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Wells Honors Thesis THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY DETAILS OF GRANDEUR: HOW THE PRE-RAPHAELITES INFLUENCED AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING LINDSAY WELLS SPRING 2013 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Art History, and Medieval Studies with honors in Art History Reviewed and approved* by the following: Joyce Robinson Curator, Affiliate Associate Professor of Art History Thesis Supervisor Brian Curran Professor of Art History Honors Adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT The British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, in the spirit of John Ruskin, strove to paint detailed and heartfelt works of art, with subject matter faithfully recorded from nature. After Ruskinian and Pre-Raphaelite influences crossed the Atlantic in the 1850s, a trend toward naturalism focused on botanical detail emerged in American art. While the Pre-Raphaelites became famous in England for their literary paintings, their American admirers were inspired to paint pure landscapes lacking almost all narrative and figural references. The following thesis explores why this mid-century phenomenon occurred. Pre-Raphaelite techniques were applied to American landscape painting because of the growing interest of artists during the nineteenth century in American scenery. Pre-Raphaelite publications and exhibitions in the United States also impacted how American artists appropriated Pre-Raphaelitism. The nature-centric trajectory of this movement may be more deeply understood through an examination of the career of William Trost Richards, whose landscapes were praised as quintessential examples of Pre- Raphaelite work. I will argue that exposure to Pre-Raphaelitism led Richards, who early on developed a great interest in nature, to paint meticulous compositions such as The Forest (1868), in which every inch of flora on the canvas is defined with observed precision and clarity. At the close of the nineteenth century, Pre-Raphaelitism was attacked by critics as time consuming and uninspired, which plunged the accomplishments of the American Pre-Raphaelites into obscurity for many decades. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures............................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1 Introduction: The Pre-Raphaelites ............................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 A Changing Landscape: The Hudson River School, The Crayon, The New Path, and the Exhibition of English Art .............................................................................. 6 Chapter 3 The Career of William Trost Richards....................................................................... 13 Chapter 4 Conclusion: The Decline of American Pre-Raphaelitism......................................... 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 26 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1-1: John Everett Millais, Portrait of John Ruskin (1854), oil on canvas, 31” x 27 ½”, Private Collection.......................................................................................................... 3 Figure 2-1: John William Hill, Apple Blossoms (ca. 1874), watercolor on paper, 8 13/16” x 15 1/2”, Brooklyn Museum ............................................................................................. 8 Figure 2-2: John Ruskin, Fragment of the Alps (1854-1856), watercolor and gouache over graphite on cream woven paper, 13 3/16” x 19 7/16”, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum................................................................................................................................. 11 Figure 3-1: Paul Weber, Border Crossing (1855), oil on canvas, 15" x 20", Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University.......................................................... 15 Figure 3-2: William Trost Richards, The Blackberry Bush (1858), oil on canvas, 14 3/4” x 12 1/2” Brooklyn Museum ............................................................................................... 16 Figure 3-3: William Trost Richards, The Forest (1868), oil on canvas, 40" x 54 1/2", Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University............................................. 17 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A Very Special Thanks… To my thesis advisor, Dr. Joyce Robinson. Thank you for introducing me to the American Pre-Raphaelites and for generously helping me visit the William Trost Richards exhibition, A Mine of Beauty: Landscapes by William Trost Richards, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Your support and mentoring has meant so much to me. To my honors advisor, Dr. Brian Curran. Thank you for all of the helpful advice on how to write a great thesis. I have loved discussing this topic with you over the past year. To Dr. Elizabeth Smith. Thank you for assisting me with this project at its very start. I have really appreciated your encouragement and support. To my parents. Thank you for the enthusiastic and unconditional support of my education. And thank you to the Palmer Museum of Art, the Penn State University Libraries, the Schreyer Honors College, and Penn State for supporting all of my undergraduate research endeavors. 1 Chapter 1 Introduction: The Pre-Raphaelites In the 1850s and 60s, a trend towards naturalism in art emerged in the United States that inspired the creation of some of the most detailed landscapes ever painted by American artists. This occurred shortly after the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite 1 Brotherhood in England and the introduction of John Ruskin’s literary voice in America. Although Ruskin wrote on many subjects, he became well known in America for his writings on nature and art. Ruskin’s influential treatise Modern Painters was published in the United 2 States in 1843. In this book, he urged artists to “Go into Nature in all singleness of heart ... rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing, ” which became a touchstone not 3 only for the British Pre-Raphaelites but also for several American landscapists. Inspired by Ruskin, American artists began to advocate realism and reject sentimentalism in their art 4 much as the British Pre-Raphaelites had before them. While the Pre-Raphaelites became famous in England for their literary paintings of scenes from Shakespeare, Dante, and Keats, their American admirers were inspired to paint pure landscapes lacking almost all narrative 5 and figural references. This phenomenon can be explained by the growing interest of artists in American scenery during the nineteenth century. In addition, Pre-Raphaelite publications and exhibitions in the United States also impacted how American artists appropriated Pre- Raphaelitism. The essential features of the American Pre-Raphaelite movement may be 1 William Gerdts, "The Influence of Ruskin and Pre-Raphaelitism on American Still-Life Painting," American Art Journal 1, no. 2 (1969): 82. 2 Roger B. Stein, John Ruskin and Aesthetic Thought in America, 1840-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 80. 3 David H. Dickason, The Daring Young Men: The Story of the American Pre-Raphaelites (New York: Indiana University Press, 1970), 76. 4 Stein, 152. 5 Stein, 112. 2 more deeply understood through an examination of the career of William Trost Richards, one of the most prolific and successful American Pre-Raphaelites. Although their methods came under harsh scrutiny at the close of the nineteenth century, the American Pre- Raphaelites are recognized today not only for their fastidious skills, but also for their devotion to celebrating the details of America’s varied scenery. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the American Arts and Crafts journal The Craftsman retrospectively defined the Pre-Raphaelites as a group of artists who “revolted against classicism as a foreign element introduced into England by Sir Joshua Reynolds and his contemporaries for whom the later Italian schools represented all that is beautiful and 6 desirable in art … [rejecting] conventions of the followers of ‘the grand style;’” David H. Dickason notes that the British Pre-Raphaelites found a model for change in the advice of 7 John Ruskin (1819-1900), who felt artists should strive to be completely faithful to nature. This meant that an artist was expected to rely on his or her own observations and experiences when painting. The Pre-Raphaelites believed art was meant to be straightforward and heartfelt, as opposed to formulaic and academic. Instead of imitating the artists of the High Renaissance that their predecessors had esteemed, the Pre-Raphaelites looked to earlier painters whom they believed had responded honestly to nature, such as Giotto and Botticelli.8 The Pre-Raphaelites also admired the artists of the Northern Renaissance. In his collection of essays The Elements of Drawing, Ruskin suggested that artists look to the painstakingly 9 detailed art of Albrecht Durer for inspiration. John Everett Millais (1829-1896), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) founded the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 in order to dedicate themselves to these new artistic ideals. Millais and Hunt in particular strove for precise depictions of the natural world in their early
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