California Tonalists- an unsuccessful experiment

I had my largest piece yet in the show. It is a funny story where I got the large canvas for this piece. I have a favorite thrift store in Santa Rosa. Certain days have half price sales. I am always looking for nice frames for half price. This particular day I came upon a giant canvas- one done by decorators in Mexico. Art factories produce these giant pieces to hang in hotel lobbies, etc.

I looked at this one and it was a genuine canvas in good condition (48" X 54") for $10. I bought it and went out to the car, and I could not fit it in. Luckily my friend, Andy, had his violin workshop less than a block away. I knocked on his door and fortunately he was there. With his tools we disassembled the whole piece, wooden support frame and gold outside frame. It took about 45 minutes, and I was almost late for work because of it. 

When I got it home, I turned it around- blank canvas facing the outside- hotel design on the inside. I had recently been to the Oakland Museum and I was inspired by a group of painting that I had seen. 

I will let an authority paint the scene, so to speak:

A new emphasis on art for art's sake reflected a greater sophistication among painters who had been exposed to newly imported European trends. The Barbizon group of artists in France had long been painting en plein air, that is, working out of doors and observing nature directly, to render scenes in spontaneous brushstrokes right on the canvas, without benefit of elaborate preliminary sketches. Their choice of modest domestic subjects on an intimate scale contrasted with the grand panoramas of an earlier style. Many American painters were turning away from the crisply defined, descriptive realism of an Albert Bierstadt toward more subjective interpretations realized through a style that has been termed "Tonalism." This was a then-vanguard approach to painting that helped in the eclipse of realism's popularity even as it rejected the tenets of French Impressionist-inspired plein-air painting. Nature remained the principal inspiration for Tonalism, particularly in landscape painting. The Tonalists explored quiet contemplative moods of nature experienced in the diminished light of early morning, late afternoon or evening. Often mysterious or romantic lighting effects were achieved through representations of atmospheric fog, mist or haze rendered in carefully controlled, low-key color harmonies that seem to envelop the subject, to soften or blur the imagery, leaving details to the poetic imagination of the observer.

Landscape Painters of Northern California 1870-1930    by Harvey L. Jones

Here is an example of some of their beautiful work. I attempted a simple piece in imitation of this style. In my next post I will tell the rest of the story.