In reading the book “American Art In the Barbizon Mood,” I am surprised to find out American Barbizon school is yet to be defined even though the exhibition was held in Washington DC more than 30 years ago. Tonalism is in general used to define the same school, although tonalism itself is such a very vague term that when Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco had the exhibition of American Tonalism paintings, the show featured the painters Whistler and Dewing along side with Tryon and Eaton.

It is not a surprise that such a term as American Barbizon is not firm since the school itself did not last very long. To some extent, it serves as a bridge between the Hudson River School style and American Impressionism. The early works of Inness bear strong influence from Cole and Durand. It was only after the American Civil War that Inness began to forgo the niggling detail that once dominated the large canvases. Later, when Henry Ward Ranger came to Old Lyme to build up his colony, he found out that although he could attract a group of like-minded painters, he could not stop the trend. The Old Lyme sees the rise of Impressionism from Willard Metcalf and Theodore Robinson, both of whom were Old Lyme painters.

But most of all, it is the American Barbizon itself that somewhat distorted, if not betrayed the group of painters that it represented. True, some of them may have seen the silvery grayness of Corot or solemnity of Millet even though it was very rare to see these works within US before the civil war. Some of the painters such as Inness and Robert Crannell Minor even went to Europe for study, however most of these painters grew by themselves and may develop their artistic styles in their own course. To say they are the followers of Corot was more a critic’s idea and dealers’ promotion than their own intention.

And what a difference it makes when the so-called Barbizon school crossed the Atlantic! For Millet, the rural life bears the same amount of the sentimentality and elegance as the perfect male and female bodies in the hands of David and Ingres. But for Americans painters, there was no such passion found from mundane peasantry life. How could they, right after the civil war, when farming was still associated with the south and black labor. Thus in William Morris Hunt, there was a broader subject matters that associated with the general pastoral life without giving out the hint of laborious farming.

Barbara Novak, in her book about Hudson River School paintings, said that the grand scaled, untainted landscape is god’s gift to Americans and thus the vistas with magic light show the audience the new continent in the way God perceives it. If so, such notion began to shake in the minds of American who had gone through civil war and Darwinism. The rapid industrialization in post-civil war period saw fast change in Northeast landscape. God’s garden was no long viewed as American’s superiority against the European’s old civilization; instead it gave in for railroad, farming and bourgeoisification. Thus, it was natural that a group of artists began to view the landscape in a more nostalgic mood. Instead of looking down at the grandeur with a dominating control of details and free of any trace of human brush touch, they began to walk into the woods and experience them as human beings. The cool objective mind softened to the stirred emotions that had been constantly worried about the erosion of the landscape from industrialization. Visible strokes were implemented to enhance the live experience as if the landscape breathed its texture into the canvas.

When John Francis Murphy was praised as American Corot in the late 1870’s, he quietly saved those reviews about him but said little. He may have seen some paintings by French Barbizon painters, but the Mecca of Barbizon paintings in US at that time was not in New York but in Boston where Vose Gallery fervently promoted the school. But Murphy didn’t have to speak out for the inspiration of his style: He just lived with it. He took the occasion to visit Walden Pond and transplanted pine seedlings from Thoreau’s cabin to his Arkville Studio.

There, right by the pond, Thoreau already dictated what would be painted after his death by the painters of the next generation:

The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a particular description. … a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation.

I have known the name of the painter John Francis Murphy since I began to study American paintings. He was associated with the American Barbizon and Tonalism schools without geographically joining the Old Lyme Colony.

Thus when a painting of Murphy offered by John Moran Auction’s showed up, it immediately caught my eye.

The painting was dated in 1876 which was a crucial year for Murphy. In 1874, Murphy spent the late summer and early autumn in Keene Valley, a trip that cost him almost all his finished work. The trip was a turning point for the 31 year old painter, it was both a success and a failure. He was photographed in the company of Winslow Homer and enjoyed a sense of professional acceptance from fellow painters like Wyant, Tryon; but when he tried his best at a fashionably large canvas in the manner of Church and Bierstadt, he couldn’t transform lakes and mountains into miracles of light and air. Therefore, there were no further attempts in his career to pursue grandeur or sublimity, in his own words: he could add nothing to a genre already mastered by his “seniors”. In 1875, he left Chicago to live in New York. He lived on 205 East 32^nd Street. His career had a slow start. In fact, the first six months of 1876 brought him only $76 income. But it was this period that he began to mature into his style: the fondness of vapor, shadow, and mystery, all painted in a soft mood.

It is not a surprise that Murphy’s most admired writer was Thoreau. It was the intimate nature, or habitable wildness that dominated his canvases. Interestingly, by the time Murphy was elected to become a full academician, the Hudson River School style gradually became obsolete and Americans grew to favor paintings that appealed to feelings first instead of the intellect or moral sense.

In this painting, I see neither eternity nor serenity. The wind blows, the clouds fleet, the tree whistle. Somber mood comes through the low land bushes that are combed by brooks. Nothing is decisive, or final. But the transient moment has a sheer beauty that can hold eyes long enough as if the beauty lies within the uncertainty. Isn’t it true that sometimes the best sceneries happen at the most unexpected places or moments? Murphy knew it and registered the transient beauty into something lasting ever.

The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. So wrote John Adams in a letter to Abigail Adams (1780-05-12).

This telling quote was used by Ronald Freyberger in closing a gallert talk titled American Collectors of French Furniture.

I couldn't have been more happy with the talk, and the twist around French decorative arts to end with a quote by John Adams was just one of many to extend from the knowledge and insights of Freyberger. Had you attended, you would have come away with some decent groundwork on the collectors, what they bought and who bought it for them, as well as an idea of what sold for how much when. Most interesting are the stories an item can tell by tracing it around and around until we find it in the museum.

If this is the kind of thing you're sorry you missed, Freyberger will give the gallery talk again August 23.

Walking through the Egyptian Galleries at the Brooklyn Museum, past the stone sculptures and mumified cats, I was struck by the paw feet on this Egyptian chair. Not only is it remarkable that a wooden chair survived this long ago (made as early as 1400 B.C.), but, a fan of American furniture, I was swept in to look further into Egyptian art by these paw feet. To some degree, civilizations have copied each other since the beginning of time. In this case, the lines not only from ancient Greece to the 1820s and early 1900s, but from ancient Egypt into Ancient Greece and on to Chippendale became clear.

As a person who spends the bulk of his time in the American Galleries, looking at the pieces and damaged goods on display made me wonder what portions of our stuff will make it into a gallery 2000 years in the future? The paw foot from an empire sofa? An IKEA wine glass? I suppose I won't be around to find out.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) returned more than 900 works of art to 19 spectacularly renovated galleries on the second floor of its historic 1916 museum building on June 29. These works from the museum’s permanent collection have been in storage since 2005 when CMA closed for an expansion and renovation project that is re-imagining the museum for the community.

Works to be featured when the second floor of the historic 1916 building reopens at the end of June include world-renowned masterpieces from the museum’s collections of European art from 1600- 1800 and American art from 1700-1900, as well as the beloved Armor Court.

Visitors returning to the 1916 second floor galleries will enjoy works from the heart of the museum’s collection of Western European art as well as the formative stages in the development of American art. The newly renovated galleries are arranged around three spaces: the Armor Court, the central rotunda and the former interior garden court. The interior garden court has been transformed into a gallery for Italian painting and sculpture from 1600-1800 and the display of miniatures and other small works from 17th-century Europe.

The rotunda, cleared of display cases previously installed there, is now the central orientation spot from which to explore the building. The Armor Court, meanwhile, is virtually unchanged since its comprehensive renovation in 1998.