Favorite Paintings Back at The Metropolitan Museum

“Heart of the Andes,” by Frederic E. Church (1826-1900), 1859, oil on canvas, 66 1/8 x 119 1/4. Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. On the right, three or Church's plein air sketches.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently reopened the American Wing of 26 renovated and enlarged galleries. On display are some of my favorite paintings by Frederic E. Church, Worthington Whittredge, John Singer Sargent, and Thomas Cole. For the first time, those masterpieces are hung next to related plein air studies, sculptures, and period furniture.

For almost a decade, iconic paintings like “Madame X” by John Singer Sargent, “The Heart of the Andes” by Frederic E. Church, and “The Oxbow” by Thomas Cole have been in storage or tucked away in corridors while The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York prepared a new 30,000 square foot group of 26 connected galleries in which to display the masterworks. Now the paintings are presented in galleries devoted to subjects, themes, and periods such as the Hudson River School, the West, American Impressionism, and the Cosmopolitan Sprit. In addition, the museum decided to hang plein air sketches, compositional studies, and sculptural portraits of the artists in close proximity to the studio paintings. 

The centerpiece of the new installation is one of the best-known works in all of American art, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s 1851 painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware”. The renovated galleries afford a dramatic vista toward this monumental canvas. This double-sized gallery showcases Leutze’s iconic work alongside two other masterpieces—Church’s “Heart of the Andes” and Albert Bierstadt’s “Rocky Mountains”— just as they were displayed at the famous 1864 Metropolitan Sanitary Fair. These three paintings have been beautifully restored as part of the renovation project.

A special area of the Museum’s website dedicated to the new galleries—including

descriptions of each of the rooms, a floor plan, details about the related programming

and publications, highlighted works of art, and more—can be found at

www.metmuseum.org/americanwing.

"Madame X" (1884), "The Wyndham Sisters" (1899), and "Mr & Mrs. Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes" (1897)

 by John Singer Sargent back on display at the The Met Museum. 

A sculpture of Thomas Eakins painting that is on display in a gallery devoted to paintings & sculptures of artists' studios. 

“A Gorge in the Mountains (Kauterskill Clove), Kaugerskill Clove,” by Sanford Gifford (1823-1880), 1862, oil on canvas. 48 x 39 7/8. On display next to the plein air painting used as a study for the large studio painting.  

Landscape Panting: Capturing Mood

I focused on an intimate scene and emphasizes the balance of warm and cool, dark and light shapes in an effort to capture the mood of a late summer landscape in this 9" x 12" oil painting.

Plein Air Landscape Painting: Risking Failure to Make Progress

After feeling good about the waterfall paintings I did in the early spring, I needed to take chances with a different range of subjects, painting techniques, and levels of finish. Yesterday I picked up on some of the ideas expressed by artists I've interviewed recently, including Joseph McGurl and Jason Taco, and I was pleased with the results. 

Joe talked about building up fairly thick applications of oil color modified with fast-drying alkyd medium.  His point was that the physical texture of the paint can impact the levels of transparency and opacity, thereby adding a greater sense of space in a landscape and, at the same time, making it easier to suggest detail. During a recent trip to Italy, for example, Joe used Winsor & Newton underpainting white during the early stages of the painting process and then added Liquin impasto alkyd medium when he was ready to paint foreground shapes with thick oil color. He applied the thick paint with a palette knife and manipulated the texture to suggest grasses, stones, plastered walls, etc. (Joe's paintings from Tuscany are on view at Tree's Place Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts) 

Jason Taco talked about using a limited palette of colors to achieve harmony and subtlety in his landscapes. He restricted his palette to 4-6 colors + titanium white instead of trying to managing a wide range of tube colors that might not intermix particularly well. His point was that if all the color mixtures are created from the same base, they are more likely to work well together. (Jason will be profiled in the winter, 2012 issue of PleinAir Magazine)

Whether one follows these recommendations exactly, the key points are worth considering. Joe's recommendation goes to the issue of using thin and thick paint to suggest space, texture, and form in nature; and Jason's point is that harmony and subtlety can be achieved by wisely controlling the mixtures of colors. 

Painting at the entrance to Rockwood Hall State Park near Tarrytown, New York. 

The scene I began painting at 8:00am on Saturday, August 13, 2011 

The initial block-in of the large shapes on a panel toned with yellow ochre.  

The completed 9" x 12" oil painting. BTW, I'm going to bring the trunks of a couple of trees down lower on the right-hand side to break up that monotonous line along the ridge. 

Plein Air Events

I don't often get a chance to be a participant in a plein air event because I am too busy taking photographs of artists and collectors, but I was able to join a local event in Ossining, New York that took place at the Shattemuc Yacht Club along the Hudson River. The weather was perfect and the 30+ artists were great to meet, and I sold my painting of the boats and river. Not a bad way to enjoy a summer day!

Both paintings were done on 11" x 14" canvas-covered panels I toned with yellow ochre, and I added Liquin alkyd medium to my oil colors so the initial layers of paint would set up quickly enough for me to add details. I set up at 7am and waited to find out whether the overcast sky would clear up, but by 8am I made up my mind to take advantage of the subtle cloud shapes and occasional bursts of sunlight. 

Painting Intimate Woodland Scenes

I got interested in the idea of painting streams of water running through wooded scenes because there seemed to be an intimacy and privacy about those beautiful locations. I also wanted to explore some new ways of painting on location, so in some of the paintings so I deepened the mixtures of oil color so they would be dark, moody, and subtle; and I allowed the warm tone of the red iron oxide underpainting to accentuate the sunlit areas.

As I painted, I imagined the trees becoming figures bending over to see their reflections in the water like Narcissus, and the rocks as bathers dipping their toes in the water. That helped me emphasize the feelings associated with being in a quiet, remote place where the forces of nature are at work.

Painting Landscapes: Village Scene

My friend Steve Griffin took me to some of his favorite painting spots in Easton, Oxford, and St. Michael, Maryland last week. Several of the sites were along the Maryland shore with views of sail boats in the water, but I was more comfortable painting a street leading down to the water in Oxford. Of course I had to include an "Oxford Fence" in front of the white house on the left-hand side of the 11" x 14" panel. The fence is made of rails that have a clover-shaped top with a small hole in the middle of the clover. Non-profit groups ask local artists to paint rails that can be sold to raise funds.

I may exhibit this painting in Plein Air Easton because as the awards judge I am entitled to display two paintings. Obviously my paintings won't be eligible for awards. That will make it easier for me to accept rejection in the face of all the extraordinary paintings on display.

Landscape Painting: Waterfalls #3

I  decided to focus on a more intimate waterfall scene along Perkins Drive in Bear Mountain State Park, one that offered an opportunity to explore compositional scheme of a central axis juxtaposed with strong diagonal shapes. Because I worked on a  10" x 8" panel, I could apply more layers of oil color, muting the tones and adding textural effects that enriched the surface of the painting. I used a stiff alkyd white paint towards the end of the process to add clean, light value shapes where the water was flowing around and over the rocks.