Monochrome, Pattern, and Shadow

At the moment I seem to be attracted to stark images, quiet shadows, monochromatic palettes.  Maybe because there’s so much color and noise in the world right now.  Take a quiet moment with me.

Hart House, Old Saybrook, original wall

Hart House, Old Saybrook, original wall

Bartow Pell Mansion

Bartow Pell Mansion

Wallace Nutting, Tenon Arm Windsor Double Back Settee

Wallace Nutting, Tenon Arm Windsor Double Back Settee

John Henry Twachtman, Snow, c1895-6, PAFA

John Henry Twachtman, Snow, c1895-6, PAFA

Charles Vezin, Winter Grays, Brooklyn Docks, c1900, on view at the Mattatuck Museum

Charles Vezin, Winter Grays, Brooklyn Docks, c1900, on view at the Mattatuck Museum

Francois Clouet, Mary Queen of Scots, c1549, Yale University Art Gallery

Lilian Westcott Hale, Black Eyed Susans, before 1922

Lilian Westcott Hale, Black Eyed Susans, before 1922, on view Florence Griswold Museum

Hedda Sterne, Annalee Newman, 1952

Hedda Sterne, Annalee Newman, 1952, Vassar College Museum

Girolamo Fagiuoli, Penelope and Her Women Making Cloth, c1545, Engraving, Yale University Art Gallery

Girolamo Fagiuoli, Penelope and Her Women Making Cloth, c1545, Engraving, Yale University Art Gallery

Charles Courtney Curran, Shadow Decoration, 1887, Vassar College Art Museum

Charles Courtney Curran, Shadow Decoration, 1887, Vassar College Art Museum

Renee Iacone, Stacks, 2015-6, Mattatuck Museum

Renee Iacone, Stacks, 2015-6, Mattatuck Museum

Vassar College Art Museum

Vassar College Art Museum

Grotesque Mask, 16th century (?), on view at Yale University Art Gallery

Grotesque Mask, 16th century (?), on view at Yale University Art Gallery

Grotesque Mask, 16th century (?), on view at Yale University Art Gallery

Grotesque Mask, 16th century (?), on view at Yale University Art Gallery

Etienne Delaune, Music book plate, 16th century

Etienne Delaune, Music book plate, 16th century, Yale University Art Gallery

Etienne Delaune, Perspective book plate, 16th century, Yale University Art Gallery

Etienne Delaune, Perspective book plate, 16th century, Yale University Art Gallery

Silas W. Robbins House, Wethersfield, CT

Silas W. Robbins House, Wethersfield, CT

Corona Park, Queens

Corona Park, Queens

Lotus Pagoda Library Lamp, Tiffany Studios, c1905, Queens Museum of Art

Lotus Pagoda Library Lamp, Tiffany Studios, c1905, Queens Museum of Art

16th-century frame waiting for you to fill it

16th-century frame, on view at Yale University Art Gallery, waiting for you to fill it

Gardens

Having spent an inordinate amount of time in my own garden recently, I found myself interested in the low-maintenance variety.  The Florence Griswold Museum is featuring a joint exhibit with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts of American Impressionist paintings of gardens.

Here are a few works that caught my eye.

As you know, the Impressionists were all about light and color and thick paint application and that sensation of being in the moment captured in paint.  For me, this lovely Harry Hoffman painting really works in all ways.

2016-07-10 13.17.14

Harry L. Hoffman, Childe Hassam’s Studio, 1909, Florence Griswold Museum

The flickering light in the blossoms is accomplished through paint application which you can see here.

2016-07-10 13.17.25

I could linger for hours in this place.  The cool respite of the porch.  That springtime moment when the fruit trees have burst open.  I love the fresh newness juxtaposed against the comfortably dilapidated.  The real dreaminess of the place.

Charles Curran’s A Breezy Day is visceral, too.  Can’t you feel that gusting against your cheek and tousling your hair?

Charles Curran, A Breezy Day, 1887, PAFA

Charles Curran, A Breezy Day, 1887, PAFA

We don’t see the hard work of the laundry women, the backbreaking toil of scrubbing, wringing, and ironing.  For a moment, we join them outside in the fresh air as the sun peeks through the clouds to bleach the sheets a clean white.

Most Impressionist painters, men and women, conflate their depictions of women with flowers–those ornamental things to be enjoyed for their beauty before it fades.  We observe freely, consume for pleasure, reducing women to objects.  What better way to understand the stifling moment that also spurred women to agitate for suffrage.

There are plenty such paintings in the exhibit.  The one that caught my eye was by a woman artist.

June was created for the cover of a 1902 issue of Everybody’s Magazine, a monthly women’s publication.  Even women artists producing images for women perpetuated the woman-as-beautiful-object trope.  Violet Oakley may have enjoyed her women the same way as any man, if you catch my drift.  Still, as usual, with Oakley, I’m seduced by her vision…

2016-07-10 13.23.01

Violet Oakley, June, c1902, PAFA

…and the charming detail of cutting the frame to catch the full sweep of a skirt.

2016-07-10 13.23.07

By the way, the red rose in Oakley’s signature references the group of women artists she lived and painted with – the Red Rose Girls.

As ever, I find Lillian Westcott Hale’s work refreshingly feminist.  Yes, we have the girl with the flowers–our now familiar symbol.  But the flowers are drooping, and the girl seems to be deep in thought, suggesting her worth lies with her mind, regardless of outward appearance.  Her ideas bloom, even if her transient bouquet does not.  Thank you, Hale.

Lilian Westcott Hale, Black Eyed Susans, before 1922, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, Private Collection

Lilian Westcott Hale, Black Eyed Susans, before 1922, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, Private Collection

But we really don’t have to be analytical or political.  It’s summer.  We can simply relish the beauty of our gardens right now.

So join me in getting up close and personal with a rose and looking at its glories through paint.

 

2016-07-10 13.30.37

 

Transitions

The semester is over, and as students yahoo into their summers, I feel a bit wistful.  Transitions are like that.  I turned to current Connecticut exhibits for insights, solace, release, inspiration, and pure joy.  Here’s what I can share with you.

Martin Lewis, Dawn, Sandy Hook, Connecticut, 1933, Flo Gris

Martin Lewis, Dawn, Sandy Hook, Connecticut, 1933, Florence Griswold Museum

Martin Lewis, one of my favorite under-known artists, marks that transition from day to night, the walk from the commuter train and New York City into suburban Connecticut.  It’s cheerless and lonely, but the sky promises something fresh and new.  I see that commuter taking off his coat and hat for springtime.

So I turned my closet around, putting bright spring and summer clothes out front, pushing those winter darks into the corners.  I remembered things I forgot I had and saw what new outfits I can create.

Claudia DeMonte, La Donna di Buona Fortuna, 2013, bronze, Mattatuck Museum

Claudia DeMonte, La Donna di Buona Fortuna, 2013, bronze, Mattatuck Museum

And I got a bit more organized.

Claudia Demonte, Female Implements, 1995, Mattatuck Museum

Claudia Demonte, Female Implements, 1995, Mattatuck Museum

Join me in saying goodbye to skating in perfect harmony for now.

Miriam Anne Barer, The Skaters, 1943, egg tempera on masonite, Flo Gris

Miriam Anne Barer, The Skaters, 1943, egg tempera on masonite, Florence Griswold Museum

Because there are strawberries to eat…

Charles Ethan Porter, Strawberries, 1888, oil on canvas

Charles Ethan Porter, Strawberries, 1888, oil on canvas, Florence Griswold Museum

…and flowers to whiff, while the gentle spring sun tickles the tops of our heads.

Edward F. Rook, Laurel, c1905-8, oil on canvas

Edward F. Rook, Laurel, c1905-8, oil on canvas, Florence Griswold Museum

Remember that life starts over for us each season, too.

So give yourself a quiet moment to reflect.

J. Alder Weir, Portrait of Ella Baker Weir, c1910, oil on canvas, Lyman Allyn Museum

J. Alder Weir, Portrait of Ella Baker Weir, c1910, oil on canvas, Lyman Allyn Museum

Talk a walk somewhere new.

J. Alden Weir, U.S. Thread Company Mills, Wilimantic, CT, c1893-7, on view at the Lyman Allyn

J. Alden Weir, U.S. Thread Company Mills, Wilimantic, CT, c1893-7, on view at the Lyman Allyn

Try something a little crazy, just to shake out the old energy.

Salvador Dali's Alice in Wonderland, on view at New Britain Museum of American Art

Salvador Dali’s Alice in Wonderland, on view at New Britain Museum of American Art

Write your thoughts upside down or in a funny shape.  What’s new about what it says now?

Excerpt, Salvador Dali's Alice in Wonderland

Excerpt, Salvador Dali’s Alice in Wonderland

Sometimes I just need to reframe something.  And then it’s new all over again!

Harry Holtzman, Open Relief, 1983, oil on wood, stone, Florence Griswold Museum

Harry Holtzman, Open Relief, 1983, oil on wood, stone, Florence Griswold Museum

And I’m ready to keep going…

Happy Spring!

By the Sea

This summer, three Connecticut museums are featuring maritime-themed exhibits, totally unplanned but wonderfully summerish and coincidental.  Today, I had the pleasure of joining one of the curators, Ben Colman, at the Florence Griswold Museum.  You know how much I love to dig into paintings, so I’ll share a few stories here.

This show features paintings from the permanent collection, but predominantly from the Museum of the City of New York, one of my old stomping grounds (where I worked with the Currier & Ives collection).   Ben shared that these paintings give us a window into attitudes toward nature and human-made landmarks, ironic perhaps in paintings about the sea.  First, almost all the paintings celebrate the new technology of steam sailing, whether as a paddlewheeler, ferry, or steamer.

By 1827, about 20 years after steam-powered shipping changed New York forever, the competition was fierce, both for business and the tourist trade.  Steam ship lines were competitive and needed something sexy to attract customers away from rivals.  You gotta love James Alexander Stevens who created an on-board art gallery, long before galleries and museums ever existed in America.

Basically, he commissioned 12 paintings on panels (apparently sturdier than canvas and could withstand rough sailing) for the main cabin of the Albany.  These panels would inform passengers of key sites along the way up the Hudson that they wouldn’t want to miss.  An early, graphical tour map, if you will.

Not-yet-famous Thomas Cole contributed, as did Thomas Birch, with two surviving panels in this show.  Awesome.  In this View of New York Harbor from the Battery from 1827, you might make out Staten Island, Sandy Hook, and Castle Garden at the entrance to the harbor, sites passengers would have seen as well.

2015-07-16 16.08.00

Lots of sailing ships.  Maybe you can just make out the steamer in the rear.  The future is coming.

How much fun the oddball sites are, too, where today, we go, “huh?”  Like Youle’s Shot Tower by Jasper Cropsey, known for his luminous landscapes, but here a darker, early work from 1844.

IMG_1177

 

What the heck is a shot tower?  Well, this would have been one of the tallest landmarks around, so was quite notable.  A screen would have been placed at the top of the tower, 175 feet high, then molten lead poured through the screen.  The lead would drip through the screen (yes, really), and those drips would then fall 175 feet (yes, really).  By the time they landed, gravity and force would have shaped the lead into shot, or bullets.  Shot towers were essential for early defense.

Here’s the backstory, as if that wasn’t enough of one, that I love.  Cropsey and his colleagues would have gotten their training in Europe, often on what was called a Grand Tour, visiting key sites and for artists, studying in ateliers in Paris and beyond.  Romanticism was the fashionable style, and artists searched for the poetic, the moody, the mysterious, the intense feelings.  In Europe, this meant castles, ruins, historical subjects.

Well, the “wild west” of the American art scene didn’t have any castles.  The shot tower would have been a close substitute.  Note Cropsey’s moody lighting and rich color scheme, evoking a sense of grandeur for what would have been a recognizable necessity, but not particularly an structure of architectural repute.  Fun, eh?

I also like Michael John Boog’s Hell Gate from 1888.

Hell Gate

There’s a lot going on in this painting.  First, note the triangular tower in the mid-ground left.  That’s an arc tower.  In an early form of electric lighting, the tower was built in 1884 for arc lights, which put out incredibly bright beams from each of nine arcs, acting like a lighthouse.  Only problem, the beam was blinding.  Geez.  Substitute one problem for another.

So why do you need a lighthouse-type arc tower there in the middle of that placid scene?  Because it took two dynamite blasts to get it that way.  Talk about your tourist attraction.  Apparently 100,000 turned out to watch the confluence of three bodies of water get dynamited into submission.  Known as a serious sailing hazard since the 1600s, the point where the Harlem and East Rivers converge with Long Island Sound created whirlpools that deviled sailors.  The Dutch word for whirlpool apparently sounds a lot like what the English eventually called it, “Hell’s Gate.”

By the 19th century, sailing was central to moving New York’s economy, and dangers couldn’t be tolerated.  One blast apparently calmed things down, and a second worked on removing the rocks underneath.  This painting shows the view from the Queens side, post blasts, looking at the remaining rock outcropping.  Fisherman might have been the only sailors to complain, as the bass apparently were gone with the booms.

Lest you think sailing was all fun and wondrous sites, there was steerage then, too, particularly for the 200 or so passengers who would endure cramped quarters below for 41 days on a packet ship crossing the Atlantic.  Packet ships carried packages and people, notably from Old Lyme, CT through New York, to London, on a regular schedule.  Sixty affluent passengers could have a state room, but as John Rolph shows in this engraving from 1851, most people would escape the hole for fresh air on deck.

2015-07-16 16.09.22

How much easier daily marine life was for the fisherfolk.  I love this elegant, c1845 painting by Victor Audobon, son of John James, who painting with the same bravura as the Hudson River School, but was never one of the club.  See that same sweep of landscape, dwarfing people as they scuttle about their daily business, here wrestling with fish.  Ah the sea, land, and sky.  Perfect for a summer reverie.  Can’t you just smell it?

 

 

 

Clang, clang, Go to the Art Colony

“Clang, clang, clang went the trolley…”

Actually only two clangs are needed to say “let’s go” on the trolley.  I learned that today at 2013-08-23 13.57.13the Shoreline Trolley Museum.  From 1900 on, the trolley ran from the New Haven Green to Shore Beach, for just a nickel.  Over time, the trolleys all over the state, including to the “electric park” for the rides.

The electric trolley grew out of the horse-drawn car, but was a whole lot cleaner.  (By the way, the term “teamster” comes from driving a team of horses.)  Through the years, the trolley car developed, not looking so much like a stage coach any more.  The sides were straightened out and sides were closed off to help endure the winter.  In the summer, the car had removable side panels for the breezes.  And the conductor finally got a windshield!

2013-08-23 13.56.33

Imagine my surprise when our trolley car was called “Desire.”  Yes, that Streetcar named Desire.  Same line.  Our car was retired about 1959 and brought from New Orleans for this museum.  An enormous key is needed to start the trolley and then some muscle power to 2013-08-23 13.46.23shift the gears, as I learned in the museum.  We rode the trolley three miles through the marshes not too far from the shore, speeding up to 25 mph, although friction allowed us to coast a lot, too.  You can imagine why some cities are considering reviving their trolleys–efficient and fun.

2013-08-23 14.07.22

 

When we reached the end of the line, me humming along with Judy Garland in my mind, we all got up and pulled our seats back to face the other way, and we were ready to return.

At the car barn, we saw all kinds of trolley cars, many damaged in Hurricane Sandy, so needing restoration.  The corporate car, which was used to check the lines around the state, but also for boondoggles, was pretty impressive.  Note the stained glass windows.  It even is outfitted with a kitchen and bath–bigger than some New York apartments.

2013-08-23 14.44.54

 

Pretty fancy for a trolley car!

 

 

 

 

 

I went on, not by trolley, but by car on I95 (ugh), to the Florence Griswold Museum to see the “Animal/Vegetable/Mineral” exhibit, which was good.  But I swept away by the Griswold house and it story.  Daughter of a ship captain, “Miss Florence” grew up in the 1817 Old Lyme mansion, but couldn’t swing it financially.

So she turned it into a boarding house, soon attracting New York artist Henry Ward Ranger.  Ranger started bringing his artist friends in the summer, and soon the Old Lyme Art Colony was born.  Most famous were Childe Hassam and Willard Metcalf, but about 200 Tonalist and Impressionist artists worked there over the first decades of the 20th century.

Art is all over the house, where artists also painted panels in the dark wooden doors.  2013-08-23 16.16.08

 

 

Here Ranger painted the moonlight on the right and challenged Henry Rankin Poore to finish the scene, painted on the left.  So sweet!

 

 

 

2013-08-23 16.24.47

 

 

Most remarkable of all is the dining room where over 25 artists worked on panels.  I love the beautiful still life the curators created with the panels and red, red apples.

And then there’s the panoramic painting by Poore, a bit of a satire of the Old Lyme Artist Colony, and a real charmer.  Here’s a portion of it.  Two bottles there.  The bottle of paint or turpentine almost full.  The bottle of liquor, well, almost empty.

2013-08-23 16.29.21

 

 

And I think you can see most of very long, thin painting in the video below.

 

 

By the way, I started my day at the Boat House restaurant on the Quinnipiac River about 5 minutes from my apartment.  What a view!  What a day!

2013-08-23 12.41.582013-08-23 12.42.21