DOI Heft:
Nr. 153 (November 1909)
DOI Artikel:Mechlin, L.: Contemporary american ladscape painting
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19868#0060
Contemporary American Landscape Painting
no means imitative. Instead of seeking beauty
lie saw it, and on every side. He painted broad
Stretches of near-by open country lying steeped in
summer sunlight—such scenes as were to him
most familiar and appealing, and he made patent
their charm. His colour was rich and strong, and
he allowed it to flow freely from his brush. Some
of his canvases are over-painted, but they all have
definite meaning. Alexander H. Wyant, his con-
temporary, was perhaps an evener though a less
virile painter, and a better draughtsman. For him
grey days had more allurement than sunny ones,
and his works are found to have a lyric quality
which in a measure Inness's lack. Homer Martin,
of the three, was probably the most emotional but
least conscious of the beauty of his own land—
least single-hearted. All of these men, it must be
understood, developed gradually, and to some extent
groped their way, unconscious of the fact that they
were creating tradition. Their works stand to-day
alone, and represent a chapter which is concluded.
This brings us to present time, to the field of
contemporary effort wherein is spread before us an
almost bewildering array of the fruits of an early
season. Between the years 1879 and 1909 the
pages of history have been turned rapidly, and
records have grown old while they were yet in the
making. Within this period the French impres-
sionists have risen and declared a new creed, the
pkin-air painters have advanced a doctrine, and
the tonalists have strengthened their ramparts ; in
America the voices have been heard and in some
measure heeded. American landscape painters, like
American figure painters, of the last quarter century
have quite generally got their schooling in France,
but they have returned more promptly, and held
with greater tenacity, it would seem, to native ideals.
Thus with them the foreign influence has appa-
rently filtered through a national individuality, and
been assimilated rather than absorbed. Of course,
there are those who lead and those who follow—
imitators and honest investigators—men of little
minds and men of independent conviction ; but the
latter are in preponderance.
Childe Hassam is the strongest exponent of the
school of Monet in America, but that he is not the
'AUTUMN WOODLANDS" «Y R. M. SHURTLBFF
no means imitative. Instead of seeking beauty
lie saw it, and on every side. He painted broad
Stretches of near-by open country lying steeped in
summer sunlight—such scenes as were to him
most familiar and appealing, and he made patent
their charm. His colour was rich and strong, and
he allowed it to flow freely from his brush. Some
of his canvases are over-painted, but they all have
definite meaning. Alexander H. Wyant, his con-
temporary, was perhaps an evener though a less
virile painter, and a better draughtsman. For him
grey days had more allurement than sunny ones,
and his works are found to have a lyric quality
which in a measure Inness's lack. Homer Martin,
of the three, was probably the most emotional but
least conscious of the beauty of his own land—
least single-hearted. All of these men, it must be
understood, developed gradually, and to some extent
groped their way, unconscious of the fact that they
were creating tradition. Their works stand to-day
alone, and represent a chapter which is concluded.
This brings us to present time, to the field of
contemporary effort wherein is spread before us an
almost bewildering array of the fruits of an early
season. Between the years 1879 and 1909 the
pages of history have been turned rapidly, and
records have grown old while they were yet in the
making. Within this period the French impres-
sionists have risen and declared a new creed, the
pkin-air painters have advanced a doctrine, and
the tonalists have strengthened their ramparts ; in
America the voices have been heard and in some
measure heeded. American landscape painters, like
American figure painters, of the last quarter century
have quite generally got their schooling in France,
but they have returned more promptly, and held
with greater tenacity, it would seem, to native ideals.
Thus with them the foreign influence has appa-
rently filtered through a national individuality, and
been assimilated rather than absorbed. Of course,
there are those who lead and those who follow—
imitators and honest investigators—men of little
minds and men of independent conviction ; but the
latter are in preponderance.
Childe Hassam is the strongest exponent of the
school of Monet in America, but that he is not the
'AUTUMN WOODLANDS" «Y R. M. SHURTLBFF