DOI issue:
Nr. 153 (November 1909)
DOI article:Mechlin, L.: Contemporary american ladscape painting
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19868#0058
Contemporary American Landscape Painting
landscape {.Corcoran Gallery ofArt, Washington) by alexander h. wyant
Dennett said of Homer Martin's landscapes that painters without having seen a single great picture,
they looked as if no one but (iocl and the painter without having known or associated with other
had ever seen the places; and this characteristic is painters—and these days are not yet a century
not peculiar to Martin's work alone. For this very dead ! Where else have such conditions been
reason it is a question whether or not American paralleled? Where else has art been so severely
landscape paintings could be fully appreciated by tested? Durand and Cole were both engravers
those unfamiliar with American landscape ; but it before they became painters, as indeed were the
is thought that beneath their subjective truth lies majority of the early American landscape painters,
sufficient fundamental art to give them universal and their works while essentially conventional
appeal. and unreal were not utterly unworthy. They both
George Inness is called the father of American reproduced natural forms according to certain
landscape painting, because he was the first to fixed formulas, and Cole, not content with nature's
discover that art lay not so much in the thing message, endeavoured to read into his pictures
transcribed as in the transcription—that mere facts a complicated allegorical meaning. Church,
were less worthy of preservation than was their Moran, and Bierstadt were fond of representing
significance; which is, in reality, the dividing line upon canvas panoramic arrangements of dramatic
between the old school and the new. But before scenery, and thought that they were nationalizing
him came Durand and Cole, F. E. Church, Moran, their art by transcribing distinctly American themes.
Bierstadt, Kensett, Casilear, and the other men of To them the grandiose was great—bigness a matter
the so-called " Hudson River School," who while of measurement, and while their capacity was puny
seeking truth along conventional paths paved a in comparison to their aims, they did divert atten-
broad roadway for those who followed. That art tion from foreign ideals and were not inferior tech-
is an inherent instinct, rather than a cultivated nicians. The group of men who made up the
taste, is manifoldly demonstrated in American Hudson River school got nearer the truth but did
history, for with absolute spontaneity the little not succeed in ridding themselves of the notion
(lame burst forth simultaneously here and there in that one day is as another, and that in nature
remotely distant places in that broad land. And facts are unalterable.
not only did it awake, but it lived, under conditions To the influence of the Barbizon painters is at-
untoward to a degree almost incomprehensible, tributed the altered outlook of Inness, but whether
In the early days of art in America men became or not he learned his secret of Corot, his work is by
landscape {.Corcoran Gallery ofArt, Washington) by alexander h. wyant
Dennett said of Homer Martin's landscapes that painters without having seen a single great picture,
they looked as if no one but (iocl and the painter without having known or associated with other
had ever seen the places; and this characteristic is painters—and these days are not yet a century
not peculiar to Martin's work alone. For this very dead ! Where else have such conditions been
reason it is a question whether or not American paralleled? Where else has art been so severely
landscape paintings could be fully appreciated by tested? Durand and Cole were both engravers
those unfamiliar with American landscape ; but it before they became painters, as indeed were the
is thought that beneath their subjective truth lies majority of the early American landscape painters,
sufficient fundamental art to give them universal and their works while essentially conventional
appeal. and unreal were not utterly unworthy. They both
George Inness is called the father of American reproduced natural forms according to certain
landscape painting, because he was the first to fixed formulas, and Cole, not content with nature's
discover that art lay not so much in the thing message, endeavoured to read into his pictures
transcribed as in the transcription—that mere facts a complicated allegorical meaning. Church,
were less worthy of preservation than was their Moran, and Bierstadt were fond of representing
significance; which is, in reality, the dividing line upon canvas panoramic arrangements of dramatic
between the old school and the new. But before scenery, and thought that they were nationalizing
him came Durand and Cole, F. E. Church, Moran, their art by transcribing distinctly American themes.
Bierstadt, Kensett, Casilear, and the other men of To them the grandiose was great—bigness a matter
the so-called " Hudson River School," who while of measurement, and while their capacity was puny
seeking truth along conventional paths paved a in comparison to their aims, they did divert atten-
broad roadway for those who followed. That art tion from foreign ideals and were not inferior tech-
is an inherent instinct, rather than a cultivated nicians. The group of men who made up the
taste, is manifoldly demonstrated in American Hudson River school got nearer the truth but did
history, for with absolute spontaneity the little not succeed in ridding themselves of the notion
(lame burst forth simultaneously here and there in that one day is as another, and that in nature
remotely distant places in that broad land. And facts are unalterable.
not only did it awake, but it lived, under conditions To the influence of the Barbizon painters is at-
untoward to a degree almost incomprehensible, tributed the altered outlook of Inness, but whether
In the early days of art in America men became or not he learned his secret of Corot, his work is by