Jonathan Fisher Hare Engraving

Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts. After the death of his father, a Revolutionary War soldier, he was reared in the Holden home of his uncle, a minister. As a young man he considered becoming a blacksmith, cabinet maker or clockmaker, but his intellectual gifts were evident, and his family was able to send him to Harvard in 1788. 

In 1796 he became the first settled Congregational minister of the small village of Blue Hill, Maine. Fisher was also an artist, scientist, mathematician, surveyor, and writer of prose and poetry. He bound his own books, made buttons and hats, designed and built furniture, painted sleighs, was a reporter for the local newspaper, helped found Bangor Theological Seminary, dug wells, built his own home and raised a large family.

Jonathan Fisher claimed that his artistic talent developed because of his passion for mathematics and geometry, and his need to work on such problems by drawing out their solutions. Fisher learned to paint with oil on canvas. He produced landscapes, portraits, and images of nature, and he painted several still lifes at a time when few Americans practiced that art.

The parson also made numerous engravings and built his own press on which he could strike prints. Fisher, as often was the case, turned his talent to commercial use and sold several of his woodcuts to local newspapers. His masterpiece in the medium was a natural history book written for children, Scripture Animals, which depicted every creature named in the Bible.

Karl Kups, curator of prints at the New York Public Library, characterized Fisher’s engravings in these terms:  "Fisher’s style of engraving, in the manner of the typical primitive, shows the lack of training, of “how-to.” But it is made up by a most fervent desire to please, and by an almost childlike persistence to get that animal upon the wood block, come what may. His modeling is poor . . . but in the handling of the tool . . . Fisher shows real craftsmanship in the execution of his engravings. He knows no fear in flicking out small bits to get the texture of either fur or feathers. He engraves the most enchanting landscapes around and behind his animals . . ."