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Although Maria Oakey Dewing
had shown an interest in figure painting early in her career,
she turned her attention to flower painting following her
marriage in 1881 to the artist Thomas Dewing. Her floral subjects
were painted both indoors and outdoors in the garden she and
her husband maintained at their summer home in Cornish, New
Hampshire. Irises and Calla Lillies is remarkable for
its fusion of intensely observed detail with decorative compositional
elements, showing her awareness of Japanese art.
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| The similarity
between painting and music was one of the great preoccupations
of the late 19th century. The French Symbolists, English artists
such as Albert Moore and Frederick Leighton, and Americans such
as Whistler and Thomas Dewing, all featured the subject of young
women playing instruments and listening to music. Alexander's
rich orchestration of the friezelike composition, with its languid
poses, fluid brushwork, and careful color modulation, masterfully
evokes their ethereal experience. |
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Metcalf's use of pointillist
strokes to suggest falling snow--the "veil" of the title--and
the soft tonalist palette made this one of his most popular
paintings, much praised by contemporary critics and art lovers
alike. The square shape of the canvas adds to the sense of
quiet and serenity that Metcalf sought in his work. Blue-violet
underpainting dotted with red unifies the composition and
lends an unexpected warmth to the gray winter light. Metcalf
spent the first of many winters in Cornish, New Hampshire,
in 1909. The White Veil is one of two nearly identical
canvases with the same title painted during this period.
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| This
painting, which is an excellent example of Inness's late style,
depicts the artist's orchard and farm buildings in Montclair,
New Jersey. In later works, Inness developed a synthesis of
realism and abstraction to achieve a spiritual response to nature
which preoccupied the artist toward the end of his life. Inness
was not working directly from nature; although there are recognizable
and identifiable forms and elements, he was painting from memory,
bringing images together in an almost dreamlike manner. |
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