine of Art'' (1895). |
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*[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/137261450/marcus-a-waterman Cenotaph for Marcus Waterman] at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island. |
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{{Authority control}} |
{{Authority control}} |
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[[Category:1914 deaths]] |
[[Category:1914 deaths]] |
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[[Category:19th-century American painters]] |
[[Category:19th-century American painters]] |
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[[Category:19th-century male artists]] |
[[Category:19th-century American male artists]] |
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[[Category:American male painters]] |
[[Category:American male painters]] |
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[[Category:20th-century American painters]] |
[[Category:20th-century American painters]] |
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[[Category:Painters from Rhode Island]] |
[[Category:Painters from Rhode Island]] |
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[[Category:American expatriates in Italy]] |
[[Category:American expatriates in Italy]] |
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[[Category:Orientalist painters]] |
[[Category:American Orientalist painters]] |
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[[Category:Burials at Swan Point Cemetery]] |
[[Category:Burials at Swan Point Cemetery]] |
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[[Category:Brown University alumni]] |
[[Category:Brown University alumni]] |
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[[Category:National Academy of Design alumni]] |
[[Category:National Academy of Design alumni]] |
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[[Category:National Academy of Design associates]] |
[[Category:National Academy of Design associates]] |
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[[Category:20th-century American male artists]] |
Latest revision as of 08:59, 8 April 2024
Marcus Waterman | |
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![]() Waterman, self-portrait c. 1890 | |
Born | September 1, 1834 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. |
Died | April 2, 1914 Maderno, Italy | (aged 79)
Bildung | Thomas Hill and William Morris Hunt |
Known for | Painter |
Movement | Orientalist |
Marcus ("Mark") Waterman (1 September 1834 – 2 April 1914) was an American painter, mainly of landscapes[1] and Orientalist subjects.[2]
Leben
[edit]Waterman was born in Providence, Rhode Island to William Henry and Martha Burrill Pearce Waterman, oldest of six siblings, including a brother, William Clarence Waterman, who survived him.[3][4] He graduated from Brown University in 1857 and moved to New York, where for twenty years he kept a studio in the New York University building.[1] His training is unclear; some sources claim that he was entirely self-taught,[1] while others, including Waterman himself, claim that he either worked with or was influenced by Thomas Hill and William Morris Hunt.[2] Before moving to New York he was part of a group of "art enthusiasts" in Providence, including Thomas Harris Robinson, John N. Arnold, James Morgan Lewin, and Frederick Stone Batcheller;[4] Robinson would go on to be a friend of his for many years.[2] Waterman is known to have attended a life drawing class at the National Academy of Design during the 1858–1859 academic year. In the former year, he began exhibiting at the academy as well, a habit which he kept up as long as he lived in the city.[1] Early on, he chose to specialize in landscape painting, and many of the pictures he showed at the academy were in this vein.[1] He was elected an associate of the academy in 1861.[2]
In 1874, Waterman accompanied a group of painters including Hunt on a sketching trip along the Massachusetts coast, and as a result soon resettled in Boston.[1] He maintained studio/apartments on Washington Street and Hamilton Place in Boston's theater and art district from 1877 through 1909.[5][6] He also spent much time traveling in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s; among his destinations were the Netherlands, France, southern Spain, and North Africa.[1] Visiting Algiers was a revelation to the artist, and he said in an 1894 interview that "for the first time he felt at home".[2] Having first visited in 1879, he returned there a second time, staying between 1884 and 1886.[2] He continued depicting American subjects as well, favoring the beaches of Cape Cod and the mountains of Vermont.[1]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Marietta_Ambrosi_%281852-1921%29.jpg/260px-Marietta_Ambrosi_%281852-1921%29.jpg)
1890 frontis portrait from Italian Child-Life
At some point early in his tenure in Boston, Waterman began a romantic relationship with artist's model, costumer and Italian language teacher, Marietta Ambrosi, that lasted the rest of his life. Maria “Marietta” Giacinta Massimigliana Ambrosi was born in 1852 in the northeastern Italian city of Rovereto, which at that time was a municipality in the County of Tyrol in the Austrian Empire.[7][8] Her father was born in Brescia, Italy, but her mother was from Dorchester, Massachusetts.[9] She immigrated to Boston in 1871.[10] She returned to Europe for extended periods in 1878 and 1882,[8] and in Paris, she reportedly “became very popular among the big artists as a model. She was an especial favorite with Falero, the Spanish painter.”[6] Back in Boston in 1884, she set up shop as teacher and translator of Italian and French in the same building as Waterman[11] and soon became “a good deal of a pet among the artists [...] Her naturalness – her genuineness – appealed to Mark Waterman from the beginning [...] And there is no doubt but she brought a great deal of sunshine into the life of this quiet man years before they were married. She was the one person who understood him.”[6] Ambrosi posed for at least four extant Waterman paintings in the 1880s and 90s – Portrait of a Young Woman, Spanish Toreador, Yasemeen, and Portrait of the Artist’s Wife. Waterman and Ambrosi eventually married in Boston in 1908.[12][6] Waterman reportedly “wanted to marry Marietta years before, but his mother did not desire that he should, and out of his deep love for his aged mother he put off the marriage until she died” in 1907.[6][3]
In spring 1909, Waterman attended an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla and was deeply shaken by his immediate recognition that Sorolla had mastered with apparent ease a style of painting that he himself had struggled with his entire life. He was so disturbed by the experience that he reportedly returned to his studio to close his paintbox, never to open it again, and destroyed all but a few of his pictures there.[6] Wishing to leave behind what he felt was his failure in America, he and Marietta retired later the same year to Lake Garda, Italy, near Marietta's childhood home in Brescia, returning to Boston only briefly in 1911 to settle business affairs.[6] He died in Maderno, Italy, on 2 April 1914, and was cremated and inurned at Cimitero Vantiniano in Brescia on April 8.[13] His brother Clarence erected a cenotaph to him at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island. Marietta returned to Boston and lived with her sister in Watertown, Massachusetts, until her sister’s death in 1920. She revisited Brescia in 1921, caught pneumonia and died there on 5 June 1921, and was inurned next her husband at Cimitero Vantiniano.[14]
Waterman was described after his death as a man of broad intellect and a deep thinker, something of a philosopher; he was said to hold the average American art buyer in contempt, and was well-off enough to enjoy the art of painting for itself, rather than for any pecuniary reasons.[4] Boston Globe art editor A. J. Philpott wrote in his obituary:
Mark Waterman was a proud man and considerable of a recluse […] Yet, though dignified and reserved to strangers, [… he] was always cheerful, companionable and helpful to those who knew him well and had his confidence. Many artists when sorely troubled in their work benefited by his sympathetic and helpful advice and by the free-will offering of the results of his own studies and experiences.[6]
He was a member of the Paint and Clay Club of Boston, of the American Watercolor Society, and the Artists Fund Society.[1]
Career
[edit]Though Waterman was primarily a painter of landscapes, he turned his hand to other genres at times during his career. An early attempt was a self-portrait of 1861, presented to the National Academy of Design upon presentation of his diploma the following year. He bore no fondness for the work, and a 1906 letter detailing his opinions of the painting survives:[1]
I regret to confess that I am the guilty party who painted the frightful portrait in question. I never saw it but once since I did it & it filled me with horror & remorse. If there is any survivor of the scores of painters who were friends of mine in New York some fifty years ago, he will oblige me by taking the said painting & giving it a good glaze of ivory black, wiping out a spot somewhere & thus converting it into a Whistler. I was a boy in my twenties when I did it & had never painted a head before. I hope I may be forgiven.
The self-portrait, too, survives, in the academy's collection.[1]
Waterman turned to Orientalist subjects after his visits to Algiers, and his paintings in this arena have been described as "rather literary"; many of them depict scenes from The Arabian Nights, while others are based on landscape studies made during his travels in Oram, Algiers, Andalusia, and the Sahel.[2] It was already noted during his career that his paintings, though praised by critics, were out of step with trends in the contemporary artistic scene; within three years of his death his work was described as "old-fashioned" when it was shown in Boston.[2] Even so, at his death he was remembered by A. J. Philpot as "the greatest colorist this country has produced, and far and away the greatest painter of light."[6]
Besides the National Academy, museums which include work by Waterman in their collections include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,[15][16][17] the Addison Gallery of American Art,[18] the Worcester Art Museum,[19] the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, the Boston Public Library,[20] and the Indiana University Art Museum.[21]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k David Bernard Dearinger; National Academy of Design (U.S.) (2004). Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826–1925. Hudson Hills. ISBN 978-1-55595-029-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gerald M. Ackerman (1994). American Orientalists. www.acr-edition.com. pp. 233–. ISBN 978-2-86770-078-1.
- ^ a b Jacobus, Donald Lines (1939). The Waterman Family, Volume 1, Descendants of Robert Waterman. New Haven, CT: Edgar F. Waterman. p. 101. Retrieved 17 March 2022 – via Archive.org.
- ^ a b c The Brown Alumni Monthly. Brown University. 1914. pp. 277–.
- ^ The Boston Directory, 1877 - 1909. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from "U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995". AncestryLibrary.com. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Philpott, A. J. (12 April 1914). "MARK WATERMAN, PAINTER OF LIGHT: Some Consider Him America's Greatest Colorist--He Went to Europe to Die Broken Hearted After Destroying Many of His Paintings--The Romance of His Marriage". Boston Daily Globe. p. 55. ProQuest 502572566.
- ^ Baptism, San Marco Evangelista, Rovereto, Trento, Italia, p. 86. Archdiocesi di Trento. Transcribed record from "Italia, Trento, Diocesi di Trento, Registri Parrocchiali, 1548-1937". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ a b ’’Passport Application, Massachusetts, United States, certificate #96970. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Digital image from "United States Passport Applications, 1795-1925". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Ambrosi, Marietta (1892). Italian Child-Life. Boston, MA: D. Lothrop Company. p. 8. Retrieved 17 March 2022 – via Archive.org. A second edition of Ambrosi’s account of her childhood and teenage years, retitled When I was a girl in Italy, was published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston, MA,1906.
- ^ Immigration, ship David Bugbee. National Archives and Records Administration, 1969. Digital image from "Massachusetts, Index to Boston Passenger Lists, 1848-1891". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ The Boston Directory, 1884 - 1906. Boston, MA: Sampson, Davenport & Co. and Sampson, Murdock & Co. Digital images from "U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995". AncestryLibrary.com. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Marriages Registered in the City of Boston for the Year 1908, vol. 581, p. 193, no. 4424. Massachusetts State Archives. Digital image from "Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
- ^ Cremazioni Exeguite nel Cimitero di Brescia, no. 89.
- ^ Registro dei Tumulati nel Campo Santo d Brescia, Anno 1921, Mese Giugno, no. 31.
- ^ "Hillside in Autumn". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Wood Interior". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Interior of a Wood: The Past and the Present". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Phillips Academy - Addison Gallery of American Art - Marcus Waterman, Landscape".
- ^ "Worcester Art Museum". pair.com. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Marcus Waterman – Fine Art Museums for Marcus A. (Mark) Waterman". askart.com. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Indiana University Art Museum: The Grand Tour: Image Details". iub.edu. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
External links
[edit]- Review of Waterman's work in the Magazine of Art (1895).
- Cenotaph for Marcus Waterman at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island.
- 1834 births
- 1914 deaths
- 19th-century American painters
- 19th-century American male artists
- American male painters
- 20th-century American painters
- American landscape painters
- Artists from Providence, Rhode Island
- Painters from Rhode Island
- American expatriates in Italy
- American Orientalist painters
- Burials at Swan Point Cemetery
- Brown University alumni
- National Academy of Design alumni
- National Academy of Design associates
- 20th-century American male artists