Jervis McEntee (July 14, 1828 – January 27, 1891) was an American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...

. He is a lesser-known figure of the 19th-century American art world, but was a close friend and traveling companion of several of the important Hudson River School artists. Aside from his paintings, McEntee's unpublished journals, written from 1872 to 1890, are an enduring legacy, documenting the life of a New York painter during and after the

Gilded Age In History of the United States, United States history, the Gilded Age is the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after Mar ...

Biography

McEntee was born in Rondout, New York on July 14, 1828, the son of James Smith McEntee (1800-1887), a civil engineer, and his wife Sarah Jane McEntee (1805-1883). His sister Mary was the wife of architect and co-designer of New York's Central Park

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...

. Otherwise, little is known of his childhood. From approximately 1844–1846, he attended the Clinton Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. He exhibited his first painting as a self-taught artist at the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

in New York City in 1850. In the fall of that year he apprenticed with

Frederic Edwin Church Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painting, landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for paintin ...

, then regarded as a rising star in the American art world. He left Church's studio in 1851, and while he never achieved Church's level of fame and fortune, they remained lifelong friends. After studying with Church, McEntee attempted a career as a businessman in Rondout, but did not experience much success. After three years he gave up business and devoted himself wholly to his art, becoming one of the charter residents of

Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of architecture of the United States. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 ...

's Tenth Street Studio Building in 1857. Since many of the building's other occupants were bachelors or commuters, McEntee and his wife (who was known as a lively, sympathetic hostess) became the center of a spontaneous salon frequented by some of the best-known artists, writers, and actors of the era. After his wife died in 1878, McEntee stayed on at the building, an increasingly lonely widower, until his death in 1891. McEntee was a particularly close friend of Hudson River School artists Sanford Robinson Gifford, Worthington Whittredge, John Ferguson Weir, as well as figurative painter

Eastman Johnson Jonathan Eastman Johnson (July 29, 1824 – April 5, 1906) was an American painter and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance. He was best known for his genre paintings, paintings of ...

. He was made an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1860, and a full academician in 1861. In 1869 he visited Europe, painting much in Italy. He died of

Bright's disease Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine. It was frequently accompanied ...

at his home in Rondout on January 27, 1891, and is buried in Montrepose Cemetery in

Kingston, New York Kingston is the only Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in, and the county seat of, Ulster County, New York, United States. It is north of New York City and south of Albany, New York, Albany. The city's metropolitan area is grou ...

Artistic style

Jervis McEntee - A Cliff in the Katskills - Google Art Project

The

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s of Jervis McEntee are known for their melancholy and poetic mood. The sky is often cloudy in a McEntee

, the season autumn. While Jasper Francis Cropsey and other artists typically painted bright fall foliage, McEntee often captured the season near its end, with the leaves faded and falling from the trees. "Some people call my

s gloomy and disagreeable," McEntee wrote in his journal. "They say I paint the sorrowful side of nature …But this is a mistake…Nature is not sad to me but quiet, pensive, restful."

Journals

Aside from his paintings, McEntee's enduring legacy are the detailed journals he kept from the early 1870s until his death. These diaries provide a vivid, accurate impression of the life of a typical New York painter during and after the Gilded Age. In his writings, McEntee records a detailed account of Hudson River School artists, their day-to-day life, gossip and personal reflections, and the overall arc of the American art world in the second half of the 19th century. He discusses his artistic successes and trials, particularly as money becomes more scarce with the decline in popularity of Hudson River School art. The journals contain first-hand information on the inner workings of the National Academy and the Century Club, on the 1876

Centennial Exposition The Centennial International Exhibition, officially the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876. It was the first official wo ...

in Philadelphia, efforts to revive the American Art-Union, and on the vigorous growth of art societies and exhibitions throughout the country. The diaries also reveal the economy of art during the period, including the prices, patterns of collecting and patronage, the artists' dependence on personal contacts through clubs, social gatherings, and influential friends. Long passages describe McEntee's overwhelming anxieties over money and family difficulties; he is frequently lonely and depressed, and always worried about his status as an artist. McEntee's journals are now kept by the

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...

, a research center within the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. Five volumes of these diaries, from 1872 to 1890, have been digitally scanned, transcribed, and can be browsed in their entirety online. In addition, the Archives holds McEntee's personal papers, which were digitized in 2007.

Selected works

*''The Doge's Palace (Venice),'' undated, St. Johnsbury Athenaeum *''The Melancholy Days Have Come'' (1861),

*''Indian Summer'' (ca. 1861),

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...

*''Evening Landscape, Late Autumn'' (1861),

Bowdoin College Museum of Art The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is an art museum located in Brunswick, Maine. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum is a part of Bowdoin College and has been located in the Walker Art Building since 1894. The museum is ...

*''Mount Desert Island, Maine'' (1864), John Wilmerding Collection,

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

*''October Snow'' (1870) *''The Woods of Asshockan, Catskills'' (1871), St. Johnsbury Athenaeum *''Sea from Shore'' (1873), Mead Art Museum *''Cape Ann'' (1874) *''A Song of Summer'' (1876) *''Winter in the Mountains'' (1878) *''Clouds'' (1870), Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center *''The Edge of a Wood'' (1880) *''Kaatskill River'' (1881) *''An Autumn Memory'' (1883),

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. The museum opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Its holdings include Roman mosaics, Europe ...

*''Shadows of Autumn'' (1884) *''The Kaatskills in Winter'' (1884) *''A Cliff in the Katskills'' (c. 1885),

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

*''Christmas Eve'' (1885) *''Shadows of Autumn'' (1886)

References

External links