EASTMAN JOHNSON 1824-1906
Feather Duster Boy, c. late 1860s-1870s
Oil on canvas, 22 X 16" (55.88 x 40.64 cm.)
Unsigned
Museum purchase, 967-0-135

When Eastman Johnson painted Feather Duster Bay, he was turning to a theme that had considerable appeal to American art patrons in the mid-nineteenth century, that of the young entrepreneur eagerly hawking his wares or his skills. These young street people-peddlers, chimney sweeps, itinerant fiddlers, and street musicians evolved from "fancy pictures," done by English and Continental painters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Such pictures were "types," usually children presented as half-length or full-length figures without anecdotal incident, although intended to have sentimental appeal. But Johnsons American versions, including Feather Duster Boy, differ from their European counterparts in their emphasis upon trade and work as opposed to picturesque poverty.
Johnson's understanding of European genres of painting, such as the "fancy picture," and his ability to transform them into images appealing to American patrons, guaranteed his success. Growing up in Augusta, Maine, he mastered the technical skills to render portrait sketches of his hard-working neighbors in crayons and pastels. He lived for a brief time in Washington, D. C., where his father had taken an assignment with the government. In 1846 he moved to Boston, where for three years he drew such literary and political personalities as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Charles Sumner. In the fall of 1849, determined to move beyond drawing to painting in oils, he went abroad. He stayed in Europe for six years, studying first with the German-American artist Emanuel Leutze in Dusseldorf, then four years developing a portrait business in The Hague, and studying briefly with Thomas Couture in Paris. While in Europe, Johnson developed the "fancy picture," such as The Savoyard Boy (1853, The Brooklyn Museum), which would be transformed into images appealing to American patrons. The work was singled out by Henry Tuckerman: "The figure is expressive and admirably designed; the face full of character, and the color rich, mellow, and finely harmonized; it is such a boy as Murillo would have painted.... There is a finish in this picture ... a truth of expression . . . " Feather Duster Boy has neither a signature nor a date, nor is there any mention of it in the exhibition catalogs of the 1860s and early 1870's. However, there is no question of Johnson's authorship. Johnson draws a solid figure with a convincing contrapposto, and he understands the massing of lights and darks. The shadows on the ground and background wall firmly fix the figure in space. Moreover, while presenting a fully volumetric head, Johnson also delicately renders the features of the boy's face with graphite, outlining the full lips and the right edge of the nose. The quick, painterly strokes that indicate the knuckles and fingers and the feathered strokes for the feather dusters impart a spontaneity to the image. Typical also of Johnsons work are his use of the brown underpainting to represent the middle tones in the composition and his deployment of delicate highlights to animate the surface of the painting, such as the blue lights on the boy's shoes.
While the full history of Feather Duster Boy is lost to us, we might surmise that the painting had considerable contemporary appeal. Unlike the beautiful, languid figure of The Savoyard Boy, the youth in Feather Duster Boy projects seriousness of purpose and business know-how. While some of the dusters are wrapped up, others are unfurled, and our protagonist seems about to demonstrate the one in his left hand. And whereas The Savoyard Boy is highly finished, Feather Duster Bay is sketchy, a painting in process, one that invites the viewer to participate in its action, and to enter into a dialogue with both the subject and the work of art itself.

PATRICIA HILLS