Arts and Letters

A portrait of Royal Cortissoz hangs in the Century Club. Louis Betts has put into this portrait all that an artist can show on canvas of a man's appearance and personality. It seems to speak to us with the eloquence and friendly charm that Royal so abundantly possessed. It is difficult to enlarge on what this portrait tells us of the man as many of us knew him, but it does not tell how or why he became the man we loved.

Royal Cortissoz started his career, as he has often told us, when quite a lad, in the offices of McKim, Mead, and White. His lifelong hero was McKim. He drank so freely from that clear fountain of classical lore that he never knew thirst. I do not mean to imply that he never tasted or tested other waters, but they were always appraised in relation to his first draughts. What he gained from association with that great architect, and perhaps because of the Latin strain in his blood, gave him enduring respect for the masters of the past, which governed all his thinking as an art critic.

He was a most friendly man, ever ready to share with others the store of knowledge he had laid by; but he was never pedantic, as some critics are prone to be, yet ever ready to defend his ideals. I can remember many friendly discussions when I championed the virtues of some contemporary artist; his invariable question was: "Does he know the fundamentals of his art?" Beauty, as he saw it, played the major part in his thought and talks.

In 1891 he began his life work as critic on the New York Tribune—later the Herald Tribune—and continued in that role until he was forced by ill health to retire in 1944—over fifty years of active service in the field of art. He died on October 17, 1948, at the age of seventy-nine. No critic ever served his mistress, Art, more loyally than he.

He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters on November 20, 1924, and served as one of our Directors for several years. He was the fourth occupant of Chair No. 4.

At the time of his death many tributes were paid; perhaps I could not play the part of memorialist better than to act as a mirror in which portions of these tributes may be reflected. Because of his long service on the Herald Tribune, it is fitting that I first recall parts of an editorial which appeared in that paper the day after his death. I could not find more fitting words:

In richness of personality Royal Cortissoz can have had few equals in his time. His talents were numerous and varied. Whether words were to be written or spoken, his forthgivings were as distinguished as they were delightful. Yet the man, himself, was to all who knew him supreme.

Doubtless his greatest service to his community was in the field of art criticism. The very length of his connection with this newspaper gave him an authority and a perspective without parallel. Throughout these fifty-odd years his leadership stood unchallenged.

It was a close race between his writing and his speaking. His life of his friend and editor, Whitelaw Reid, bore testimony to his ability as a historian. To his comrade, John Lafarge, he devoted one of his most informative volumes. The inscription in the Lincoln Memorial at Washington records the eloquence which was ever at his command.

But there would be many to contend that the grace and ease of his spoken word, whether uttered in conversation or in formal addresses, surpassed even his writing. The flavor, the gusto, the enchantment of his casual talk was unforgettable. Nor will any one who heard him speak on art ever forget the happy phrase, the effortless accuracy, with which he confronted the most technical of artistic topics. His learning had so become part of him that whatever the occasion, his whole nature was there present, to instruct and entertain.

Perhaps Austin Strong's humorous diagnosis of Royal's qualities, at a dinner in his honor at The Coffee House, best sums up his endearing personality:

It occurred to me that you would be interested, as I was, to find out how Royal was made. I have it from no less an authority than his guardian angel. It seems on his natal day the gods took a big pot and made a brew of all sorts of oddments and remainders. They tossed in a bit of Ariel, a slice of Puck, some juicy nubbins from rare Ben Johnson; these were allowed to simmer with generous handfuls of the salt of Rabelais and the good garlic of Cervantes—all garnished with tabasco brought by Sancho Panza. Into this gargantuan brew was poured the milk of humanity, spiced with the bitter-sweet of irony, the biting vinegar of cussedness and large tough hunks from the old mule of stubbornness. All this was stewed, stirred and boiled in the sweet wine of friendship until the exact moment when the laughter of Brother Juniper was tossed in to make the delectable dish we call Royal Cortissoz.

All my life I have known this sturdy wayfarer who somehow, in spite of living in a city, suggests the moors and the open heath; there's something homespun and airedalish about him. Like most of you, we have shared experiences together of joy and shadow. Like you I have often wondered what it was that bound us to him. Tonight it comes to me that perhaps he has a secret which has sustained him on his rugged way. I can see him with his cigar rampant trudging faithfully up the hill to make the deadline, come rain, snow… in sickness and in health. Some secret has kept his sinew tough. I suspect there is something of the stamina of the Franciscan about our friend.

It may sound fanciful, but I seem to see the dust upon his sandaled feet, on his brown and weathered habit and as he walks among us laughing… I can bear witness there are birds about his head.

I somehow feel that this delightfully humorous appraisal of Royal goes deeper into his real character than pages of eulogies could do. Let us leave him on the golf course, struggling with the game he loved so well and played so badly.