Among the rare, distinct pleasures for a low-income artist living
in Manhattan are the free auction exhibits of 19th Century and
American Art held a couple of times a year by Sotheby’s and Christie’s. You can always find a few great paintings
that you will never see again once they revert back to private ownership. And it’s fun to come across excellent
work by artists who never quite make it to the Big Leagues. I have seen many of these exhibits in the
past 30 years and have acquired hundreds of used auction catalogs as well.
I recently had the pleasure of viewing the latest American
Art exhibit at Christie’s and saw some terrific landscape paintings. In particular, I lingered over paintings by Daniel Garber, Edgar Payne, Oscar
Berninghaus, Granville Redmond, Maurice Braun, Julian Onderdonk, John Leslie Breck, Edward Redfield and Willard Metcalf.
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Daniel Garber (1880-1958), Over the Hill, 1917, 30x25 |
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Edgar Alwin
Payne (1883-1947), High Sierra, Big Pine Canyon
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| Edward Willis Redfield, (1869-1965), Hillside and Valley, Point Pleasant, 28x32 1/4 |
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Granville Redmond
(1871-1935), Snow Cap Spring, 1927, 20x24
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| John Leslie Breck (1860-1899), At Annisquam, 1894, 18x22 |
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| Julian Onderdonk (1882-1922), Blue Bonnets at Twilight, 1918, 22x40 |
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Maurice Braun (1877-1941), Evening Light |
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| Oscar Berninghaus (1874-1952), A Field in Taos, 18x24 |
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| Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858-1925), May Pastoral, 1907, 36x39 |
What strikes me about all these painters is they found their
own way to interpret the beauty of nature.
They did not attempt to copy somebody else’s stylistic approach, which
seems to be the standard procedure for today’s artists working in all genres
who aren’t copying photographs. These
earlier painters were obviously influenced by the color theories occasioned by the Impressionist work of Monet and other French painters. But the Americans retained
the form of the natural world in a way the average picture lover could
appreciate without having to see the paintings encased in expensive Louis XV
frames. The result was the production of
some of the most beautiful landscape paintings you have ever seen.
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| Willard Metcalf, The Green Canopy, 1908, 29x26 |
I remember being amazed by a Metcalf painting I saw
in a gallery a few years ago that really increased my already great admiration for the painter. He had chosen to paint a
woodland interior scene that seemed an impossible subject to paint. But he did an incredibly masterful job of it
in his own way. I don’t know how he did
it. I only know that I was awed by the
fact that he had pulled it off. Carlson’s
book on landscape painting isn’t going to help you one bit. You have to figure it out for yourself.
Vincent Van Gogh expounded on this idea brilliantly in a
passionate letter to his brother Theo on Sept.
3, 1882 regarding a recent landscape painting:
“Painting it was hard graft. There are one and a half large
tubes of white in the ground — yet that ground is very dark — in addition red,
yellow, brown ochre, black, terra sienna, bistre, and the result is a red-brown
that varies from bistre to deep wine-red and to pale, blond reddish. Then there
are also mosses and an edge of fresh grass that catches the light and sparkles
brightly and is very difficult to get. There at last you have a sketch which —
whatever may be said about it — I maintain has some meaning, says something.
While making it I said to myself: let me not leave before
there’s something of an autumn evening in it, something mysterious, something
with seriousness in it. However, because
this effect doesn’t last, I had to paint quickly. The figures were done with a
few vigorous strokes with a firm brush — in one go. I was struck by how firmly
the slender trunks stood in the ground — I began them using a brush, but
because of the ground, which was already impasted, one brushstroke simply
disappeared. Then I squeezed roots and trunks into it from the tube, and
modelled them a little with the brush. Yes, now they stand in it — shoot up out
of it — stand firmly rooted in it.
In a sense I’m glad that I’ve never learned how to
paint. Probably then I would have learned
to ignore effects like this. Now I say, no, that’s exactly what I want — if
it’s not possible then it’s not possible — I want to try it even though I don’t
know how it’s supposed to be done. I don’t know myself how I paint.”
Oh, Vincent, how your words resonate with me! This is one great artist that posterity
definitely was right about. It’s high
time for today’s landscape painters to throw over the yoke of instruction from
workshops, DVDs, YouTube videos, Internet blogs and books, and paint with their
hearts, not just their heads, which are filled with all the rules and regulations
they had no part in formulating. Maybe
you won’t become another Van Gogh, but at least you will have learned how to
think about painting on your own. And if
you are luckier than him, you may even sell a few paintings.
