Artistic Light and Capturing the Immeasurable

ABOUT THE COVER " A fter school, I would often go down on Chestnut Street to see the pictures in Earle's Galleries, " Henry Ossawa Tanner recalled about his early years (1). He was especially drawn to the marine subjects of T. Alexan-der Harrison (1853–1930). " After drinking my fi ll of these art wonders, I would hurry home and paint what I had seen, and what fun it was " (1). When at age 12 or 13, he saw for the fi rst time an artist at work in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, he knew his life's calling. Tanner was born in Pittsburgh but raised in Philadel-phia, the oldest child in a large activist family. His mother, a former slave, escaped through the Underground Railroad. His father was Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a denomination formed to protest not dogma but dehumanization and barriers to spiritual expression. " I have no doubt an inheritance of religious feeling, " the artist wrote (1). His middle name was derived from Osawatomie, the town in Kansas where abolitionist John Brown started his antislavery campaign. As often the case with budding artists, the pressure was on Tanner to become successful in a conventional line of work. Nevertheless, he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied with Thomas Eakins (2). " Get it, get it better, or get it worse, " urged the tough taskmaster and later lifelong friend, " No middle ground of compromise " (3). Rigorous training at the academy refi ned Tanner's skills as a realist painter. Intolerance cued him in to social realities: " Then he began to assert himself and ... one night his easel was carried out into the middle of Broad Street and, though not painfully crucifi ed, he was fi rmly tied to it and left there " (4). In 1888, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a photography studio and taught drawing at Clark University. He ventured to nearby North Carolina to photograph and paint the countryside and local folk in their daily activities. But, like most of his contemporaries, Tan-ner longed to travel abroad to study and experience artistic freedom. With the help of early supporters and patrons, he was able to travel to Europe. He fell in love with Paris and the " helpful infl uences " that surrounded him there (5). He enrolled in the …