Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts displays American Impressionism: Paintings from the Phillips Collection |
 |
 |
| Saturday, 21 June 2008 05:40 |
|
Montgomery, AL - Since the late 19th century, Americans have always had a fascination with Impressionism, a French-born style of painting depicting landscapes and scenes of life using natural light and virtuoso brushwork. The Phillips Collection, America’s first Museum of Modern Art, which began in the Washington, D.C. home of Ducan Phillips in 1921, helped raise awareness and appreciation for artists and their works with its broad representation of impressionist paintings, both French and American. Highlighting the “golden age” of American Impressionism, The Phillips Collection has organized its more than 50 American Impressionist paintings into a traveling exhibition for the first time in nearly 25 years. The exhibition, American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection, opened in Washington, D.C. in 2007 and will be on display at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts July 4 through October 19, 2008. It will travel in 2008 and 2009 to museums in Memphis, Tennessee; Rochester, New York; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition and its excellent accompanying catalogue, American Impressionists: Painters of Light and the Modern Landscape, features paintings by such acclaimed American artists such as William Merritt Chase, William Glackens, Lilian Westcott Hale, Childe Hassam,Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, Helen M. Turner, John Henry Twachtman, and Julian Alden Weir, among others.  Impressionism began as an art movement in the 1860s in Paris by a group of artists who included such household names as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Their work broke the rules of standard academic painting by using short, thick brushstrokes to capture the essential form of a subject as revealed by light, rather than its details. The Impressionists also took their work outdoors. Previously, still lifes, portraits, and, even landscapes, were painted indoors, and often adapted from earlier drawings and preliminary studies. Impressionists captured actual sunlight by painting en plein air, or outof-doors.After the end of the Civil War in 1865, American art patrons, many of whom had made fortunes from the war, traveled abroad and embraced European culture. To announce their wealth and sophistication, they built grand houses, showcasing imported paintings by old masters as well as contemporaries. In order to appeal to these prospective patrons, aspiring American artists studied in Europe, especially Paris, where Impressionism was quickly gaining notoriety. Soon after, American artists began developing a style of Impressionism that was similar to their French counterparts; however, rather than replicating the French style, their work developed into an American interpretation. They, too, painted en plein air, sought to convey sunlight, and often painted landscapes and scenes of leisure, but American Impressionists retained more structure and realism in their work, some even tapping into urban life and the cultural energy that was increasingly concentrated in Northern cities. With the start of WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII, Impressionism lost its cutting-edge as contemporary art became to be regarded as more in-touch with a chaotic world, and took  precedence. In the 1950’s, however, Impressionism experienced a resurgence that continues today.American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection is organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The exhibition and national tour are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the American Masterpieces Program. The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday Noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free and donations are welcome. For more information, call the MMFA at 334.240.4333 or visit the website at www.mmfa.org . The Museum opened in the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park on September 18, 1988. Since that time, over one million visitors have enjoyed the wide range of exhibitions and programs offered throughout the year. An unusually successful partnership of public and private commitment to the arts in Montgomery, Alabama has assured the future of one of the South’s premier cultural institutions. Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
Related Articles :
