Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 131.jpg



OON after the end of the Civil War in America my father sent me to the art school of George Holmes, in Philadelphia, where I met Henry Thouron. He was about two years my senior. He called me John, and placed his arm over my shoulder, half in affection and half, so it seemed to me, in protection. His strong arm, the symbol of his spiritual strength, has ever since been on my shoulder, and is still there, although he died in Rome four years ago.

My recollection of the work we did under the tuition of Mr. Holmes is very imperfect, but I suppose it consisted in imitating, in crayons, the lithographed drawings of casts from Greek and Roman busts and statues, a very roundabout way to arrive at proficiency in drawing, or in any sort of accuracy of observation. All the budding artists of Pennsylvania met in the studio of Mr. Holmes. From there they drifted to the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, then located in Chestnut Street, under the presidency of Richard Vaux, who, many years afterwards, while I was painting him, asked me why people were making so much fuss about Art then, because in the old days, when he was President of the Academy, no one ever gave it a thought, or even came to see the pictures.

About this time the Academy building was turned into a theatre. Benjamin West's great pictures of Death on the