William Merritt Chase
For centuries, it’s been common for artists to develop their skills by copying the works of past masters. But William Merritt Chase took this idea a step further. He copied the main figure from Frans Hals’s Meeting of the Officers and Sergeants of the Calivermen Civic Guard, a massive group portrait that’s one of Hals’s best-known works. But Chase substituted face of Colonel Johan Claeszoon Loo for his own. The result is a portrait that looks like it comes from the Dutch Golden Age. You would never guess that it was painted in 1903. Chase studied in Munich, Germany, where he gained a strong love of the Old Masters, particularly Northern European painters like Rembrandt. The fact that Chase gave himself his very own Old Master portrait was a little bit of borrowing from Rembrandt, too. That celebrated master was very fond of dressing up and making very theatrical self-portraits where he portrayed himself as a variety of characters.
William Merritt Chase was a late-19th and early-20th century American painter and teacher. He painted in a variety of genres. His portraits most clearly show Old Master influence in their dramatic use of shadows and dark tones. His better-known landscapes, on the other hand, are light and airy.
- Alexandra Kiely
P.S. If you would like to take a look inside Chase's really cool studio - there it is!