The New International Encyclopædia/Fuller, George

FULLER, George (1822-84). An American figure, portrait, and landscape painter, born at Deerfield, Mass. From 1836 to 1838 he was in Illinois with a party of civil engineers, and was associated with Henry Kirke Brown, the sculptor. Returning to Deerfield, he completed his education in four years, giving considerable attention to portrait painting. In 1842-43 he studied with Brown in Albany. He spent several years in Boston, portrait painting, then removed to New York, and continued his studies at the Academy. He was elected associate of the National Academy in 1857, upon an exhibition of a portrait of his first master, Henry Kirke Brown. He went South for three years, making many studies of negro life. In 1860 he went to Europe. He returned to Deerfield, where he combined his interests as an artist and farmer. In 1876 he exhibited fourteen pictures in Boston which were received with enthusiasm. This was followed by frequent exhibitions at the Academy. In 1879 Mr. Fuller showed the “Romany Girl,” and “She Was a Witch.” In 1880, the “Quadroon”; and in 1881, the loveliest of all his works — the “Winifred Dysart.” “Turkey Pasture in Kentucky” is one of his finest examples. The subjects of Fuller's pictures are extremely simple, conceived in a pictorial spirit. His landscapes are not so much definite pictures of localities as idealized studies of color, light, and foliage, with a poetic expression of sun and shadow. He preserved all the large lines of form, sacrificing the minor details to the beauty of the whole. The essence of his art was selection. Fuller was the forerunner of a new tendency in art, that of the Idealistic School.