The
very character of a storm is to climax in a display of the elemental
power of nature. But before the storm swells there is a hush and
calm. In those moments of hush and swell, where are the people?
American painters in the nineteenth century were still borrowing a
lot of technique and subject matter from European Romanticism when
the Hudson River School was formed out of a group of artists. Their
paintings sought naturalism glossed with majesty in an attempt to
portray America’s great scenes as something of a divine experience,
truly sublime. It is only fitting then that along with addressing
landscapes with a perfecting and reverent hand, these painters must
find new ways to portray weather and its effects. There is a tension
in their work between the presence of human beings and the power of
nature that different artists choose to reconcile variously. Are the
stormy seascapes, rolling clouds, and darkened skies antagonistic to
us? Or is the wild nature of them part of something hungering inside
us too? This exhibit seeks to explore American painters coming to
terms with whether wild weather is worthwhile to the American spirit.
The use of light in relation to atmosphere, source, and emphasis
argues in part for each artists’ considering of the presented
question.
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The
Oxbow, Thomas
Cole, 1836, oil on canvas,
08.228
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Thomas
Cole very nearly draws a line down the center of his painting between
the untamed wild and the cultivated domestic civilization. On close
inspection his self portrait can be seen at the bottom of the canvas
where he stands painting the scene. The lightness of palette chosen
for the right side of the painting makes it more inviting and
pleasant. Still there is a dynamism to the clouds rolling in, layered
with motion, nourishing the hillside so that it becomes a lush green
color. In this painting Cole handles both the wild and tame
carefully, putting himself in the non committal middle.
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Approaching
Thunder Storm,
Martin Johnson Heade, 1859, oil on canvas, 1975.160
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The
painting around which this exhibit is organized is an exemplary piece
of tension and questioning. A storm is just about to reach the
onlooker and his dog seated on the shore. His posture is one of
relaxation, watching the storm as though at peace in his current
surroundings. He is the troped rustic wanderer, not afraid of the
wild wind or waves, but quite possibly intrigued, patient, steady.
This is an American man who knows his place in the land, which is
beside the bay.
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The
Coming Storm,
Georges Inness, 1879, oil on canvas,
Addison Gallery of American Art, 1928.25 |
The
softness of the brushstrokes in this painting muddy the sky in a way
that creates its own atmospheric depth and veil. Yet the subject
matter is very similar to Heade’s work. A storm is approaching and
the rural citizen is not running in fear, but going about his duties
on the land. He represents the American characteristics of being in
the land and working hard to cultivate it admired by Hudson River
artists. The ground is again illuminated but it is clear the source
is the sun breaking through the clouds and it is not a technique of
luminism, but a naturalistic portrayal of highlight and shadow.
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Storm
In the Mountains,
Albert Bierstadt, 1870, oil on canvas,
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 47.1257
In
this storm scene the painter has eliminated human subjects and
replaced them with a very intimate perspective for the viewer,
suggesting that he has concluded the power of a storm something
beautiful enough to share. The same illuminating light as Martin
Johnson Heade’s Approaching
Thunder Storm
is used in the foreground to give the grass a vibrant and electrified
hue. There is a similar circular composition to the horizon drawing
the eye of the viewer in and out from light to dark, highlight to
shadow.
A Coming Storm, Sanford Gifford, 1863, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004-115-1
Here
again the viewer has replaced any human subject and is invited into
this landscape. Feel the rocking of the boat as it gently drifts the
middle of the water beneath billowing clouds. The streaks of gray
rain get closer, and are painted in a similar manner to Heade’s.
There remains as in Bierstadt’s painting a circle of distant light
behind the storm, because storms are fleeting things. This is a
reminder to appreciate the ephemeral moment, the calm before the
storm, and to ride out what is coming.
Frederic
Church and Martin Johnson Heade were good friends and influences from
their time spent in New York. Their interest in seascapes and
atmosphere play off each other well. Church chooses in his painting
of the aurora borealis to emphasize its grander and fantastic
qualities with the use of colors like teal and red. He places a boat
in the water to show the overwhelming scale of the sky they are
drifting under. Church chooses to integrate the viewer with the
glowing sky being at a vertical perspective and the boat with the
reflection of the sky coloring the water. This is a very typical
Hudson River School painting in its perfecting and glorifying of
nature.
To
truly identify the American experience of Romanticism and
Transcendentalism it is helpful to compare it to European
contemporaries. Turner is a British painter whose storm scene is more
haunting and dangerous than the others exhibited here. It recalls the
tragedy of shipwrecks and crashing waves as Gerricault painted in his
Raft
of the Medusa
and fits into a canon of the sea as a dangerous place. But, the light
of the sun breaking through the clouds provides a sense of
hopefulness to the viewer pitying the fishermen lurching in their
boat. The fishermen’s experience of the storm is much different
from the mariners in Heade, Church, or Inness’ paintings. They are
in a physical struggle where it seems the place of the others could
be considered more philosophical and metaphysical.
Curated by: Sam Moreland
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