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Fifth and final part written by Thomas Gibbs Moses (1856-1934) in 1932

“In my outdoor sketching in pencil I go much further that the average artist. I get the detail carefully, even is I don’t want to use it later. I feel safe in having it before me while it is much pleasanter to work in my studio on finishing a picture where I am free from all annoying insects and cattle. I will always take a chance out of doors. It is hard for me to decide as to the best sketching grounds. They are all good. The coast of Maine especially around Kennebunkport is the most picturesque. Ogunquit is also famous for the sketching of Chas. Woodbury the marine painter from New York City. I have travelled many times to Kingston and Ellenville on the edge of the Catskills where I made some of my most interesting woods, then back to New Hampshire near Woodstock at the base of Mt. Washington, where I struck a virgin forest of wonderful birches. Down in West Virginia along the Buckwater River are picturesque Falls in the Autumn. I found a lot to paint – dark hemlock, dainty birch and beech. Colorful maples and chestnuts supported by grey granite boulders, moss covered, and partly buried with fall leaves, very interesting.

A trip down the French Broad River in North Carolina south of Asheville gave me some very interesting sketches. The illustrator of Picturesque American found a lot to sketch and plenty to write about down this mall interesting river. Back to Chattanooga I found a lot to do that was interesting. Going away back to 1885 when four of us boys found ourselves in camp nine thousand feet above sea level in the Rocky Mtns. Near Breckenridge, and here was our first experience with Mountain climbing and sketching. It was a wonderful trip.

Of late I have enjoyed sketching in and about Oakland, California during our stay there of three winters. The docks were full of good motifs. Mt Shasta and canyons have received my attention several times, as well as Mt. Ranier, which I have made the subject of several big canvases. I was very much disappointed in my trip to Lake Louise and Banff. While the Canadian Rockies are very majestic and plenty of snow and glaciers, they lack the color that the Colorado Rockies have. The best part of the Canadian Rockies is in the part West and South of Lake Louise through which we were sent during the night. A trip from Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert gave me a good idea of desert painting and Mt. Whitney gave me a thrill which I would like to repeat. Several trips to La Jolla gave me what I wanted from the Pacific Ocean. After all is said, I find good sketching everywhere from a quiet scene at Fox Lake, our Old Palette and Chisel Club Camp, to the highest point in the United States, Mt. Whitney.
My stock of old oils sketches range from 6” x8” to 40” x 50” and number fully 600. Water color and tempura another 200. Pencil sketches 400. So I have 1200 sketches to choose from when I want to paint a picture.
The oil show the best possibilities of becoming pictures. The water colors and tempura are more finished and will pass muster.

At this writing there is a Street Fair of Pictures going on near the Art Institute where pictures are traded for all sorts of food and small cash price. I regret that has to be done, as it belittles art, and brings prices for painting to a ridiculously low price. The well known artists of ability do not participate in this. The majority are the Art Students that are studying at the several art schools and are going in for the Modern type of picture.
I have thoroughly enjoyed many years of broken time of sketching and painting and I sincerely hope that some of my pictures will live long after me and be enjoyed by others as they did me in the making of them.

Leaves that idly dance above

Ferns that shiver by the stream

Each recall an olden love

Each recall a summer’s dream.”

The End.

Mt. Ranier in 1925, Waszut-Barrett Collection

This is a perfect description of how time stands still when you paint out of doors.  The music of the nature around you takes over – especially the trees.

Like most scenic artists, I gained experience in a variety of shops where music played in the background and your mind is occupied by the lyrics when you paint. Classical music was always my my preferred selection as I could listen, solve the world’s problems, and instinctively apply paint to the canvas.  When I thought too hard about what I was painting, I overworked it. I needed to mentally multitask to get the best results – at least that is what I have told myself for years.

After reading another section Moses’ text, however, I remembered teaching plein air painting on our Cambridge property for a few years for community education.  It was so peaceful as we painted in those early spring and fall days, setting up our easels next to the Rum River.

This is one of the few times since moving to the cities in 2015 that I truly miss living the middle of the woods, far away from the concrete and noise of civilization.

“Every other voice was shut away by the voice of the stream as by a closed door, so that I sat in a little solitude of sound. The brook and I were alone, together. By the side of running water my thoughts, if I think at all, are born away on the waves, leaving me with no measure of time. The minutes grown into hours so that when I come to leave I take with me no definitive memories, no deepened wisdom, only a vague sense that I have been happy and nothing could have been added to make it a more perfect day. A thunderstorm in the woods crushes out of recognition all the separate language of the trees sweeping them into a wild confusion of leafy tongues. I find I can distinguish the deep base tone of the pine grow behind me from the whistle of the beeches in front. One can hardly mistake a pine tree at midnight. The wind is imprisoned among its thickest needles and issues from then in a sound always likened to that of ocean surf. In the beech, however, it clashes and rasps its way across flat hard, almost metallic surfaces. The beach is like a beautiful woman with an unpleasant voice. The oak would give little trouble in the darkest night, for the flapping of oak leaves again the twigs is the driest sound in nature.”

Our home in Cambridge, MN

“The Brook” written by Thomas Gibbs Moses (1856-1934), August 1932 at the age of 76 yrs. old.

Here is the second installment:

“The impressionistic painter would be quite justified in attending chiefly to more obvious aspects of the brook scenery, not only because these are all that he can hope to represent, but also because the effects of running water almost infinitely vary as a close examination finds them to be, are composed of a few fundamental forms, the attending pool, slow water, the slide, the rapid, the eddy, the curve, and the full, which is alphabet of the brook in which all their endless literature is written. No two pools are exactly alike and no two eddies or waterfalls. Like my own life the brooks says the same thing over and over without ever representing itself, and I think I could listen to it forever. The brook is the oldest thing we know and the youngest as well. It has no age. It is time racing down forever through the channels of eternity. Waves of the sea and of rivers constantly shift from place to place because they are not controlled by solid bodies of earth or rock, but the ridge and hollows of the brook surface are stable without being rigid. I am always happy near running water, which I discover by always going to the bottom of every little valley where a brook is flowing.

The brook moves in rhythm, like music and poetry and dance, and it recalls these arts that we have devised to express the inexpressible. I know how gladly it would linger in the sunny pool, but I know also that it is drawn downward to the great sea by a deeper fascination. As the day wanes and the lengthening shadows and sunlight was striking upwards among the leaves and from the ripples of the brook I sat in a happy mood as water slipped swiftly by. Upon the current were sailing here a yellow leaf of alder and there a curled gray leaf of willow, and the waves that sustained these tiny skiffs were topaz, amber or maroon, according to how the rocks over which they ran varied in hue or as the sunlight struck them.”

And here are some detail images from a Moses’ painting:

Here are a few illustrations of interiors from Andrew Geis’ (b. 1888-?) source book.

As I went through Geis’ book to pull pictures yesterday, I stumbled across two more mages of the Palais Garnier Opera in Paris.  One has a very similar composition to yesterday’s post.

I encountered an image by Russell Patterson in Andrew Geis’ Source Book. Compelled by the image, I decided to see who this artist was and when he worked. He is one fascinating guy! A contemporary of Geis’ and possible colleague in Chicago. They certainly travelled in the same circles!

I have included an image of the actual location that he was illustrating (Garnier Opera in Paris) – luckily, I took a similar photo in Paris last summer! Almost like I knew that I would need it…

Russell Patterson (1893-1977) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, costume designer, prop builder, scenic designer, and many other things!

Born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Montreal, Patterson moved to Chicago during WWI to become a catalogue illustrator. Early work includes department store designs for Carson Pirie Scott & Company and Marshal Field. Side note: Many free lance scenic artists and studios sought these same store designs as part of their business. Patterson also attended the Art Institute of Chicago – as did most scenic artists at the time. His path would have constantly crossed a variety of scenic artists in Chicago! Another business venture that he was engaged in from 1922-1925 was a mail order art instruction course!

His art deco magazine illustrations helped promote the 1920s “flapper” image – known as the Patterson Girl. Similar to the Gibson Girl, his work really defined the 1920s and 30s fun-loving female in fabulous attire.

In 1925, he moved to New York and worked as an illustrator and designer for the theatre – both costumes and sets. On Broadway, Patterson’s productions included The Gang’s All Here” (Costume Design, 1931), “Ballyhoo of 1932” (Costume designer, director, and scenic designer); “Hold Your Horses” (Costume designer, 1933); “Fools Rush In” (Scenic designer, 1934); “Ziegfield Follies of 1934” (Costume designer); “The Illustrator’s Show” (Curtain design, 1936)“and “George White’s Scandals” (Scenic Design, 1936). For more information about these shows, go to the Broadway Database at https://www.ibdb.com/

From the 1920s through 1950s, Patterson continued to draw for a variety of publications, including Sunday newspaper magazine covers and comic strips. “Mamie,” a Sunday page for United Features Syndicate was one such example. Art historians note that he was one of the key artists who brought the “dumb blond” back into vogue in comic strips with her small waist and long legs (Really?!?! I have to wonder when this character was ever absent from our culture or printed history…). Patterson later became the President of the National Cartoonist Society.

His sporadic visits to Hollywood during the 1930s, involved him in a variety of interesting projects, including the creation of life-like dolls that he called, “Personettes.” These props appeared in the film “Artists and Models,” starring Jack Benny. He also designed Shirley Temple’s wardrobe “Baby, Take a Bow” in 1934 and a whole host of other projects for film.

Frequently traveling from one end of the country to the other, Patterson even judged the Miss America Swimsuit Competition in Atlantic City in 1933 with Gladys Glad (Ziegfield Follies Girl)?!?! He obviously enjoyed the female form…

For more information on Patterson, see “Top Hats and Flappers: The Art of Russell Patterson,” (Fantagraphics, 2006).

I am so glad that I followed my curiosity to see who was behind the signature!

Here is another page from Andrew Geis’ source book.

I am back to one of my favorite Masonic scenes – Hell, Hades, Dante, Inferno, or “you name that that favorite underworld scene.”

It is for the 18th degree. Main message for this particular scene– don’t fall prey to temptation or you will suffer great torments. I know it is an extremely simplified version of the degree, but I hate to put up any Masonic image that could possibly make people think “devil worshippers.” They are not.

I have been compiling a North American database of Masonic installations (primarily on Scottish Rite scenery, but also with a smattering of Shrines, Commanderies, Grottos, and Blue Lodge paintings). While cross referencing my list with images that I remember from the U of MN scenery database I stumbled across the following sketches by Twin City Scenic.

I remembered seeing the same composition in Grand Forks. It was rolled up with a shrine cut drop and not in use. Neither of the drops are from the original 1914 Sosman & Landis collection (Chicago, Illinois). They were from the Twin City Scenic Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota

These two renderings are from the Twin City Scenic Company Collection (PA43). Unfortunately, they are not in the same box. M160 is in Box 11 and M161 (one with spatter) is in Box 12.

Again, here is the link for the scenery collection search: http://umedia.lib.umn.edu/scenicsearch

Here are the sketches:

Here is the drop in Grand Forks: