GROWING | PORTRAITIST | LANDSCAPIST | GALLERY |
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Mentors |
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Other Images
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Though inspired by nature and led by self-direction and practice, Junius
also needed, in his novice years especially, wise encouragement and as Junius wrote:
"somewone who had traveled the road before me ...to caution from error, and guide by
hints in the right path." The creative, charismatic penman Platt R. Spencer (1800-1864) and his son Robert (Junius' classmate at the Kingsville Academy) and daughter Sara (later Junius' wife) who lived nearby, loved the beauties of nature. They befriended Junius and gave him their lifelong support. Robert Duncanson (1821-72) lived in the city of Cincinnati, then known as the "Athens of the West" for its art patronage and artists. Junius became friends with Duncanson, a leading midwest literary landscape painter who was a free black. Duncanson was then enthusiastically planning a monumental five by seven foot landscape, The Garden of Eden, based on John Milton's book Paradise Lost. However, it was not Duncanson but rather Erie, Pennsylvania's resident portraitist Moses Billings (1809-1884) that modeled for Junius the crisp, well-crafted style of portraiture that Junius would adopt. The characteristic Billings style can be seen in the 1851 portrait, presumably of Junius. |
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