Hi Subscriber,
Today's selection is a little different than some we've shared
recently. It's a lively review of 3 different artists of which any of
them could have been famous, however, only one of them was.
While studying the differences in their art and their lives, it's also
a vital reminder. Just because "they" don't pronounce you famous or as
well known as others, it doesn't detract from the beauty and skill of
what you create.
Know your worth.
Enjoy,
BoldBrush Studio Team
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Winslow Homer, West Point, Prout's Neck, oil on canvas,1900
Winslow Homer, West Point, Prout's Neck, oil on canvas,1900
Winslow Homer, Alexander H. Wyant, and Homer Dodge Martin were all
successful American landscape painters born in 1836. If you've ever
studied or enjoyed American art, you know about Winslow Homer, but
you're probably wondering who Wyant and Martin are and what they
painted. When I recently read a similar sentence with the three names,
I did too.
When I was a kid I was torn between wanting to go to art school to
become an artist and wanting to go to Oxford to become a scholar of
classical languages. Art school won out, but the love of history and
language has never left, and now that I'm older I've found a happy
combination of the two by digging up original documents on the history
of art and trying to understand not just how a piece was painted but
why. I've always enjoyed Winslow Homer's work and am delighted when I
stumble across it in a museum, so when I stumbled across the title
"Winslow Homer Artist" in the Salmagundi Club's archive of antique art
journals, I stopped immediately to read it. It was an article from The
Commonweal, the April 3 1936 issue, written by James W. Lane, and was
an appreciation of the career of Winslow Homer. A little-known tip for
anyone who likes art history: articles of art criticism from the past
are amazing, especially if they are from contemporaries. You get not
only the perspective of someone who is seeing the work for the first
time, you get a feel for the zeitgeist of the time and lots of context
you miss when viewing works in the present day. Granted, 1936 is
twenty-six years after Winslow Homer died, but it was much closer than
we are today, and just long enough after for his work and career to
start to settle in to the national consciousness. We all recognize his
name and know why one would want to write an article about him - but
what about Wyant and Martin?
Well, Mr. James W. Lane, the author of this 1936 article, makes the
case that Alexander Wyant and Homer Martin, both born in the same year
as Winslow Homer and working in the same milieu, are not known as well
(back then) or not at all (today) because "their work was a kind of
epitome of our esthetic taste and, regrettably, that taste was not what
it might have been. George Santayana has said that the American mind
was shy and feminine and liked to see Nature in water-colors. This is
certainly a definition that distinguishes the paintings of Wyant and
Martin -- dreamy, low-keyed, poetic and autumnal, not very emphatic
either as to form or as to drawing; but it has nothing whatever to do
with the paintings of Homer."
Mr. Lane goes on to argue that the significant difference between Homer
and his contemporaries Wyant and Martin was that the latter two had
studied in Europe and had a highly traditional art education while
Homer was largely self-taught and, though he did go to Europe, never
studied with a foreign master and never did master copies in the
museums. "No one can paint if he becomes manacled to human teachers.
That Nature is the great teacher is trite but true. Museums, also, are
a help but rarely. Winslow Homer, without being as solitary as Ryder,
knew all this instinctively. He therefore taught himself to draw and
was beholden to no man." Lane seems to imply that Homer's strength lies
in his being self-taught, but quite frankly I disagree. It's an
oversimplification and besides, I've seen too many self-taught artists
to believe there is any inherent virtue or benefit to being
self-taught. It has to be something else. But my curiosity was piqued
and so, like a good researcher, I went to look at the work of Wyant and
Martin to see how it compared.
Here is one by Homer Dodge Martin, from the Metropolitan Museum. I live
in New York and the Met is one of my favorite places to go when I have
a spare afternoon, so I suppose it says something that I don't recall
seeing this one although it's on display in the American Wing. I do
remember seeing Winslow Homer's paintings in the American Wing.
Homer Dodge Martin, View on the Seine: Harp of the Winds, oil on
canvas, c.1893
Homer Dodge Martin, View on the Seine: Harp of the Winds, oil on
canvas, c.1893
Here is another one by Homer Dodge Martin, this time from the Brooklyn
Museum, which I have also been to. I have an excuse for not recalling
this one though, because it is just a sketch and not on display. The
online description says that it was painted around the time that Martin
was starting to shake off the influence of the Hudson River School in
favor of the more modern Barbizon School in France, where he was
studying at the time.
Homer Dodge Martin, Normandy Coast, oil on panel, 1884
Homer Dodge Martin, Normandy Coast, oil on panel, 1884
After looking at a few more of his works, I think that Martin's work is
actually quite solid, and he is certainly technically capable - but Mr.
Lane of 1936 is right that it is not as vigorous or definite as the
work of Winslow. Homer Martin is definitely more low-key. Moving on to
Alexander H. Wyant: his work appeals to me more than Martin's does, he
has a strong American Tonalist vibe and I've always had a soft spot for
the Tonalists. This painting in the collection of the Smithsonian,
Autumn at Arkville, has a definite atmospheric appeal. It sets a strong
mood of autumn, and it has bold brushwork and a solid color scheme.
Alexander H. Wyant, Autumn at Arkville, oil on canvasAnd then Alexander
Wyant also has a work in the Met. However, it's not on view so I can
honestly say that I've never seen it before. It has a moody atmosphere
similar to the first painting; you feel like Alexander had an opinion
about this place, and I like that, but it's also true that Mr. Lane
1936 is right again about the "dreamy, poetic, and autumnal."
Alexander H. Wyant, View in County Kerry, oil on canvas, c.1875
Alexander H. Wyant, View in County Kerry, oil on canvas, c.1875
This begs the question: are Martin and Wyant near-forgotten today
because their work is soft and dreamy rather than vigorous? They could
both paint, no one is going to argue that. I think they're really more
technically adept than Winslow Homer. But Winslow Homer painted too,
and he's the one who's famous. Setting aside the argument of training
(which is just a red herring in my opinion - self-taught or
professionally taught has never been a defining factor in an artist's
success) and looking at the work itself, there are two major
differences that leap to the eye: Narrative, and Value.
I need to insert a disclaimer here: when I went to art school, I
studied illustration, and "narrative" and "value" are two of the words
that we heard the most, so when I look at art I'm biased toward them.
And it's no coincidence that Homer should be strong in these two areas;
he started his career as a commercial illustrator, doing
black-and-white engravings for Harper's Magazine. But the concepts of
narrative and value are of equal importance in both illustration and
fine art, so that early training served him well. Here is some of
Homer's work that exemplifies his use of narrative and value.
Winslow Homer, The Bridle Path, White Mountains, oil on canvas, 1868
Winslow Homer, The Bridle Path, White Mountains, oil on canvas, 1868
Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream, oil on canvas, 1899
Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream, oil on canvas, 1899
He was an expert at silhouetting a figure against the landscape, making
both distinct strong shapes, and yet incorporating them into a coherent
narrative. This is another major difference: Homer certainly employs
the figure in his landscape far more than our other two artists. One is
tempted to ask if pure landscape will always be doomed to play second
fiddle to a peopled landscape, if man's narcissistic tendencies mean
that he will always prefer figurative work to non-figurative - that is
a question for another day, but I don't think that is necessarily the
case. Claude Monet is one of the most famous artists in the world and
he painted the human figure only rarely. I think it's about more than
the inclusion of figures in Homer's work; it's the way the human
figures and the landscape together tell a story that makes his pieces
so powerful. In this watercolor below, the girls and the landscape take
equal visual importance. The massive outcropping of rock that the
fisherwomen stand on is just as much a character as they are, and, lit
up along with them against the misty background, the girls and the rock
are united in their sense of strength.
Winslow Homer, Where are the Boats?, watercolor on paper, 1883
Winslow Homer, Where are the Boats?, watercolor on paper, 1883
To sum up: why is Homer so famous and Wyant and Martin so nearly
forgotten? I think Mr. Lane of 1936 unwittingly hit upon something when
he points out in his article that "In 1865, he (Homer) was elected to
the Academy. A National Academician under thirty! Even this was rather
enviable in those days, for (John) La Farge himself, a year Homer's
senior, was not elected until 1869, while (George) Inness, who was
eleven years older, did not gain admission before 1868. The picture
which brought about Homer's election was the "Prisoners from the
Front," now in the Metropolitan Museum. He had a faculty, which he
acquired through his years at the front, of hitting off camp life with
a telling touch." In other words, Homer knew how to tell a story, and
in this specific painting, he was touching the nerve of the American
Civil War and capturing a moment that, one year after the Civil War had
ended, would have resonated with the mixed emotions of loss, relief,
and resentment that so many Americans were experiencing. Reputedly
completed only four years after he began to work in oils, it is really
not a great painting, technically; he would become a much better
painter over the ensuing years. But the narrative is there, and that
was enough to capture his audience.
Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front, oil on canvas, 1866
Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front, oil on canvas, 1866
Wyant and Martin are good painters, but what they don't have that Homer
does is a strong sense of value structure or a clear narrative. I
remember seeing, at the Brooklyn Museum, Homer's painting In the
Mountains; it's a simple piece but it stopped me in my tracks and I had
to sit down and look for a while. I even pulled out my sketchbook and
did a value study (that's how you know I'm an illustrator). While it's
one of his less-well known pieces, it captures the qualities that are
his strengths so well and, being mostly landscape, is a great contrast
to the work of Wyant and Martin. In this painting, the landscape is the
main star: the figures are just daubs and streaks of paint. But, the
way they stand on the mountainside, sunlit against the cloud-shadowed
hill behind them, they totally pull the painting together. The drama of
the clouds above, the staid plainness of the rocky foreground, the epic
quality of the diminutive figures on the expanse of the mountains - it
was this finely tuned sense of the grand drama of life, even in events
as quotidian as a hike up a mountain that has made his work enduringly
powerful.
Winslow Homer, In the Mountains, oil on canvas, c. 1877
Winslow Homer, In the Mountains, oil on canvas, c. 1877
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