Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Appropriation & Inspiration at the NBMAA

This post comes to us from Alexandra Torbick, Curatorial Intern.

West Rock Branches, 2012. Valerie Hegarty (b. 1967). Wood, wire, epoxy, archival print on canvas, acrylic paint, gel mediums, sand, glue, hardware. 65 x 48 x 11 in. Paul W. Zimmerman Purchase Fund.

Appropriation, the act of direct duplication, copying or incorporation of an image (painting, photograph, etc) by another artist[1], has been endogenous within the art world since antiquity, especially in the times of the Roman Empire. Using Greek bronze sculptures as their guide, the Romans took figures and recreated them, appropriating the Greek deities’ images as their own gods and goddesses. This reconstruction of meaning is what truly defines “appropriation.” Represented in a different context, the signification of the original image is altered, thereby initiating a flurry of questions revolving around the ideas of originality and authenticity. 1

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The Changing Landscape

The Clove, Catskills, 1826. Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Oil on canvas, 25 1/4 x 35 1/8 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, Charles F. Smith Fund.

As the year slowly comes to a close we begin to experience the last hints of autumn as winter settles in. The cool crisp air, the changing leaves, the ripe apples, pumpkins, and seasonal holidays are all upon us. We also begin to see the changes in landscape. Autumn brings a variety of color out of nature that has inspired artists for centureis, especially the artists of the Hudson River School.

Reds, greens, browns, blues, pinks, and oranges are frequently found in their landscapes. The sensation of hiking through a mountain, walking on a trail, having a picnic with friends, and being outside for the last time before the bitterness of winter hits is often captured in these Hudson River masters’ artworks.

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American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin

Millstone Point. William Chadwick (1879-1962). Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin.

The NBMAA is currently showing American Reflections: The Collection of Dr. Timothy McLaughlin in the Davis Gallery. This private collection is composed of a wide variety of local and regional subject matter. The exhibition is a focused view of Dr. McLaughlin’s collection of landscape paintings from the mid 19th to early 20th century. Following are several highlights of the exhibition.

The artistic heritage of Connecticut is rich and deep. Portraitists and limners earned a living here in colonial times. The nineteenth century saw the advent of history painting and landscape painting. A number of Hudson River School artists came from the state, lived here, or worked here. American Impressionism was embraced very early by painters in the artists’ colonies of Cos Cob and Old Lyme.

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Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand

Sunday Morning, 1860. Asher B. Durand (1796-1886). Oil on canvas on wood paneled stretcher, 28 1/8 x 42 1/8 in. (39 x 53 4 3/4 in. framed). Charles F. Smith Fund, 1963.04, New Britain Museum of American Art.

Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Fitz Henry Lane, William Bradford, and John Kensett are all renowned landscape artists. Thomas Cole was a founding father of the Hudson River School. He created beautiful and dramatic landscapes by utilizing light and shadow. Cole grew up in England, and  lived near textile mills where there was a lot of pollution, yet he was a romantic man who loved poetry and reading about America. Not long after falling in love with America, Cole and his family moved to Ohio. It was here that he met a fellow traveler who taught him how to paint. From that point on, Cole was inspired by the wilderness and nature and his deep imagination helped him create his paintings. Many of these artworks are now considered masterpieces of American art.

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Gallery Tours: The Next Generation of Hudson River School Painters

 

Wreck of the “Roma” (Ship Wreck off the New England Coast; Ship “Roma” in Distress; The Wreck of the Ship “Roma”), 1846. Fitz Hugh Lane (1804–1865). Oil on canvas, 17 7/8 x 27 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, Lehman Foundation, Alix W. Stanley Fund, Stephen B. Lawrence Fund, and Mr. Richard Weed, 1978.56.

The Hudson River School artists  paved the way for the movements known as Luminism and Epic Landscape. In contrast to the painters of the Hudson River School, the Luminists focused on landscapes that were less romantic and more concerned with detailed forms defined by light. Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), Thomas Worthington Whittredge (1820-1910), and Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) produced landscapes and seascapes in which the sky usually occupied at least half of the composition. They applied paint in such a way that brushstrokes are not visible. The Luminist landscapes and seascapes are ordered, calm, and tranquil, unlike the pictures of their Hudson River predecessors.

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Gallery Tours: The Hudson River School

 

The Clove, Catskills, ca. 1826. Thomas Cole (1801–1848). Oil on canvas, 25 1/4 x 35 1/8 in. New Britain Museum of American Art, Charles F. Smith Fund, 1945.22.

The Hudson River School was not an actual school but a group of like-minded landscape painters who worked in a similar style from about 1825 to 1865. The growing number of crowded industrial cities in the East gave rise to an appreciation for pictures of the landscape untouched by man. The movement was fueled by the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and by the conviction that God had given the American people an abundance of natural resources as a source of wealth and prosperity.

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Museums as Subject Matter in Works of Art

The Parthenon, 1871. Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900). Oil on Canvas, 44 1/2 x 72 5/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of Maria DeWitt Jesup, from the collection of her husband, Morris K. Jesup, 1914.

When looking at Frederick Edwin Church’s painting The Parthenon, one is reminded of the fact that artists have used other works of art as subject matter for several centuries. The Parthenon is part of seven masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of  Art on view until September 2010 at the New Britain Museum of American Art.

The Arch of Constantine with the Collosseum in the Background, ca 1742 - 45. Giovanni Antonio Canal (called Canaletto) (1697-1768). Oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 48 in. Getty Center, 70.PA.52.

During the Grand Tour era, many Grand tourists would buy paintings by artists like Canaletto. He was famous for his views or vedute of Venice and is said to have used a camera obscura to achieve accurate perspectives in his paintings, yet he would often change his sketches corresponding to his own artistic vision. This can be seen in his painting of the Collosseum where he moved the arch of Constantine so that a beautifully framed view of the Collosseum is created.

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Seven Masterworks from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Come to New Britain

Large-scale and dynamic describe the selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American collections that will be on view at the New Britain Museum of American Art for a year and a half in an exhibition entitled Hudson River Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “I believe you will be astonished by their beauty and significance,” says Director Douglas Hyland.

High Point: Shandaken Mountains, 1853. Asher Brown Durand (1796–1886). Oil on canvas, 32 3/4 x 48 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of Sarah Ann Ludlum, 1877

The New Britain Museum of American Art is pleased to announce a very exciting collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Six Hudson River School paintings from the Metropolitan’s American Paintings and Sculpture Department and one by the leading 19^th -century genre painter Winslow Homer (1836-1910) will be on view in the New Britain Museum’s Henry and Sharon Martin Gallery from March 13, 2009 through September 2010. Examples by Frederic Church (1826-1900), Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), George Inness (1825-1894) and John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872) are represented along with the Homer.

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