between realism and abstraction, because he saw himself auditory, and emotional aspects of their experiences in this as an artist who could bridge the gap between these styles. place. While he disassociated himself from specific schools of art, he revered Piet Mondrian, an early twentieth-century pioneer • Instruct students to read Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County of pure, non-objective abstraction. One of the century’s most Almanac, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond , or Rachel influential artists, Mondrian had sought to express the essential Carson’s Silent Spring. Ask students to consider how these beauty of the real world “with the utmost awareness.” He authors simultaneously instruct, inspire, and entertain their was, like Welliver, inspired by nature and wanted to come as readers. Facilitate a discussion on the literary approaches that close as possible to expressing its essential elements. Welliver each author takes to communicate a call to environmental also was deeply influenced by Joseph Albers, his teacher at stewardship. and a prominent abstract painter and theorist. Albers taught Welliver about perception and color optics; that Natural Science is, how colors interact as perceived by the human eye. Neil • Select a segment of the natural area around the school. Welliver is well known for his contributions to contemporary Guide the students in examining this natural site, asking them landscape painting. He is also known for his reverence for and to remark on each aspect they notice, including colors, shapes, relationship to his subject matter—he lived and breathed the sizes, growth stages and vitality, surrounding habitat, etc. Ask natural beauty he depicted. He said, “If you give yourself to a them to discuss the ways that this natural spot is maintained place, you begin to feel its power.” and what its existence contributes to other natural beings as well as to human activity in the area. Neil Welliver’s land stewardship continued upon his death of a heart attack in April, 2005, with his bequest of 700 acres to • Neil Welliver lived a sustainable life, including making ’s Coastal Mountains Land Trust. his own source of electricity by installing windmills on his property. Ask students to use the internet to search for information about renewable sources of energy. Instruct the Lesson Ideas students to make lists of ways they can conserve energy and Visual Art reduce waste. Ask them to choose one idea from their list and • Introduce students to the process of field study. Ask act on it for one week. Ask them to present their results to students to select a limited number of drawing materials to their classmates and to tell about the impacts of their efforts take outdoors; instruct them to choose and make sketches on their daily lives. of natural subjects. After returning to the classroom, guide the students in making paintings or finished drawings from their sketches. Ask them to consider which details they will Resources emphasize and how they will modify their compositions to fit On the Artist a larger scale. alexandregallery.com/artists/view/14

• Neil Welliver came of age as a painter at a time when Context most artists turned away from traditional subjects, such as Coastal Mountains Land Trust, coastalmountains.org landscape, and towards abstraction. Although influenced by Green Earth Book Award, newtonmarascofoundation.org the ideas of his peers, Welliver felt called to landscape painting. Aldo Leopold, aldoleopold.org/About/foundation.shtml Ask students to choose a work from an abstract artist such as Jackson Pollock, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, , Piet Mondrian, etc. Instruct them to select a characteristic of the work—color palette, gesture, composition, technique—as the guiding principle for a landscape drawing or painting. Ask students to share what they have chosen to emulate and how they have incorporated that element into their landscape.

Language Arts • Read a book about environmental stewardship, selecting Neil Welliver,Prospect Stream, 1974, oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches. Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Purchase, through the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Renfert. © 1974 from winners of the Green Earth Book Award. Discuss the Neil Welliver main characters, plot line, and sequence of events.

• Invite the students to select a place in nature that holds meaning for them. Instruct them to write a descriptive essay or poem about this place, using words to evoke the visual, Neil Welliver . Do you think this this think you Do . Prospect Stream Prospect group of American landscape painters painters landscape of American group also called nonobjective art or nonrepresentational nonrepresentational or art nonobjective called also the science of how colors interact as perceived by by perceived as interact colors of how science the the careful and responsible management of management responsible and careful the a final study drawn on paper with pencil, graphite, graphite, pencil, with paper on drawn study final a the depiction of things as they appear in nature without without nature in appear they as of things depiction the method of painting on freshly applied plaster, usually usually plaster, applied freshly on of painting method on wall surfaces; the artist composes a cartoon, then makes makes then cartoon, a composes artist the surfaces; charcoal wall on drops finally and lines, contour the along perforations original of the transfer a make to lines perforated the over dust drawing a to refers name 1870; and 1825 between worked who location; geographic a to than rather of intent of similarity beauty natural of the celebration its in nationalistic strongly landscape American the stylization or distortion care one’s to entrusted something exploration of color relationships and manipulation of colors of colors manipulation and relationships of color exploration nature in found imagery stylized and exaggerated its capture to efforts inspired nature with bond intimate essence appears that method painting meticulous and well-planned spontaneous and fluid deceptively in object real a of painting—as nature dual the on emphasis of reality representation a as and of itself, and Do nature? with relationship a experience you do ways what In not? why or Why outdoors? the in comfortable feel you in see you what Describe outdoors? the in time spending value people some do Why or through of moving experiences the do effects What us? on have nature in time Do spending beings? wild and places wild to responsibility our should is we What that belief Welliver’s Neil with disagree or agree you support to cite you can facts What of wilderness? care take opinion? your What of water. body ofactual an name the is Stream Prospect stream the might Why “prospect”? word of the meaning the is Stream? Prospect named been have world visible the from of things portrayal the which in art part no plays for guideline main the as painting fresco in used etc.; charcoal, plaster laid freshly onto design the transferring eye human the place exists in nature or has it been created from the artist’s artist’s the from created been it has or nature in exists place so? think think you you do do Why Why imagination? wide. feet 8 and tall feet 8 painting is of the scale painting the This does How size? this it painted artist the subject? of its experience your impact

fresco School River Hudson realism stewardship Key Ideas Key • • • • • Questions Discussion 1. 2. 4. 5. 6. Vocabulary abstraction cartoon optics color 3.

caption put their meaning in words, but I try to do it in paint.” put their meaning in words, Welliver’s life was punctuated with tragedy. In 1971, his closest childhood friend drowned in 1975, a a fire pond. destroyedWelliver’s farmhouse In and most of his paintings. (He later said of1976, In myself.”) burned have should I the paintings those fire, “Most of Welliver’s infant daughter, Ashley, died Infant of Death Syndrome; Sudden six months Polly, died later, of his a wife, viral infection. Coincidentally, by the mid had Welliver 1970’s, entirely eliminated the figure was this that speculated have writers Art work. his from historyofhis to Adding grief. loss, profound his to due son Eli, age Welliver’s 20, was murdered in 1991 while studying in Thailand, later and died a second son, Silas, as well. Welliver was not concerned about the distinction appointment was at the University of Pennsylvania in to 1989. Philadelphia, where he taught from 1966 acquired a farmhouseIn 1970, Welliver in Lincolnville, Maine, on land purchasing to adjoining which properties. he Welliver owned gradually eventually more added than 1600 by acres, of including the a Duck segment Trap land stewardship River. and he He forbade lumbering, was hunting, concerned and with snowmobiling on his property. He sufficiency and installed windmills even two to provide valued self- electrical power to his home. He would walk for miles through the brush in summer and winter to observeand select the scenes he represented in his Welliver artworks. commuted apartment an kept also wife from his and he and Philadelphia, the farm in New City York for twelve years. But his to art focused teach on in the woods of Maine, and that most is of where his time. he “For me,” he said, spent “these places are often nondescript corners, small things, not can’t I of19th-century vistas School. River Hudson the the big Prospect is a good example of Neil Welliver’s ability a goodis of example Welliver’s Neil , Welliver’s primary concern was the exploration ofprimary exploration the concern was Welliver’s , He earned a Bachelor of Philadelphia Fine Museum Arts College degree of from the Master of Art Fine in Arts degree 1953 at Yale University and in His 1955. first a teaching positionwas as a studio instructor at Cooper Union in New York City. He ten later taught years for at Yale. His final and longlasting academic chance chance encounter in New Union City’s York Square. He said, “I was told by a fortune teller question not specific a her to ask to me use asked She paint. charcoal my with and I said, ‘I use charcoal with my paint.’ I thought that me, to said She that?’ continue I ‘Should specific. very was Very do it.’ ‘Don’t said, She ‘Yes.’ I said, and messy?’ it ‘Is That’s since. it done never I’ve funny. very and affirmative good advice for a dollar.” After Welliver sprayed receiving a this synthetic advice, varnish over a drawing from mingling with the paint. the charcoal prevent to ProspectStream to make paintings seem as if quickly in they the have open been air. painted He sections, actually fusing areas of painted wet paint into slowly, wet paint in so in that As applied. rapidly and fluid appears material the Stream ofof shades color, between differences subtle the colors, and the impressions of light that these color relationships. could be evoked by Notes Biographical Artist: The was born in Neil 1929 Welliver in Millville, Pennsylvania. said, “I never try to get the color I’m looking at. I never “To explained, further He NEVER.” see. I color the copy imitate nature you need a tube of air or something and I makes ofthat tube a something found I so have air, don’t it look like air there’s in the color. Does that make sense to you?” He has said that in his “color paintings, reaches He the typically ultimate used pitch.” sound-effect words ofto describe his handling color. larger a to outdoors the in made he studies the transfer To canvas, firstWelliver completed a cartoon of the image on a large sheet of paper and used a serrated perforate the drawn He lines. then wheel stapled the paper to to a ofthat similar to process a Using canvas. painting, fresco developed centuries ago to create wall murals, Welliver lightly dropped, or “pounced,” a bag of over the charcoal perforated dust lines; the dust penetrated the small holes in the paper, transferring the lines to the When canvas. he applied paint to the canvas, he top and his worked way down until began the composition was at the a correctionsto or adjustments made never He complete. finished painting. abruptly Welliver adjusted his transfer technique upon a to avoid purely naturalistic depictionsnaturalistic purely of avoid to once He nature. , fully eight Prospect Stream , Neil Welliver altered, exaggerated, Prospect Stream blue, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, and talens green—as talens and yellow, cadmium yellow, lemon blue, he hiked in the woods looking for potential subjects. He limited himself to these eight colors because he wanted Although his style is 70-pound traditional approach to making a First, a painting. he made carrying contemporary, air, open Welliver the in used paintings his a for studies ivory colors—white, paint eight only containing backpack black, cadmium red, scarlet, manganese blue, ultramarine By carefully controlling color relationships and illusion, spatial Welliver aimed to emphasize the “fact Though painting.” he of chose subjects that are part of the the the that understand to viewer the wanted he world, natural painting is an object in itself, as well as an interpretation of reality. descriptive; descriptive; he chose instead deeper, and darker, more brighter, saturated colors. His manipulation and of flattening color of spaceequilibrium as upsets we engage with what, our expectations for and many be a familiar scene. would people, Although the painting’s landscape subject is part ofpart long is a subject landscape painting’s the Although ofis style its tradition, representationhis In moment. the of and intangible its convey to nature stylized and simplified, capture the ephemeral qualities and To essence. changing transparency of light, he avoided colors that were purely recalls the heroic grandeur of painting. 19th-century landscape Still, are we on stream or into these woods? along this walking ourselves sure footing here? Can we imagine piercing verticality of the birch forms trees of and the rocks languid and boulders. logical The sense of artist depth constructs by depicting a objects in expected relationships within a foreground, middle ground, and background. The large scale of feet high and immerses wide, the in viewer the scene and offer a refreshing, contemplative moment in time. contemplative offer a refreshing, The eye is drawn along the travels path and corner right lower of painting’s the from emerges the stream, which in a jagged line through the bottom half of the painting. The diagonal course of the stream contrasts with the across and around rocks and boulders. A bright, clear day day clear bright, A boulders. and rocks around and across in summer is suggested by the strong contrast between light and dark—the woods in the background are nearly black while the chartreuse-colored trees and gray rocks ofifsun mountain as strong high illuminated the a are by plateau. Dappled light and pools that reflect the blue sky The Art: What’s Going on Here? Going What’s Art: The Water courses through a clearing in birch and a evergreen lush trees. forest An of atmosphere ofmoves sounds it imagined as by stream punctuated the of quiet is