American Impressionism

Massachusetts’ Peabody Essex Museum with Three Diverse Exhibitions

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem Massachusetts is a jewel in the crown of cultural institutions on the East Coast. It is one of the oldest museums in the United States and is only a 30-minute drive from Boston. Not only are its objects exquisite and the architecture magnificent and but also the PEM offers visitors a diverse collection ranging from the 18th century to today including: paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, textiles, architecture and decorative objects. Its superb collections of African, American, Asian, Maritime, Korean, Japanese, Native American and Oceanic art provides visitors with insights into cultural diversity across time. It continuously assembles changing thematic exhibitions and displays of work by individual artists.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2’ (1912), first appeared at the Armory Show (1913). Version #3, painted for a patron/collector is part of the “Modern Times” exhibition.

The ragged shores of America received a wakeup call one day in April, 1913. Shock waves reverberated through a complacent art world on this side of the Atlantic with the opening of the ‘International Exhibition of Modern Art,’ otherwise known as the Armory Show. Three Americans, Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies set out to “lead the public taste in art, rather than follow it,” with a three-city tour (New York, Chicago and Boston). The show became an important event in the history of American art, introducing astonished Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism. And while many pieces selected for viewing by European artists, like Matisse, Gauguin, Pissarro and others were already many years old by that time, their worked electrified public opinion, serving as a catalyst for American artists, sending them scrambling for a new, independent narrative style aimed at creating their own “American artistic language.”More

217 Films Releases “America Rising: The Arts of the Gilded Age”—Brilliantly Conceived

Caricature of Mark Twain, soon after the publication of ‘The Gilded Age- A Tale of Today’ (1873), co-authored with Charles Dudley Warner.

Mark Twain wasted little affection on the extravagances of Victorian America. Boisterous lifestyles and conspicuous consumption followed hard on the heels of a dreadfully protracted Civil War. In its aftermath, industrial innovation, commercial and urban expansion fueled both a new, burgeoning middle and astronomically-rich industrial class. Across the Atlantic during the same period (1870-90s), the French had their own term for these times: La Belle Epoch. Soured by its implications for our own societal values, Twain disparagingly referred to it as the “Gilded Age.” The good news, of course, was that American exceptionalism was coming into its own, as a nation and its inchoate culture began to emerge from under the dominant shadow of its mentor—Western Europe. But, that shift toward cultural autonomy and global dominance was a trend that only historical perspective now confirms. For cultural observers of the time, like Twain, the old world order was slipping away, life moving at breakneck and confusing speed toward an ill-defined future and an ebullient new century.More

Philadelphia Museum of Art Features Watercolors by Homer and Sargent

John William Hill, American (born England), 1812-1879, Apples and Plums, 1874. Watercolor on paper, 7 7/8 × 11 3/8 inches. Collection of Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr.

Is it appropriate to define watercolor as “the medium” in American art? That’s the contention curator Kathleen A. Foster sets forth in her new Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition and catalogue, American Watercolor in the Age of Homer and Sargent.

Establishing watercolor’s significance has been the driving force of Foster’s career, beginning with her 1982 Yale dissertation, “Makers of the American Watercolor Movement, 1860-1890.” While the medium has often been called “quaint” and sniffed at as something women toyed with on Sunday afternoons, Foster has made it her career crusade to show that the medium launched a vital aesthetic movement in America after the Civil War. Instead of imitating French Impressionism, artists embraced watercolor and catalyzed the creation of a uniquely American art–one whose vibrant identity suited the rise of America’s modern national identity in the late 19^th century.More

In the Realm of Spectacle and Dreams: 19th c. Artists and Writers Shape a New America

Curator’s Note: This virtual gallery ‘exhibition’ will examine the self-image of America during the Gilded Age, Mark Twain’s derisive term for a period of U.S. industrial and cultural expansion during the last quarter of the 19th century. It offered rich material for some of America’s best-known artists and writers. This exhibition focuses specifically on the cities of the Northeast and their rural environs. The art selected for inclusion in not intended to illustrate the text in any direct or literal sense; any more than the narrative excerpts are meant to be descriptive of the meaning or intent of any painting. Rather, they combine to provide a contemporaneous view of the painters’ visible world and writers’ literary sphere. The pairing of ‘narrative’ painting with a ‘painterly’ narrative yields a multi-sensory experience for the virtual gallery visitor which will hopefully prove larger than the sum of its parts.

Part I of this ‘exhibition will focus on the late 19^th c. New England city. Readers may want to familiarize themselves with the text of William Howell’s The Rise of Silas Latham (1885). In it, the author offer a rich and colorful narrative ‘picture’ of city life in Boston at the turn of the century. His ‘naturalistic’ style of story-telling set the stage for a new brand of novel—one in which everyday events and the interior lives of his characters are central—clearly the way for a new form of ‘modern’ literature in the next century. xxxxxxMore

At Hartford’s Atheneum: ‘Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008’

“The best show is the people themselves.” –Reginald Marsh

The lights of Coney Island glowed on the horizon like a distant inferno, visible from miles at sea. A modern marvel of the Industrial Age, thousands flocked from the metropolis of New York to this beach-side park to witness the marvel of electricity, a crush of humanity drawn to its magical power like moths to a flame. The trap was cleverly set by its designers, combining the timeless allure of the beach with a garish display of carnival rides and circus-like freak show attractions, pushing the limits of human form and abilities. Towering edifices outlined against the night sky with rows of incandescent light bulbs too numerous to count served as a lure for the curious and seasoned visitor, alike. An acres-long boardwalk traced a line between the natural beauty of the sea and manmade wonders of the park. An ‘island’ in name only, the appellation itself—Coney Island—represented more a state of mind, free from life’s cares, than the physical reality of a narrow strip of real estate tucked along the margins of a sprawling cityscape. xxxxxxMore

Philadelphia Barnes Museum’s Rare Display of Early Modernist, William Glackens

www.artesmagazine.com — ‘Bathers at Bellport’ (c. 1912), oil on canvas, 25 x 30″

William Glackens is one of those artists from the tumultuous, early 20th century American art movement that time and history have pushed to the margins. While likely underserved, his work—appearing to back away from the radicalism of his day, in favor of stark color and themes drawn from nature —is being re-evaluated in a new light. Glackens dared to experiment with his paint and compositions and, as such, he did not attract the cadre of devotees as many of his contemporaries. A member of the School of Eight, or Ashcan School, of the nineteen-teens and 20s, Glackens counted as his contemporaries such well-known artists today as, John Marin, Robert Henri, John Sloan and George Luks. xxxxxxMore

Knoxville Museum of Art Unveils Richard Jolleys’ ‘Cycle of Life’ Sculpture

Knoxville Museum of Art board member, Kreis Beall, describes this growing East Tennessee city as a “contemplation,” and “the sky is the limit.” And based on the energy being poured into the museum there, as well as the surrounding community (home to the University of Tennessee), she may have her finger on the pulse of the place. On a recent trip, the national press was treated to a whirlwind tour of city highlights, the centerpiece of the visit being the unveiling of a monumental glass and metal sculpture by renowned glass artist, Richard Jolley. xxxxxxMore

“The Art of Sea-ing” at Newport Art Museum: Drury, Woodbury & Bellows

William Holland Drury was a Newport painter, printmaker, and first and foremost, an art educator. He headed the art department at St. George’s School near Newport, Rhode Island, for 38 years; in Providence he taught at the Wheeler School and at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where in 1927 he was among the first to teach etching. He inspired numbers of other young people including his five children. Two established artists played a formative role in Drury’s own artistic development. From Charles H. Woodbury, Drury learned plein air painting and etching techniques. Drury first attended Woodbury’s Ogunquit Summer School in Maine around 1914, he taught there in 1927, and he absorbed his instructor’s mantra that art is a subjective experience, important for personal growth. Drury’s relationship with George W. Bellows, who summered in Newport in 1918 and 1919, was more social; they painted and picnicked together with their families, but Drury’s later drawings and etchings show Bellows’ influence, and Bellows left him a color chart to practice with. artes fine arts magazineMore

Made in California: Pasadena, Santa Barbara Museums Team for Regionalist Exhibit

An exhibition titled California Scene Paintings has just opened at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. For those of you that have not visited this downtown museum, the structure was designed and built specifically to show art. It has a modern architectural design with clean lines, high ceilings and an excellent lighting system which shows paintings very well.

From the beginning the idea for this exhibition was to select outstanding art, with the added interest of depicting scenes relevant to the understanding of California’s history, and especially its cultural history. While California Scene Paintings have been produced since the state began in 1850 and are still being produced today, this particular exhibition focuses on the period between 1930 and 1960. artes fine arts magazineMore