VOLUME 20, NUMBER 2, 1999
Monadnock Perspectives Commentary on Rural and Urban Design
Š 1999 Monadnock Perspectives
Monadnock and the Visual Arts BY MICHELLE STAHL
M
ount Monadnock first beckoned a band of military scouts to its isolated peak standing alone among the hills of southwestern New Hampshire in 1725. Since that time the mountain has drawn cartographers to map its slopes, farmers to clear trees and plant the thin soil, 19th century tourists to find summertime relief from the heat of Boston and students to explore its Ice Age rocks. Since the Masonian proprietors laid out the first farm lots, Monadnock has been home place, tranquil vacation spot and laboratory. But for many New England writers and artists the mountain has also been a muse for some 200 years. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, Dark flower of Cheshire garden, Red evening duty dyes Thy sombre head with rosy hues To fix far gazing eyes. Well the Planter knew how strongly Works thy form on human thought; I muse what secret purpose had he To draw all fancies to this spot. From the early 19th century to today, artists have been drawn to the rosy hues of Monadnock and have created images that celebrate its unique landscape and the ideas that have shaped our relationship to nature. The earliest depictions of Mount Monadnock resulted from the common practice of travel sketching and the prac-
Dr. Amos Emerson Dolbear. Mount Monadnock, c. 1860. Lithograph, 12 x 18". Peterborough Historical Society, Peterborough, N.H. tical need for maps in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Travel drawings were copied by lithographers and sold in print shops to the pre-photography market. These prints were the most widely known views of the mountain before the Civil War. The artists, some without formal training, revealed a newly settled landscape that was steadily being tamed. Dr. Amos Emerson Dolbear’s Mount Monadnock pays great attention to the topography of the mountain and the geometric pastures cut into the lower slopes. Two boats on the pond and a neat farm nestled next to the slopes lend a sense of agrarian tranquil-
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ity to the scene. Idyllic rural scenes were a Victorian favorite and these kinds of genre scenes were readily sold to an expanding art market. As the century progressed, the New England landscape was settled and America expanded west. Images of the Rockies, celebrating the vast promise and wealth of the West, revealed a wild spectacle, mysterious and untouched. Michelle Stahl is the Assistant to the Director at the Peterborough Historical Society. She holds an A.B. in Art History from Smith College. She lives in Bennington, New Hampshire.
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scape. Yet in this familiar place the mountain looms silent and timeless in the background. In many pictures Monadnock is shown to be larger and even more dominant than it is. While the Rockies represented the ambitions and potential of an unexplored country, Monadnock symbolized the unknown hidden behind the known. Beauty and divine truth found in the everyday is a central idea in Transcendental philosophy. Beginning with Emerson and Thoreau and continuing
J.W.A. Scott. Mt. Monadnock. Oil on canvas, 10 x 14". Nina and Jack DeLoge. The domesticated slopes of Monadnock seemed mundane compared to scenes of the spectacular West, scenes most Easterners would never see for them-
selves. In contrast to the great landscape painters of the West, the painters of Monadnock depict tidy farmhouses and trim fields, a known and mastered land-
William Preston Phelps (1848–1923). Mt. Monadnock, Winter, c. 1860. Oil on canvas, 29.5 x 17.5". Private collection.
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Following the Civil War, artists influenced by Transcendental philosophy and Japanese art began to paint landscapes from a more personal point of view. into the 20th century, writers have represented Monadnock as a site for this spiritual exploration. The landscape of Monadnock was a place to seek out the
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divine in the everyday. Following the and allegorical scenes, came to Dublin Civil War, artists influenced by Tran- after spending several summers in nearscendental philosophy and Japanese art by Keene. He joined a growing number began to paint landscapes from a more of painters connected with Boston and personal point of view. Images of Mon- the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, adnock in the late 19th century exhibit a group of painters that would come to this changing view of the landscape and be called the Dublin Colony. Although its meanings. Thayer had always had a keen interest William Preston Phelps’ Monadnock in the landscape, he did not fully develpaintings are a transition between the op his landscape painting until he took earlier genre scenes of the mountain and up residence at Monadnock. For Thaythe late 19th century work of the Dublin er, “things in their most familiar form Colony painters. Phelps, a Monadnock are more ravishing every day come over native, trained as a sign painter and de- again.”3 Thayer approached the landveloped a thriving business decorating scape as both mystic and scientist. Many carriages in Lowell, Massachusetts. At of his landscapes view the mountain the age of 27 he set out for Europe to train at the Royal AcadeThayer’s devotion to the my in Munich. Upon his return mountain extended beyond he began painting scenes of Monadnock.1 Unlike ways the earlier painting; he was a major force artists who portrayed Monadin the movement to save the nock in a traditional, academic popular mountain from manner, Phelps delights in a loose brush stroke and an intimate logging and development that composition. Phelps’ composiresulted in the creation of the tions lend the viewer a sense of immediacy, of being in the landMonadnock State Forest scape and reflect his desire to repin 1905. resent the landscape as one would experience it in life. Phelps does not merely describe the landscape from the same vantage point. Each but seeks to convey the spirit of the painting becomes a record of the day’s place. In 1897 he said, color, atmosphere and weather. Monadnock became his “spring of eternal . . . there is a sentiment, a feeling soul wealth”4 and the benevolence of which pervades the whole- you may collector Charles Lang Freer enabled call it the poetry of nature if you him to devote himself to painting the like- something which you cannot mountain between 1900 and his death see, which is not material and yet is in 1921. Thayer’s devotion to the mounas much a part of the landscape as tain extended beyond painting; he was a the trees and the grass themselves. If major force in the movement to save you don’t get that, your picture is the popular mountain from logging and nothing but a colored map.2 development that resulted in the creA sense of place, the experience of ation of the Monadnock State Forest in the landscape would come to dominate 1905. images of Monadnock into the 20th Drawn to the colony of painters setcentury. Phelps’ sensibility echoes that of tled on the shoulders of the mountain, a Abbott Handerson Thayer, the most new generation of painters took Monwidely known painter of Mount Mon- adnock as their subject. Thayer, formaladnock and a devoted admirer of Emer- ly trained himself, came to distrust acason and Transcendentalism. demic art instruction and took his pupils In 1888, Thayer, a mature and mod- into his own home so that they might erately successful painter of portraits learn by complete immersion.5 Many of Monadnock Perspectives
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Monadnock Perspectives, Inc. BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David Weir, President, Peterborough John J. Colony, III, Treasurer, Harrisville H. Meade Cadot, Jr., Hancock Howard Mansfield, Hancock Daniel V. Scully, Dublin ADVISORY BOARD
Robert P. Bass, Jr., Concord Christopher V. Bean, Jaffrey Michael B. Beebe, Hollis Paul O. Bofinger, Concord Eleanor Briggs, Hancock Daniel M. Burnham, Dublin Bruce Clement, Westmoreland Thomas S. Deans, Gorham John W. Derby, Sharon Jennifer DuBois, Peterborough H. Kimball Faulkner, Stoddard Mary Louise Hancock, Concord Nancy P. Hayden, Marlborough Mary E. Monahan, Harrisville Richard Monahan, Harrisville Karl G. Robinson, Marlborough Robert B. Stephenson, Jaffrey NEWSLETTER EDITOR
David Weir TYPESETTING AND DESIGN
Jill Shaffer Monadnock Perspectives, Inc., P.O. Box 95, West Peterborough, NH 03468-0095; (603)924-9114; e-mail: perspec@monad.mv.com. web site: www.mv.com/ipusers/monad/ Membership in Monadnock Perspectives, which includes a subscription to this quarterly newsletter, is deductible for Federal Income Tax purposes and available as follows: Student/Senior Citizen $3, Individual $5, Couple $7.50, Family $10, Regular $15, Sustaining $100, Benefactor $250 or more.
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Rockwell Kent (1882– 1971). Monadnock Afternoon, 1909. Oil on canvas, framed: 38 x 48". Collection of the Fitchburg Art Museum. Gift of Mrs. Paul Mellon in memory of her grandfather Arthur H. Lowe. the Monadnock painters of the early 20th century studied with Thayer. Rockwell Kent, Barry Faulkner, Richard Meryman, Alexander James and Elizabeth Fuller all spent time in their early careers tramping the forest paths with Thayer. Rockwell Kent came to Dublin in 1903 to work as Thayer’s studio assistant. Thayer and Dublin would have a lasting impact on Kent and his development as an artist. The first painting he sold, Dublin Lake, is a scene of the mountain and sky reflected on the water, a subject he would favor throughout his career.6 Kent combines Thayer’s mysticism with a masculine,
Many of the Monadnock painters of the early 20th century studied with Thayer. Rockwell Kent, Barry Faulkner, Richard Meryman, Alexander James and Elizabeth Fuller all spent time in their early careers tramping the forest paths with Thayer.
necessarily set apart from the natural environment. For Kent, man’s spirit and his connection to the divine is at its greatest when he is engaged with nature. During Kent’s many visits to Thayer’s studio after 1903, he encountered a large number of students who came to Dublin to study with the master. In the early years of the century American artists felt the impact of European modernism. The multiplicity of styles and philosophies and the tension between tradition and innovation fostered by
that movement would mark the 20th century paintings of Mount Monadnock. While the spiritual aspects of nature continued to be important to modernist landscape painters, the formal qualities of painting became paramount. Alexander James and Elizabeth Fuller both explored the evocative and formal qualities of color and composition under Thayer and their paintings reflect this preoccupation. Barry Faulkner, another Thayer pupil and a cousin, took a different direction from his fellow stu-
J.A. French. Monadnock Mountain Scenery – Dublin, NH, c. 1891. Albumen print, 8.5 x 5.25"mount. Dublin Historical Society.
athletic attitude to the landscape that is not unlike Winslow Homer’s later works. For Thayer, a man was a thread in the great tapestry of nature, necessarily tied to the other threads to make the whole. Kent viewed man’s relationship to nature in a different way with man Monadnock Perspectives
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Arthur V. Diehl (1870–1929). Just a song at Twilight — Mount Monadnock, 1925. Oil on canvas, framed: 27.25 x 47". Private collection. dents and pursued the social and political aspects of art. His Men of Monadnock, a mural influenced by the social realism movement, uses the landscape as a stage to celebrate the men who shaped art and thought in America. As the 20th century progressed, images of Monadnock continued to reflect the many currents in modern art with abstraction and realism both represented. Artists of other mediums, including photographers and performance artists began to take Monadnock as their subject but the mountain has also had an enduring appeal for painters. Wolf Kahn, a
German born American painter, paints his landscapes from a perspective that engages both modernism and tradition. His paintings have been called, “both landscapes and abstractions of landscapes.”7 This combination of the traditional and the modern forces us to question our notions of representation and the experience of nature and reality. With the approach of a new century, Mount Monadnock continues to be a
Charles Curtis Allen (1886–1950). Indian Summer. Oil on canvas, 30 x 36". New England Gallery, Andover, MA.
source of inspiration to artists. This mountain muse has inspired artists for nearly 200 years; their works reflect not only the timeless quality of the mountain’s landscape but also the changes in America’s perceptions and ideas about nature. From the early topographical sketches and the nostalgic Victorian genre scenes to the Thayer’s and Kahn’s explorations of painting and the spirit of the place, Monadnock has drawn “all fancies to this spot.” Notes: 1. Rolf H. Kristiansen and John J. Leahy, Jr., Rediscovering Some New En-gland Artists 1875-1900 ( Dedham, MA: Gardner- O’Brien Associates, 1987) 139-143. 2. Kristiansen and Leahy 152- 153. 3. Ross Anderson, Abbott Handerson Thayer (Syracuse, NY: The Everson Museum, 1982) 43. 4. Thayer papers, Archives of American Art, D2OO Fr. 956. 5. Anderson 15. 6. West, Richard V., An Enkindked Eye,” The Paintings of Rockwell Kent A Retrospective Exhibition (Santa Barbara, GA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1985) 1618. 7. Hobbs, Robert, “Wolf Kahn Checkmating the Vanguard, Questioning Tradition.” Wolf Kahn: New Landscapes (New York: Grace Borgenicht Gallery, 1993).
This article is reprinted with the kind permission of the Fitchburg Art Museum from the catalog for their exhibition, Monadnock September 26, 1999– January 9, 2000. Monadnock Perspectives
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Volume 20 Number 2
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PERSPECTIVE
A Monadnock of an Art Exhibition
T
he Fitchburg (MA) Art Museum has created a wonderful exhibition of paintings, photographs, signage, memorabilia and other objects relating to the depiction and use of Mount Monadnock, which will continue through January 9, 2000. “Monadnock” is Algonquin for “mountain that stands alone” — a good description of this fine exhibit. Of particular interest are the paintings of the Mountain, which show an evolution in style from literal to more abstract and which together convey the
ebbing of the pastoral landscape back into forest. All the well-known Monadnock artists are represented, including the former local sign painter William Preston Phelps, as well as the more formally-trained Albert Handerson Thayer
MONADNOCK Fitchburg Art Museum Fitchburg, Massachusetts September 26, 1999– January 9, 2000
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and his school of Dublin Art Colony painters. In addition to their technical painting skills, they were excellent colorists and effectively captured the hues of the Mountain in different seasons The Fitchburg Art Museum is located behind the Fitchburg Common at 185 Elm Street and is open TuesdaySaturday 11 AM to 4 PM and Sunday 1-4 PM. Admission is $3 for adults; children and students go free. For more information and directions, call the main number at 978-345-4207. – David Weir
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