| May Night | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Willard Metcalf |
| Year | 1906 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 99.5 cm x 91.8 cm |
| Location | National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. |
May Night is a 1906 oil painting by American Impressionist Willard Metcalf. It is a nocturne depicting the home of Florence Griswold, now the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. It was the first contemporary painting purchased by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and is Metcalf's "most celebrated work." [1]
Metcalf arrived at the Old Lyme Art Colony at the invitation of his friend Childe Hassam, and summered there from 1905 to 1907. During the spring, summer and autumn of 1906 Metcalf enjoyed what was to that point his most productive year, finishing twenty-six paintings. [2] With greater productivity as a landscape painter came an increased exploration of different themes, seasons, and times of day. One of the themes that Metcalf attempted was the nocturne, a subject which had become popular in the Old Lyme colony of artists. The subject's romantic associations and subtle color harmonies reconciled the opposing tendencies of Tonalism and Impressionism within the colony. [3] By 1903 Frank DuMond had begun teaching the painting of moonlight subjects to his students in Old Lyme, and the theme was popular as a studio alternative to painting outdoors in poor weather. [4] In July 1906 Hassam wrote about Metcalf to J. Alden Weir: "Metty is working hard at a moonlight. We are all doing moonlights. The weather has been so bad that we have been forced to it." [4]
Metcalf began painting May Night in the spring of 1906, and finished it in early September. [5] The subject is the front lawn and facade of the Griswold House, its Ionic columns seen in an atmospheric moonlight. In the foreground, shadows are cast on the lawn by trees. Touches of warmth are provided by the light emanating from within the house. Two figures are present: One woman walks across the lawn toward the house while another sits on the front porch, each of them clad in long pale dresses, which, for Metcalf biographer Bruce W. Chambers, heighten "the feeling of elegant tranquility." [5]
May Night romanticized the condition of the property, which at the time suffered from peeling paint and uncut shrubbery. [5] It also acknowledged the centrality of Florence Griswold to the creative community. According to Arthur Heming, whom Metcalf invited to view the painting soon after it was completed, the figure walking toward the house was intended to be Florence Griswold. [6] As he admired the painting in Metcalf's studio, Miss Florence entered. Metcalf attempted to give her the painting in return for room and board, and she refused, saying "It's the best thing you've ever done. When you show it in New York, they'll snap it up at once, and everything will be lovely." [6] [7] [8]
The painting soon had a profound impact on Metcalf's career, and on the Old Lyme colony. [9] [8] [10] It was exhibited in November at the St. Botolph Club in Boston, and in January 1907 at the Corcoran Gallery's inaugural exhibition of contemporary art. There it was awarded the Clark Gold Medal and $1,000, and was bought by the Corcoran for $3,000, thus becoming the gallery's first purchase of a contemporary American painting. [10] [8] As a result of the publicity from the exhibitions and sale of May Night, Metcalf's reputation, already well established, benefited both financially and critically: "From this time he was an acclaimed master of the Impressionist landscape." [9] After seeing the painting in Boston in November 1906, artist and critic Philip Leslie Hale wrote "One could hardly get a stronger sense of the beauty and mystery of night and springtime ... all changed to something new and strange by the magic of dim reflected light of the moon." [3] A critic in the Art Annual wrote "It is a little weird, and like a dream, but immensely interesting." [3]
The effect of Metcalf's new-found prosperity on the Old Lyme colony was chronicled the following year, when Lillian Baynes Griffin, wife of painter Walter Griffin, wrote in the Hartford Daily Courant, "The art colony has steadily grown since the first few painters chose it as a sketching ground, but never before has there been such a sudden demand for every inch of available space as there is this year ... Lyme cows are so busy posing for the Art classes that they have hardly time to be milked ... One explanation of the remarkable jump Lyme has taken is that Willard Metcalf sold in three days $3,000 worth of Lyme landscapes in the St. Botolph Club last winter. This made Lyme landscapes sound like Standard Oil, and with no less enthusiasm than the gold hunters of '49, the picture makers have chosen Lyme as a place in which to swarm." [10] [8] The influence of May Night was particularly strong: "Suddenly everyone wanted to paint his own May Night." [11] Among the artists painting versions of the theme in 1907 were Will Howe Foote and Metcalf's former student Robert Nisbet, [11] who eloped with Metcalf's wife Marguerite in July of that year. [7] [12]
May Night was the centerpiece of a 2005 exhibition of Metcalf's works at the Florence Griswold Museum. [7] Concurrently, an eponymously titled song was featured in a musical inspired by Florence Griswold. [7]
Old Lyme is a coastal town in New London County, Connecticut, United States, bounded on the west by the Connecticut River, on the south by the Long Island Sound, on the east by the town of East Lyme, and on the north by the town of Lyme. The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region.
American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors with a wide array of subject matters but focusing on landscapes and upper-class domestic life.
Willard Leroy Metcalf was an American painter born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and later attended Académie Julian, Paris. After early figure-painting and illustration, he became prominent as a landscape painter. He was one of the Ten American Painters who in 1897 seceded from the Society of American Artists. For some years he was an instructor in the Women's Art School, Cooper Union, New York, and in the Art Students League, New York. In 1893 he became a member of the American Watercolor Society, New York. Generally associated with American Impressionism, he is also remembered for his New England landscapes and involvement with the Old Lyme Art Colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut and his influential years at the Cornish Art Colony.
Florence Ann Griswold was a resident of Old Lyme, Connecticut, United States who became the nucleus of the "Old Lyme Art Colony" in the early 20th century. Her home has since been made into the Florence Griswold Museum, a National Historic Landmark.
Frederick Childe Hassam was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressionism to American collectors, dealers, and museums. He produced over 3,000 paintings, oils, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs over the course of his career, and was an influential American artist of the early 20th century.
Henry Ward Ranger was an American artist. Born in western New York State, he was a prominent landscape and marine painter, an important Tonalist, and the leader of the Old Lyme Art Colony. Ranger became a National Academician (1906), and a member of the American Water Color Society. Among his paintings are, Top of the Hill, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and East River Idyll, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Wilson Henry Irvine was a master American Impressionist landscape painter.
Mathias Joseph Alten was a German-American impressionist painter active in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The Florence Griswold Museum is an Art Museum at 96 Lyme Street in Old Lyme, Connecticut centered on the home of Florence Griswold (1850–1937), which was the center of the Old Lyme Art Colony, a main nexus of American Impressionism. The Museum is noted for its collection of American Impressionist paintings. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993. The site encompasses 12-acres of historic buildings, grounds, gardens, and walking trails.
Edward Charles Volkert (1871–1935) was an American Impressionist artist best known for his colorful and richly painted impressionist landscapes. His trademark subject was that of cattle and plowmen. His style is noted for its impressionist use of light, applied in small dots of paint, while maintaining an interest in the true forms and colors of his subject matter. He has been referred to as America's cattle painter extraordinaire".
The Old Lyme Congregational Church is located in Old Lyme, Connecticut. The church is noted as a favorite subject of Old Lyme Art Colony painters. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
Clark Greenwood Voorhees was an American Impressionist and Tonalist landscape painter and one of the founders of the Old Lyme Art Colony.
Matilda Browne was an American Impressionist artist noted for her flower paintings and her farm and cattle scenes. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she was a child prodigy who received early art training from her artist-neighbor, Thomas Moran.
The Old Lyme art colony of Old Lyme, Connecticut was established in 1899 by American painter Henry Ward Ranger, and was in its time the most famous art colony in the United States, and the first to adopt Impressionism.
Allen Butler Talcott was an American landscape painter. After studying art in Paris for three years at Académie Julian, he returned to the United States, becoming one of the first members of the Old Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut. His paintings, usually landscapes depicting the local scenery and often executed en plein air, were generally Barbizon and Tonalist, sometimes incorporating elements of Impressionism. He was especially known and respected for his paintings of trees. After eight summers at Old Lyme, he died there at the age of 41.
Lyme Art Association (LAA) is a nonprofit art organization established in 1914, with roots going back to 1902. The LAA maintains a historic art gallery located at 90 Lyme Street in the Old Lyme Historic District, Old Lyme, Connecticut. The gallery was built in 1921 to a design prepared by the architect and artist Charles A. Platt. The association holds exhibitions throughout the year, featuring the work of member artists as well as visiting ones, with an emphasis on representational art The building has a north-light studio, where the association conducts classes year-round.
Harry Leslie Hoffman (1871–1964) was an American Impressionist painter best known for his brightly colored paintings of underwater marine life.
Katherine Langhorne Adams (1885–1977) was an American painter and printmaker. Other sources give her birthdate as c. 1882 or 1890.
Edward Francis Rook was an American Impressionist landscape and marine painter, and a member of the art colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut.
William Chadwick was an American Impressionist painter known for his landscape paintings. In 1884 his family emigrated from England to Holyoke, Massachusetts as his father, Day Chadwick, relocated his woolen goods business to avoid tariffs, opening the Chadwick Plush Company with his uncle John, and 70 imported workers, later renaming the business the Holyoke Plush Company. It was in Holyoke where the young Chadwick would complete his schooling and developed an interest in art. Subsequently, studying under Joseph DeCamp and John Henry Twachtman at the Art Students League of New York, he became a member of the Old Lyme art colony. Although his artwork was not a contemporary commercial success, following his death it found renewed interest nationally in retrospective gallery installations. Today his works may be found in the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut, as well as the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. In addition to their collection holdings, Chadwick's studio remains extant at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, open to visitors from April to October.