DOI Heft:
Nr. 340 (September 1925)
DOI Artikel:Teevan, Bernard: Angarola's meditative art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19985#0469
mceRnAcionAL
GLEN HAVEN BY ANTHONY ANGAROLA
be denied. Meditation calms the mind, we are
told, and as this mental process operates with
Angarola in his painting it appears to calm man
and nature equally as well. For there runs through
all his work an overtone of arrested motion, of the
cessation of the progress of time, as if his subject
were impelled to do the artist's bidding rather
than its own. And this may be noted whether he
has represented on his canvas trees patterned
against a glowing evening sky in "Where Nature
Reigns" or the thronging activities of the "Old
Settlers' Picnic." All life is change, according to
the once fashionable philosopher Bergson. But
there are moments when life appears to halt as if
to meditate on its own poignant beauty or at the
behest of some infinitely greater power. It is such
a moment of pause we sense in looking at the pro-
found quietude of "Where Nature Reigns" and
in the momentary fixity of the host of figures in
the "Old Settlers' Picnic." But, with that appre-
ciation of this mood in nature, as represented by
the simple dignity of the facts of trees and hills
and sky transmuted into painted poetry, there
may arise some faint wonder as to why an Ameri-
can painter should set down in his arboreal haunt
types and costumes so markedly suggestive of
contemporary Europe. Here Angarola has not
played tricks with truth to make a "modern"
painter's holiday. His "old settlers" are for-
eigners who have brought to northern Michigan,
along with their other possessions and habits,
their racial physiognomies.
Pupil of only one contemporary teacher, and
he a figure man, Angarola has sat long at the feet
of the great masters of the early and late Italian
Renaissance and of the sculptors of Greece and
of ancient kingdoms that once dominated their
world between India and Persia. One may see as
little of Harry M. Walcot in his work as of Giotto,
Peter Breughel or the magnificent rhythms of the
famous Assyrian lion, yet all of these have influ-
enced him in one way or another. Superficially
one may be inclined to set down, to classify
Angarola as a "modern," particularly after look-
ing at his compositions of which the "Pioneer
Shacks" is a typical example. But Angarola does
SEPTEMBER I 9 2 5
Jour sixty-nine
GLEN HAVEN BY ANTHONY ANGAROLA
be denied. Meditation calms the mind, we are
told, and as this mental process operates with
Angarola in his painting it appears to calm man
and nature equally as well. For there runs through
all his work an overtone of arrested motion, of the
cessation of the progress of time, as if his subject
were impelled to do the artist's bidding rather
than its own. And this may be noted whether he
has represented on his canvas trees patterned
against a glowing evening sky in "Where Nature
Reigns" or the thronging activities of the "Old
Settlers' Picnic." All life is change, according to
the once fashionable philosopher Bergson. But
there are moments when life appears to halt as if
to meditate on its own poignant beauty or at the
behest of some infinitely greater power. It is such
a moment of pause we sense in looking at the pro-
found quietude of "Where Nature Reigns" and
in the momentary fixity of the host of figures in
the "Old Settlers' Picnic." But, with that appre-
ciation of this mood in nature, as represented by
the simple dignity of the facts of trees and hills
and sky transmuted into painted poetry, there
may arise some faint wonder as to why an Ameri-
can painter should set down in his arboreal haunt
types and costumes so markedly suggestive of
contemporary Europe. Here Angarola has not
played tricks with truth to make a "modern"
painter's holiday. His "old settlers" are for-
eigners who have brought to northern Michigan,
along with their other possessions and habits,
their racial physiognomies.
Pupil of only one contemporary teacher, and
he a figure man, Angarola has sat long at the feet
of the great masters of the early and late Italian
Renaissance and of the sculptors of Greece and
of ancient kingdoms that once dominated their
world between India and Persia. One may see as
little of Harry M. Walcot in his work as of Giotto,
Peter Breughel or the magnificent rhythms of the
famous Assyrian lion, yet all of these have influ-
enced him in one way or another. Superficially
one may be inclined to set down, to classify
Angarola as a "modern," particularly after look-
ing at his compositions of which the "Pioneer
Shacks" is a typical example. But Angarola does
SEPTEMBER I 9 2 5
Jour sixty-nine