DOI issue:
No. 205 (March, 1914)
DOI article:Watson, Forbes: Allen Tucker: a painter with a fresh vision
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43455#0376
Allen Tucker: A Painter with a Fresh Vision
ICE STORM BY ALLEN TUCKER
< LLEN TUCKER: A PAINTER WITH
/\ A FRESH VISION
X-A BY FORBES WATSON
It is truer of painting than of any
other art that the tiresome always has prestige
in the eyes of pedants and, conversely, that pe-
dants are the last to discover that which is not
tiresome. Allen Tucker is just the type of
painter which pedants do not like, one reason be-
ing that, fortunately, his art lacks the precision
of the foot-rule and the map. His painting is
equally lacking in the platitudes which pedantry
constantly confounds with traditional princi-
ples, and of the veneer of tradition it is most de-
lightfully free. He is frankly modern, looking
at life, at people, and at nature with a fearless-
ness that is splendid.
It is significant how sympathetically that con-
ception of painting which the vague term of Im-
pressionism suggests as well as another, has been
felt by sensitive American painters, and how indi-
vidually the impetus given by Impressionism has
been developed by such men as Twachtman, Weir,
Hassam, Lawson, Glackens and finally Allen
Tucker. The two painters who appear most ob-
viously to have affected the work of Allen Tucker
are Monet and Van Gogh. In a general way he
received his palette from Monet, that is, the high-
keyed palette evolved, more or less scientifically,
to interpret the colours of a sunlit out-of-doors.
But Tucker owes to Monet no more than his first
impulse toward his present style.
Nor does he owe to Van Gogh more than the
encouragement which he may have received from
his work to follow the instinct of a nature, at once
passionate and sensitive, to paint directly. The
obvious traits of Van Gogh he has seldom touched
upon, and the intense Dutchman’s extravagances
he has never approached, being moved more by
the breathing, living rhythm of Van Gogh’s work
at its best than by the methods of it. From Van
XIX
ICE STORM BY ALLEN TUCKER
< LLEN TUCKER: A PAINTER WITH
/\ A FRESH VISION
X-A BY FORBES WATSON
It is truer of painting than of any
other art that the tiresome always has prestige
in the eyes of pedants and, conversely, that pe-
dants are the last to discover that which is not
tiresome. Allen Tucker is just the type of
painter which pedants do not like, one reason be-
ing that, fortunately, his art lacks the precision
of the foot-rule and the map. His painting is
equally lacking in the platitudes which pedantry
constantly confounds with traditional princi-
ples, and of the veneer of tradition it is most de-
lightfully free. He is frankly modern, looking
at life, at people, and at nature with a fearless-
ness that is splendid.
It is significant how sympathetically that con-
ception of painting which the vague term of Im-
pressionism suggests as well as another, has been
felt by sensitive American painters, and how indi-
vidually the impetus given by Impressionism has
been developed by such men as Twachtman, Weir,
Hassam, Lawson, Glackens and finally Allen
Tucker. The two painters who appear most ob-
viously to have affected the work of Allen Tucker
are Monet and Van Gogh. In a general way he
received his palette from Monet, that is, the high-
keyed palette evolved, more or less scientifically,
to interpret the colours of a sunlit out-of-doors.
But Tucker owes to Monet no more than his first
impulse toward his present style.
Nor does he owe to Van Gogh more than the
encouragement which he may have received from
his work to follow the instinct of a nature, at once
passionate and sensitive, to paint directly. The
obvious traits of Van Gogh he has seldom touched
upon, and the intense Dutchman’s extravagances
he has never approached, being moved more by
the breathing, living rhythm of Van Gogh’s work
at its best than by the methods of it. From Van
XIX