Page 56 - Studio International - August 1965
P. 56
3 centuries of American painting
New York Commentary by Dore Ashton
If I were an innocent abroad. trying to understand colleagues in London. 'painting would not be known
America through three centuries of painting, I expect in this place·. Portraiture. it was true. was the chief
that the current mammoth survey at the Metropolitan industry. Many young American painters took them
Museum would offer a capital opportunity. There are selves to England where Benjamin West maintained
almost five hundred works to consider and I presume a friendly studio. enabling his compatriots to absorb the
that at least the first two centuries are most judiciously niceties of Reynolds. Gainsborough and Romney.
selected. As for the third century-the century in which In fact, throughout the history of American painting,
American painters at last made a name for themselves until recently, the great lure was Europe where the
the Metropolitan. alas. is incapable of bringing itself crude American could smooth out his provincialisms.
to really believe in it. Consequently, the 20th century Copley himself worked mainly from European prints
selection is the weakest and most misleading. and when he finally did go abroad. he altered his style
Of course it is impossible for me to make myself over by taking on a superficial bravura that prefigures the
into an innocent abroad. Therefore. I am obliged to slick sleight-of-hand developed by John Singer Sargent.
consider the history of American painting in com Not all Americans were so susceptible to European
parative terms. With a few eccentric exceptions. the prototypes and the 19th century offers several delightful
American painter before the 20th century was generally byroads. There is, first of all. the Hudson River School.
inferior to the European. whom he aspired to equal. and In this group, the painters devoted themselves to
on the whole. a boring fellow. Those who find arresting romantic renditions of the wild American landscape,
stylistic trends and an 'American· singularity in this often with exceptionally poetic results. In addition to
huge collection of paintings are exaggerating. the romanticism which announces itself in the land
This is not to say that there are not items of tremendous scapes of Bierstadt, Kensett and Cole. the mystical
interest. Historically the American painter has a lot strain in American life begins to find an outlet in
to offer. In pre-Revolutionary America, he documented fantasy. Cole's own famous allegory. The Titan's Goblet.
the aristocratic snobbishness prevailing. This is the not clear in its symbolism, is one of several paintings
period in which the painter yearned to be a gentleman that recall the occult fantasy of Edgar Allan Poe.
and often took himself to England in order to polish his Further along in the century, the portrait is no longer
manners. both social and esthetic. the major genre. Beside landscape, there appears the
Thomas Cole 1801-1848
The Titan's Goblet 1833 ·was it not for preserving the resemblance (sic) of queer and lyrical genre painting of George Caleb
19f X 16/r in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art particular persons·. John Singleton Copley wrote to Bingham who forgot his training in Dusseldorf in order
Marsden Hartley 1877-1943
Portrait of a German Officer 1914
68¼ X 41} in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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