New Britain Museum of American Art

Spring Tapestry (c 1930)
Oil on canvas
Ernest Lawson
New Britain Museum of American Art

On Wednesday April 18, 2007 I visited the New Britain Museum of American Art.
The museum cost under $10 to get in. While visiting the museum, I would advise getting a bite to eat in the café, the food is really good. The museum is undergoing some renovations, so some of the areas are not open. Trolling through the rooms I thought that the people responsible for the placement of the paintings did a good job matching the pieces to compliment each other. The museum has pieces that span America’s history. There is a good mix of old and new. Throughout the museum, there are several benches which all have their own unique styles; they are pieces of art on their own.

The piece that really struck me was Spring Tapestry by Ernest Lawson. The point of view is standing on a high point over looking a riverside town. Even though the scene is peaceful, the painting is created in a chaotic way with the use of color and technique.
(see below).

Lawson named many of his works after the seasons and many show a scene similar to this one. This painting is similar to his work Shadows, Spuyten Duyvil Hill shown in the Metropolitan museum of art. Ernest Lawson is also displayed in the Wadsworth.
Ernest Lawson was an American Impressionist. Wikipedia tells us “From the 1890s through the 1910s, American impressionism flourished in art colonies—loosely affiliated groups of artists who lived and worked together and shared a common aesthetic vision. Art colonies tended to form in small towns that provided affordable living, abundant scenery for painting, and relatively easy access to large cities where artists could sell their work. Some of the most important American impressionist artists gathered at Cos Cob and Old Lyme, Connecticut, both on Long Island Sound; New Hope, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware River; and Brown County, Indiana. American impressionist artists also thrived in California at Carmel and Laguna Beach; in New York on eastern Long Island at Shinnecock, largely due to the influence of William Merritt Chase; and in Boston where Edmund Charles Tarbell and Frank Weston Benson became important practitioners of the impressionist style.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Impressionism)
What initially drew me to this painting was Lawson’s use of color. The painting consists of vivid greens, oranges, yellows, and whites. (see below)

I found the following paragraph on http://www.nbmaa.org/Gallery_htmls/lawson.html “Spring Tapestry is one of Ernest Lawson's most masterful summations of his singular landscape painting style. A second generation Impressionist, Lawson's practice of "stitching" short, rapid strokes of color into a tapestry-like whole recalls the works of Willard L. Metcalf, Twachtman, and Weir. However, his affinity with other members of The Eight is revealed not only in his general preference for urban scenery but also in his insistence, underlying the flurry of broken brushwork, on the concreteness of nature and the continuing human presence within it. This tension between the gentle Impressionist poetry of spring and the bustle of urban life makes up a large part of Lawson's unique vision as a landscape painter.”
Overall I had a good time on my visit to the New Britain Museum of American Art. It is small enough where you can take your time looking at the variety of styles offered. The ranges of dates run from colonial times to present, there is something for every style. Below are some of the other pieces that caught my eye.

Untitled(Yellow #2),George Chaplin(c1931)
Oil on canvas


Old House, Easthampton, Long Island, Frederick Childe Hassam (c1919)
Oil on canvas


The Birdcage, Frederick Carl Frieseke (c 1910)
Oil on canvas