Early experiments in periodical publishing during the settlement of New Orleans were no more than newspaper reporting, avocational and inelegant in style.¹ Reportage was limited to foreign affairs, marine traffic, election news and advertising. After 1830 topics expanded to include national and local affairs, and by way of literary endeavors, occasionally there were poems. After 1840 an increasing prosperity accompanied by a more intellectual approach to periodicals came to the city. Some magazines were published as weekly reviews, while others appeared monthly. Among these, Littéraire et Artistique (published in the early 1840s), which catered to a wealthy and educated audience, contained long serials, musical and dramatic critiques, and coverage of social events (see Tinker). The editorial approach marked a shift from a format of mere news to articles based on ideas.

One of the best-known examples of these literary magazines was Revue Louisianaise, published in the 1840s. Like its continental predecessors, Revue Louisianaise contained drama and literary criticism, European news items, local gossip columns, poetry and a series of pirated French novels. In its pages the French sculptor Phillipe Garbeille made one of the first attempts to illustrate a literary periodical. From December 1846 through April 1847, he published a weekly series of silhouette caricatures of the city's leading citizens and its visiting dignitaries, personalities and musicians (see Bonner). Most of these woodblock caricatures were accompanied by a brief statement regarding the individual's local activity. Although the illustrations went hand-in-hand with the brief text, the journal itself was not designed as an integral endeavor with the artist.

Garbeille's illustrations were enthusiastically received by the readers and created a sense of anticipation regarding the next issue's “victims” of the artist's tools. Besides illustrating the journal, Garbeille made the initial effort to organize supporters of the arts, the literary elite who were the readers of Revue Louisianaise and who were also frequent visitors to the art galleries. Garbeille's efforts to create a truly illustrated periodical, would not, however, be realized for another forty years.

Political unrest leading to the Civil War and the repressive postwar years were hardly conducive to a flourishing of the arts, and efforts in New Orleans toward reorganization were limited through the sixties and seventies. In 1869 one French-language weekly, Le Carillon, combined literary articles with anti-carpetbagger political essays and satirical cartoons (Tinker 22-28), but the objective of the literature and drawings was single-dimensional and did not aim to support art and culture.

Then in the 1870s, weary of war issues, a number of the city's intelligentsia turned their attention to the arts and letters. Their social gatherings for mutual cultural and intellectual satisfaction included such prominent figures as Jefferson Davis and his wife, their daughter Varina Davis, Major and Mrs. B. M. Harrod, Thomas Sully, Mr. and Mrs. Walter L. Saxon (herself an artist), Mr. Lyle Saxon, Sr.; writers Grace King, Mary Ashley Townsend, Mary Evelyn Moore Davis, Lafcadio Hearn, Mark Twain, James Whitcomb Riley, Alcée Fortier, John Ficklen and George Washington Cable and artists George Clements, George Inness, Achille Perelli, Edward Livingston, Patrick Westfeldt, Amy Bemiss, Bror Andres Wikström, Alexander Drysdale, Charles Wellington Boyle and Ellsworth and William Woodward (Seebold 314-18). The noted art dealer William E. Seebold hosted a number of these gatherings. As a result of these social events there developed a strong support group dedicated to the arts. Their first organized effort, the Southern Art Union, formed in 1880, lasted for three years, then was revitalized in 1885 as the Artists' Association of New Orleans. The primary figures involved in this group included Swedish marine painter Bror Andres Wikström, Spanish-Italian painter from Gibraltar Andres Molinary and Massachusetts-born Ellsworth Woodward. In 1879 Molinary had hosted in his studio gatherings of “The Cup and Saucer Club,” so-named because as the number of members grew, they provided their own china.

The cumulative effect of these events was a flowering of the arts. The idea of a journal integrating literature with art was conceived to provide a platform and outlet for the group's collective creative efforts. Soon there came Art and Letters, a journal copyrighted in 1886 and issued bimonthly beginning in February of 1887. Unfortunately, the periodical lasted only through the sixth issue of that year, the December issue.² Artwork included engraved titles and flourishes by a commercial engraver; minimal advertising art by commercial engravers; illuminated initial letters; drawings illustrating prose and poetry and drawings that stood independent of any text. The illuminated letters and the drawings were contributed by the artists of the group themselves and are the primary subject of this paper.

Wikström appears to have been the motivating force behind Art and Letters. He executed the cover design, and he had work featured in all six issues. Woodward's illustrations appear in three issues, and Molinary's in four. Other artists—all members of the Artists' Association—whose works illustrate the periodical are George Henry Clements, Amy Bemiss, Frank Waller, William H. Buck and Robert S. Day, a prominent cotton broker; their works include ink drawings, charcoal pencil drawings, engravings and a single photograph in the last issue.

Among the contributing writers were Tulane University president William Preston Johnston; professors John Morse Ordway, John Ficklen and William Woodward; poets and authors James Ryder Randall, Mary Ashley Townsend, M. E. M. Davis, Grace King and Jennie A. Dickson; prominent citizens Thomas Nelson Carter, William Miller Owen, Augustus Allen Hayes and Charles Washington Coleman, Jr. They wrote fiction, poetry, travel articles (including those on China, Hawaii and Norway), book reviews, art essays and historical essays. Historian John Ficklen wrote an essay advocating reading in the high schools. John Ordway, a former M. I. T. professor, who came to Tulane University to initiate a program on manual training in its high school, wrote an article in support of such a program. The article was illustrated by Ellsworth Woodward, the brother of William, who had been brought in by Ordway to help him build the program. William contributed an article entitled “Hints on Decorative Art” for the third issue (June). Surprisingly, he is not represented with artwork in any of the issues.

Each issue carried at least one sketch by Wikström or Molinary that stood solely on its own merit, that was not dependent upon its association with the literary efforts for its appreciation. This is the first known concerted attempt at “art for art's sake” within a periodical in New Orleans. The frontispiece of the first issue (February 1887)—the first of these artworks—is an etching by Wikström entitled “Fall Time in Florida” and dated 1887.³ It appeared opposite the statement of editorial purpose, an essay entitled “Proem,” which has an illuminated initial letter, drawn by Wikström, combined with the engraved title. The rectangular outline and flourishes of the title are typical of the titles throughout the journal. Here the collaborators set forth their goals and expressed sectional, national and international interests:

In truth, our aim is twofold,—it is sectional, in the better sense of that outworn term, and it is also national, in the highest acceptation of the word which is so often used and so seldom comprehended. There exist a thousand reasons for believing that the South's intellectual leaders have something to say that is worthy of the world's attention. It could not be otherwise. No people can pass through years of civil war and social cataclysm—of universal ruin followed by swift recuperation, of abject humiliation leading up to the perfect pride that comes of the victories of inherent manhood—without having in its heart of hearts a world of the mighty passion which alone can breathe the breath of immortality into poetry or prose. It is, we think, high time that the metropolis of the South possessed some publication capable alike of voicing Southern opinion on the great questions of the day, and of delineating the innumerable strange and picturesque phases which exist not in the daily life of the remainder of the nation.

While keeping this aim resolutely in view, we shall no less resolutely endeavor to bring home to our readers the tremendous significance of the swift movement which pre-eminently characterizes civilization of this age. The highest culture of our time is, at once, national and international,—it is indeed, a perfect reflection of the fact that the nations are coming to know themselves through knowing one another. It will be our ambition to reflect this national and international spirit,—to champion the cause of that broad humanity which constitutes the sole essential difference between civilization and barbarism.

(1)

This recognition of the difference in ambience becomes all the more significant upon realizing that the principal figures involved were from other parts of the world—New York, Massachusetts, Norway, Sweden and Spain. The attempt to celebrate the distinct personality and character of the South that is consistent throughout the six issues can be readily observed in the cover design and in Wikström's illustrations “Fall Time in Florida” and “Among the Palmettoes.”⁴ Always apparent, however, is the effort, in both art and literature, to place the South within the wider context of humanity and to focus on the larger issues of the human condition.

The primary figures involved in the journal's production were the editor, Mary Ashley Townsend, and the artists, Wikström, and Ellsworth and William Woodward. In the New Orleans City Guide, Robert Tallant states that these three artists were sponsors of the journal (105-06). Through their affiliation with the Artists' Association of New Orleans, the first issue was published by that organization. By the second issue (April) the principals had formed themselves into the Art and Letters Association. The April and June issues are listed as being published by the New Orleans Publishing Company and edited by the Art and Letters Association, New Orleans. The last three journals are published by this group, which by this point had settled into offices at 138 Gravier Street. No editor is listed for the last three journals.

The collaborators are listed in the third and fourth issues (June and August) and are nineteen in number: Durant DaPonte, a wealthy cotton planter; Ashton Phelps and W. C. Gordon, cotton brokers; the Honorable William M. Burwell, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce; physicians William H. Holcombe and Henry Dickson Bruns; writers Mary Ashley Townsend, M. E. M. Davis, Grace King, Julie K. Wetherill [Baker], who wrote for the Picayune, and Jennie A. Dickson; Professor John Ficklen; clergymen Rev. J. William Flinn, pastor of the Franklin Street Memorial Church, and Rev. Isaac L. Leucht, rabbi at Touro Synagogue; lawyer Evariste E. Moise; George Herbert Sass and the artists Bror Andres Wikström, Amy Bemiss and Frank Waller.

Townsend is listed as editor only in library cataloging information. Nowhere does her name appear in this capacity in any of the journals, although she was a contributing writer in two of the issues. While this omission could mean that the cataloging information is incorrect, in light of Townsend's longstanding practice of writing under a nom-de-plume, the absence of her name would not be unusual. Townsend, whose pen names included “Xariffa,” “Michael O'Quillo,” “Crab Crossroads” and “Mary Ashley,” also wrote as “The Corner Poet” in The Easy Chair, a publication of the Quarante Club.⁵ In the mid- to late 1880s, as the unofficial poet laureate of the city, Townsend wrote commemorative and dedicatory poems for such major events as the opening of the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1884, the dedication of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library in 1889 and the laying of the cornerstone of the Arts and Sciences building of Tulane University in 1894. Additionally, sufficient evidence exists in the Townsend-Stanton papers in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection at the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library to support crediting Townsend with editorship.

The sensitive illustration of a poem by James Ryder Randall in that collection, for example, points to the hand of an editor sympathetic with the creative efforts of both authors and artists. A brief note by Randall obviously accompanied the poem “Isis” when it was submitted for publication in the journal:

This poem which has never appeared in print save in slips which I had struck for myself in the Chronicle Office was written long ago in New Orleans when Rheinhart⁶—now an eminent artist—was a chum of mine. In his studio one day he showed me first removing a veil from it the picture of a woman. I felt intuitively and clairvoyantly that that Isis was dead. The face haunted me and I wrote the poem.

J. R. R.

The eighteen-stanza poem appears in the fourth issue (August) and was illustrated by Wikström (140-41). The artist's work remains close to the text and his sketches illustrate several salient lines in the poem—in particular the recently unveiled painting of a young woman and the two figures who play chess (obviously the artist and the poet) while veiled in the “Cotillions of smoke” from “Calle Obispo's divine cigarettes.” By way of setting, he uses the paintbox and palette—not mentioned in the text—to establish the setting as the artist's studio. Wikström then depicts tangible objects mentioned in Randall's setting: “a swart old Tertullian, all gnarled and knotty: … a muscular torso by Buonarotti.” In the extreme upper left he sketchily indicates the line: “Afar, in this carnival dance of cartoons, Hypatia glares on the crucified God!” The weapons in the left foreground and the chair and bridal gown in the right foreground illustrate the following stanza (eighth):

There are foils on the arras and shields on the stair,
While an arquebuse bosses the lank balustrade;
And trailing just over that worm-eaten chair
Is a woman's white dress with its bodice and braid.

Having thus established his setting, the melancholy poet continues:

The visions of youth are the wizards of thought,
No matter how gusty, no matter how good;
How many have married the woman they sought—
How seldom we marry the woman we should!
I sprang from the couch, till I stood by the side
Of my friend, as he gazed at the bodice and dress;
“This way,” whispered he, “and I'll show you a bride
Not to wed but to worship—to sing not to bless.”
Dear God! as the picture the painter unsealed,
The curtain was shrivelled away to a scroll:—
I felt that an Isis of Eld was revealed,
That Isis I veiled in the crypt of my soul!

Wikström's layout strives to capture the mood described by the poet. His layout also includes another vignette from the fourteenth stanza:

Ah, the glove's on the mantel, the rose in the glass,
The name in the Bible upon the blank page,
And the very same rosary fingered at mass,
Coiled by the canary bird—dead in its cage.

Wikström sketched the gloves, mantel, rose in the glass, the Bible and rosary; however, he omitted the latter lugubrious detail—the dead bird, which certainly would have ruined the romantic visual effect of dreaminess and longing of the soul. In this poem, as in all the work Wikström illustrated in this series, the sketches indicate a close reading of the text. The adherence of illustration to text also points to the collaborative venture of authors, artists and editor.

Another poem found in the Townsend-Stanton papers, one by M. E. M. Davis entitled “Rondeau: In This Old Court,” also underscores Townsend's role as liaison between artist and author. The manuscript includes the notation “See Frontispiece,” which appears in print in the journal. The accompanying ink sketch, “A Chartres Street Close” … was executed by Ellsworth Woodward,⁷ whose usual manner of illustrating a text, like Wikström's, revealed a close relationship with the literary work. In this poem, the author portrays a collage of past visitors to the courtyard. Here Woodward's sketch is not a faithful representation of descriptive images. This deviance, together with the variant title, suggests that the sketch may have been the inspiration for the poem. Woodward, having arrived in New Orleans a mere two years earlier, had begun a series of drawings and studies of the Vieux Carré, depicting such sights as “A Chartres Street Close” (an enclosed place around a building; narrow street or passageway; dead end).

Woodward, having just finished his schooling at the Rhode Island School of Design, came to New Orleans at the age of twenty-four. His own limited association with Art and Letters can be attributed directly to his youth and inexperience at this point in his career, and to his increasing involvement with the establishment of the Newcomb College School of Art. Certainly he began to formulate many of his ideas during the period of his involvement with the journal. He advocated the practical application of art studies and the vocational training of young women. Throughout his career he taught courses in book illustration, and he illustrated books like Grace King's Creole Families of New Orleans (1921). He provided five of the six sketches for an article in the second issue of Art and Letters on the Pickwick Club by military historian William Miller Owen (39-45). His work is a study in contrast with the meticulously illustrative mechanical reproduction of the Pickwick Club by an unknown printer that appeared in the same issue (44). Woodward's controlled line and emphasis on formal refinement are typical of book illustrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. His work shows greater control and a more careful finish than the easy, free-flowing style of Wikström.

A comparison of the initial letters created by Woodward and Wikström is enlightening, such as in Woodward's initial “O” for the article on the Pickwick Club (39) and Wikström's initial “F” for “Plantation Life” in the fourth issue (142). Woodward's treatment of the letter is more formal, confined within boundaries and somewhat rigid. The overall symmetry of the design is emphasized. The contrast of dark and light areas is usually more pronounced in Woodward's sketches, whereas Wikström's work is characteristically more fluid and unrestrained, yet the initial letter is easily recognizable.

Wikström's sketches for Townsend's story entitled “A Moral Conviction,” published in the first issue, are typical of his style (7-14). The illuminated letter is often sketched in harmony with the design of the engraved title. His free handling and fluid movement of the pen created easy, unrestricted edges of the sketch and allowed for a close merging with the body of the text. His style is conducive to the romantic settings of many of the essays. Here Townsend's story, set in the countryside outside New York, allowed Wikström to move away from the palmettoes and southern foliage into a European-like rural setting. The story exemplifies the goals set forth in “Proem.” The plot focuses on a young man whose moral standards are put to the test when confronted with a young lady whose rural upbringing has given a different perspective on life. The unconventional young woman whistles beautifully; a crack “marksman,” she fishes and swims. He discovers that she is well educated, however. She paints, sings, reads and speaks German. Her bravery and quick thinking save him from being gored by a charging bull when he foolishly jumps over a fence to cut across a meadow with a red shawl draped over his arm. Wikström incorporated the essence of the young woman's escapades in the flourish at the story's end. In these sketches, as in most of his work, he exercised a little artistic license and added an extraneous detail suggested but not necessarily specified in the story. Here the bull has in its mouth a scrap of paper with a sketchy suggestion of the names of the hero Schuyler Reed, and the heroine, Margaret Vandyne—a reference to Townsend's final remark regarding wedding cards.

Townsend's story here relates to the broader spectrum of literature being written at the time, in particular much of the fiction of Guy de Maupassant in France and Kate Chopin in St. Louis and Cloutierville, Louisiana. These works also deal with the relationship of men and women within the strictures of established social settings.

In keeping with these larger views in art as well as in literature, Art and Letters carried a column entitled “Art Talks,” which focused on art at the national and international level. Three of the articles that appeared in this column were written by Frank Waller, a fellow of the Metropolitan Museum and the National Academy of Design, who was the founder of the New York Art Students League and later became its first president. Waller wrote “Report on Art Schools” in 1879 and gave his first report on the League in 1886. He is represented in the journal with an etching entitled “On the Battery Near Staten Island Ferry.” Interestingly, the setting for this vendor on the New York docks is not unlike many illustrations of vendors along the New Orleans docks and in the French Market.

George Henry Clements, a Louisiana-born painter who had a studio in Boston and later moved to New York, wrote and illustrated an article for the fourth issue entitled “A Painter's Comparison of Europe and America,” in which he described the rich visual images which he had seen in his travels abroad and then compared them to the unique Louisiana landscape (146-50). He richly illustrated his articles with scenes of Italy, France, Switzerland and Louisiana. Clements concluded with the statement that what set New Orleans apart from New York and Europe was the lack of art galleries, schools and a museum. Suitably, Ellsworth Woodward was to be a key figure in establishing an art school with a gallery and resident collection at Newcomb College and was the first director of the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art established in 1911. This latter achievement came to fruition with the cooperation of the Art Association of New Orleans (formed in 1903 by a merger of the Artists' Association of New Orleans and the Arts Exhibition League), which held its annual exhibitions at the museum.

An effort was made to broaden the roster of artists contributing to a single article in Art and Letters. In the fourth issue, “The Oaks: The Old Duelling Grounds of New Orleans” was illustrated with the work of three artists: Wikström, Molinary (who had contributed three conté pencil sketches to other issues) and his former student Amy Bemiss (123-34). In the final issue, an attempt was made to incorporate photographs into the text. William H. Buck, a Norwegian artist who had studied under Richard Clague of New Orleans, and also in Boston, painted numerous works focusing on plantations and cotton fields. He is represented with a photograph of one of these paintings (211). This final issue includes an article on sorcery and magic illustrated with old engravings. It becomes apparent with this issue that the artists' efforts were dwindling, and the journal failed to continue.

The last two issues contained no advertisement, and it is obvious that circulation problems contributed to the demise of Art and Letters. Earlier issues had contained ads for the Artists' Association, Tulane University, William E. Seebold's art dealership and Gideon Townsend's stock brokerage, all of which had direct relationships with the principals involved in the production of the journal.

This initial effort to produce an artist-sponsored periodical as a forum for the arts and letters served as a prelude to a number of other magazines. None of these lasted much longer than a decade, however. George A. Coulon's attempted fifteen-part periodical, also published in 1887, 350 Miles in a Skiff Through the Louisiana Swamps, was a single artist's effort to provide sketches, photographs and text. After the inaugural issue, his endeavor met swift defeat at the hands of a rival artist, who disposed of Coulon's manuscripts and artwork. Townsend, in another supportive effort, collaborated with Molinary to illustrate her poetry in Easter Sunrise, a six-page booklet published by William E. Seebold in 1889.⁸

Men and Matters, edited by its “proprietor,” Marie Evans was more successful, running from about 1894 until 1909.⁹ This monthly periodical focused on literature, history, commerce and social events and personalities. Some of the same artist-members of the Artists' Association were contributors to this journal. Alexander J. Drysdale, who designed one of the covers regularly featured through the years, has sketches in several issues. Robert Bledsole Mayfield is represented with a number of works. At the same time (1895), the Artists' Association began to reproduce artwork in their annual exhibition catalogues. The first year contained simple pencil and ink sketches but gradually expanded to include reproductions of oil paintings and watercolors. Many of the works shown in the 1898 catalogue had been used the previous year to illustrate an article entitled “Louisiana Art” in Men and Matters (40-45).

In that first decade of the twentieth century, the magazine Town Talk was limited in the space it allowed artists, and was of much shorter duration. Through the years the Double Dealer and Tulane Drama Review featured artwork. Today the Xavier Review, New Laurel Review and New Orleans Review make conscious efforts to reproduce artwork and photographs, but these are primarily literary journals. There has been no continuous effort through these hundred years to produce a journal as a joint forum for art and literature. Now a century since the birth and death of the periodical Art and Letters, it remains unique in its goals and accomplishments.

Notes

1. This paper was presented during the Nineteenth North American Print Conference at the Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans, Louisiana. It is printed here by permission of Dr. Patricia Brady and John Mahé.

2. Records do not exist to indicate distribution or number published. Surviving issues of the journal are housed at the Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.

3. An oil painting by Wikström of this same composition is in the Tulane University Art Collection.

4. “Among the Palmettoes” is featured as the frontispiece in Vol. 1, No. 5 (Oct.).

5. The Quarante Club, whose membership is limited to forty, was founded in 1886 as a forum for women interested in literary and intellectual endeavors. Townsend became its third president in 1888 and held that position until 1894. M. E. M. Davis and Grace King were among its members.

6. Reinhardt, Benjamin Franklin, was a Pennsylvania-born artist active in New Orleans about 1859 to 1862. There are a number of variations on the spelling of Reinhardt's surname. See “Reinhardt.”

7. Vol. 1, No. 4 (July) frontispiece. The poem entitled “Rondeau: In this Old Court,” dated “New Orleans, August, 1887” appears on p. 122 of that issue. The original ink drawing, “A Chartres Street Close,” is in the Tulane University Art Collection.

8. Townsend had published a longer version of this poem in 1888. The illustrations for that publication, ink drawings by Louis A. Winterhalder, are housed at the Historic New Orleans Collection.

9. The January, February and September 1897 issues of Men and Matters are housed at the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Works Cited

Art and Letters 1.1-6 (1887).

Bonner, Judith H. “Artists' Associations in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: 1842-1860.” Southern Quarterly 24.1-2 (1985): 119-37.

“Reinhardt, Benjamin Franklin.” Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists 1718-1918. New Orleans: Historic New Orleans Collection, 1987, 320-21.

Men and Matters 3.10 (1897).

Seebold, Herman de Bachellé. Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees. Gretna, LA: Pelican, 1971.

Tallant, Robert, and WPA. New Orleans City Guide. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton, 1952.

Tinker, Edward Larocque. Bibliography of the French Newspapers and Periodicals of Louisiana. Proc. of the American Antiquarian Society. Oct. 1932. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1933.

Townsend, Mary Ashley. Easter Sunrise. New Orleans: Seebold, 1889.