Paintings

Impressionism Original

American Impressionism. Part 1

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the land in Branchville, Connecticut, was too uneven and rocky for profitable farming, and the transportation routes between this small town and the state capital of Hartford or New York City were not yet adequate for daily commuting. But the landscape proved to be ideal for a group of artists who were distilling the influences of both European and American painters and developing a style that came to be known as American Impressionism. They were invited to this New England countryside by Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919), a gregarious man who achieved considerable success with his paintings and who befriended some of the greatest artists of his day.

In keeping with the spirit of camaraderie Weir established, American Artist invited ten artists to gather at the farm last September to paint the grounds and buildings that comprise Weir Farm, which was recently designated a National Historic Site. The artists painted together for two days and returned individually to complete their pictures. The resulting works are presented in this sixteen-page article and in the profiles on Peggy Root and Joan Griswold that follow. (G. Remak Ramsay, one of the artists who painted at the farm, was not able to complete a painting in time for this article because he was performing in a play on Broadway. His work will be featured in a future issue of the magazine.)

These ten artists were chosen for three reasons: First, they are comfortable painting outdoors; second, they have a strong interest in the history of American landscape painting; and third, like the Impressionists, they are painters of everyday life.

The artists whom Weir hosted at his farm around the turn of the century were coming to terms with the growing influence of the French Impressionists. When Weir first saw the work of Monet and Renoir in Paris in 1876, for example, he described the exhibition as "worse than the Chamber of Horrors." But by 1891, Weir's style--his use of broken outlines, loose and patchy brushwork, and thick application of oil color--owed so much to the Europeans that critics who saw his exhibitions labeled him an Impressionist.

Unlike the previous generation of Hudson River painters who searched for the most spectacular occurrences in nature, the American Impressionists concentrated on the effects of sunlight on uneventful stretches of land. They were more interested in meadows than canyons and would rather have spent an afternoon watching the glow of light in an apple orchard than join an expedition to South America.

SPERRY ANDREWS

Visitors who take advantage of the Thursday morning tours at Weir Farm are often given a personal tour of the grounds and studios by Sperry and Doris Andrews. They have a wealth of both statistical information and amusing anecdotes about the generations of artists who have lived and worked at the site. But there is just as much to enjoy in seeing and hearing about the art Sperry and Doris have created since they purchased the original Weir home in 1957. The house and studios are filled with prints, drawings, watercolors, and oils the two have created during their long and productive careers.

Sperry was particularly helpful to the magazine's invited guests in directing them to the spots where Weir and his friends painted a hundred years earlier. He led members of the group along the overgrown path to the pond Weir had put in and through the fields surrounding the house inherited by Cora Weir Burlingham, one of Weir's two daughters.

Sperry Andrews studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City, where Weir had been an active member and served as president from 1915 to 1917. The academy owns portraits Weir painted of his friends Albert Pinkham Ryder, Childe Hassam, Olin Levi Warner, and Robert Minor. Weir also sat for portraits by fellow academy members Warner and John Singer Sargent.

Some of the artists who recently set their easels up along the wooded paths in Branchville are clearly working within the tradition begun by the French and American Impressionists. Their palette, brushwork, and choice of subject matter have certainly been influenced by Monet, Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, Twachtman, Weir, and others. If the artists had not been influenced by such work, the landscape around Weir Farm would have seemed dull and inappropriate for their paintings: It does not offer views of cascading waterfalls or snow-capped mountains, but, rather, it presents an intimate New England space, occupied by empty clotheslines, rust-red barns, and gnarled fruit trees.

WEIR FARM

Julian Alden Weir grew up in West Point, New York, where his father taught drawing at the military academy. He was planning to build a summer residence further north in Keene, New York, until an extraordinary opportunity presented itself in 1882. Erwin Davis, an art collector for whom Weir had made astute purchases in Europe, offered to sell the artist a farm in Branchville for the price of $10 and one painting. The farm--with its one hundred fifty acres of land and buildings--quickly became the focal point of Weir's personal and professional life. Many historians believe he created his best paintings and prints out in the fields and in the small studio there.

The main house and grounds were inherited by Weir's daughter Dorothy, who was a painter and the wife of sculptor Mahonri M. Young. Young, a grandson of Brigham Young, built a second, larger studio on the property in order to execute a monumental sculpture project commissioned by the state of Utah. In 1957, the homestead was purchased by Young's friend and colleague Sperry Andrews, who, with his wife, Doris, still lives in the Weir house and uses both of the studios on the property.

The couple and Weir's descendants undertook the long and tedious process of having the farm named an official National Historic Site (to be managed by the National Park Service); the federal government accepted it in 1990. They also established a private trust to support activities at the farm. It is the intention of all who are concerned with the project that Weir Farm be made available to artists for painting and exhibiting their work, and, toward that end, an artist-in-residence program is being developed there. Both Sperry Andrews and the 1992-1993 visiting artist, Gerard Doudera, joined the outing hosted by American Artist.

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