T is difficult for us, living in an age when time and space are annihilated by steam and by electricity, and mountains and rivers are crossed as readily as the broad plain, to realize what was signified at the beginning of the century by the phrase "crossing the mountains." Equally difficult is it for us, with our too limited knowledge of the social and economic conditions that then existed, to comprehend just what opportunities there were for higher cultivation "west of the mountains." The conditions of soil and service, of hewing forests and of making roads, of building mills and of diverting watercourses, would seem to leave neither opportunity nor possibility for the development of an art instinct. That such a temperament as Jouett's manifested itself notwithstanding, shows anew that genius will break all bounds.

It seems passing strange that the great Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, to commemorate the founding of the government, with its stores of art treasures, gathered from all quarters of the globe, giving an enduring impulse to æsthetic thought and cultivation in our midst, should have failed to bring to the front a knowledge of Jouett's art, and that it should have been left for its successor at Chicago to make him known to his fellow countrymen. Yet it is so; and the writer's share in this good work, although only a means to an end, is a most gratifying reward for much time and labor freely given to the undertaking.

The department of the Fine Arts at the Columbian Exposition contained a retrospective exhibit of the paintings of deceased American artists. It was designed to show the progress and development of the art of the country from colonial times, and while such an exhibit must necessarily have a decided historical bearing, choice was made of such examples as would best show the artistic tendencies of the painters. The formation of this collection was confided to the writer, and the first contribution received by him was a miniature, on ivory, from Frankfort, Kentucky. It was executed

with infinite skill to attain the desired result, but showed unmistakably that it was not the work of one trained in the conventional methods of the miniaturist's art; not one drilled to mechanical dexterity in manipulation, and to follow the cardinal principles, and the rules for hatching and for stippling. On the contrary, every rule for miniature-painting was, in absolute ignorance, disregarded, with the result that this portrait in little is as big as a life-size head. It was my introduction to the art of Matthew Harris Jouett, and the subject was a sturdy patriot of the Revolution, General Charles Scott, Governor of the painter's own State. Its reception was followed quickly by the courteous offer, from the artist's grandson, the late lamented Jouett Menefee, Esq., of Louisville, Kentucky, of an oil portrait of John Grimes, which, contrary to precept and to precedent, was eagerly accepted without being seen, and the blind judgment thus exercised has been amply vindicated.

Matthew Harris Jouett was born near what is now Harrodsburg, in Mercer County, Kentucky, on April 22, 1788, and died, in his fortieth year, at Lexington, August 10, 1827. His father was the noted Captain Jack Jouett, of the Revolution, who, eluding Tarleton's rangers, gave the alarm to Jefferson at Monticel lo, and to the State Legislature at Charlottesville, enabling them to escape. For this meritorious service Captain Jouett was thanked by Congress, and Virginia presented him with a sword and a brace of pistols. Jack Jouett's fighting quali ties cropped out with twofold force in his grandson, the painter's son, until the name and fame of "Fighting Jim Jouett," present rear-admiral retired, in the United States navy, was on every tongue during the exciting period of the war for the preservation of the Union.

The Jouetts, as the name indicates, were of French and Huguenot origin, and are directly descended from the noble Matthieu de Jouhet, Master of the Horse to Louis XIII. of France, Lord of Leveignac, and Lieutenant in the Mar

shalsea of Limousin, whose grandson, Daniel de Jouet, came to the Narragansett country, in Rhode Island, in 1686. Thence he wandered to South Carolina, and back to New York, finally settling at Elizabeth, in New Jersey, where he died in 1721. Daniel de Jouet had three sons and two daughters; the youngest son, Jean Jouet, went to Virginia, and was the great-grandfather of our painter. "Matt Jouett," as he was familiarly called, received such elementary education as the country afforded, and his father, the bluff old Virginian fighter, having determined to make one of his sons "an educated gentleman," called them

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before him and asked which one it should be, when they all fixed upon Matt as the most fit martyr to cultivation. He was accordingly sent to Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, founded just a century ago, and on leaving college studied law and was admitted to the bar. He had, however, only fairly embarked upon winning the fickle mistress, practice, when war against England was declared, which so stirred the fighting blood he had inherited from his father, and transmitted to his sons, that he sought service in the field. He was appointed first lieutenant in the Twentyeighth Regiment of United States infan

try, and became regimental paymaster, a position he held until promoted to a cap taincy. Through the exigencies of war he had the misfortune to lose all of his paymaster's vouchers, which loss was the incubus that weighed him down through life in the honorable endeavor to make good to his sureties the loss this disaster had entailed upon them.

Jouett's inclination for art had manifested itself long before this, and paints and brushes had more sway over him than goose-quills and sheepskin. Law and arms were his professions, but art

MATTHEW HARRIS JOUETT.

her nose and another raised over her brow, was painted with such tools, and is a remarkably strong delineation of character.

Even during his soldiering Jouett did not desist from using the brush, and the only portraits that exist of some of his comrades who fell by his side were painted by him from recollection after they were dead. He had an uncommon power of memorizing faces, and the likeness in one of these post-vivum portraits was so speaking that the subject's widow fainted at the first sight of it. It is not

surprising, therefore, that upon his retirement from the army he abandoned the law and devoted himself wholly to art, in which he reached the topmost round of the ladder. His intuitive knowledge of what is the highest and best in art, his remarkable facility for expressing that knowledge, and his versatility and fecundity of resources, stamp him unmistakably as a genius.

Jouett followed, unfortunately, the prevailing fault among the painters of his time in not signing and dating his works. Therefore it is more than difficult, it is impossible, to point out the early productions of his brush. Oftentimes this is made easy by the tentative character of the work, showing the beginner's essay, and his development can be followed step by step through its gradations until the summit of his attainment is reached. Not so, however, with Jouett. He seems like Athena, who came forth fullarmored from the brain of Jove. He did not have to learn how to paint; he knew how. He did not acquire his knowledge; he did not absorb it from the outside and perfect it in the crucible of his brain, giving it forth from this refining process. It was from within that he drew his inspiration and his knowledge, and therefore he was equipped fully from the beginning. In this he seems to stand alone among the moderns who have juggled with paints and brushes. Not that Jouett is the only genius who has painted, but

was his life and love. With feathers plucked from the tail of a duck he fashioned pencils to essay painting on ivory, and his natural ability was so commensurate with his innate knowledge, that. with these crude implements, he produced portraits in little that possess qualities to place them very high in the important department to which they belong. His miniature portrait of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Allen, with one pair of spectacles on

While these notes are invaluable for the painter and the student to acquire a knowledge of the master's methods of work, Stuart's influence Over Jouett seems to have had only the effect of giving added versatility to his methods of work, in that he painted some portraits after his return so much like Stuart's that it is difficult to believe they are the production of any other hand. This is notably so in the portrait of Lucy Payn, the sister of Dolly Madison, who first was the wife of George Steptoe Washington, and then became, in early widowhood, following the lead of her more noted sister, the bride of Thomas Todd, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Stuart painted Mrs. Madison, and Jouett painted Mrs. Todd, and it is a Chinese puzzle to tell which is from the easel of one and which from the easel of the other.

That Jouett followed Stuart's dictum in commencing a portrait is exhibited conspicuously in the last canvas upon

which he worked-an interesting ébauche of the local poet Peter Grayson, now, through the generosity of the painter's daughter, Mrs. Menefee, of Louisville, Kentucky, owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, at Philadelphia. The story is told how Grayson was on his way to give a sitting for this portrait when he met a funeral cortége, and upon inquiry learned that it was his friend, Jouett, the painter, who was being carried to his rest. Returning home, Grayson wrote the lines, on his painter friend, which have appeared in print. Stuart's dictum was: "In the commencement of all portraits, the first idea is an indistinct mass of the light and shadow; or the character of the person as seen in the heel of the evening, in the gray of the morning, or at a distance too great to discriminate features with exactness. Too much light destroys, as too little hides, the colors, and the true and perfect image of a man is to be seen only in a misty or hazy atmosphere."

These views are of very curious interest at the present day, when meretricious impressionism holds such influence, and show how true it is that there is nothing new under the sun. Surely no one, to look at one of Stuart's portraits, would ever think of charging him with being an "impressionist," in the latter-day sense of the word. Yet his directions for the "commencement" of a portrait, given more than fourscore years ago, are impressionism pure and simple. Only Stuart knew its use and its limitations, which he clearly defines to be in the "commencement" of a portrait, as giving the best foundation upon which to finish and complete it. This, then, is the true place of impressionism-a station of progress in the making of a picture, and not a picture in itself, and its value from this stand-point can be seen by every artist who will study Jouett's Peter Grayson.

I have mentioned in a casual way