Robert Henri, Walt Whitman, and the American Artist

love Walt, and I follow everything that is written about him, painter Robert exclaimed at his first meeting with anarchist Emma Goldman, herself an ardent consumer of Whitman's verse.1 A committed and highly respected teacher of some of country's most important early twentieth-century artists, articulated significant place for Whitman within country's expanding arts community. Whitman's non-elitist, activist posture and his enthusiastic engagement with even most mundane elements of his urban milieu offered refreshingly new and democratic perspective far removed from staid, impersonal standards mandated by Academy. Particularly important were Whitman's celebration of self, personality, and bond between individual and community. In striking opposition to high moral expectations that circulated around nineteenth-century notions of character, emphasis on personality-what Whitman lauded as the great pride of man in himself-shifted dynamic inward toward self.2 In 1896, four years after Whitman's death, naturalist John Burroughs, member of Whitman's inner circle, boldly characterized poet as a new type, rising out of new conditions . . . new man in new world. 3 commenced his career in Philadelphia with words like Burroughs's echoing in his ear and throughout his thirtyyear career achieved widespread recognition as forceful and dynamic interpreter of creative potential of Whitman's verse for members of American arts community. Whether in classroom, in his writings, or in his innovative contributions to exhibition practices of day, nurtured and inspired broad range of artists, many of whom are recognized today for their innovative and provocative contributions to American modernism.4Born in Cincinnati, was raised on Nebraska frontier where he combined an active outdoor life with passion for books. But when his father, gambler and cattleman, shot one of his employees in self-defense, Henri's western life came to an abrupt and untimely end. It was at this point that Nebraska-bred Robert Henry Cozad reinvented himself as Robert Earle Henri. Names are turning point of who shall be master, Whitman advised, and, like Henri, he had enacted his own audacious act of self-mastery at outset of his poetic career by changing his name from formal Walter Whitman, Jr. to more personable and informal Walt Whitman.5 Henri's act of self-naming signified similarly dramatic rupture with past and foreshadowing of his artistic future. The name Henri constituted reformulation of his own middle name, but with French spelling of his ancestors. Although he would later spend considerable time abroad, rejected name's French pronunciation, preferring more individualistic and conspicuously American Hen-rye.6 The aspiring artist in also recognized name's value as graphic reinforcement of act of seeing, for embedded in this Anglo-French hybrid is homophonic pun on English word eye, which wittily acknowledged with his signature on letter to wife of his friend John Sloan (Figure 1).Three years into his new identity, enrolled as student at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Too late to study with Thomas Eakins, whose resignation eight months earlier had deprived school of an ardent Whitman supporter, Henri, like other artists of his generation, first came to appreciate Whitman's importance both for himself and for American art generally during an extended period of study and travel in Europe. Whitman's reputation in France and throughout much of Western Europe was considerably stronger than in United States at this time and was already attracting attention of growing cadre of writers, artists, and critics.7 was initially drawn more to Emerson than Whitman when he arrived to study at Academie Julian in September 1888, but spirited conversations with Canadian artist Ernest Thompson Seton, fellow student at Academie, helped shifthis attention toward Whitman. …

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