Dean Babcock
By Theo Merrill Fisher
The American Magazine of Art
SINGLY or in groups, American painters have in recent
days been seeking out those sections of the land which, until their coming,
were, from an artistic standpoint, practically unappropriated
ground. The pictorial trophies of these questings
have been significant, frequently as tokens of native genius of the first rank,
as well as revelations of the amazing diversity and richness of our scenic
resources. As an interesting aside we may observe, too, that as stimulators of
travel at home these artists must be given a place second only to that of the
professional "See
There are, then, today artists aplenty who are
responding to the lure of the Rockies, the Great Southwest, and the wonderland
of the Pacific Coast and, cutting loose for a while from familiar Eastern
environments, are experiencing the thrill and accepting the challenge of these
fresh fields of work.
But it is of one who has done the much rarer and more
difficult thing—severed all his former ties and chosen to identify his life and
activities with a region not only artistically but socially virgin territory—in
fact, a wilderness, of whom we purpose to here give an account.
Dean Babcock went out to Colorado directly following
his art school studies, presumably for a summer holiday, but, falling under the
spell of the Estes Park region, the venturesome young man concluded to stay and
stake his first artistic "claim" right there. It is, then, of the
pictorial "pay dirt" that he discovered and is developing—a
"lead" quite his own, as we shall directly see—of which we will take
cognizance.
Any time of year, with but rare intervals, you will
find him at "The Ledges," his log-cabin home near Long's Peak;
although, if you call between October and April, the chances are you will have
to break the trail on snowshoes.
This Estes Park sojourn was really undertaken with
the purpose of self-discovery; to find out, if may be, whether or not he had
.in him, after all, the essential personal elements out of which to shape an
artistic career. This particular location was determined upon first, because
its solitude simplified the process of adjustment he had to face (for his
formal studies had failed to give him either impetus or direction), and because
Babcock felt that if he did go on as an artist, it would be some such primitive
environment that would furnish him both the sort of material that appealed to
him and the inspiration to blaze an artistic trail all his own. The reaction of
his self-reliant yet sensitive temperament to such surroundings is of general
interest for the graphic records of unusual kind and quality which have come
out of this intimate association with the "silent places" during the
ten years' residence that has followed.
In oil painting and water colors he has done some
eminently creditable work, but as time has passed his interest in these two
mediums has largely given place to occupation with pen-and-ink drawing and
woodblock prints. In these mediums, largely self-taught, Babcock has attained a
remarkable proficiency and found congenial avenues of expression. First, then, concerning his decorative pen drawings, which are, of
course, devoted to landscape themes. The illustrations and incidental
designs for "Songs of the Rockies," a book of verse by Charles E. Hewes, would alone confirm his right to be ranked with our
most distinguished men in this field. Unhappily for the artist's fame, the book
was a privately printed one of small edition and so known to but few. This work
has a technical maturity, with that incisiveness and assurance in drawing and
design which the medium so preeminently demands. Of like kind are Babcock's
bookplates. These were originally taken up to meet the requests of friends, but
in time have come to be one of his chief occupations. They offer added
confirmation of the artist's ability to see things in the large, and combine a
few significant elements in a pleasing and striking way, all of which are, of
course, prime requisites of the successful bookplate.
In recent days the wood-block print has come into a
hitherto unknown prominence, manifesting in this latest phase a striking range
of treatment and the capacity of widely different effects. Babcock's interest
in the medium and his introduction to its handling trace back to a chance
meeting some years ago with the late Helen Hyde. Already a close student of
Japanese art, and finding his conception of design predominantly influenced by
the Oriental masters, Babcock was thus prepared to take up block printing, not
only with the avidity that one essays a new medium of expression and a
technical initiation, but with a sympathetic understanding of what it meant in
the art history of such a nation as the Japanese. As a result of her thorough knowledge
of the technical methods of the process, Babcock had, through Miss Hyde, just
the right start in his handling of its mechanical phases. Did space permit, a
consideration of his methods, and particularly his departures from Oriental
precedents, would be of interest. We will but remark that his handling of the
medium from a color standpoint is perhaps midway between the straight or
elemental conception and the highly elaborated processes of such a worker as Gustave Baumann. He usually employs only from four to six
blocks for color prints and handles tints in very nearly the Japanese manner.
The simple black or one-tone print is a favorite sort with him, too.
Frankly experimental and tentative as his endeavors
in this particular field were at the outset, and even after the long period of
learning its craft, and deemed of but minor consequence in the catalogue of his
activities,
Babcock has decided recently to make the block print
one of his major interests. He is, of course, strongly .aided in the purpose by
the growing interest in this form of artistic expression, the consequent wider
sale of his subjects making possible the full development of what hitherto
could be held only as a pastime. We will then see constantly new subjects added
to his present brief total of seven or eight titles.
Finally, we should consider the outstanding
characteristics of this artist's productions and briefly indicate his point of
view with respect to art, and particularly the special field he is making his
own.
He tells us that his highest aspiration "is to
do with tints and lines what Thoreau did with words: to present the more subtile truths of-Nature for their own sake, yet with
emphasis on their relation to human life and thought. Artists in general seem
prone to copy the subjects, but vary the methods of their predecessors; while I
should rather copy, if anything, the methods, but explore new fields for my
subjects. I will doubtless always remain primarily a reporter of the facts of
nature rather than an inventor of fancies, approaching my work not only as a
lover of nature, both in detail and mass, but as a scientific observer; in
short, a naturalist-artist."
This reporting the facts of nature, Babcock is quite
sure, is far from being such an obvious matter as it appears at first glance.
His remarks on this phase of artistic method and attitude are so interesting
for their own sake as well as for the light they throw on his own purposes that
we again quote him directly.
"Let the average person who 'likes outdoors,'
" he observes, "go for a half-day's walk in the hills, come back, and
write out what he saw that interested him; and then compare what he has written
with a page from Thoreau's Journal or an essay by John Burroughs."
A self-discipline in this art and science of acute, comprehensive observation, which Babcock sets as properly one of the primary aims of the landscape artist, is reflected in his own work and is one of its marked and most pleasing characteristics. Not that he is a slave to painstaking detail or, like some, secures it at the expense of the larger elements of his compositions—for as the illustrations confirm, he handles even the simplest pen decoration or woodcut with a superb conception of design and elimination of pictorial unessentials—but rather, that his long and intimate contact with nature has given him a vision that comprehends nature’s significance and beauty, whether in the sweep of a mountain range or the delicate beauty and elusive charm of a wayside flower.
If it is true that all art is spiritual
autobiography, we are not surprised, then, to find reflected in Babcock’s work
the inclusiveness of scope and interest just suggested, but as well, a basic
sincerity and masterly handling of all he attempts. One is impressed by an originality and
authority of method on the one hand, and on the other with a personal outlook
matured yet charged with the unbounded vigor of youth, a freshness as of
mountain winds, a flash and sparkle like that of woodland streams, and the
virile poetry of the snowy peaks and timbered wilderness.