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. 

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.