Thomas Waterman Wood
Encyclopedia
Thomas Waterman Wood was an American painter born in Montpelier, Vermont
.
in 1814. The Wood family was of Puritan
stock, and it was from Lebanon that John Wood, the father of the artist, married his wife Mary Waterman. She was described as having lived a simple, pious, good-natured and industrious life.
John Wood and his brother Cyrus were partners in a cabinet making
business, the partnership concluding with the death of Cyrus in 1840. John's other brother, Zenas, lived to be 84 years of age. John Wood was a vigorous citizen, active in his times, the captain of an artillery company and for a long time, a deacon
in the First Congregational Church.
During Wood's youth, Montpelier was not likely to inspire a man to paint. It was a small town of practical people, lacking in the means of art culture and instruction in art. The hills and valleys, however, were beautiful, filled at all seasons with a wonderful light, and these had and continued to have for Wood an inspiration and influence throughout his life.
While he lacked artistic surroundings in his youth, he also had the acquaintance of great contemporaries, Prentiss
, Upham
, Spaulding, Peck
, Reed, Walton, Jewett, Langdon, Merrill, Dewey, Thompson, Baileys, Heaton, Lord, Lamb and many more besides, who left notable records in Congress, on the bench, at the bar, in theology, finance, legislation, party politics and in the bibliography of Vermont. These neighbors of his were good, strong men, whose characters and excelling work influenced the youth of Wood as also his conceptions of a strong art, as was evidenced in later years by much of his best work.
Before the introduction of daguerreotype
s Montpelier was accustomed to receive an occasional visit from some peripatetic portrait painter and it was such a painter who first influenced Wood and started him in his career. The painter has been described as a "harum-scarum" character, but also as a "dashing painter", who was able to seize quickly and firmly upon a likeness. There was also a friend, John C. Badger, who brought from Boston tubes of oil colors, brushes, palettes and some books about art. With these in hand the boys began with enthusiasm to develop their resources. There remains nothing of these first efforts; but when the furniture shop of John Wood was destroyed by fire in 1875 there could yet be seen on its plastered walls a number of figure pictures, drawn with dry paints, a sort of rude pastel.
, a portrait painter. In 1850 he married Miss Minerva Robinson, then living in Waterbury, Vermont
, and in the same year he built a summer home in the Carpenter Gothic
style on the west side of the mountain gorge through which the road leads up to Northfield
. He named this home after his wife, making use of the Latin synonym, Athenwood.
During the 1850s, he found means of visiting galleries in London, Paris, Rome and Florence, having previously painted portraits in Canada, Washington and Baltimore. His first European visit, in 1858, was shared with Mrs. Wood. Upon their return he painted portraits in Nashville and Louisville, beginning at the former place The Fiddler, which was completed years afterwards and finally included in the Thomas W. Wood Collection in the Montpelier gallery.
At the age of 43, the artist permanently settled himself in New York City, opening a studio as a figure painter
. This was in 1866, eight years after the exhibition of his first work in the National Academy of Design
, The Baltimore Newsvendor (1858). This painting was sold by mistake to two persons, Mr. J. C. Brune of Baltimore and Mr. Robert L. Stuart of New York, resulting in a long, expensive lawsuit, terminated in favor of Mr. Brune.
During his residence in Louisville, Wood painted The Contraband, Recruit and Veteran, suggested by the sight of a black man in light brown jeans, who had but one leg and was hobbling along on home-made crutches. This celebrated work commemorates the transition of the African American from slavery to freedom and is now the property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1869, Wood was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design and, in 1871, an Academician. He became President of the American Water Color Society in 1878 and served in that office until 1887. He acted as Vice-President of the National Academy of Design for a period of twelve years beginning in 1879. In 1891 he became the President of the Academy. In achieving and discharging the functions of these offices for so many years, surrounded by artists of distinction, Wood evidenced the quality and high character of his personal attributes, his deep knowledge of his art, his unequaled courtesy and judgement, the acknowledged value of his own work and, above all, an unusual capacity for acquiring friendship and commanding the utmost respect as the result of a good life and noble heart.
. When this work was sold for a large sum, Tucker promptly claimed his share upon the grounds of his intrinsic worth and natural capacity as a poser. The Village Post Office was taken from the interior of the old Ainsworth
store in Williamstown, Vermont
, but the figures were mostly taken from Montpelier people. Wood's uncle Zenas was the postmaster and the group around the store, Boyden, Whittier and Bullock, were old-time residents. Their clerk was Horace Scribner, long esteemed as a generous country musician and as the organist of Christ Church. This painting was bought by Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, ex-president of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The scene for The Quack Doctor was located in front of the old arch which once spanned the head of State Street leading to East State. The old brick building, the home of Montpelier Book Bindery, still stands. This picture was bought by Mr. George I. Seneg for $2,000 and after his death was included in the sale of his entire collection.
Another successful painting was The Country Doctor. The artist found the proper model for this work with the aid of the Secretary of State
, Dr. George Nichols, in the person of an actual country doctor, then representing the town of Jamaica
in the legislature. This doctor bore upon his face the impress of his beneficent labors for more than 40 years in a back country town. Wood himself told the writer, in speaking of this painting, that many a person had said to him, "That doctor is the exact image of my father, who was also a country doctor." This saying he regarded not so much as proof that he had achieved a concrete likeness but as an evidence of having successfully handed down the particular class idea of the old-fashioned country physician, as truly different in type from the city practitioner as was the country lawyer
of former days from his brother in the city.
In 1891, Wood exhibited at the Academy a picture entitled A Cogitation, for which one of his Montpelier friends, Mr. George Ripley, posed. The composition is extremely simple, a farmer in his barn, leaning upon his pitchfork, his countenance thoughtful. This picture was bought by Mr. Harper and published as a full-page engraving
in Harper's Weekly
during the Greeley campaign over the title "Is Greeley a Fool or a Knave?". The humorous side of this incident consists in the fact that Mr. Ripley was the model was an ardent supporter of Mr. Greeley in that campaign, while the artist himself, so far as we know, never dabbled in politics.
These few examples sufficiently illustrate the influence which the place of his birth had upon Wood. He was not only a Vermonter but a great painter of Vermont ideas, conditions and character. Nor did foreign travel nor city residence nor any influence of professional connections ever tend to diminish the deep and abiding interest in his early home. The subjects of his works, his selection of characters, his yearly pilgrimage to Vermont, all demonstrate his filial loyalty and he gave to this sentiment of his heart its final expression in the establishment, as a gift to Montpelier, of its Gallery of Art. But, apart from this, the homes, offices and institutions of Montpelier and without are filled with the affectionate and great evidences of his work. The Vermont Historical Society
possesses several excellent examples of his portraiture, all of great historic value and preserved in the Cedar Creek Reception Room at the Vermont State House
: Samuel Prentiss
(1881), United States Senator; Mrs. Samuel Prentiss (1895) and Dr. Edward Lamb (1895), gifts to the Society by the family of Mr. Prentiss. In 1896, the Society unveiled a life-size portrait of the distinguished publicist, the Hon. E. P. Walton, the gift of his wife and sister. Wood's personal donations include portraits of the Rev. William A. Lord, D.D. (1874), minister of Bethany Congregational Church of this city, Daniel Pierce Thompson
(1880), novelist and author of "The Green Mountain Boys", and Justin S. Morrill, United States Senator, father of tariff legislation, promoter of agricultural colleges and chief up builder of the Library of Congress
.
One of the noblest paintings now existing in the state is the artist's beautiful translation of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
's "La Madonna del Rosario". This work, submitting the original with infinite tenderness and feeling, was painted in 1896 in the Dulwich Gallery and was consecrated by Bishop de Goesbriand for the service of Saint Augustine's Church
on July 26, 1897. The essential force of this sacred painting is its actual power to impress the beholder with a profound sense of the sacredness of motherhood and the worth and lasting values of purity and religious faith. In accepting this donation from Wood the Reverend Bishop said: "You have made a great Murillo of the seventeenth century our contemporary," an expression not only true of itself but one which defines the special value of the truly great copies of great paintings.
In his copies, which were made with great care and a due appreciation of the masters, Wood exhibits the same broad range which is found in his other work. Between Murillo's Madonna of the Rosary and Charles Robert Leslie
's Uncle Toby and Widow Wadman there is the greatest possible gulf. The first proves the deep conviction of the artist in the most sacred of human thoughts and the latter the great sense humor which so constantly found expression in his etchings, water colors and some of this genre paintings. In the Wood Collection at Montpelier there are 20 originals, 40 copies, seven water colors and 11 etchings, in all 78, a splendid and imposing example of thought, work and character of a single painter.
Montpelier, Vermont
Montpelier is a city in the U.S. state of Vermont that serves as the state capital and the shire town of Washington County. As the capital of Vermont, Montpelier is the site of the Vermont State House, seat of the legislative branch of Vermont government. The population was 7,855 at the 2010...
.
Origins
Thomas Waterman Wood's father, John Wood, came to Montpelier from Lebanon, New HampshireLebanon, New Hampshire
As of the census of 2000, there were 12,568 people, 5,500 households, and 3,178 families residing in the city. The population density was 311.4 people per square mile . There were 5,707 housing units at an average density of 141.4 per square mile...
in 1814. The Wood family was of Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
stock, and it was from Lebanon that John Wood, the father of the artist, married his wife Mary Waterman. She was described as having lived a simple, pious, good-natured and industrious life.
John Wood and his brother Cyrus were partners in a cabinet making
Cabinet making
Cabinet making is the practice of using various woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture.Cabinet making involves techniques such as creating appropriate joints, dados, bevels, chamfers and shelving systems, the use of finishing tools such as routers to create decorative...
business, the partnership concluding with the death of Cyrus in 1840. John's other brother, Zenas, lived to be 84 years of age. John Wood was a vigorous citizen, active in his times, the captain of an artillery company and for a long time, a deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
in the First Congregational Church.
During Wood's youth, Montpelier was not likely to inspire a man to paint. It was a small town of practical people, lacking in the means of art culture and instruction in art. The hills and valleys, however, were beautiful, filled at all seasons with a wonderful light, and these had and continued to have for Wood an inspiration and influence throughout his life.
While he lacked artistic surroundings in his youth, he also had the acquaintance of great contemporaries, Prentiss
Samuel Prentiss
Samuel Prentiss was a United States Senator from Vermont and later a United States federal judge.Born in Stonington, Connecticut, he moved to Northfield, Massachusetts in 1786; he completed preparatory studies and was instructed in the classics by a private tutor...
, Upham
William Upham
William Upham was a United States Senator from Vermont.-Biography:William Upham was born in Leicester, Massachusetts to Samuel Upham and Martha Upham. He moved with his father to Montpelier, Vermont in 1802...
, Spaulding, Peck
Lucius Benedict Peck
Lucius Benedict Peck was a U.S. Representative from Vermont.Born in Waterbury, Vermont, Peck pursued classical studies and attended the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, for one year.He studied law....
, Reed, Walton, Jewett, Langdon, Merrill, Dewey, Thompson, Baileys, Heaton, Lord, Lamb and many more besides, who left notable records in Congress, on the bench, at the bar, in theology, finance, legislation, party politics and in the bibliography of Vermont. These neighbors of his were good, strong men, whose characters and excelling work influenced the youth of Wood as also his conceptions of a strong art, as was evidenced in later years by much of his best work.
Before the introduction of daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
s Montpelier was accustomed to receive an occasional visit from some peripatetic portrait painter and it was such a painter who first influenced Wood and started him in his career. The painter has been described as a "harum-scarum" character, but also as a "dashing painter", who was able to seize quickly and firmly upon a likeness. There was also a friend, John C. Badger, who brought from Boston tubes of oil colors, brushes, palettes and some books about art. With these in hand the boys began with enthusiasm to develop their resources. There remains nothing of these first efforts; but when the furniture shop of John Wood was destroyed by fire in 1875 there could yet be seen on its plastered walls a number of figure pictures, drawn with dry paints, a sort of rude pastel.
Career
When fortune permitted, Wood went to Boston and studied for a short time in the studio of Chester HardingChester Harding (painter)
Chester Harding was an American portrait painter.-Biography:Harding was born at Conway, Massachusetts. Brought up in the wilderness of New York state, he was a lad of robust physique, standing over 6 feet 3 inches...
, a portrait painter. In 1850 he married Miss Minerva Robinson, then living in Waterbury, Vermont
Waterbury, Vermont
Waterbury is a town in Washington County in central Vermont, in the United States. It is also the name of a village within that town. The population was 4,915 at the 2000 census.-Economy:-Industry:...
, and in the same year he built a summer home in the Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
style on the west side of the mountain gorge through which the road leads up to Northfield
Northfield, Vermont
Northfield is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. It lies in a valley within the Green Mountains, and has been the home of Norwich University since 1866. The town contains the village of Northfield, where over half of its population lives. The population was 6,207 at the 2010...
. He named this home after his wife, making use of the Latin synonym, Athenwood.
During the 1850s, he found means of visiting galleries in London, Paris, Rome and Florence, having previously painted portraits in Canada, Washington and Baltimore. His first European visit, in 1858, was shared with Mrs. Wood. Upon their return he painted portraits in Nashville and Louisville, beginning at the former place The Fiddler, which was completed years afterwards and finally included in the Thomas W. Wood Collection in the Montpelier gallery.
At the age of 43, the artist permanently settled himself in New York City, opening a studio as a figure painter
Figure painting
Figure painting is a form of the visual arts in which the artist uses a live model as the subject of a two-dimensional piece of artwork using paint as the medium. The live model can be either nude or partly or fully clothed and the painting is a representation of the full body of the model...
. This was in 1866, eight years after the exhibition of his first work in the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, The Baltimore Newsvendor (1858). This painting was sold by mistake to two persons, Mr. J. C. Brune of Baltimore and Mr. Robert L. Stuart of New York, resulting in a long, expensive lawsuit, terminated in favor of Mr. Brune.
During his residence in Louisville, Wood painted The Contraband, Recruit and Veteran, suggested by the sight of a black man in light brown jeans, who had but one leg and was hobbling along on home-made crutches. This celebrated work commemorates the transition of the African American from slavery to freedom and is now the property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1869, Wood was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design and, in 1871, an Academician. He became President of the American Water Color Society in 1878 and served in that office until 1887. He acted as Vice-President of the National Academy of Design for a period of twelve years beginning in 1879. In 1891 he became the President of the Academy. In achieving and discharging the functions of these offices for so many years, surrounded by artists of distinction, Wood evidenced the quality and high character of his personal attributes, his deep knowledge of his art, his unequaled courtesy and judgement, the acknowledged value of his own work and, above all, an unusual capacity for acquiring friendship and commanding the utmost respect as the result of a good life and noble heart.
Art
It may be that his reputation as an artist will rest upon his figure pictures, although his very numerous portrait paintings involved much of the effort of his life and are most certainly characterized but simple and strong composition, great technical execution and a masterful use of colors. It may also follow that he will yet achieve his most memorable honors from the interpretations which he has made of great paintings, but from the stand point of those whose minds and hearts are won by considerations of local history the highest interest will be assigned to works in which Wood included characters from his native place. As examples of his work in this direction the following may be mentioned: The Yankee Pedlar had for its model a tin peddler known as "Snapping Tucker", a resident of Calais, VermontCalais, Vermont
Calais is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,529 at the 2000 census. Calais is pronounced similarly to palace, not chalet...
. When this work was sold for a large sum, Tucker promptly claimed his share upon the grounds of his intrinsic worth and natural capacity as a poser. The Village Post Office was taken from the interior of the old Ainsworth
Ainsworth
-Places:*Ainsworth, British Columbia, Canada*Ainsworth, Greater Manchester, EnglandUnited States*Ainsworth, Indiana*Ainsworth, Iowa*Ainsworth, Nebraska*Ainsworth, Wisconsin*Ainsworth, Washington, ghost town*Ainsworth State Park, Oregon-Ships:...
store in Williamstown, Vermont
Williamstown, Vermont
Williamstown is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States. The population was 3,225 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 40.3 square miles , of which 40.2 square miles is land and 0.2 square mile is...
, but the figures were mostly taken from Montpelier people. Wood's uncle Zenas was the postmaster and the group around the store, Boyden, Whittier and Bullock, were old-time residents. Their clerk was Horace Scribner, long esteemed as a generous country musician and as the organist of Christ Church. This painting was bought by Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, ex-president of the New York Chamber of Commerce. The scene for The Quack Doctor was located in front of the old arch which once spanned the head of State Street leading to East State. The old brick building, the home of Montpelier Book Bindery, still stands. This picture was bought by Mr. George I. Seneg for $2,000 and after his death was included in the sale of his entire collection.
Another successful painting was The Country Doctor. The artist found the proper model for this work with the aid of the Secretary of State
Secretary of State (U.S. state government)
Secretary of State is an official in the state governments of 47 of the 50 states of the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and other U.S. possessions. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, this official is called the Secretary of the Commonwealth...
, Dr. George Nichols, in the person of an actual country doctor, then representing the town of Jamaica
Jamaica, Vermont
Jamaica is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 946 at the 2000 census. Jamaica includes the villages of East Jamaica and Rawsonville....
in the legislature. This doctor bore upon his face the impress of his beneficent labors for more than 40 years in a back country town. Wood himself told the writer, in speaking of this painting, that many a person had said to him, "That doctor is the exact image of my father, who was also a country doctor." This saying he regarded not so much as proof that he had achieved a concrete likeness but as an evidence of having successfully handed down the particular class idea of the old-fashioned country physician, as truly different in type from the city practitioner as was the country lawyer
Country Lawyer
In the United States, a country lawyer, or county-seat lawyer, is an attorney who has completed little or no formal legal training and has become a member of a county bar or a state bar after "reading law"; traditionally, these lawyers practiced general law in a rural setting, or on the frontier...
of former days from his brother in the city.
In 1891, Wood exhibited at the Academy a picture entitled A Cogitation, for which one of his Montpelier friends, Mr. George Ripley, posed. The composition is extremely simple, a farmer in his barn, leaning upon his pitchfork, his countenance thoughtful. This picture was bought by Mr. Harper and published as a full-page engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
in Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...
during the Greeley campaign over the title "Is Greeley a Fool or a Knave?". The humorous side of this incident consists in the fact that Mr. Ripley was the model was an ardent supporter of Mr. Greeley in that campaign, while the artist himself, so far as we know, never dabbled in politics.
These few examples sufficiently illustrate the influence which the place of his birth had upon Wood. He was not only a Vermonter but a great painter of Vermont ideas, conditions and character. Nor did foreign travel nor city residence nor any influence of professional connections ever tend to diminish the deep and abiding interest in his early home. The subjects of his works, his selection of characters, his yearly pilgrimage to Vermont, all demonstrate his filial loyalty and he gave to this sentiment of his heart its final expression in the establishment, as a gift to Montpelier, of its Gallery of Art. But, apart from this, the homes, offices and institutions of Montpelier and without are filled with the affectionate and great evidences of his work. The Vermont Historical Society
Vermont Historical Society
The Vermont Historical Society was founded in 1838 to preserve and record the cultural history of the US state of Vermont. Headquartered in the old Spaulding School Building in Barre, the Vermont History Center is home to the Vermont Historical Society's administrative offices, the Leahy Library...
possesses several excellent examples of his portraiture, all of great historic value and preserved in the Cedar Creek Reception Room at the Vermont State House
Vermont State House
The Vermont State House, located in Montpelier, is the state capitol of Vermont and the seat of the Vermont General Assembly. The current Greek Revival structure is the third building on the same site to be used as the State House...
: Samuel Prentiss
Samuel Prentiss
Samuel Prentiss was a United States Senator from Vermont and later a United States federal judge.Born in Stonington, Connecticut, he moved to Northfield, Massachusetts in 1786; he completed preparatory studies and was instructed in the classics by a private tutor...
(1881), United States Senator; Mrs. Samuel Prentiss (1895) and Dr. Edward Lamb (1895), gifts to the Society by the family of Mr. Prentiss. In 1896, the Society unveiled a life-size portrait of the distinguished publicist, the Hon. E. P. Walton, the gift of his wife and sister. Wood's personal donations include portraits of the Rev. William A. Lord, D.D. (1874), minister of Bethany Congregational Church of this city, Daniel Pierce Thompson
Daniel Pierce Thompson
Daniel Pierce Thompson was an American novelist and lawyer born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He married in 1831 and had six children. Thompson began practicing law in 1823 or 1824 and served as secretary of state for Vermont between 1853 and 1855...
(1880), novelist and author of "The Green Mountain Boys", and Justin S. Morrill, United States Senator, father of tariff legislation, promoter of agricultural colleges and chief up builder of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
One of the noblest paintings now existing in the state is the artist's beautiful translation of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
's "La Madonna del Rosario". This work, submitting the original with infinite tenderness and feeling, was painted in 1896 in the Dulwich Gallery and was consecrated by Bishop de Goesbriand for the service of Saint Augustine's Church
Saint Augustine's Church, Montpelier
Saint Augustine Church is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Augustine and located on Barre Street in Montpelier, Vermont. - Beginning :...
on July 26, 1897. The essential force of this sacred painting is its actual power to impress the beholder with a profound sense of the sacredness of motherhood and the worth and lasting values of purity and religious faith. In accepting this donation from Wood the Reverend Bishop said: "You have made a great Murillo of the seventeenth century our contemporary," an expression not only true of itself but one which defines the special value of the truly great copies of great paintings.
In his copies, which were made with great care and a due appreciation of the masters, Wood exhibits the same broad range which is found in his other work. Between Murillo's Madonna of the Rosary and Charles Robert Leslie
Charles Robert Leslie
]Charles Robert Leslie , was an English genre painter. Born in London, his parents were American, and when he was five years of age he returned with them to their native country. They settled in Philadelphia, where their son was educated and afterwards apprenticed to a bookseller...
's Uncle Toby and Widow Wadman there is the greatest possible gulf. The first proves the deep conviction of the artist in the most sacred of human thoughts and the latter the great sense humor which so constantly found expression in his etchings, water colors and some of this genre paintings. In the Wood Collection at Montpelier there are 20 originals, 40 copies, seven water colors and 11 etchings, in all 78, a splendid and imposing example of thought, work and character of a single painter.