embarking on a new covenant

The Smithsonian Institution

Embarking on a New CovenantHenry Ossawa Tanner’s Spiritual Crisis of 1896Author(s): Naurice Frank Woods Jr.Source: American Art, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 94-103Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670686 .

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94 Spring 2013 Volume 27, Number 1 © 2013 Smithsonian Institution

Naurice Frank Woods Jr.

New Perspective

Embarking on a New Covenant

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Spiritual Crisis of 1896

The Lord has been good and how unfaithful I have been, how far I have lived from what it was my privilege to live. How very sorry I am. —Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1896

A little-known and unpublished letter written by Henry Ossawa Tanner (fig. 1) from Paris to his parents in Philadelphia, dated “Xmas 1896,” offers important insights into the life of the artist when he was on the threshold of achieving international acclaim.1

The letter reveals much about Tanner shortly after he made the transition from painting French peasant and African American subjects to Bible-inspired works. Furthermore, it clearly shows that this thematic shift came about when the artist was wrestling with per-sonal demons and, as a result, may clarify why his religious art emerged abruptly around that time.

Previous interpretations of this career-altering embrace of sacred art have fallen largely into two accepted areas of discourse. The first suggests that Tanner’s decision was a natural and expected progression based on his family background. In this regard, having the Reverend Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a prominent, intellectually outspoken African Methodist Episcopal pastor, as a father seems a logical explanation for this step in Henry Tanner’s artistic development and helps clarify why his religious works, inevitably, reflected fundamental moral, spiritual, and sociopolitical lessons connected to black theology of the period. Another area of discourse attributes Tanner’s shift to financial conditions that left him living abroad in a state of near poverty and, therefore, sees his decision as one of necessity designed to boost his visibility and jump-start a floundering career. After all, goes this argument, the thematic change occurred in 1895–96, when religious works were still favored in academic art circles and when Tanner was rapidly running out of subjects to carry him to success in the Paris Salon. In either of these scenarios, however, Tanner’s decision seems carefully calculated as a matter of business acumen, strategic planning, and close knowledge of the subject. This essay adds another possibility for the change and introduces to Tanner scholarship a previously unknown side of the painter that challenges accepted notions of his faith in relation to the way he conducted his life and created his art.2

I suggest that in the aftermath of the experiences detailed in his 1896 letter, Tanner took on the role of a visual missionary. In such a context, his paintings served as a conduit between heaven and earth based on intimate relationships linking humanity



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1 Frederick Gutekunst, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1907. Photograph. Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

with the divine. Viewed in this way, Tanner became a deliverer of spiritual guidance and fulfillment in a deeply troubled world. This essay demonstrates that Tanner’s choice to treat biblical subject matter likely emerged from a personal crisis. As his paintings gained increasing notoriety and his reputation grew, however, his visual “sermons” ultimately revealed the artist as a powerful preacher who commanded the attention of large audiences (his congregation) willing to absorb his “teachings” from gallery walls. Thus, the “Gospel” of Henry Ossawa Tanner—the reading of his entire production of religious paintings—defines him as a mes-senger of universal kinship based on a belief in Christ. Through Tanner’s creative endeavors and devout religiosity, he negotiated a spiritual path parallel to that of his father, but strictly on his own terms.

Before undertaking the discussion of the letter and its possible meaning, I must emphasize that much of what is known about Tanner personally remains elusive. Art historians have written extensively about his life and work, yet the real Tanner still defies complete understanding. He was a very private man who kept his intimate thoughts to himself and sought, instead, to let his paintings communicate his vision of the world and his place in it. Tanner structured his public statements carefully for the sake of expressing modest gratitude for his unique opportunities and successes and out of respect for deli-cate racial boundaries that he, as an African American, did not wish to cross or actively engage. He even wrote his autobiography, published in two parts in the periodical World’s Work, with this restrained tenor so as to suppress his feelings about encounters with racism early in his career, his experiments as a painter of black genre scenes, his position as the world’s leading African American artist, his reasons for permanent expatriation, and his decision to devote his career to religious themes.3 What remains of his published life’s story is an interesting, but decidedly understated, account of his ascendancy to the upper echelon of nineteenth-century academic art. It is, therefore, only in his personal correspondence that Tanner occasionally revealed his innermost feelings. Such was the case in his Christmas letter.

The year 1896 was pivotal for Tanner. It had been five years since he arrived in Paris, eager to begin studies that he hoped would lead to success at the Salon. His choice of subject matter during that period varied and included landscapes, animals, portraits, figure studies, French peasants, and African Americans; none had helped him realize his long-sought goal of a career-affirming Salon medal. His painting The Banjo Lesson (1893), which depicts a race-affirming educative moment of music instruction shared



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by an elderly black man and an attentive youth, finally gained him Salon entry in 1894, but it failed to win him notoriety. The next year he showed three works at the Salon, including a Breton-inspired deriva-tive of The Banjo Lesson entitled The Young Sabot Maker (1894), but they, too, did not advance his career. In 1896, however, Tanner presented Daniel in the Lions’ Den to the Salon jury (fig. 2); it was accepted and earned an honorable mention. That recognition was a major breakthrough, but Tanner was not content. Daniel raised his credibility among art critics at home and abroad, but it did not lead to financial success. He wrote to his parents, “I have had such heavy expenses with my paintings that models have been the only luxury I could indulge.”4

His aspirations for international laurels now rested squarely on his new painting, The Resurrection of Lazarus (fig. 3). With the whole-hearted approval of his teacher and mentor, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, his prospects for a medal finally seemed within his reach.5 According to the Christmas letter, Benjamin-Constant, in fact, assured his student that if he “did not get it [a Salon medal] it would be injustice.” Tanner continued, “It only shows how much more

he likes my picture this year—he never expressed himself like that & even with the ‘Daniel’ I came very near getting a medal. He did not say all of this to me privately there were 3 or 4 persons in the room 2 of which were artists.” Tanner’s mentor also told him, with a laugh, “Phila will yet put up a monument to you. You have not done it yet but you will.”6

The encouragement of Benjamin-Constant did not end there. He asked Tanner to show The Resurrection of Lazarus to some of his friends who came to his house and pro-claimed, “it would be one of the best pictures of the coming Salon.” Benjamin-Constant also insisted that Tanner take the painting to the bedrooms of his sons, whom he referred to as “connoisseurs of art,” so that they too could admire the Lazarus.7

Tanner’s description of Benjamin-Constant’s reaction to the painting reveals the deep, abiding affection that had developed between the two men. According to Tanner, in the American’s typically unpretentious fashion, Benjamin-Constant acknowledged him in a

2 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, 1896. Oil on canvas (now lost). Image, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.



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special manner. Tanner wrote, “He said with a ring in his voice that indicated he was at least not ashamed to own me. This is one of my pupils.”8

Although Tanner received enthusiastic endorsement from his teacher, he could not enjoy these positive signs of pending success because of his feelings of spiritual inad-equacy. At a time when he should have been elated by Benjamin-Constant’s magnanimous praise, Tanner reacted to it by stating, “I have made up my mind to serve Him [God] more faithfully.”9 It is Tanner’s desire to intensify the practice of his faith that imbues the letter with a sense of immediate personal crisis. Apparently, sometime during this period of significant transition, his artistic goals and spiritual struggle converged. Tanner’s letter contains a tone of remorse over an unspecified matter that clearly left him shaken. Whatever the incident, Tanner indicated, “The surroundings are not helpful,” and “Surely the goodness of the Lord should lead me to repentance.” He obviously judged himself as having fallen short as a Christian, and the remedy to his situation was to move closer to God. Tanner wrote, “The Lord has been good and how unfaithful I have been, how far I have lived from what it was my privilege to live. How very sorry I am. How by the help of the Lord I am going to try to live much more faithful to Him.”10

3 Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Resurrection of Lazarus, 1896. Oil on canvas, 37 x 48 in. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Réunion des Musées Nationaux. Photo, Hervé Lewandowski/Art Resource, N.Y.



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At this time, the profundity of Tanner’s faith was tested, and he wavered. Consequent ly, he may have experienced a religious epiphany, perhaps as a result of his failure to garner major support at home or his lack of official recognition abroad; in other words, Tanner hinted strongly that he desperately needed divine intervention. It appears that the only way to resolve his predicament was to enter into an unbreakable covenant with God to secure his continued blessings. Tanner wrote, “But He has promised to help and for that help I most sincerely ask. He will give strength if I am only willing to make the effort and sacrifice that his service demands. This I am going to do—by His help.”11 As part of this new sacred promise, which arose from emotional and spiritual necessity, Tanner may have chosen to discard all other subjects and concentrate on serving the Lord through his art. If this is so, in 1896 Tanner was steadfastly laboring under a new pledge of obedience to God.

There is no indication of when Tanner first experienced this faltering of faith, but his “confession” coincided with his shift to primarily Bible-derived imagery and his decision to redirect his life to atone for his perceived spiritual lapses. Daniel in the Lions’ Den (see fig. 2) began this process. Tanner’s selection of the trial of Daniel as his initial offering appears to have been both autobiographical and cathartic. According to the biblical account, King Darius sentenced Daniel to certain death with the possibil-ity of survival resting solely on the strength of his spiritual convictions. The king said, “May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you” (Daniel 6:16). By placing the protagonist in a dark dungeon full of wild, threatening beasts, Tanner metaphorically relates his personal struggles—continued bouts with racism, lack of sales that relegated him to a life of near destitution, ill health, and no official acknowledgment of his

4 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, 1907–18. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 41 1/8 x 49 7/8 in. Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection (22.6.3), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, U.S.A. Digital Image © 2013 Museum Associates /LACMA. Licensed by Art Resource, N.Y.



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talent—to the plight of Daniel. Moreover, Tanner’s depiction of a widely understood biblical lesson on the power of faith and the subsequent reward of spiritual deliverance seems drawn directly from his own desire for God to rescue and protect him. In this regard, Tanner’s letter echoes Daniel’s prayer to his people (Daniel 9:1–19), wherein the remedy for one’s unfaithful behavior comes through confession and a wholehearted turning to God. It is, after all, Daniel’s faith that sustained him and delivered him from uncertainty, and Tanner hoped for a similar outcome in his life and art.

Tanner’s use of Daniel in times of personal crisis again surfaced during World War I, when the devastating effects of battles fought near his home in France forced his family to abandon their genteel lifestyle in the French countryside. It is clear from extant letters written during this period that Tanner became severely depressed and ques-tioned his self-worth.12 Part of his response to his perilous predicament was, again, to draw strength from the salvation of Daniel. Consequently, some years later he painted another version of the prophet’s encounter with the lions (fig. 4).

Tanner reached his greatest success to date with the original Daniel at the Salon of 1896, and it established him as an artist of merit while increasing his visibility in the U.S. and abroad. The following year, Tanner unveiled The Resurrection of Lazarus to the public (see fig. 3). The painting continued his personal identification with a biblical figure and magnified his newfound status as a promising painter of religious subjects. Perhaps more so than the example of Daniel, the strong bond between Lazarus and Jesus resonated with Tanner and his desire to become a better Christian.

Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Mary and Martha, was one of the most dedicated followers of Christ, and his faith never faltered. Because of this, Jesus bestowed on him

the greatest of his miracles by raising him from the grave (John 11:1–46). Tanner’s depiction of this scene speaks clearly of the divine power of God, who answers prayers and rewards true believers with the promise of renewed life. Tanner dramatically altered the biblical description of the miracle in which Jesus calls Lazarus to walk out of the tomb. Instead, he created a crowded, cavernlike interior wherein Christ stands directly over the restored body of his disciple (fig. 5). By doing so, he eschewed biblical accuracy and replaced it with a restrictive space of spiritual intimacy much like the environment found in Daniel and in Rembrandt’s version of Lazarus returning to life of about 1630.13 Furthermore, nowhere in the Bible is Jesus as emotionally responsive to those who seek his mercy and blessing as when he is faced with the pleas of Mary and Martha on Lazarus’s behalf. Tanner’s decision to paint Lazarus rising aligned with his much-needed hope for reassurance that sincere

5 Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Resurrection of Lazarus (detail)



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reaffirmation of faith in times of extreme adversity heals and delivers. Consequently, Tanner’s newly self-appointed task to paint the glory of God by picturing the belief in Christian resurrection mirrors the return of Lazarus from the dead to fulfill his earthly mission. This reading of Lazarus substantively augments the conclusion of the art historian Alan C. Braddock, who argues that the work reflects “a broader resonance between the artist’s own life and his interest in the biblical theme of resurrection, as if the painter sensed that his career had been born again through his passage to Europe and Palestine.”14

As Benjamin-Constant predicted, the Salon jury awarded The Resurrection of Lazarus a third-class medal, and the French government purchased it for the Musée du Luxembourg. On that basis, Tanner became one of the most celebrated and dis-tinguished American artists of his era with a reputation based solely on his visionary interpretations of biblical themes.

Tanner seems to have solidified his personal identification with Lazarus in one other painting. He not only revisited the faithful disciple as a subject in Christ at the Home of Lazarus (ca. 1912), but he also painted himself as Lazarus seated at a table with Jesus (fig. 6). Although Tanner left no explanation for the inclusion, it is obvious that he felt a strong need to be in the presence of the Lord. Tanner drew this narra-tive from the Gospel passage in which Jesus has supper in Bethany at Lazarus’s house, and Mary, afterward, anoints him in preparation for his Crucifixion and Resurrection (John 12:1–11). Also contained in this passage is unambiguous acknowledgment that Lazarus is living proof of Christ’s divinity. This late-career Lazarus painting underscores the artist’s empathy with the true believer and the inherent connection of the bibli-cal passage to his own beliefs that, once more, made the matter of personal faith and devout service central to his life and art. No other known religious painting by Tanner

6 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Christ at the Home of Lazarus, ca. 1912. Oil on canvas (now lost). Reproduced from Henry Ossawa Tanner (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1991), 207



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contains a self-portrait, and this version of Lazarus appears to have been a favorite of his, as he exhibited it regularly, including at the Salon of 1914.15 Although the canvas is now presumed lost, a preparatory drawing of Tanner as Lazarus (fig. 7), despite its slight differences from the com-pleted painting, shows the clear connection between the two works.

For unknown reasons, Tanner apparently broke his covenant for the Salon of 1902 and exhibited La musique, a contemporary scene depicting his wife, Jessie, playing the cello with the artist and his sister-in-law standing in the background. He never publicly explained the reason for this drastic change in subject matter. Was it vanity caused by immense success and adoration that allowed him the luxury of placing his face before the Salon audience? This departure took Tanner’s critics and admirers by surprise, and the painting received at least one scath-ing review in the French press. In part, a critic wrote, “Why has M. Tanner, whom we have gotten

used to considering as a fine craftsman of solid works with harmonious tonalities, the weakness to exhibit this Musique capable of making you detest all the Salon’s dainty musicians? Has he really ever seen a lady playing a cello with such a badly drawn arm? . . . I pity him then, without finding any plausible excuse for him, because his talent is above such an ugly thing.”16

The harshness of this review, and perhaps others, was devastating to Tanner, and he may have felt this breach in faithfulness demanded a return to his sacred path. Whatever the reason, Tanner painted over La musique and replaced it with The Pilgrims at Emmaus (1905). The new painting won critical praise and received a second-class medal at the Salon, and the French government purchased it. This was surely a sign to Tanner, once more, of the rewards of devout Christian service through his art. Thereafter, he exhibited only religious paintings at the Salon and continued to paint them long after they fell out of vogue in France and the United States.

Tanner scholars have devoted much effort to trying to understand the artist’s motivation for creating his religious paintings; those works, after all, gained him an international reputation during his lifetime and a secure place afterward among America’s great expatriate artists. Many of their interpretations, however, fail to account accurately for his location, at any given point, on his spiritual journey through life or how his work, when viewed collectively, centers on artistic declarations of the miracu-lous power of divine intervention. Without this crucial faith-based reference, scholars’ attempts to truly define Tanner’s religiosity falter, and they thus use such labels as

7 Henry Ossawa Tanner, Self-Portrait (Study for Christ at the Home of Lazarus), ca. 1910. Pencil and conté crayon on paper, 8 1/2 x 8 3/8 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 1983.95.34



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devout Protestant, universal Christian, mystic, Christian Scientist, Symbolist, or spiritualist to categorize the man and his art.17 Perhaps all these descriptors pertained to him at some time in his career, but as Tanner’s religious art evolved, so too did his spirituality. Tanner remarked, “It is not by accident that I have chosen to be a religious painter. . . . I have no doubt an inheritance of religious feeling, and for this I am glad, but I have also a decided and I hope an intelligent religious faith not due to inheritance but to my own convictions. I believe my religion. . . . I have chosen the character of my art because it conveys my message and tells what I want to tell to my own genera-tion and leave to the future.”18 Tanner clearly chose his own sacred destiny, and his art reflected his righteous journey through life. With his ultimate salvation at stake, he resolutely sought to paint his way into heaven.19

We may never know the “real” Henry Ossawa Tanner—he remained a strict guard-ian of his privacy, personal and spiritual. It is likely that he shared his deepest feelings with only a few close confidants, but between 1895 and 1896, when something chal-lenged the strength of his religious convictions, he quietly reached out to his parents and revealed, intimately, that his present path was unsteady and that he would make whatever adjustments were necessary to move closer to deliverance. Was it a coincidence that this crisis came about when Tanner chose to redirect his art toward the divine? I think it unlikely. His covenant contained in the letter of 1896 strongly suggests that it formed the basis for his career-defining religious paintings and demonstrated his abso-lute willingness to serve God more faithfully.

Notes

I extend sincere thanks to George Dimock and Anna Marley for their help and encouragement.

1 Henry O. Tanner to his parents, Christmas 1896, private collection. The owners of the letter have never before made it available to researchers.

2 Insights into Tanner’s shift to biblical themes are found in the exhibition catalogues Dewey F. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1991); and Anna O. Marley, ed., Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press; Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2012). This issue is also addressed in Marcus Bruce, Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002); and Alan C. Braddock, “Painting the World’s Christ: Tanner, Hybridity, and the Blood of the Holy Land,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 3, no. 2 (Autumn 2004), http://www.19thc-artworldwide .org/index.php/autumn04/298-painting-the-worlds-christ-tanner-hybridity-and-the-blood-of-the -holy-land. The authors, at the time of their publications, did not know of the existence of this letter.

3 See Henry Ossawa Tanner, “The Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” World’s Work 18, no. 2 (June 1909): 11661–66; “Part II,” 18, no. 3 (July 1909): 11769–75.

4 Tanner to his parents.

5 Tanner arrived in Paris in 1891 for advanced study after completing several years of training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He chose the Académie Julian and studied under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902) was a student of Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts. Benjamin-Constant exhibited at the Salon for years and received high praise for his orientalist and historical subjects.

6 Tanner to his parents. Tanner does not specify exactly why Benjamin-Constant was so excited about the finished version of Lazarus, but his teacher, as a celebrated Salon artist and well-respected juror, readily knew the inherent qualities that made a painting a contender for a Salon medal. To my knowl-edge, Tanner’s letter to his parents is the only source that provides this level of detail about the confidence and praise that Benjamin-Constant had for his student.



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7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Correspondence from this period can be found in the Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, 1860s–1978 (bulk 1890–1937), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Tanner’s biographer, Marcia M. Mathews, specifically addressed the artist’s mood during World War I as culled from letters in this collection. See Mathews, Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1969).

13 Many American and French critics found varying degrees of Rembrandt-influenced qualities in Tanner’s Lazarus, and most commended him in their comparisons. For a detailed discussion of the painting, see Marc Simpson, “The Resurrection of Lazarus from the Quartier Latin to the Musée du Luxembourg,” in Marley, Tanner: Modern Spirit, 69–78.

14 Tanner traveled to the Middle East in 1897, after painting the Lazarus. Braddock, “Painting the World’s Christ.”

15 Another version of Christ at the Home of Lazarus clearly appears in an undated photograph taken near the end of Tanner’s life. The painting is in the immediate background behind Tanner and a group of men, possibly friends and patrons, gathered in his studio. The composition is nearly identical to the painting of about 1912, and the figure posed as Lazarus is Tanner’s close friend and patron Atherton Curtis. As with the placement of himself with Christ in the earlier version, Tanner left no indication why Curtis is seated at the table, but I suggest that it spoke to his friend’s need for redemption and restoration. See Photographs of Henry Ossawa Tanner with Family & Friends, circa 1890–1935, Box 2, Folder 19, Tanner Papers, 1860s–1978 (bulk 1890–1937), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

16 Quoted in Marley, Tanner: Modern Spirit, 34.

17 For a discussion of Tanner as a religious painter, see Jennifer J. Harper, “The Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the Influences of Church, Family, and Era,” American Art 6, no. 4 (Autumn 1992): 68–85.

18 Henry Ossawa Tanner, “An Artist’s Autobiography,” Advance, March 20, 1913, 2014.

19 Although Tanner continued to paint some secular themes, in particular, scenes of North Africa and the Middle East, most contained strong references to biblical settings or suggested underlying principles of his Christian faith.



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