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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > L > John LaFarge


JOHN LAFARGE

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Painter, 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.



LaFarge's writings include: "The American Art of Glass" (a pamphlet);
"Considerations on Painting" (New York, 1895); "An Artist's Letters from Japan"
(New York, 1897); "The Great Masters" (New York); "Hokusai: a talk about
Japanese painting" (New York, 1897); "The Higher Life in Art" (New York, 1908);
"One Hundred Great Masterpieces"; "The Christian Story in Art"; and the
unpublished "Letters from the South Seas"; and "Correspondence". His labours in
almost every field of art won for him from the French Government the Cross of
the Legion of Honour and membership in the principal artistic societies of
America, as well as the presidency of the Society of Mural Painters. Enjoying an
extraordinary knowledge of languages (ancient and modern), literature, and art,
by his cultured personality and reflective conversation he greatly influenced
all who knew him. Though naturally a questioner he venerated the traditions of
religious art, and preserved always his childlike Catholic Faith and reverence.




SOURCES

WAERN, John LaFarge in Portfolio Series; CORTISSOZ, John LaFarge (New York,
1911); New York Evening Post (15 Nov., 1910); BOURGET, Outre Mer; LAFARGE in
America (27 May, New York, 1911).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Lafarge, J. (1914). John LaFarge. In The Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: The Encyclopedia Press. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16050b.htm

MLA citation. Lafarge, John. "John LaFarge." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 16
(Index). New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1914.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16050b.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Herman F.
Holbrook. Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum/diffusa est gratia in labiis.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1914. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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