Part 1 is here.

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Even though the market prices of American paintings have gone record high in the past decades, the American Barbizon school nowadays is less known in public and claims little spotlights in the major auction houses. Between the grand panoramic rendering of Hudson River School and exciting, bright-toned eye-candy of American Impressionism, the Barbizon school was short-lived and apparently less appealing to the general public. But these painters quietly testified the statement for the first time of American art history that landscape paintings are and should be subjective and personal. With the advent of early photography, it was not accidental that these painters gave up details in the canvases and opted for the more intangible -- that can only be shown indicatively and suggestively.

The way Albert Bierstadt or Edwin Church orchestrated the elements with exceptional details and minutiae to extricate dramatic settings challenge the eyes more than the minds. We see apocalyptic clouds, we see also the leaves of the foreground vegetations. All are given in a scientific exactness, all given are the God's garden in God's perspective.; however, what is missing is the room for the minds to roam around. There is a peculiar contrast between the immense scales of the canvases and the aloofness of human feelings. Here are we, the onlookers at the mercy of the splendid techniques of the painters., whose intricate compositions are of great intellectual, but again we do not and need not have the role of participation.

Then came the late Inness, whose canvases have nothing solid and everything seems to be floating and out of focus. The lack of focus points forces the eyes to view the canvases in the whole, which were usually painted in a unified hue. Henry Ward Ranger started the painting with a special brownish varnish to which he attributed the magic glow inhis autumnal landscapes. Other painters like Dwight Tryon or John Francis Murphy used limited pallet with subdued colors. Quite often, the picture is medium dark, almost bordering murkiness. In viewing these pictures, the consciousness of audience has naturally changed from grasping what is offered in Hudson River school paintings to examine what can be explored in Barbizon paintings; in other words, our minds search instead of catch.

Such an ironic comparison can also be applied to infer the difference between Barbizon school and its succeeder - Impressionism. I have been fond of Impressionism and find that the best impressionistic paintings do not suppress the proactive thinking, the take-charge initiative from the audience by their pure visual pleasure. Too often, I have seen some modern Impressionism paintings with brilliant broken colors, or complimentary excitement; but there is nothing evocative beyond that point. And quite often the eyes get exhausted after experiencing a kaleidoscopic showcase of color range.

If the reduced color pallet and muted darkened tones in Barbizon paintings intrigue us into the depth of the canvas and the whole effect of the suggestive moods, then the typical subjects that are chosen by these group of painters bring us an infinite degrees of intimacy. Instead of the bird view of the grandeur that is supposed to be only enjoyed by the God, a closely acquainted or familiar scenes are frequently painted by Ranger, Tryon, and Murphy, etc. There are deep woods where we have trotted; or the brook that quenches both the cattles and travelers. The marshland of Murphy's paintings reminds the New Yorkers the nature of Long Island; while the old Church under the brush of Henry Golden Dearth stands for our unpretentious daily life. But contrary to the Impressionists, who preferred strong lightand shadow, Barbizon school would find its ideal in dusks or evenings when even the mundane objects bear a touch of tenderness or nostalgia. It is true that the foreground is most likely to be all muddily indistinguishable; yet the remains of the light is at once mysterious and momentary but also recalls something eternal and recurrent in one's subconsciousness. The profound sentimentality springs out when the unvarying surroundings take a softer form that combines the ordinary and the accustomed with the unanticipated. We've seen the trees growing taller as the sun sinks off the horizon, but only under the brush of the Barbizon painters do we really behold and enjoy the beauty of such sunset. In front of such paintings, we are encouraged to perceive out of the vagueness and to seek deeply into our profound memory because of the tendered moods, the suggestive brush strokes and the routine scenery which we think we know from the heart and which surprises us when filtered through painters' eyes.

In someway, Inness and his followers painted with a continuum of pianissimo. It is said: When volumes of the sounds are toned down, we hear our own internal echos, in a definite resonant.

Keep reading part 3 here. 

The visit to the Newark Museum was really a delight and surprise. I was amazed by the extensive American Art collection, and decorative arts in particular the Ballantine House. I would definitely visit it again, probably very soon in the near future since it will feature a special exhibition of American Impressionism this month.

The current exhibition: The Small but Sublime: Intimate Views by Durand, Bierdstadt and Inness features a two-room of small or medium sized American landscape paintings. Grouping paintings by their sizes is not a common curatorial perspective for exhibitions.

American landscape paintings were not born with intimate scale. Like the new nation’s ambition and its abundant wildness, six or eight feet canvases are a trademark of Hudson River School paintings. From the past auction observation, Bierdstadt or Cropsey quite often used small canvases for sketches. (One example can be seen from Shuptrine Fine Art.)

In the Brooklyn Museum, A Storm in the Rocky Mountain by Bierdstadt is the center piece in the landscape room. It does have the jaw-dropping "wow" effect, but as Barbara Novak has written in her book “Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting 1825-1875”, it creates the simultaneous intimacy and distancing at the same time. My experience tends to be more on the distancing side. The grand panorama with balance, beauty and vibrancy are taken from a God point of view. The painters behind the canvases, thus become the messengers of the God or to some extent God himself, that remove the possible immediacy of communication with humble visitors.

But when Hudson River School painters came to sketches, they were looser and more painterly-minded. In Bierdstadt’s medium sized forest painting in the exhibition, the brush strokes and the application of paints are visible. (One would seldom notice execution-wise techniques when in front of a six-foot painting because there are so much excitement to explore!) Bierdstadt’s forest scene is humanized with a couple (barely entering the scene) and an almost unrecognizable deer. The trees are painted with such extraordinary efficiency that they are shown both suggestively in the sense of volume and minute green-scale and in needed detail to differentiate the front layer from the back.

After the Civil War, canvases scaled down, partly because paintings had become integrated with home decoration and partly because the taste began to favor a more intimate and romantic style. George Inness’ sunset painting reminds me of Fuji Velva film, a special color pallet with muted orange, green and red, which is more a nostalgia recalling of rare gold moments of nature in one’s mind than a candid capture of strong colors subdued by northeast mist.

My surprise came from two paintings in the exhibition. One is from DeWitt Clinton Boutelle. His meticulous rendering of a water fall is filled with mystery and wonder, probably nothing is more appropriately descriptive than J. R. R. Tolkein’s poems about Lothlórien, a dream elfland from Lord of the Rings. Though it is only a little bit bigger than a regular 8x11 paper, it is so inviting that my eyes were drawn into the water that owns both wetness and coolness in such a retreat.

The other surprise came from the only female painter presented in this exhibition – Mary Moran. The small painting on board does not capture natural New Jersey; instead it focuses on the urbanization. The city skyline, with the bright white building under the sun and black soot and smoke from the chimneys is placed in the center of the plein air painting. The foreground is still marshy and untainted by human nature except probably serving Mary as her stand point. But the light effect was very much like her husband Thomas Moran, a dramatic sky mixed with cloud phenomenon, sharp edges of definite light gradually transitions into soft fading that unifies different colors. The remote city, though brightly lit, loses its detail in the misty white.

Was that what Mary saw or what she romanticized? Different viewers may have different opinions about what it meant for a landscape painting that speaks about the city. But I found it intriguing. Along the NJ transit railroad, the marsh wetland of New Jersey is still like what was depicted in the painting, except now the iconic mid and lower Manhattan skylines cast a strong contrast in between sky and lowland. The charms of city living approach the greatest when the mystery around it has not fully resolved; but the completeness of such a living depends on the experienced contrast that would not be fulfilled without living on modestly quiet countryside.

If you've been to the Carnegie Museum of Art recently, you may have noticed some new items in the galleries. Among these is a painting by Asher B. Durand. This kind of landscape painting may be out of fashion, but the thing about Hudson River Paintings, you know a good one as soon as you see it. You also are greeted with an immediate sense of confidence the United States (or artists) hasn't known for some time. Few painters since have been this sure of themselves and the world or celebrated it with such clarity. At the time of creation, the United States was far from being a world power, hadn't known the civil war and could focus all of her energy on building the nation. Unfortunately this meant cutting down the trees and a changing landscape that made scenes like this one fade like passing frames in a film. Hudson River painters like Durand would celebrate nature, humans in nature, and the natural wildness as a feature which distinguished our continent from that of Europe.

...and there's still a week or so to make the trip to Washington DC to see Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape More new items at the Carnegie

Fall is a good time to go out and look for "Cropsey Red." Not just any red leaves, but the red that clings to the trunk resulting from vines that turn red and result in red structural center in a fall tree.

Fall was also a good time for a drive to the National Gallery to view not only trees on the way, but to get another look at a large painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, "Autumn-- On the Hudson River."

Painted in 1860, the magnitude of the work might cause it to be confused with a Bierstadt, and the seemingly typical nature of the landscape might be passed by without providing much inspiration on the beauty of the scenery. A closer look will reveal the work is actually telling the story of the European settlement of the "new world."

Follow the scene from right to left and you'll see what I mean. Let your eye wonder down the path toward the town and into the sunrise. It also attempts to show man as neither subservient or a conquerer of nature. Its this balance thats so important to try to meet today as nature more often strikes back violently against mans abuse.

Leaving Washington and driving up Interstate 95 towards Philadelphia I observed miles of cars waiting at a toll booth, spewing carbon dioxide and thousands of engines idled. This seemed a waste, both in terms of time and economics, but also in terms of the harm done to the planet. Couldn't each car be affixed with a magnetic strip as part of the inspection process so they could at least keep moving through the tollgate?

The Hudson River Valley certainly still has its charms, but for now it would seem man has taken the position as a conquerer of nature. Cropsey's scene almost seems naieve, perhaps not unlike Edward Hicks when he painted babies sitting beside wildcats--in peace.

There is an important place in our world for these idealistic sentiments, however. It reminds me of the criticism of Jefferson for owning slaves and writing that "all men are created equal," a fault no doubt, but a notion of considerable value and one that future generations could strive towards. It was problematic for Jefferson to live up to his ideals, and more importantly problematic for the future society to reconcile itself with these ideals.

Perhaps paintings like Cropsey's Autumn on the Hudson River can be viewed today in a similar way. How can we reconcile our practices with our ideals? How can we make sure the story our lives tell live up to this notion of a peaceful co-existence with nature?

An example of Cropsey Red in the DeYoung

Winston Churchill once said “the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” This quote as I learned of it came from a book about the Luminist painter Fitz H. Lane, a transcendental-influenced Unitarian. The author, James A. Craig had something more to say on the way time relates to ourselves and the age we occupy.

“Steamships and railroads may have their day, cities may stretch from one end of the continent to the other, but ultimately these achievements will prove short-lived. While mans presence on the landscape will prove fleeting, spiritual truth, like these boulders, will endure.”

The view is one not unfamiliar to Western Pennsylvania “Scalp Level” painters like George Hetzel. The Scalp level school is considered a subset of the Hudson River School. Fitz Lane was not a Hudson River School artist, per se, but during his career went from painting busy harbor scenes to quiet and timeless harbors almost devoid of human activity.

The quote brought me to thinking about Pittsburgh and its art and our inability to look back far enough to see the future.

I can’t think of too many timeless images of Pittsburgh. The images that come to mind are primarily pubescent images of Pittsburgh landscapes almost always telling a story of a busy inland port. Even these images are overshadowed by images of Pittsburgh as a manufacturing center. Yet before the sky was brightened by factory flames, the city thrived without smoke and factories. Even farther back and we find a serene and timeless natural setting the Scalp Level or Hudson River painters would have found enticing.

Today we are confronted with several realities that are sure to shape our future to one degree or another. One of these is global warming, which has already returned many of us back to an age when nature was a conquerer more often than something conquered.

The short days of heavy industry in Pittsburgh are certain to grow shorter as our history grows longer. The physical Pittsburgh in the 2030s may more closely resemble the Pittsburgh of the 1830s than the smoky Pittsburgh of the 1950s.

A need to reduce greenhouse gasses and the arrival of peak oil may bring our city with a declining population to live closer to the geographical boundaries of previous centuries. The rivers, once a depository for waste, are again becoming the center of our life and image. The beauty of the landscape will continue to return. As oil becomes scarce, local farming, and even basic product manufacturing may again become practical, profitable and necessary.

Industry will not be likely to grow to anything comparable to the 1960s, but local industry like cabinet-making, carpentry, glass making and even textiles could become more of a necessity everywhere. Pittsburgh will again be an exporter, and the rivers will again see far more than coal barges. Not to be mistaken, it won’t be 1830 all over again. The technology we have and continue to develop won’t go away and will be our primary export then as now.

Since the time of the Scalp Level painters and Fitz Lane we have lost our ability to see the timeless beauty of our Pittsburgh. We’re not interested in art depicting such landscapes as the camera sent art in a myriad of directions more than a century ago. Transcendentalist thought was interrupted by Charles Darwin and a new view of nature as a violent struggle. Yet modern art may have to eventually look to the future by looking back to the Hudson River School.


While the Scalp Level painters here in Western Pennsylvania revolted at our emerging industry and sought to capture a disappearing natural landscape, eventually painters like Aaron Gorson came to see beauty even in our industrial landscape. For good or bad, that landscape was not timeless.

Today then it is perhaps a challenge for us to take on a task not unlike that at hand for Gorson. Artists in Pittsburgh and elsewhere can look forward by going back and attempting, despite the violent struggles of evolution and an increasingly hostile climate, and see the timeless wonder of our world once again.

Earlier this summer I picked up a stack of “The Arts” magazines at Wexford General Store, an antique mall on Old Route 19, north of Pittsburgh. I thought I was going for a quick diversion, and ended up in the 1920s New York art world. How wonderful antique shopping can be! I had not been familiar with the magazine and don’t know when it stopped being published. The dates I have go into the 1930s.

One item of immediate interest was the fact that Charles Sheeler took many photographs for the publication. The particular issue I am looking at now from July, 1923 has photographs of works by Constantin Brancusi by Charles Sheeler.

Sheeler’s beautiful photographs are accompanied by an article by “M. M.” about Brancusi in which the author contends that for Brancusi art doesn’t exist by itself, rather being an instrument for the propagation of the religious idea. I had admired works by Brancusi before, but never thought much about them. When reading the article in The Arts, I was immediately struck by a parallel between something as abstract as a Brancusi and painters of the Husdon River School, which flourished with the idea that god is perfect, and he having created nature, it is also perfect.

Brancusi did not seek to imitate of course, rather to “give the sensation of reality without reproducing or imitating.” The author continues “art must enter the spirit of nature and create, as does nature, beings with forms and lives of their own.” Although it may not be in the spirit of the intent, it would seem to me that sentence could translate into “art must become god, or at least commit a god-like act within nature.”

While appearing very modern, the work of Brancusi doesn’t step far from an old paradigm, just replaces Christianity or Transcendentalism with Taoism. Any appreciation for modern art does not, in the opinion of the article’s author, spread to the bulk of it in the 1920s. “Nothing has done more to harm modern art… than the avalanche of pseudo-artists who, having nothing to say, have wanted to speak a language of which they knew nothing,” he or she writes. “Let us not mistake modern art with modern artists, let us not mistake reality with appearances.”

It’s clearly the quality of art that the magazine emphasizes and it’s noticed elsewhere including in an article by Charles Downing Lay about the framing and hanging of oil paintings. After a series of guidelines for hanging paintings, including lining up the horizon lines in paintings hung side-by-side, not using wires to suspend paintings from rails, not using artificial picture lights and removing glass because of the reflections. After these “tips,” the author provides some insight into his art idea—it’s important to keep exploring art and little need to confine oneself to a period or style. “It is the quality of the picture, not the style of the time, which makes a picture valuable, and high quality is not confined to any age.”

“If we cannot buy pictures and outgrow them and pass on to something better it must be that the pictures mean little to us, and that our hearts are in the safe deposit box with the securities.” It would seem even the hanging of pictures calls upon a religious experience of sorts, not unlike Brancusi or the Hudson River painters. “Spiritually they minister to our highest desires for order, in a too disordered world, and for harmony in a life which is sometimes out of tune, and for balance when the blindfolded lady of the scales seems indeed blind to injustice and cruelty. Their influence for happiness cannot be denied no matter how little our spiritual growth has progressed.”