74 
House & Garden 
De corative American Landscapes 
(Continued from page 33) 
by some, and they make splendid decora¬ 
tions for Old English rooms. The early 
work of George Inness, also, falls in this 
classification. Inness was an engraver in 
his youth, and his earliest pictures, done 
in the 40’s and e?rly 50’s, closely follow 
the designs of old English engravings. 
Some of these early Americans were mas¬ 
terful technicians, but their works are out 
of vogue now, having been superseded 
by the tonalists, painting under the Bar- 
bizon influence, and the Impressionists. 
Modern Expressions 
When landscapes by the American tonal¬ 
ists and Impressionists are considered as 
decorations, it is found that the element 
of chronology is not only disregarded but 
actually reversed, for the older style of the 
tonalists is found to be inferior to the newer 
one of the Impressionists when it comes to 
Colonial interiors. This is due to the fact 
that the airy qualities of the Impressionist 
landscapes are foimd to harmonize with 
the lightsomeness of Coionial interiors; 
whereas the rich work of the tonalists fits 
in with equal appropriateness in rooms 
after the Old English model. 
Determination of suitability depends 
not only upon the light, but equally as 
much on the color and texture of the walls. 
There should not be so much contrast be¬ 
tween a picture and its background that 
attention will be distracted; in other words 
a wall should be a continuation of the 
frame. If an impressionist picture is hung 
against a dark wall it literally “jumps 
out” at the beholder in a way that is dis¬ 
quieting; he may not stop to reason out 
just what the matter is, but there is a 
disturbed feeling. Likewise, if a rich and 
deep toned picture is placed on the light 
walls of a Colonial room it looks in¬ 
appropriate for the same reason. It is 
because of this peculiar behavior of pic¬ 
tures in relation to their backgrounds that 
a dealer will cover the walls of his gallery 
with burlap of a neutral hue, or, as in one 
instance, obtain an expensive textile and 
place it against the wall with the wrong 
side out. 
The Tonal Masters 
Illustrious examples of American ar¬ 
tists who painted in the tonal manner are 
George Inness (in his middle and last per¬ 
iods), Homer B. Martin and Alexander 
H. Wyant. These men followed the Bar- 
bizon tradition, and vastly improved on it. 
Not one of them but will rank years hence 
as having achieved more than Corot. 
Their method of painting was to spread 
one thin and transparent layer of paint 
over another, and to keep on doing this 
until the desired effect was achieved. 
Subtle tones and great depth were ob¬ 
tained, but this method could not give 
vibration or radiating effects of light. 
Other notable followers of the tonal 
tradition have been Ballard Williams, 
whose love for French design also makes 
his pictures appropriate for any of the 
French period rooms; thelate Henry Ward 
Ranger, who perhaps was the closest fol¬ 
lower of Barbizon ideas of any American 
painter; Louis Paul Dessar, who is fond 
of dusky and rich colors that have great 
depth; the late William Keith, who ob¬ 
tained vivid color and contrast in his wes¬ 
tern subjects, and who was the idol of 
California; the late Gedney Bunce, who 
loved expansive gold and red, which re¬ 
mind one of Turner’s bursts of color; and 
Elliott Daingerfield, whose technique re¬ 
sembles that of Inness with the exception 
that he has added a dramatic quality that 
is peculiarly his own. 
Impressionist Methods 
The method of the Impressionist is 
vastly different from that of the tonalist. 
Instead of getting his effects by letting one 
layer of pigment be seen under another 
layer, he uses pure paint, more or less 
thickly applied, placing one color along¬ 
side of another color. The eye at a dis¬ 
tance combines the two, producing vibra¬ 
tion. There is an airiness about Impress¬ 
ionist pictures, and a sparkling quality of 
color, not obtained by any of the older 
schools. 
The first American Impressionists were 
John H. Twachtman and Theodore Rob¬ 
inson. The furore they caused, and the 
acrimony of the discussion, is well remem¬ 
bered by art lovers of the older generation. 
In America they stood for the cause up¬ 
held in France by Monet, Pissaro and Sis¬ 
ley. The Academicians said these men 
did not knowhow to draw. As a matter of 
fact, as proved by their very early work, 
they were excellent draughtsmen, but their 
problem had now become that of painting 
light rather than form. It was an innova¬ 
tion, and the public did not at first grasp 
what they were trying to do. Unfair 
standards were applied to their work, and 
it was ridiculed. But there was a scien¬ 
tific foundation, as well as the more im¬ 
portant one of beauty, and the public soon 
began to admire and then to desire their 
pictures. One of the pleasant things dis¬ 
covered was that these pictures, whose 
themes were in reality atmosphere and 
light, were particularly appropriate to- 
Colonial homes. 
Twachtman and Robinson have had 
worthy followers in landscape in Childe 
Hassam, whose pictures are much in de¬ 
mand; in Willard Metcalf, in Daniel Gar¬ 
ber, in Emil Carlsen, whose works have 
an infinite refinement, in Charles H. Davis, 
in Ernest Lawson and in scores of others, 
all of whom love vibrating light as well 
as design. 
Some of our best known painters have 
either combined the methods of the ton¬ 
alist and the Impressionist, or have used 
both methods with success at different 
times. For instance, James Francis Mur¬ 
phy, who is regarded as the most popular 
of living American artists, combines both 
methods. He juxtaposes pigments and he 
builds up by means of glazes, and his pic¬ 
tures look equally well in Elizabethan or 
in Colonial interiors. The late Henry 
Golden Dearth in his first period was a. 
tonalist and in his second a modified 
Impressionist. 
The landscapes of Dwight M. Tryon, 
J. Alden Weir, Gardener Symons, Horatio- 
Walker and Ben Foster are suitable for 
both sorts of interiors, depending on the 
particular subjects. 
But what of the landscapes of Fuller, 
A. P. Ryder and Blakelock? These were 
painters whose work was so individual 
that it does not classify and their pictures- 
are pre-eminently collector’s pieces. 
An isolated instance is that of the land¬ 
scapes with figures by Maurice Prender- 
gast, extreme Impressionist, which have 
patterns that remind one of textiles. The 
term “fretted beauty” has been applied 
to them. They are in perfect consonance 
with tapestries, and may be utilized with 
tapestries in a decorative scheme. 
The Room for the Picture 
Just a step further and we have arrived 
at so-called “extreme” art. There is a cer¬ 
tain room done by William and Margaret 
Zorach, post-impressionists, in which they 
have used “landscape embroideries” which 
have been echoed by decorative hooked 
rugs, as part of a scheme in which painted 
furniture is made to do its part. Then 
there is a room executed by S. MacDonald 
Wright, who is half futurist, half post-im¬ 
pressionist, for Mr. De Wald, of New York. 
City, in which the artist’s colorful sug¬ 
gestions of landscape are supplemented 
by dyed curtains, pottery made by the 
artist, and painted furniture, all done in 
the key of the spectrum—synchromatic 
decoration, if you will. In this case the 
room is a single artistic unit. 
From these last two examples it can- 
be seen that the use of post-impressionist,, 
futurist and cubistic landscapes, is as free- 
from old tradition as the paintings them- 
(1 Continued on page 76) 
