Florence Griswold Museum

Sunset Over the Marsh (c 1890s)
Oil on canvas
Allen B. Talcott
Florence Griswold Museum

On Saturday April 28, 2007 I visited the Florence Griswold Museum.
With the student discount I was charged $7.oo to get in. If you are planning on visiting this museum, be advised to talk to the front desk about taking photographs. In my case they told me that they usually have a no photography policy, but as I explained my project they agreed to allow me access as long as I had a guide. The staff is friendly and very knowledgeable. Of all the museums I have visited so far, this one was by far the smallest.

Although we are rapidly approaching the end of this class, I am excited to say that my museum adventures will not. As a graduation gift, my wife and I are headed to Amsterdam, Belfast, and Paris. While there I will be visiting many sites including the Vincent Van Gogh Museum and Louvre Museum. I must say thank you to Jerry and all of my classmates for making this a good experience. From reading all of your blogs I see that I am not the only one who had a good time. If I hadn’t taken this class it is very likely that I may have never visited the museums I dis. I hate to admit it, but I was not aware of most of them and never would have guessed the size and quality of the local collections.

I chose Sunset Over the Marsh (see above) to write on. It was painted by Allen B. Talcott sometime in the 1890s. My eye was captured by the way this artist captured this breathtaking sunset. The colors are as true to life as I have seen in a painting, it is almost as good as a photograph. For me this works well as a focal point. As soon as I saw it I liked it and as I examined it I liked it even more. Between the detail used on the sun, or the reflection in the water (see below) Talcott certainly has captured this scene well.

This is the type of painting I would display in my home. The Florence Griswold Museum celebrates Connecticut. According to its website, “The artists who congregated at the Griswold House were among the most successful and cosmopolitan painters of their day. Henry Ward Ranger, Childe Hassam, and Willard Metcalf were just a few of the artists who found Old Lyme to be the perfect site to paint and relax because of its abundance of scenery for subject material, the camaraderie of fellow artists, and the hospitality of "Miss Florence" Griswold. Exposure to each other's paintings in Old Lyme informed their subsequent works by motivating them to experiment with new color palettes and techniques. Grouping works by Walter Griffin, Willard Metcalf, and Childe Hassam helps explain the influences these artists had on one another. Griffin's hard-point pastel drawings, such as Old Lyme, Connecticut (1907), affirm his stylistic affinity with his friend, Childe Hassam. Already an accomplished artist and teacher, Griffin experienced a breakthrough in Old Lyme, where contact with Hassam and Willard Metcalf inspired him to look at the landscape with fresh eyes. "The drawings inspired by this artistic exchange were among the most acclaimed works of Griffin's career," remarks Kurtz Lansing. Working outdoors, Griffin composed nearly pointillist pastels characterized by mesmerizing, rhythmic lines. Perhaps inspired by Griffin, Metcalf undertook a series of plein air sketches in pastel, despite his stated dislike of the medium. Metcalf's Lyme Hillside (1906) demonstrates that the artist embraced pastels with great success.” (http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/7aa/7aa730.htm)
The site says this about Sunset Over the Marsh, “The marshland over which Talcott's glorious sun sets may be in France, where he studied in the 1890s, or in his native Connecticut. This landscape's luminosity echoes the glowing quality found in works by fellow Tonalist painter Henry Ward Ranger, whom Talcott joined in Old Lyme in 1901. Comparison of this canvas with May Moon, the other Talcott painting in this gallery, reveals how quickly the artist would open himself to a light-infused plein air approach and textured brushwork once in Old Lyme. As his friends observed in his obituary after his death at only forty-one, his poetic sensibilities were not limited to capturing solitude in canvases like Sunset Over the Marsh, but also included reciting Robert Browning or Rudyard Kipling while painting outdoors.”

I went to askart.com to find out more about Allen B. Talcott, they say his style was “Impressionism before 1940”. He painted a variety of things from figures, floral art, human activity, landscapes, to still life. He studied in Paris before 1900, some of his teachers were Benjamin Jean-Joseph Constant, Jean Leon Gerome, and Jean Paul Laurens. I went to Virtualology.com to lean more about American Impressionists before 1900. They write” Unlike the traits associated with Academic artists, Impressionists rejected the idea of total devotion to imaginary subjects and the tedious and meticulous techniques. Instead, they opted for a style in which they could use rapid brushstrokes with a palette of vivid, moving colors.To the many young American artists whom were studying in Paris this new "radical" style of painting was revolting. J. Alden Weir (1852-1919) who, would later convert to Impressionism, in a letter to his parents described these paintings to be worse than a chamber of horrors! However, for those American painters who were inspired by Impressionism and would subscribe to its theory and practice would find their careers to be both pleasing and profitable. By the early 1890's, Impressionism had taken firm root in America and as it began to branch outward it would become a recognized valid artistic style. As the Impressionism movement gained momentum new opportunities presented themselves for the many in-demand artists. Some would find themselves in positions of teacher in the new art schools while others, like William Merrit Chase would conduct summer classes for many years to follow. While most American Impressionists preferred to leave behind the hectic pressures of their urban lives, some artists like Childe Hassam (1859-1935) were captivated by the continuous array of activities and motion which reflected prominently in their finished paintings. For those Impressionists who needed to escape from the congested and chaotic city life, they were afforded the opportunity to spend time with their colleagues in artist colonies which were secluded and surrounded by the serenity of nature. Others, like Charles H. Davis, who valued the benefit of solitude would spend his time painting in Mystic, along the Connecticut shore. Although deeply devoted to outdoor painting where they were able capture the effects of natural light and movement over a period of time, American Impressionists never totally abandoned their studio habits. Mary Cassatt, (1845-1926) for instance was inspired by the activities of people and to the domestic life to which they were committed. Many of her paintings, created in her studio, show women and children relaxing in a garden of tranquility or show them engaged in a domestic chore with in interiors that emit a sense of peace and harmony.”
Although Sunset Over the Marsh was my favorite see below for some other paintings from this school of painting that caught my eye.

Isles of Shoals,Childe Hassam(c1906)
Oil on canvas


Ten Pound Island, Childe Hassam (c1896-99)
Oil on canvas


Asparagus Bed and Twin Poplars, Walter Griffin (c 1911)
Oil on canvas