American Impressionists
In the years following the end of the Civil War, United States gained exceptional status in international, political, and economic. American art also went through dramatic changes. They ditched the traditional style of painting and focused on landscaping, light coloring and atmosphere. This was known as the era of Impressionism, which emerged from France. The reason American artists abandoned the traditional way of painting was because, before the Civil War American artists despised European art saying it was dull and too balanced. However, after the war, Americans vision of the ‘New Eden’ was shattered; therefore American artists found themselves another inspiration. Many northern American art supporters who made fortunes from the war traveled to Europe to absorb the European culture. The French Impressionists made their first public appearance in a private exhibition in Paris in 1874. They showed eight times total until 1886. Denying the original painting style as fabricated subjects and precise techniques, these Impressionist painters focused on landscapes and scenes of everyday life of the middle class “using natural light, rapid brushwork, and a high-keyed palette” (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aimp/hd_aimp.htm). Impressionism came forth into notice as an artistic style in France in the 1860s. Exhibitions of French impressionist works in Boston and in New York introduced the new technique to the American public.
In the mid-1880s, French Impressionism began to lose its fundamental taste. As this was happening Americans began appreciating the style and more American artists started to experience with this technique after learning about impressionism. Many exhibitions of these Impressionist works took place in American cities and sales stood at a pretty decent amount. In 1886, New York came out with new public parks with brilliant scenery which gave many Impressionist artists the opportunity to the most common style of landscape. William Merritt Chase became the first American painter during that time to establish the Impressionism way of painting in the United States. By the 1890s, Impressionism was recognized as an acceptable style of painting for American artists. During them time American Impressionists lingered in art colonies which are loosely attached organizations of artists who lived and worked together and shared the same sense of beauty. Usually these art colonies are formed in small towns that were affordable and had enough scenery surrounding for painting. They are sometimes located near large cities so these Impressionism artists could sell their work.
Some American artists only embraced the effects of Impressionism just to acclimatize collectors’ taste, while many, like the French Impressionists’ were convinced that modern life should be expressed in a vivid modern style. In the artworks by the Americans, like their fellow French Impressionists, appears to be inspired by not only lighting and color but also succeeds in interpreting the meaning of their subject. Some of these artists were impressed by the energy of urban life, influenced by the disintegrated experience of sold designs. Childe Hassam is an example because unlike other American Impressionists who chose to concentrate on the countryside to which city dwellers like themselves and their consumers, he focused on the characteristics of the neighborhoods in New York and Paris.
Frederick Childe Hassam was born on October 17, 1859 in Boston, Massachusetts. Known for being an American Impressionist painter, Hassam left high school before graduating and started working as a local wood engraver soon after he became a freelance illustrator. He worked hard to get his accomplishments, attending night school at Boston Art Club, studied anatomy with William Rimmer at the Lowell Institute, and had private lessons from Ignaz Gaugengigl, who was a German painter. In 1883 Hassam traveled throughout Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Italy where he succeeded in producing large numbers of artwork that were exhibited at Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston. In 1884, Hassam returned to American and married Kathleen Maude Doane and lived in Boston until spring of 1886 when the couple moved to Europe. Hassam studied figure painting in Paris with Lucien Dorcet, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules- Joseph Lefebvre at the Academie Julian where he also exhibited his work at the Salons in 1887 and 1888. In 1889, the couple returned to the United States and settled in New York. Hassam helped in the founding of the New York Watercolor Club and also joined the Pastel Society of New York, American Watercolor Society, Players Club, and the Society of American Artists. He continued to go on and found other societies and joined other clubs and as a result, the art capital of the United States recognizes and purchased his works. In 1897 he helped establish the Ten American Painters which wer an exhibiting group that included many fine painters of the day. Starting from the 1890s, Hassam many summers painting in New England. Some of his “favorite sites were Old Lyme, Connecticut, and Appledore, on the Isles of Shoals, and off the coast of New Hampshire, where he produced some of his best known works” (http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/horo_hassam.shtm). Hassam painted anywhere from the city to the countryside. He established his talent where his early street scenes of Botson, Paris, and New York showed evidence that Hassam has the talent for capturing the effects of light and atmosphere. Throughout Hassam’s numerous award and prizes that earned a lot of attention from the collectors George A. Hearn, John Gellatly and Charles Freer. His artworks were widely exhibited throughout the country. Around 1915, Hassam focused his career on printmaking, producing etchings and dry points first, and lithographs about two years later. Before Hassam’s death, he requested that all the remaining paintings to be hand down to the American Academy of Arts and Letters which were then sold to gain a fund to purchase American works and be exhibited at museum. He dies on August 27th, 1935 at Willow Bend.
William Merritt Chase was born in Williamsburg later known as Ninevah, Indiana on November 1, 1849. He was known as an American Impressionist and a teacher. Chase showed interest in art at an early age and studied under self-taught artists Barton S. Hays and Jacob Cox. In 1869, Chase traveled to New York to further his artistic training and studied with Joseph Oriel Eaton then enrolled in National Academy of Design under the profession of Lemuel Wilmarth. In 1870, he was forced to leave New York to St. Loius, Missouri where his whole family later resided. He worked to help the family and became active in the St. Louis art community where he won many prizes for his paintings at local exhibitions. He also successfully exhibited his first painting at the National Academy in 1871. In the fall of 1871 he attracted the attention of local patrons who later sent him abroad at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Studied under Alexander Von Wagner and Karl von Piloty and be befriended other American artists such as Walter Shirlaw and Frank Duveneck. Chase applied his developing talent most often in figurative works, one of them “Keying Up”- The Court Jester won him a medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and gained him his first fame. After a long trip to Venice, Italy with Duveneck and John Henry Twachtman in 1877, Chase returned to New York in the summer of 1878 where he highly exposed his talent in exhibitions and teaching in Arts Students League. He also opened a studio in Tenth Street Studio Building which is the home of many painters of today. Chase married Alice Gerson in 1886, which he had eight children with. Chase’s studio was shutdown in 1895 because of financial issues and other residence. As these years went by, he developed an interest in teaching. Chase opened the Chase School of Art which later was then called New York School of Art, he also taught at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Art Students League, and the Brooklyn Art Association. In his later years, Chase started to lose his creativity but still continued to paint and teach until the 1910s when he died on October 25, 1916 in New York.
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Born in a wealthy family, Cassatt had already traveled to many cities in Europe by the age of ten, including Berlin, London, and Paris. She went against her parents will and began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts from 1861 to 1865. By 1866 she decided to study on her own and moved to Paris. Because of the Franco-Prussian War, Cassatt returned to the United States and resided with her family where art supplies were difficult to find in the small town. Her father who was a successful stock broker still paid for her living expenses but refused to get her art supplies. In 1871, Cassatt returned to Europe where she studied independently in some of Europe’s major museums. Her first painting was accepted by Paris Salon in 1872, but critics said her colors were too bright and that it was too realistic to be flattering. Seeing Edgar Degas’ paintings made Cassatt realize she wasn’t alone and met him in 1874. Degas invited her to exhibitions of the Impressionists and allowed her artwork to be hung in the 1879 Impressionists show. After a few years of achievements, Cassatt stopped painting to take care of her sister who fell ill in 1877 and died 1882. Cassatt resumed to painting by the mid 1880s but distanced away from impressionism. She died on June 14, 1926 in Chateau de Beaufresne, near Paris.
Even though many American artists worked in the impressionist style until the 1920s, it has already lost its popularity in 1913 when the exhibition of modern art took place at the 69th Regiment Armory building in New York City. This exhibition introduced a new painting style which interpreted the fast paced life the United States was going through especially with the outbreak of World War I, the Great Depression, and then World War II. In 1950s, Impressionism was brought back in 1950s when many museums in the United States exhibited many original French Impressionists paintings.
Annotated Bibliography:
Gallati, Barbara Dayer. William Merritt Chase. New York, 1995.
I used this for my section on William Merritt Chase.
Hoopes, Donelson F. Childe Hassam. New York, 1979.
I used this for my section on Childe Hassam.
Mathews, Nancy Mowll, Mary Cassatt: A Life, 1998, Yale University Press.
I used this for my section on Mary Cassatt
Pisano, Ronald G. A Leading Spirit in American Art: William Merritt Chase, 1849 - 1916. Seattle, 1983.
This not only gave me information on William Merritt Chase but also Impressionism overall.
Pisano, Ronald G. William Merritt Chase. New York, 1979
This gave me information on William Merritt Chase.
White, John H., Jr. (Spring 1986), America's most noteworthy railroaders, Railroad History, Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, 154, p. 9-15.
I used this for the overall information of American Impressionism.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111578/nsam.html
Overall information on American Impressionism, how it started and ended.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aimp/hd_aimp.htm
I used this for information on American Impressionism.
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/horo_hassam.shtm
This gave me information on Childe Hassam.
http://www.nmwa.org/Collection/Profile.asp?LinkID=128
This gave me information on Mary Cassatt.
