Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/25

 was only eighteen years old when he exhibited a landscape in 1857, has since studied in Munich, where he married and now resides, and has made a fine reputation as an architectural painter. A picture by him attracted much attention at the exhibition of the National Academy of Design, New York, 1866. His mediaeval interiors bring good prices. Several have been brought to San Francisco, where also copies of a photographic album from his drawings were sold in 1865.

Half a dozen good pictures from abroad, and a few rude attempts at sculpture were exhibited in the Mechanics' Fair of 1857. The Art committee, in their report, expressed "their surprise and gratification at the rapid stride which the fine arts have made in our infant city," and believed that the State possessed "an abundant artistic talent, yearning to evolve itself, and fertile as our soil, which only awaits the cultivating hand of taste and wealth to foster and promote its growth." At the next annual Fair of the same Society, in 1858, the exhibit of pictures and other art objects was certainly very numerous. The names already mentioned are found in the catalogue, and we find besides those of Norton Bush, who had a view of Mount Diablo, in oil; Antoine Claveau, who exhibited views in oil of the Yosemite and Bridal Veil Falls; George H. Burgess, who had some original landscapes in water color; T. J. Donnelly, who had several oil portraits; and F. A. Butman. All these names but those of Claveau and Donnelly are well known. The latter had no real merit, and is no longer living. The name of Mr. Butman, who came here from Maine, is honorably identified with the first decided movement in the direction of what we may call native Art, for he undoubtedly gave the first strong impulse to landscape painting in California. Although a few landscapes had been produced here at intervals by Nahl, Jewett, and others, our resident painters had, up to 1858, been obliged to confine themselves mainly to portraiture, Nahl alone doing a variety of work. The diversified scenery of the State was full of inspiration, and had been the theme of many glowing eulogies; but no painter could afford to make exclusive studies of it, to risk his physical comfort on the reproduction of its beauties. Thomas A. Ayers, of New York, who was a man of much artistic promise, commenced a determined experiment in this line, but perished untimely by shipwreck. He was the first individual to explore Yosemite, pencil in hand, and to illustrate its wonders to the gaze of the world. As early as 1856 he rad taken a series of drawings in the valley, which were engraved for Hutchings' Magazine, a work that during several years of this period, published many clever illustrations of California scenery and curiosities. The first large general view of the Valley was drawn on stone by Charles Nahl from a pastil sketch by Ayers, and printed in lithography by L. Nagel, in 1857. A set of ten of Ayers' drawings was sold after his death, by his friend Shaw, for the benefit of his children, for three hundred dollars.

Butman was discursive and enterprising in the selection of his topics. He made many open air studies in color of the most notable mountain and valley scenes in this State and Oregon, traveling on one of his latest trips fully a thousand miles north of San Francicso, and sailing some distance up the Columbia River. Yosemite, the Mecca of all our artists, was of course included in his sketching journeys. He loved broad effects, great distances, and gaudy colors, and although he was sometimes faulty in drawing and perspective, and delighted in an excess of yellows, his pictures were fresh and showy, appealed strongly to local taste, and from 1860 to 1865 gave him a greater share of popularity and success than was enjoyed by