Mood, tone express impressionist art

Published: November 16, 2008

There is only a little human drama but plenty of atmospheric mood, subtle tonality and lively brushwork in the "American Impressionism: Paintings from the Phillips Collection” exhibit. Containing 54 oil paintings from the Washington, D.C., museum and collection, the show is on view through Jan. 18 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

A light touch and almost feathery brush strokes distinguish an elevated, cross valley view of "Giverny,” done in about 1889 by Theodore Robinson (a close associate of Claude Monet.)

A lady in a long pink dress, a street sweeper, a woman pushing a baby, and a horse-drawn carriage provide a nearly perfect complement to the architectural structure behind them in "Washington Arch, Spring.”

One of the show’s finest works, "Washington Arch, Spring” was done in about 1893 by Childe Hassam. Much more pastoral and secluded is the white house in the middle distance, surrounded with greenery and basking in sunshine, that supplies the focal point of an oil by John H. Twachtman.

Equally delightful is "The Fishing Party,” an oil by J. Alden Weir of three people with poles and a shadowy fourth person on a rickety looking bridge at the artist’s Connecticut farm. "New England Birches” on a rise punctuate our view of a blue New Hampshire mountain, while pink blossoming trees herald "May in the Mountains,” in two oils by Ernest Lawson.

A blanket of snow and the bare branches of several frozen, almost calligraphic trees in the foreground add to the atmospheric impact of "Harlem Valley, Winter,” a superb oil by Lawson. Trees also provide a scrim of sorts, veiling our view of the Washington Bridge at 181st Street, in two nearly jewel-like oils by Lawson.

A tiny figure in the distance supplies much-needed scale to an oil of "The Tow Path” beside the quiet waters of the Delaware Canal by Pennsylvania artist William L. Lathrop. Another Pennsylvania-based artist, John Folinsbee contributes a small masterpiece in his oil of barge mules "Along the Canal.”

Once called "the American van Gogh,” Allen Tucker relies on vigorous, vibratory brush strokes to animate an undated oil of a white house on "The Rise” of a massive, sunlit green hill. Reynolds Beal also brings a somewhat van Gogh-esque feel to his handling of a moody 1918 oil of blanket-covered "Beach Ponies.”

In "Winter (New York in Snow),” Augustus Vincent Tack relies on falling flakes to animate and unite his atmospheric, evocative oil of red brick buildings on a street corner during a blizzard. Windblown sailboats and a redheaded woman in a swimming costume on a long wooden dock provide visual interest to an oil of "Bathers at Bellport” by William Glackens.

William Prendergast creates lush, decorative, tapestry-like effects in his oils of people enjoying themselves "Under the Trees” and in a picturesque "Landscape Near Nahant.” Even more lively and engaging is a 1922 oil of performers in the "Center Ring” of a traveling Boston area circus by Gifford Beal.

A tribute to the vision of Duncan Phillips, the exhibit is highly recommended.

— John Brandenburg

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