The end of the nineteenth century saw the pinnacle of the nature spiritualism first advocated by the American Transcendentalists in the 1830s. By the 1880s and 1890s, the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as the art of Thomas Cole, had acquired a cult-like status.[1] This led to the founding… Continue reading Susie Barstow (1836-1923) in the White Mountains
Situated along the Hudson River, the town of Nyack, New York has been a popular fishing spot since the pre-Colonial period. The Tappan American Indians named the area near the river “Nay-Ack,” which is an Algonquin term for corner or ‘point,’ and would visit the area in the summer to fish and collect oysters.[1] After… Continue reading Room with a View: The Hopper Home in Nyack, New York
The shorelines of the Eastern seaboard have enamored tourists for over a century. From the Outer Banks in North Carolina to the Hamptons in New York to the cliffs of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Americans have reveled in the untouched beaches that became symbolic of the country’s natural beauty. Before the Industrial Revolution, which provided… Continue reading Early Twentieth Century Seashores
Americans have long been fascinated with the British West Indies. Among these territories, Bermuda became a unique destination for tourism after the decline of the shipbuilding industry in the first half of the 19th century.[1]The opinionated author Mark Twain further popularized the vacation spot with proclamations like, “You go to heaven if you want to,… Continue reading Bermuda in the American Imagination
The sketchiness of an impressionist painting is often tied to the airiness of the season, the time of day, and the location of the view. Spring time, which has been described as “the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine,” provides ideal scenes of flickering shadows and dewy flowers.[1] As… Continue reading Spring Time for American Women Impressionists
Opportunities for women artists in the nineteenth century had advanced little beyond the informal apprenticeships originating in the Renaissance. While specialized art academies were founded across Europe beginning in the eighteenth century, these schools rarely admitted women. The culture was such that art made by women was considered “domestic” or “amateur” up until the early… Continue reading A Portrait of Her Father in the Studio
To Edmund Caldewgate. New England, 5th October, 1850. My Dearest, -I cannot but write you as oft as times permit, for your absence is truly felt in your home and in our hearts . In honest, if I know my own heart, I should as soon neglect myself as to not express the least thought towards… Continue reading Saying Farewells: Nostalgia, Melancholy and Romance in Charles Y. Turner’s “Saying Goodbye”
In the watercolor Autumn Trees from 1878, Winslow Homer nicked the surface of his drawing to create curt, white marks seen across the swath of grass in the foreground of the scene. This enlivening technique, though present in the work of other artists including J. M. W. Turner, is unusual for Homer. It is likely the… Continue reading ‘Medium Specificity’ in Nineteenth Century Watercolors: Winslow Homer and Julian Alden Weir
In his 1988 treatise on Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), art historian Leo Steinberg asks us, “Are the anatomies of these women… a matter of changing taste, or of substituting the abstract expressiveness of sharp angles for anatomical curves?”[1] The subtext of Steinberg’s query is clear: is it the way the nude is… Continue reading Aesthetics of the Nude: Childe Hassam and George Ault
Like their male peers, women artists depicted the atrocities of World War I, which was characterized by muddy land battles and stifling trench warfare, from a diversity of vantage points. Several of these iconic works were commissioned from the women directly by the Imperial War Museum in London, where many of them are still located.… Continue reading Mary Fairchild Low & Women Artists During WWI
Hawthorne Fine Art 