John LaFarge

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John LaFarge

John La Farge, 1902
Born March 31, 1835(1835-03-31)
New York City, New York
Died November 14, 1910(1910-11-14) (aged 75)
Nationality American
Field Painting, Stained glass art, Decorator, Writer
Training Mount St. Mary's University
Angel of Help, 1886.
Figure of Wisdom
Angel at the Tomb, Thomas Crane Public Library (Quincy, Massachusetts).

John La Farge (March 31, 1835 – November 14, 1910) was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.

Contents

[edit] Biography

LaFarge was born in New York City to wealthy French parents and was raised bilingually.[1] His interest in art began during his studies at Mount St. Mary's University[2] and St. John's College (now Fordham University). He initially intended to study law.

This changed after his first visit to Paris, France in 1856.[1] Stimulated by the arts in the city, he studied with Thomas Couture and became acquainted with notable literary people. LaFarge subsequently studied with the painter William Morris Hunt in Newport.[3][4] Even LaFarge's earliest drawings and landscapes done in Newport, Rhode Island, show marked originality, especially in the handling of color values. He was a pioneer in the study of Japanese art, which influence is seen in his work.

Between 1859 and 1870, he illustrated Tennyson's Enoch Arden and Robert Browning's Men and Women. Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of color are shown by his mural decorations.[citation needed] His first work in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Chapel (Columbia University), New York. For the Minnesota State Capitol at St. Paul, he executed at age 71 four great lunettes representing the history of law. He created a similar series based on the theme of Justice for the State Supreme Court building at Baltimore, Maryland.

During his life, LaFarge maintained a studio at 51 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village, which is now part of the site of Eugene Lang College.[5] LaFarge painted extensively, recording his extensive travels in Asia and the South Pacific. He visited Japan in 1886, and the South Seas in 1890 and 1891, in particular spending time and absorbing the culture of Tahiti.[1] Henry Adams accompanied him on these trips as a travel companion.[1]

Enjoying an extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art, by his cultured personality and reflective conversation, he influenced many other people. Though naturally a questioner, he venerated the traditions of religious art, and preserved his Catholic faith and reverence.

On his death in 1910, John LaFarge was interred in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

[edit] Stained glass

La Farge experimented with color problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He rivaled the beauty of medieval windows and added new resources by inventing opalescent glass and by his original methods of superimposing and welding his materials.

Among his many stained glass works are windows at:

[edit] Marriage and children

He married on October 15, 1860 at Newport, Rhode Island, Margaret Mason Perry, who was born on February 26, 1839 in Newport, Rhode Island, and died on May 2, 1925.

Her father was Christopher Grant Perry, the son of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Elizabeth Champlin Mason. He was a descendant of Gov. Thomas Prence (1599 - March 29, 1673) a co-founder of Eastham, Massachusetts, a political leader in both the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, and governor of Plymouth (1634, 1638, and 1657–1673); and Elder William Brewster (pilgrim), (c. 1567 - April 10, 1644), the Pilgrim leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony and a passenger on the Mayflower.

Her mother was Frances Sergeant, who was the daughter of Chief Justice Thomas Sergeant and Sarah Bache, the daughter of Sarah Franklin Bache and Richard Bache. She was a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and Deborah Read.

His eldest son, Christopher Grant LaFarge, was a partner in the New York-based architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge. He designed projects in Beaux-Arts style, notably the original Byzantine Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Yale undergraduate society St. Anthony Hall (extant 1893-1913) pictured at,[7] and the original Astor Court buildings of the Bronx Zoo.

His son Oliver Hazard Perry LaFarge I became an architect and real estate developer. Part of his career in real estate was in a Seattle partnership with Marshall Latham Bond, Bond & LaFarge. He designed the Perry Building, still standing in the city. Later in life O.H.P. LaFarge designed buildings for General Motors.

John LaFarge, Jr., S.J., became a Jesuit priest and a strong supporter of anti-racist policies.

[edit] Legacy and honors

[edit] Veneration

LaFarge is honored together with Ralph Adams Cram and Richard Upjohn with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on December 16.

[edit] Selection of LaFarge's writings

  • The American Art of Glass (a pamphlet)
  • Considerations on Painting (New York, 1895)
  • An Artist's Letters from Japan (New York, 1897)
  • The Great Masters (New York)
  • Hokusai: a talk about Japanese painting (New York, 1897)
  • The Higher Life in Art (New York, 1908)
  • One Hundred Great Masterpieces
  • The Christian Story in Art
  • Letters from the South Seas (unpublished)
  • Correspondence (unpublished)

[edit] See also

Portal icon Saints portal

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d Roberts, Norma J., ed. (1988), The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, p. 26, ISBN 0-8109-1811-0 .
  2. ^ "Works by Mount Saint Mary's Alumnus to be Featured in Exhibit". emmitsburg.net. http://www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/ce/mount/2003/painting_exhibit.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-06. 
  3. ^ American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, by Margaret C. Conrads, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Hudson Hills, 1990, ISBN 1555950507
  4. ^ The only full-length formal portrait painted by LaFarge was that of Richard Howland Hunt, the young son of the architect Richard Morris Hunt and nephew of the painter William Morris Hunt.[1]
  5. ^ Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P. 650.
  6. ^ Julie L. Sloan and James L. Yarnall. "Art of an Opaline Mind: The Stained Glass of John La Farge," American Art Journal, Vol. 24, No. 1/2 (1992)
  7. ^ Yale's Lost Landmarks at www.yalealumnimagazine.com

[edit] External links

[edit] Gallery

  • Agathon to Erosanthe, Votive Wreath, 1861

  • Portrait of the Novelist Henry James, 1862

  • Wreath of Flowers, 1866, Smithsonian American Art Museum

  • Paradise Valley, 1866-8

  • The Golden Age, 1878, Smithsonian American Art Museum

  • Portrait of Faase, the Taupo of the Fagaloa Bay, Samoa, 1881

  • The Great Statue of Amida Buddha at Kamakura, 1886

  • Kilauea, Looking at Cone of Crater, 1890, Honolulu Academy of Arts

  • Girls Carrying a Canoe, Vaiala in Samoa, 1891

  • Young Girls Preparing Kava Outside of the Hut whose Posts are Decorated with Flowers, 1891

  • View in Ceylon, near Dambula

  • Diadem Mountain at Sunset, Tahiti - Brooklyn Museum

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

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