The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 24

Figure 11. Arthur Quartley (American, b. France, 1839–1886),
Parting Company with the Tow at West Troy, 1879, oil on board,
9 x 12 3/4 in. (irregular), Heckscher Museum of Art, gift of the
Baker/Pisano Collection, 2001.9.204
Figure 12. Frederick Dielman (American, b. Germany,
1847–1935), Jessie Miller, 1880, pencil on paper, 6 1/4 x 4 1/2
in., Heckscher Museum of Art, gift of the Baker/Pisano
Collection, 2001.9.91
18 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
mossy, geographical landscapes which used to crowd
the holy precincts of the National Academy,” by this
point considered passé. 60 In contrasting the visions of
“grandeur and sublimity,” as represented in the land-
scapes of the previous generation to the recent work
of the Tilers and their colleagues, Gifford observed:
“Simplicity alone has evaded us all along.” 61
At Albany, the Tilers’ barge was separated from the
community of boats and the contingent set off “at a
comparatively tremendous rate of speed,” guided by a
single tug as seen in Quartley’s illustration, Parting
Company with the Tow, West Troy (fig. 11). 62 At West
Troy they took on yet another servant, whom they
dubbed “Priam,” after the last king of ancient Troy. The
image of this stately individual, described by the group
as being “a prepossessing young man...[with] qualities
of mind and person that were not unworthy of the
distinguished name he bore,” was recorded for posterity
by Chase in his Priam, the Nubian Ganymede. 63 It was
at West Troy “from amongst the crowds of roustabouts
in leather aprons, and small boys fringing the
string-pieces of wharves with bare and muddy legs,
that little Jessie Miller emerged, like sun from vapor.” 64
Invited on board to play the piano, she “pursued the
thread of her melody” that at first “astonished discords”
in the sensitive instrument, “accustomed hitherto to
Chopin and Beethoven...[which] then bleated obedi-
ently.” 65 This charming image of the diminutive girl’s
delightful performance was captured in Dielman’s
drawing, Jessie Miller (fig. 12). Upon leaving West Troy,
the barge entered the Northern Canal and was at-
tached to a team of mules, whereupon the Tilers
experienced the “true poetry of motion that the
humble and misunderstood tow-path confers.” 66 The
next day they tied up at Weaver’s Basin, where some of
the artists went ashore to paint the bucolic landscape,