The United States Section consists chiefly of contemporary work, but
includes a small historical section, which is to be found to the left as
one enters at the main doorway. It is in this part of the exhibit that
one should start.
The Historical Section consists of two well-defined parts. The first
contains examples of foreign schools of painting that have influenced
American art. The second contains the works of American painters from
the beginnings to the early Twentieth Century. The Foreign Historical
Section occupies rooms 91-92 and 61-63.
Gallery 91-Early Schools. A gallery of old paintings, chiefly of the
Italian, Flemish and Dutch Schools, designed to suggest the earliest
roots of American art. Practically all the canvases are mere echoes of
the "old masters," and they may well be passed over hastily by all but
the most thorough historical student.
Gallery 92-French Influence. This gallery and the next two are
designed to show works of those schools, chiefly French, that have had
direct influence upon American art. On wall A is a painting by Courbet,
interesting in the light of that artist's influence on Whistler's early
work. But most important here are the examples of the Barbizon School,
romantic landscape painters of the mid-Nineteenth Century, who had much
to do with the development of the Inness-Wyant group in America. On wall
B are two canvases by Corot, both badly placed, one of which (1486) is
typically poetic and beautiful. The examples by Daubigny and Rousseau on
wall C are not satisfying. On wall D the two Monticellis suggest the
source of some of the rich qualities of the work of Keith and similar
American painters.
Gallery 62, adjoining 92, shows the best example of Barbizon work, in
Troyon's beautiful "Landscape and Cattle" on wall C. On wall A is a
small painting, interesting but not characteristic, by Millet, who
influenced the whole world of art toward sincerity. On wall B is Sir
Laurens Alma-Tadema's "Among the Ruins," sole representative here of the
English School of "polished" painters that strongly influenced a number
of American artists. On wall D are two very interesting portrait studies
by Franz von Lenbach, intended to suggest the influence of the Munich
School on American art, before Americans began to flock to Paris to
study.
Gallery 61-Recent French Influence. On wall A is an uneven collection
by Monet, the greatest apostle of Impressionism. This group, with the
exception perhaps of the sea-shore scene, should be studied thoroughly,
in regard to the technique that juxtaposes colors to give the right
resultant tone at a distance; in regard to the general tendency to
subordinate subject interest to the expression of fleeting aspects; and
in regard to the masterly handling of light. No other group will be
referred to so often in connection with the American galleries. On wall
B is a typically joyous canvas by Gaston La Touche, who carries
Impressionism into figure work. On walls C and D are other examples of
the Impressionist School, by Pissarro and Renoir and the English Sisley.
On wall C is a portrait by Eugene Carriere. On wall D is a panel by
Puvis de Chavannes, who has influenced modern mural painting more than
any other artist. This picture has the typical union of the classic
feeling with very modern technique, but it is representative of de
Chavannes' manner rather than of his whole art at its best.
Gallery 63-English Influence. This is the richest of the historical
rooms. Although there is a scattered collection including the names of
Van Dyke, Guido Reni, Tiepolo, Ribera, Velasquez, Goya, and Turner, on
walls A and B, the important thing is the fine collection of the English
portraitists. Here are examples, many of them among the finest, by
Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence, and Hoppner. It is
hardly necessary to point out the close connection between the work of
this English group and early American painting, since a visit to the
adjoining gallery 60 will show how the first important development in
the States grew out of the art of the mother country.
The American Historical Section covers the entire development of
American painting from the beginning to the early years of the present
century. To obtain the proper sequence, one should start in room 60,
working gradually down to 57, then visiting 64 and 54.
Gallery 60 contains a profusion of fine examples of the early portrait
school, which was so closely connected with English art of the time.
Gilbert Stuart, the most important figure, is represented by an
extensive collection on wall A. In this room, too, are canvases by West,
Peale, Copley, and their followers well into the Nineteenth Century.
Gallery 59 contains chiefly the work of that barren mid-century period
when portraiture and landscape painting alike became hard and labored.
Insofar as any foreign influences can be detected here, they are of the
"tight" schools of England and Germany.
Gallery 58 contains some interesting work of the latter half of the
Nineteenth Century-notably the paintings by Eastman Johnson, an
important figure of the time when American art was finding itself.
Albert Bierstadt's two landscapes are typical of the so-called Hudson
River School, the mechanical forerunner of the Inness-Wyant group. An
interesting contrast is offered here by H. J. Breuer's "Santa Inez
Mountains," a contemporary landscape that is full of the freshness and
light of present-day American painting.
Gallery 57 shows another great step in advance. A generous portion of
the space is given to Edwin A. Abbey, an American-born artist who really
was more a part of English art. The exhibit shows clearly that Abbey was
greater as illustrator than as painter, the finest things here being the
exquisite pen drawings. Wall D has five paintings by John LaFarge, who
by his work and by his theories greatly influenced American art at the
end of the century. Worthy of study, too, are the more modern landscapes
of Theodore Robinson.
From this room one should turn back into the central line of galleries.
Gallery 64 contains historical American paintings that range through the
latter half of the last century and into this, with such well-known
names as Parrish, Gifford, Hunt, Wylie, Martin, the Morans, Eakins, and
even the more recent Frederic Remington. Such pictures as F. E. Church's
"Niagara Falls" (wall A), J. G. Brown's "The Detective Story" (wall B),
and Thomas Hovenden's "Breaking Home Ties" (wall D), are typical of what
was accepted as the best work a generation or two ago.
Passing through room 65, one should next go to 54.
Gallery 54 is the most important in the American Historical Section, for
it shows the work of the men who really emancipated American painting
from the old hardness and tightness of technique, and from the old
sentimentalism. Wall A is given up to the work of the late Winslow
Homer, who has been called "the most American of painters." The seashore
scenes alone of the things here are representative of this big man at
his best. Wall B has a varied assortment by lesser painters, but ones of
importance: Blakelock, Currier, William Morris Hunt, and Fuller. On
walls C and D the very important canvases are those by Inness and Wyant,
men who were deeply influenced by the French Barbizon School, but whose
individual achievement marked the first great stride toward the bigness,
freedom and lightness of present-day American landscape painting.
Contemporary American Painting. Leaving aside the one-man rooms for the
present, it is just as well to turn from the last historical room, 54,
into 55, and progress in natural order through 56, 65, 85, 66 (the
central hall), and 80. The contemporary rooms north of the central hall
can be best visited in three groups, each following the official room
numbering: first, 67 to 74; then 43 to 51; and finally the detached
section at the far north end of the building, 117 to 120.
Gallery 55 has a well assorted collection of contemporary canvases, but
includes no outstanding features.
Gallery 56 is a typical modern American room, with good landscapes in
the work of Breuer, Borg, Davol, and Stokes.
Gallery 65 contains some of the best American figure paintings in the
building. The finest group is that by Cecilia Beaux on wall D, which
well displays that remarkable artist's brilliant technique and "flair."
It is notable how many of the really virile paintings here are by women
-many of them of the younger groups. From Marion Pooke's polished but
free "Silhouettes," and Alice Kent Stoddard's appealing "Sisters," to M.
Jean McLane's joyously brilliant canvases on wall C, there is a wide
range of achievement and promise.
Gallery 85. On walls A and B are five canvases by Horatio Walker that
are worthy of attention. But finer are Charles W. Hawthorne's four
paintings on walls B and D. Their bigness of conception, sincerity and
soundness of technique mark a coming master. Wall C is given up to a
display by Charles Walter Stetson, which shows, more strongly than any
other in the American section, that tendency to the decorative and the
idyllic which is to be noted as so strong in recent painting. On wall D
are three works of George deForest Brush, a man who has been but little
influenced by the more radical tendencies. "The Potter" is interesting
for the painstaking and minute finish of varying surface textures.
Gallery 66-Central Hall. Although the important places here are given
to sculpture, there are a few very interesting paintings: some
representative landscapes, and at the ends decorative panels by
Alexander Harrison and by Howard Cushing.
Gallery 80 is notable for the work of painters who have followed rather
closely the old academic traditions: for the smooth and polished
canvases of W. M. Paxton and Philip Leslie Hale. There are also seven
landscapes by Willard L. Metcalf, fresh attractive work of the
"plein-air" school.
Gallery 67 is rich in fine landscapes, and contains the best of the
exhibition's marines. Here are the only works of Charles H. Davis, a
notable follower of the poetic Inness School, and of Leonard Ochtman and
Ben Foster, who stand well to the fore among the more vigorous
landscapists. Also worthy of attention are the landscapes of Braun,
Borg, White, Wendt, J. F. Carlson, Rosen and Browne. The marines
represent well a department of painting in which Americans have long
excelled; on wall A are four by Paul Dougherty, on B and C three by
Frederick J. Waugh, and on D one by Emil Carlsen. Of the other paintings
the most interesting is the idyllic bit by Hugo Ballin on wall C,
representative of the decorative tendency.
Gallery 68 contains as its most important exhibit three portraits by J.
C. Johansen, on wall B, all typical of the brilliant fluency of this
remarkable painter. Among the landscapes here the most important are the
two Schofields on wall D, typical of the best and sanest phase of
Impressionism in America. Very important too are the canvases by Daniel
Garber on wall C.
Gallery 69 contains a mixed collection, with such different good things
as Lawton Parker's polished figure studies (wall B) and J. Francis
Murphy's poetic landscape (wall C). On wall C is a painting by John W.
Alexander, one of the leaders in American art, which is typical of his
method of subordinating subject interest to line arrangement and color
composition.
Gallery 70-Portrait Room. On wall C are three portraits by Irving R.
Wiles, and on D two by Julian Story-both names long well-known in
American art. But the surprising thing is that several of the canvases
by less known men stand up with, or even surpass, these.
Gallery 71 is notable chiefly for some good landscapes.
Gallery 72 contains little to hold the attention, unless it is the group
of canvases by Walter McEwen, who shows adherence to the older
traditions, not only in smoothness of technique, but in sentimentalism
and general prettiness.
Gallery 73 is given up chiefly to Alson Clark's over-sketchy and
intemperately colored Panama pictures. The most interesting thing here
is Ernest Lawson's "Beginning of Winter," on wall B, a representative
work by one of the most successful American followers of Impressionism.
Gallery 74 is a room of good landscapes, with a few outstanding canvases
like Will S. Robinson's "Group of White Birches" on wall C.
A new start should be made here by passing through rooms 70 and 71 to
43, from which the numerical order can be followed back to room 51,
adjoining the central hall.
Galleries 43 and 44 have a range from many mediocre to a few really good
things, lacking anything that demands special attention.
Gallery 45 is a room rich in comparative values. Note the delicacy of
treatment and of color in William Sartain's three landscapes, on wall A,
and in Birge Harrison's atmospheric paintings on wall D. Compare these
with the heavily painted and richly colored canvases by Walter Griffin
on wall C, and then with the more straightforward, vigorous work of
Charles Morris Young on wall B. Harrison, Griffin and Young, at least,
are of the distinctly modern school; but note how individually each has
utilized his inheritance of vibrating color and light. On wall A are two
fine figure studies by Robert Reid, an innovator and a really great
painter, though he did not show it when he painted the panels for the
Fine Arts rotunda.
Gallery 46. There is much poor material here; but on walls B and C are
some paintings by Frank Vincent Dumond that are interesting for their
fresh coloring and their solving of light problems.
Gallery 47 contains evidences of progress in varied lines, from E. L.
Blumenschein's big Indian pictures, and Cohn Campbell Cooper's studies
of American cities, to the experiment in painting flesh against a richly
varied background, by Richard Miller, a gifted American who has long
lived in Paris.
Gallery 48 contains much promising work of various tendencies, but no
outstanding features.
Gallery 49 contains, on wall A, a splendid collection of the work of
Dwight W. Tryon, one of the older school of landscapists, who helped to
break the way for the moderns and has kept up with them to a great
extent. With the exception of one canvas, the pictures on walls B and D
are by J. Alden Weir, another roadbreaker, and an experimenter with new
effects of light and atmosphere. In such canvases as "June" and "White
Oak" one finds some of the best that American art has built on the
theories of Monet.
Gallery 50 contains some good landscapes, but nothing that demands
special attention aside from Sergeant Kendall's refined figure studies.
Gallery 51 is given over in general to the independents and extremists
of American art. Here are canvases by Glackens, Sloan, and Breckenridge,
rather disappointing to one who has watched hopefully the movement they
represent. Certainly their exhibits are suggestive of a rather
undisciplined vigor and freedom. On wall C the five canvases in the
lower row are by Robert Henri. They are the experiments of a master,
rather than his best works. The truly representative Henri picture is
the "Lady in Black Velvet," on wall D. This has a wonderful synthetic
quality, a suppression of detail and a spotting of interest at the
important point. There is, too, a spiritual quality that is lacking in
the other canvases. On the other side of the doorway is Gertrude
Lambert's "Black and Green," a notably fine canvas.
The only other general rooms of the contemporary American section are
those at the far north end of the building, beyond the foreign sections,
numbered from 117 to 120.
Gallery 117 is a sort of catch-all room, in which are many things that
never should have been admitted to the galleries. The really interesting
feature is the series of canvases by Frieseke, full of light and
freedom. Gallery 118 is less mediocre on the whole, but lacks any
features of special appeal. Gallery 119 includes a surprising
conglomeration of paintings and drawings in all mediums, wherein the
extremists have their say. There is a wealth of interest here, but one
must have time to separate the bad from the good. Gallery 120 is also
marked generously by the newer tendencies. The important feature is the
group of virile paintings by George Bellows, on wall C. These mark the
most successful American attempt to grasp sanely the bigness and freedom
of the post-Impressionist movements.
One-man Rooms. As a part of the plan to show the various influences on
the course of American art, it was decided to give up a number of rooms
to individual displays by leaders of the several well-marked tendencies.
Galleries 75-79, 87-90, and 93, at the east side of the building on
either side of the center, contain these "one-man shows."
Gallery 75-Sargent. Here are shown a number of canvases by the man
generally considered the greatest living American painter-certainly
the greatest of the portraitists. Though containing none of the really
famous paintings, there are portraits which show the typical Sargent
brilliancy-the swift sureness and the perfect balance of restraint and
freedom. The James portrait is especially worthy of study.
Gallery 76-Mathews. In this room are shown a number of canvases by
Arthur F. Mathews, most important of the California painters, as well as
a few by Francis MacComas, another Californian. Mathews stands primarily
for the decorative tendency. His canvases have a noble sense of repose
that is too often lacking in contemporary work, and there is remarkable
color harmony here.
Gallery 77-Melchers. Here are representative works by Gari Melchers, a
famous American who has long lived abroad. Unmistakably these canvases
are from a masterly brush; but the coloring is not always good, and the
room is somewhat disappointing.
Gallery 78-Hassam. By common consent Childe Hassam is considered the
greatest American follower of Impressionism. He is an innovator who has
carved a sure place for himself by adding a new vigor to the methods of
the original Impressionists. Such decorative canvases as 2033 on wall B,
and such delicate ones as 2029 on wall D, should be compared with the
Monets in room 61.
Gallery 79-Chase. This room is designed to show the work of an
American who was greatly influenced by the Munich School of painters.
William M. Chase, both in his portraits and in his remarkable still-life
studies, shows the fine German thoroughness rather than French
brilliancy. The four canvases that hold the places of honor on all four
walls show clearly the influence of Whistler.
Gallery 87-Duveneck. Here are works by Frank Duveneck, who like Chase
studied at Munich. Sound in draughtsmanship, steady, and well-thought
out, they maintain a remarkable standard of excellence. It is
instructive to step from here into the adjoining large gallery, where
the French influence is predominant.
Gallery 88-Redfield. In the winter scenes of E. W. Redfield one finds
the sure touch of a master of the new and vigorous school of American
landscapists. Redfield has modified Impressionism, clinging to a certain
reality, and yet achieving the sparkling atmospheric effects of the
luminists.
Gallery 89-Tarbell. In contrast to Hassam and Redfield and Twachtman
is Edmund C. Tarbell, who has taken but little from the Impressionist
group. His most characteristic and most appealing work can be seen in
the canvases on wall A, beautifully lighted interiors which show the
academic tendency, but in a new and delightful way.
Gallery 90-Keith. This collection of canvases, with its sameness of
subject and arrangement, is hardly typical of the late William Keith at
his best. He was the western representative of the Inness-Wyant school
of the late Nineteenth Century, though he leaned more to the romantic
than did the others.
Gallery 93-Twachtman. Here are the works of a painter who is closer to
Monet than to the more vigorous American school of modified
Impressionism. It is well to study one wall, A perhaps, and then to go
to the Redfield and Hassam rooms, and then to the group of Monets, to
see the various ways in which Impressionism has spread.
Gallery 26-Whistler. The Whistler room is quite appropriately placed
with the foreign historical rooms, rather than with the other one-man
galleries-as if Whistler should be grouped with the influences rather
than the influenced. The room contains none of the artist's finest
paintings, but is well representative of the several sides of his work.
Wall D shows Whistler the portraitist, with "his faces and figures that
emerge from a soft black background, very much as one sees a person in
the gathering twilight." On walls A and B it is Whistler the colorist,
and on wall B especially, Whistler the rediscoverer of Japanese color
and figure composition. On wall D is the "Study of Jo," an
uncharacteristic early work, which shows the influence of Courbet.