John LaFarge

American, 1835 - 1910

(not assigned)New York, New York, USA

SchoolOrientalism; American Pre Raphaelitism

BiographyPainter, decorator, and writer, b. at New York, 31 March, 1835; d. at Providence, Rhode Island, 14 Nov., 1910. His parents were John Frederick de LaFarge, a French naval officer, and Louise Josephine Binsse (de St. Victor). Though his interest in art was aroused during his college training at Mount St. Mary's and Fordham University, he had only the study of law in view until he returned from his first visit to Paris, where he studied with Couture and enjoyed the most brilliant literary society of the day. Even his earliest drawings and landscapes, done in Newport, Rhode Island, after his marriage in 1861 with Margaret Mason Perry, show marked originality, especially in the handling of colour values, and also the influence of Japanese art, in the study of which he was a pioneer. LaFarge's inquiring mind led him to experiment with colour problems, especially in the medium of stained glass. He succeeded not only in rivalling the gorgeousness of the medieval windows, but in adding new resources by his invention of opalescent glass and his original methods of superimposing and welding his material. Among his many masterpieces are the "Battle Window" at Harvard and the cloisonné "Peacock Window" in the Worcester Art Museum. During 1859-70 he illustrated "Enoch Arden" and Browning's "Men and Women". Breadth of observation and structural conception, and a vivid imagination and sense of colour are shown by his mural decorations. His first work in mural painting was done in Trinity Church, Boston, in 1873. Then followed his decorations in the Church of the Ascension (the large altarpiece) and St. Paul's Church, New York. For the State Capitol at St. Paul he executed, in his seventy-first year, four great lunettes representing the history of religion, and for the Supreme Court building at Baltimore, a similar series with Justice as the theme. In addition there are his numberless minor paintings and water colours, notably those recording his extensive travels in the Orient and South Pacific. (Source: "John Lafarge," The Catholic Encyclopedia online, Accessed August 20, 2004, )

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