![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Mansfield-by-Heyde-1200x845.jpg\")
Mount Mansfield was one of Charles Heyde\u2019s favorite subjects, featuring in many of his paintings. This work, dated circa 1857, is currently on display at the Fleming Museum. Image via Fleming Museum of Art<\/p>\nMount Mansfield was one of Charles Heyde\u2019s favorite subjects, featuring in many of his paintings. This work, dated circa 1857, is currently on display at the Fleming Museum. Image via Fleming Museum of Art<\/p>\n
The visit was almost more than artist Charles Heyde could have hoped for. One day in the early 1850s, Heyde was called upon at his Brooklyn painting studio by a pair of poets, one in his early 30s, the other in his mid-50s. Heyde must have been particularly excited to meet the older man, William Cullen Bryant.<\/p>\n
Though little remembered today, Bryant wrote widely popular poems in which nature often served as a metaphor for spiritual truth. His activism on a range of issues \u2014 from opposing slavery to supporting the creation of a large, central park in Manhattan \u2014 made him a leading cultural figure in New York City and the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a young artist like Heyde (pronounced Hi-dee), the fact that Bryant would take the time to visit his studio, admire his landscape paintings and talk with him, must have felt like a benediction. Perhaps this connection with Bryant was a sign that he too had what it took to be a great artist.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Walt-Hannah-and-Charles-1200x525.jpg\")
Walt Whitman, right, introduced Charles Heyde to his sister, Hannah, at the Whitman family home in Brooklyn. Charles courted Hannah and the couple soon married and moved to Vermont. Whitman later regretted introducing Heyde to his sister when it became evident that he was abusive to Hannah. Hannah and Walt Whitman photos via the Walt Whitman Archive, etching of Heyde via Newspapers.com<\/p>\n
Heyde might have believed this meeting with Bryant would change his life, but it was his connection with the younger poet that proved far more significant. That man\u2019s name was Walt Whitman. Though a virtual unknown at the time, Whitman had recently begun writing some of the poems he would include in \u201cLeaves of Grass,\u201d the poetry collection that would make him a household name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walt liked Heyde enough that he invited him to visit the Whitman homestead. There Heyde met and soon wooed Whitman\u2019s favorite sister, Hannah. The couple married in March 1852. That same year, Charles and Hannah traveled north to Vermont, taking the train to North Dorset.<\/p>\n
Like other members of the so-called Hudson River School of landscape painters, Heyde was looking for inspiring views. Named after one of their favorite subjects, the Hudson River School painters were a group of artists who, from roughly 1825 to 1875, strove to depict the natural beauty of their young country. In addition to the Hudson River Valley, many painters made regular pilgrimages to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
Perhaps seeking something off the artists\u2019 beaten path, Heyde chose Vermont. He would make the state his principal subject, and soon his home, for the final four decades of his life. In the process, he became one of Vermont\u2019s most prominent landscape painters of the 19th\u00a0 century, along with James Hope of Castleton.<\/p>\n
In a letter, Heyde wrote rapturously of the scenery: \u201cNothing can exceed the wild, bold, natural beauty of this place at present. The hues are incomparable and the artist who in his studio imagines himself a creator or interpreter of nature and her glorious beauties, he finds himself humbled \u2026 a child in power, only possessing wonder, admiration and the conviction of his weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the next four years, the Heydes divided their time between Brooklyn and Vermont. Visiting Dorset, Rutland, Arlington and Bellows Falls, Charles painted scenes along the Connecticut River, Saxtons River, the Batten Kill and the Black River. During that time, the Heydes moved from boardinghouse to boardinghouse. While Charles found the work stimulating, Hannah wrote home that she felt lonely and found it difficult to form friendships because of their transient lifestyle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1856, he and Hannah moved to Vermont permanently. They picked the bustling port community of Burlington, an area ripe with scenery that Heyde would paint again and again \u2014 the peaks of Mount Mansfield and Camel\u2019s Hump, as well as Lake Champlain backed by the distant Adirondacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burlington\u2019s comparatively small population posed a challenge for an artist trying to earn a living. While most Hudson River School painters lived in New York, Boston or Philadelphia, Heyde had chosen a town whose population was less than 8,000 when he and Hannah arrived. The population would peak at about 14,000 during their time there, but that was still a small pool of potential buyers.<\/p>\n
Heyde was enterprising, selling paintings directly from his studio and arranging to exhibit his work in downtown storefront windows and hotel lobbies, where they might catch the eye of travelers.<\/p>\n
Greenville Benedict, editor of the Burlington Daily Free Press, quickly became an admirer and frequently mentioned Heyde\u2019s paintings in his paper. A typical article from 1858, headlined \u201cA Fine Painting,\u201d informed\u00a0 \u201cLovers of art and Vermont scenery\u201d that a Heyde landscape could be viewed at James Brinsmaid\u2019s store on Church Street, but warned that it would only be on display for 10 days. Such notices helped attract Heyde\u2019s main collectors, middle- and upper-class Burlingtonians who wished to show hometown pride in how they decorated their homes.<\/p>\n
Heyde soon established a studio at the corner of Maple Street and Water (now Battery) Street, in the Rutland and Burlington Railroad depot. The location was extremely convenient for his painting forays. In preparing for a 2001 retrospective of the artist\u2019s work at the University of Vermont\u2019s Fleming Museum, exhibit co-curator Thomas Pierce scouted nearby locations from which Heyde had painted. He found that many of the spots were near the train tracks, leading Pierce to theorize that Heyde took advantage of the rail lines that were fast expanding in his era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his research, Pierce noted how Heyde must have visited the locations many times. Over the years the painter\u2019s canvases recorded changes to the landscape. Early views of Mount Mansfield from across Browns River in Jericho, which would become a classic Heyde composition, show a line of trees along the water. In later canvases, the trees are gone \u2014 possibly the result of flooding, Pierce suggests \u2014 and a barn, missing in the early pieces, appears in the midground. In that way, surveying Heyde\u2019s works can feel like watching a time-lapse film of Vermont\u2019s development during the second half of the 19th century.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unlike many Hudson River School painters, Heyde didn\u2019t erase all evidence of human habitation. His paintings often show signs of expanding settlement, including tree stumps and dirt roads leading into the wilderness, as well as technological advancements: trains dwarfed by the serene scenery and steamboats set upon a luminous Lake Champlain. His paintings suggest he believed that in Vermont modern innovations and awe-inspiring nature were compatible.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Shelburne-Point-at-Sunset-c1857.jpg\")
Charles Heyde didn\u2019t shy away from depicting signs of human impacts on nature, like these tree stumps in a cleared field in \u201cShelburne Point at Sunset,\u201d painted circa 1857. Contributed<\/p>\n
Heyde\u2019s paintings still resonate today. As William Lipke, a UVM art professor noted in a 2001 essay, many of the views Heyde chose to depict are relatively unchanged today and are \u201c\u2018places of delight\u2019 that identify the unique topographical and scenic features of the Champlain Valley.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1862, Heyde won a prestigious commission from the Vermont Legislature to redesign the state coat of arms. Heyde\u2019s version included symbols from the previous coat of arms: a pine tree, sheaves of wheat and a cow. These he set against a backdrop of mountains clearly identifiable as Camel\u2019s Hump and Mount Mansfield.<\/p>\n
The Heydes finally found a permanent home in 1864 when they purchased a brick house at 21 Pearl Street, right next to Battery Park, which has a spectacular view of Lake Champlain and the distant Adirondacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The tranquil landscapes Heyde depicted contrasted sharply with life at home. In fact, the Heydes\u2019 marriage was an increasingly rocky one. Hannah wrote regularly to her mother and siblings of her husband\u2019s abusive behavior. \u00a0\u201cHe does not hurt me much when he gets angry,\u201d she had written her mother in 1856, \u201che threatened to choke me to death(,) he has struck or pushed me about some, once he bit me a little on the shoulder(,) more to hurt(,) tore or ripped the sleeves of my dress that I wore but all that I care nothing at all about, if he would not talk so to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have been easier for Hannah if her husband also treated other people this way but, she wrote, \u201che can leave my room with the most horrid mouth and be as pleasant as any one you ever saw to any one he meets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Whitmans would sometimes mail Hannah books, or money when the Heydes ran into financial trouble, which she said \u201cCharlie,\u201d as she called her husband, would sometimes take. Heyde made a habit of reading the letters Hannah exchanged with her family.<\/p>\n
For his part, Heyde complained about Hannah, or \u201cHan,\u201d as he referred to her, in letters to her family. Writing to Mrs. Whitman and to Walt, who he addressed as \u201cBrother Walter,\u201d Heyde called Hannah lazy and neglectful of her housework; said she often took to her bed, saying she was ill; claimed she would noisily interrupt him in his home studio and rifle through his things; and was suspicious when he returned from outings, sniffing his coat, gloves and handkerchief, accusing him of having an affair.<\/p>\n
The Whitmans fully supported Hannah and helped her the best they could. But they lacked the financial resources to extract her from her apparently abusive marriage. If Hannah wanted to leave Charles, she would have found it challenging; married women had few legal rights. Walt Whitman clearly regretted introducing his sister to this man who he now called \u201ca damned lazy scoundrel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile during this time, Heyde faced a serious professional challenge. The new field of photography was muscling in on the turf that had been painters\u2019 sole domain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he was up against photography as competition he had to keep his paintings at a price that was affordable,\u201d explained Pierce. As a result, critics say that Heyde\u2019s later works don\u2019t measure up to his earlier ones. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t spend a week doing a painting anymore,\u201d Pierce said, \u201che had to spend two days, because the more you work it, the more expensive it becomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some also claim that Heyde\u2019s work started to suffer because he was drinking too much and showing signs of dementia. Pierce thinks that\u2019s not accurate. He pointed to a set of four paintings that recently came up for auction. They are fine examples of the artist\u2019s skill, even though they were painted in the 1880s, late in his career. Heyde hadn\u2019t lost his touch, said Pierce, who suspects the paintings were well-paid commissions, so he didn\u2019t have to rush them.<\/p>\n
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Like many Charles Heyde paintings, \u201cLake Champlain and Rock Point,\u201d painted in 1858, is owned by a Burlington-area family. Contributed<\/p>\n