DOI Heft:
Nr. 162 (August, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Edward W. Redfield - landscape painter
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19867#0135
E. IV. Redfield
FOOTHILLS OF THE BLUE RIDGE
well be regarded as the pioneer, in this country, at
least, of the realistic painting of winter, in which
field he has few equals to-day. From this season of
the year he has learned the great lesson of simplicity,
known of the Japanese, who also loved to depict the
winter with its bare trees, its sharp horizons, its
wide stretches of snow-covered ground, broken here
and there only by a clump of weeds or protruding
laurel which gives a certain dramatic intensity to an
otherwise commonplace scene, as in the case of his
Hill and Valley or fine, majestic Cedar Hill, both
of which are distinguished by a large simplicity of
design.
While the greater part of his work celebrates the
glories of winter his whole output reveals a great
diversity of subjects; one feels the lack of a formula-
each canvas has the freshness of a first discovery.
There is nothing flamboyant or rhetorical in his art.
He neither epitomizes nor philosophizes, nor is his
work touched with any of that dreamy and specula-
tive hyperestheticism that is emasculating a section
of our art. The fads and fancies, the frills and fol
lies of the inner circle of the enemic worshippers
at the pale shrine of art have no appeal for him.
One misses in his work any striving after effect.
BY EDWARD W. REDFIELD
His color is fresh, alive and truthful, laid on with a
crisp, trenchant touch that bespeaks a robust, mas-
culine vigor. In his manner and method of paint-
ing his work is a reflection of the methods of the
impressionists which he has adapted to his own
uses. And while his art is intensely local in its sub-
ject matter his manner of treatment is thoroughly
advanced and modern, expressed with an almost
amazing virtuosity—which is, however, the final re-
sult of long, persistent effort to acquire complete
control of his medium. He, like Monet and Kroyer,
the great Norwegian impressionist, works almost
exclusively out of doors, in the presence of his sub-
ject, and he usually completes a canvas at one sitting.
His unremitting industry, coupled with an unusual
capacity for work during the winter months, is pro-
ductive of a number of canvases that are certain to
enliven and lend interest to all the annual exhibi-
tions, which are not complete without a Redfield.
His influence is making itself felt in our exhibition
halls in a heightened sense of color as well as in an
increasing number of painters who are taking win-
ter as their theme. And it is to just such virile and
thoroughly national work as this that we must look
for that much-needed renaissance of American art.
xxxvi
FOOTHILLS OF THE BLUE RIDGE
well be regarded as the pioneer, in this country, at
least, of the realistic painting of winter, in which
field he has few equals to-day. From this season of
the year he has learned the great lesson of simplicity,
known of the Japanese, who also loved to depict the
winter with its bare trees, its sharp horizons, its
wide stretches of snow-covered ground, broken here
and there only by a clump of weeds or protruding
laurel which gives a certain dramatic intensity to an
otherwise commonplace scene, as in the case of his
Hill and Valley or fine, majestic Cedar Hill, both
of which are distinguished by a large simplicity of
design.
While the greater part of his work celebrates the
glories of winter his whole output reveals a great
diversity of subjects; one feels the lack of a formula-
each canvas has the freshness of a first discovery.
There is nothing flamboyant or rhetorical in his art.
He neither epitomizes nor philosophizes, nor is his
work touched with any of that dreamy and specula-
tive hyperestheticism that is emasculating a section
of our art. The fads and fancies, the frills and fol
lies of the inner circle of the enemic worshippers
at the pale shrine of art have no appeal for him.
One misses in his work any striving after effect.
BY EDWARD W. REDFIELD
His color is fresh, alive and truthful, laid on with a
crisp, trenchant touch that bespeaks a robust, mas-
culine vigor. In his manner and method of paint-
ing his work is a reflection of the methods of the
impressionists which he has adapted to his own
uses. And while his art is intensely local in its sub-
ject matter his manner of treatment is thoroughly
advanced and modern, expressed with an almost
amazing virtuosity—which is, however, the final re-
sult of long, persistent effort to acquire complete
control of his medium. He, like Monet and Kroyer,
the great Norwegian impressionist, works almost
exclusively out of doors, in the presence of his sub-
ject, and he usually completes a canvas at one sitting.
His unremitting industry, coupled with an unusual
capacity for work during the winter months, is pro-
ductive of a number of canvases that are certain to
enliven and lend interest to all the annual exhibi-
tions, which are not complete without a Redfield.
His influence is making itself felt in our exhibition
halls in a heightened sense of color as well as in an
increasing number of painters who are taking win-
ter as their theme. And it is to just such virile and
thoroughly national work as this that we must look
for that much-needed renaissance of American art.
xxxvi