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Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
September 2008
Return to Homepage www.shortnorth.com
Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
September 2008
www.lizjamesartscene.blogspot.com
LIZ JAMES ART COLUMNS
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Visit Art Columns 1999-2003Riffe Gallery
Midwestern Visions of Impressionism: 1890-1930
Dome et Rotonde, Montparnasse, nd, oil on canvas 25 x 32, by Abel Warshawsky.
Collection of Robert Burns.The Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery will continue to host “Midwestern Visions of Impressionism: 1890-1930,” featuring the work of 31 artists born or raised in the Midwest, until October 12, 2008.
Impressionism has never grown old or passé. This exhibit allows viewers to appreciate the expert brushwork practiced by American artists who studied in Europe or were taught by European trained teachers and later broke away from a strictly realist tradition. Quite simply, this is a lovely show that contains much spectacular painting!
As did their European counterparts, the American Impressionists painted swiftly, often outdoors. In “Midwestern Visions” all of the paintings are oil. The sizes, in general, run from medium to large.
I was infatuated by the luminous painting techniques of such influential masters as William J. Forsyth (1854-1935). Forsyth was born in the tiny town of California, Ohio. Moving to Indianapolis while a youth, he studied at several regional schools and later went to Munich for advanced study. There he was accepted by the Royal Academy; he spent his summers painting in small towns in Germany. Eventually, he returned to Indiana where he had a long and distinguished teaching career. His Impression-istic influence was far reaching.
Forsyth’s Winona, The Pool, in which huge dark willowy trees dominate, was painted around 1926. The tiny figures, children on the lawn in front of the unassuming white house, have “dressed up” for a pretend tea party. This painting, so dense and murky at first glance, lights up with miraculous reflections from the pool. The more one gazes, the more it shines. Columbus poet, David Francis Smith, inspired by this painting, has described it well: “The shade is dense/the pool is crystal clear/reflecting trees and leaves/and children standing near.”
As I looked at canvases by such influential teachers as Forsyth, I appreciated the sophistication of their paintings. At the same time, I was also attracted by glimpses of an agrarian past. Although the age of industrialism had begun by 1900, by 1930 the majority of Americans still lived on farms or in small towns.
Before and after the First World War, American art students had traveled to Europe, mainly to Paris, where palettes were bright, and to Munich, where colors were sombre. Returning home, these artists began to teach art, to paint their own versions of Impressionism. The majority of the Riffe exhibit canvases were painted by artists who had returned to settle in rural Ohio, Illinois, or Indiana.Sorghum and Garden Flowers
Two of the Riffe exhibit paintings depict sorghum mills. The prolific L.O. Griffith (1875-1956), a wonderful landscapist, painted his big realistic Sorghum Mill sometime around 1920. In this painting you see only the back of a stocky, bald-yet-white-fringed guy who wears a white shirt and work trousers. He is running the sorghum mill, a rectangular piece of machinery as tall as he is. A broad white workhorse strains at a load. The sky is invisible, but it is drenching the hilly farmland with incandescent gold light. Near the machine, layers of sorghum stalks glimmer. "
In 1930, Marie Goth painted another Sorghum Mill, from which steam (or sorghum) rises in a flurry. Two big white farmhorses strain at their load. A lanky guy, in overalls and cap, his back toward us, leans into the brew. So does a woman in a knee-length dress, her hair in a bandanna. It’s the Great Depression. This painting might have emerged from the WPA program. It’s interesting that both sorghum mill scenes were painted with a view seen across the operator’s back.
Like their contemporaries, neither Griffith or Goth owned computers. They had to learn how to draw – horses, machinery, the human figure. They had to learn about making sorghum, and they did a good job of depicting the process.
The two artists could be lyrical, as in the case of Griffith’s Sunny Barn, which is awash in hazy yellows and misty blues. Both artists were power painters. –Yes, their work is “illustrative,” and by gosh, it’s good!
Jullien, nd., oil on canvas, by Louis Ritman.
The Butler Institute of American Art.In 1912, the artist and teacher Karl Kappes (1861-1943) moved from Zanesville, Ohio, to Toledo where he lived near the city until he died in 1943. His painting, The Kappes Garden, is one of the exhibit’s most colorful and popular paintings. In Kappes garden the rows are razor straight; we cannot tell whether Kappes has planted green beans or tomatoes, and it doesn’t matter. To the right, among more straight rows, a minuscule woman in “old time” dress leans to cut long stemmed flowers – tea roses or geraniums, perhaps. Close up, bright dabs, probably trumpet flowers, twine around a fence. Behold: unidentifiable Impressionist flowers. Beyond the garden, the fields – flat, flat, flat in northwest Ohio – stretch into the distance. We note the pointed windbreak of trees, the ugly gray farmhouse, the garden rows. All is straight and narrow yet growing upward. Kappes’ Impressionist technique allowed him to paint with accuracy while he employed swift expressive strokes.
Abel Warshawsky (1883-1962) loved to visit his hometown of Cleveland, yet he remained for years in France where he cut a vibrant and romantic figure. His big grayish Dome et Rotonde, Montparnasse, is a wide, uncluttered Parisian cityscape that seals forever 1918, at a moment when traffic is sparse and the day is dove gray. Warshawky’s large canvasses reveal his own prowess, yet his sombre colors and his broad dramatic brushwork speak of his European influences.
In 1926, Ada Walter Shulz painted Grandma Barnes Cabin, which smoulders with a red bush in bloom, which includes a fringe of orange forest toward the horizon, and close up, includes a shabby log cabin with bright blue windows. Shulz’s loving depiction of mother and child in Wash Day provides a “Madonna and Child” for all seasons, and you’ll note she uses a Raphael-like blue. E K Williams’ ethereal Greasy Creek Road blew me away, and you must see it for yourself!
“Midwestern Visions of Impressionism” includes superb full length “sitting room” portraits of women, among them Mary Holland Bacher as painted by her husband. I have written more about these and other paintings on my ArtScene blog at www.lizjamesartscene.blogspot.com. To paraphrase General MacArthur, “old Impressionists never die.” Indeed, their best work does not fade away and they provide images for us to rejoice in!The Riffe Center Gallery, 77 S. High St., is open every day except Monday. Call 614-644-9624 for hours and information.
Visit www.riffegallery.org© 2008 Short North Gazette, Columbus, Ohio. All rights reserved.
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