Traveling Icons of American Art

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The New York Sun

It may be hard to believe these days, but for much of its history, American painting was considered the stepchild of European art. America’s earliest renowned painters studied, and at times resided, in England; after the Civil War, our artists journeyed to Europe by the thousands to study in academies or experience firsthand new developments like Impressionism and, later, Cubism. Well into the 20th century, American collectors were still buying mostly European artwork.

In 1869, the financier William Corcoran decided to change matters by founding a gallery “solely for the purpose of encouraging American genius.” It became the nation’s third museum of art, and was for 70 years the only one in the nation’s capital.

Unlike major museums springing up in other cities, the Corcoran devoted itself to American art. Over the decades, it acquired a comprehensive selection of historical American painting and sculpture, and in 1890 established an art school. Since 1907, the Corcoran Biennial competition has supported contemporary artists with purchase prizes.

Nearly 140 years after its founding, the Corcoran has organized a remarkable traveling selection of its works, among them some of the icons of American art. Currently installed at the Parrish Museum, the 70 paintings that make up “Encouraging American Genius” offer fascinating vistas – topographical, sociological, and psychic – of the American spirit, from colonial times until the middle of the 20th century.

Edward Hopper’s “Ground Swell” (1939) introduces this installation with splashes of sailboat whites and aqua blues, suffused with the artist’s famous sense of charged stillness. Colors soon turn more somber, however, in a series of 18th-century portraits, many of which, like John Singleton Copley’s pensive “Thomas Amory II” (c. 1770-72), achieve an austere glow of their own.The self-taught Joshua Johnson’s portrait of a Mrs. McCurdy and daughters (after 1806) emanates a quiet dignity despite its naive modeling. Gilbert Stuart’s more sophisticated portrait of George Washington (after 1796) imparts realistic volumes, but its simple, effective massing of forms becomes the very personification of plainspoken resolve.

A quirky labor of love, Samuel Morse’s 11-foot-wide “The House of Representatives”(1822-23) vividly captures 88 figures dwarfed by the immense, ornate dimensions of the House’s chamber. (According to the painting’s label, the public preferred more exotic dramas, and Morse soon moved on to more rewarding exploits like the telegraph.)

In the mid-19th century, genre painting became increasingly popular. John George Brown’s “The Longshoremen’s Noon” (1879), with its preternaturally clean and amiable longshoremen, shows how some of these anecdotal images tended toward artificial anecdote. More obscure in subject matter yet more purposeful in its gestures is a small, nearly monochromatic canvas by Albert Ryder, “The Stable” (c. 1875). Here the artist seems entranced by the geometric tensions of a horse in a stall, tautly tracing the contours of its haunches and the echoing loop of a stooping figure.

Winslow Homer’s “A Light on the Sea” (1897) exemplifies the late 19th century’s growing interest in realism, capturing with blunt luminosity a lone woman on a moonlit seashore. Thomas Eakins’s “Singing a Pathetic Song” (1881) impressively conjoins faithful observation and visual invention. In a darkened chamber, the dramatically lit pillar of a figure, her gown’s folds carefully delineated, holds before her a songbook; shadowed figures on either side respond naturally but minutely to her simple gesture.

Contemporaneous portraits by John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt herald the impact of Impressionism with their lively hues and brush strokes.The grittier subjects of William Glackens, John Sloan, and other members of the “Eight” reflect the accelerating industrialization and immigration at the turn of the 20th century.

Dominating all these works, though, are two icons from an earlier age. Frederic Church’s famous “Niagara” (1857), in the flesh, seems as robust and boundless as America itself. Setting aside European-style hierarchies of forms, this nearly 8-foot-wide view of Niagara Falls unabashedly aims to install awe. It succeeds, with agility and inventiveness, managing to be at once panoramic – extending across vast, watery planes to remote, forested shores – and intimate. It practically splashes the viewer’s feet with delicate foreground ripples. No wonder more than 100,000 people paid to see its debut in New York City.

Alongside hangs Albert Bierstadt’s response, produced shortly after the Corcoran acquired “Niagara.” Not so subtly, Bierstadt titled his canvas after a colossal, fictive peak: “Mount Corcoran” (c. 1876-77).

This 8-foot-wide canvas has it all: soaring, snow-clad peaks, a distant waterfall, towering clouds and trees, a bear shambling toward an emeraldhued lake. It’s a showcase of brilliant, skillful effects, so much so that one may wish for more of the pictorial gravity of Claude Lorrain or Jacob van Ruisdael; instead, Bierstadt hurries into fantastic detail before weighting the meeting of earth, mountains, and sky. If Church reflects Walt Whitman’s earthy expansiveness, Bierstadt adds a dose of P.T. Barnum.

Other canvases stand out in “Encouraging American Genius”: George Inness’s huge, dappled forest glade from 1891; Ralph Blakelock’s otherworldly, misted landscape, completed in 1895; George Bellows’s vigorous 1907 depiction of youths skinny-dipping in the East River; Marsden Hartley’s strange, abstracted homage to his German lover (1914-15).

But others suffer compared to European precedents.A 1774 canvas by Benjamin West (nicknamed the “American Raphael”) captures a suave approximation of Raphael’s style, but very little of his character. The details in Thomas Cole’s two 1837 landscapes, though vibrant, accrue rather breathlessly compared to Claude Lorrain’s powerful cadences.William Harnett’s 1882 still life lacks the luminous weightiness of Chardin’s.

Does it matter? Traditional distinctions between great and lesser art, and between illustration and fine art, are on the back burner these days. Indeed, the Parrish Museum’s wall text concentrates on sociological trends rather than aesthetic ones, giving context for these intriguing paintings and their affirmation of America’s expansive, practical spirit.

Some works even hint at its future: Church’s broad, primal spaces anticipate Jackson Pollock, while Bierstadt’s plangent artifice foretells James Rosenquist and Jeff Koons. And if less compelling works serve mainly as illustrational accessories to social events, it’s understandable. What more pragmatic, consequential examples of American genius could there be than the Constitution, the cotton gin, or the Gettysburg Address?

Until September 12 (25 Job’s Lane, Southampton, New York, 631-283-2118).


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