williambootartist.com
  • Home
  • Welcome
    • Profile >
      • CV
      • Statement
      • Method
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Commissions
  • Geometry
    • Geometry In Art
    • Geometric Abstraction
    • Geometric Abstract Artist Index
  • Finland 2018
  • Melbourne 2017 - 18
    • Melbourne 2016
  • Finland 2015
    • USA Iowa 2014 >
      • G2A Denmark 2014 >
        • G2 Melbourne 2013
        • G3 Melbourne 2012 - 13
        • G4 Seoul/Melb 2009 - 10
        • G5 Melbourne 2007
        • G6 Melbourne 2007
        • G7 Melbourne 2007
        • G8 Korea 2006
        • G9 Korea 2005
        • G10 Korea 2005
        • G11 Korea 2004
  • G12 Korea 2003
    • G13 Korea 2003
    • G14 Melbourne 2000-2
    • G15 Melbourne 2000
    • G16 Melbourne 2000-1
    • G17 Melbourne 2000
    • G18 Melbourne 2000
    • G19 Hobart 98-99
    • G20 Lismore 96-97
    • G21 Lismore 96-97
  • Stephanie Kim
  • Design
  • Drawings
  • Words
    • Essay 1
    • Essay 2
    • Essay 3
    • Essay 4
    • Essay 5
    • Essay 6
    • Essay 7
    • Essay 8
    • Other Writers >
      • OW 2
      • OW 3
      • OW4
  • Contact
  • Projects
  • News

Albert Pinkham Ryder

1/7/2015

0 Comments

 

Precursor To American Modernism


"Imitation is not inspiration and inspiration only can give birth to a work of art. The least of a man's original emanation is better than the best of borrowed thought!"
 
                                                              Albert Pinkham Ryder

PictureMoonlight Marine - 1870-90 - Albert Pinkham Ryder
A lot has been written in recent years about the importance of Albert Pinkham Ryder to the development of modern trends in American painting and beyond. This is rightly so and more than evident when we look back at the painting legacy left behind by artists influenced by him, such as Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, Georgia O'Keefe, Winslow Homer, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and even down to Chris Dougherty aka "Reg Mombassa of Mambo fame just to name a few. Whether these artists acknowledge(d) his influence on their own work or not Ryder's unique approach to composition, form and colour is indisputable. It doesn't take a lot of hard looking to see the connections his art has with modern art in the 20th century even presaging Pop art with its pared down graphic approach to hard lines and flat patches of colour. His paintings were recognised in his own lifetime and he enjoyed reasonable acclaim although he was never able to achieve adequate financial security and died as a pauper. 

It is important to point out here that the "difference" visible in Ryder's art is the result of a childhood illness that caused an impairment in his vision. If we were to take the time to study other artists of the time then it becomes obvious that Ryder is approaching his picture making from an alternative standpoint. By the then "known" terms of artistic procedure he was swimming against the current even as a youngster. His inability to properly assess "depth of field" and "colour" led him to adopt unconventional painting methods resulting in archival problems with his paintings during his lifetime and after as many stories recorded attest to. Many other artists in history also suffered "mental" and "physical" disabilities that resulted in their art being excluded from the mainstream and them being judged as either "heretic," "eccentric," "genius" or even "idiot." Ryder was fortunate to have found acceptance in a traditional American society that was coming of age culturally and so recognised his unorthodox artistic vision. 
 


Look at the application of colour in these two paintings ... an 18th century break with painting tradition.
The Canal - 1890 - Albert Pinkham Ryder
Constance - 1896 Albert Pinkham Ryder
Historically, artists have looked to their predecessors in order to learn and then innovate their way forward. Progress was the catch cry of the early 20th century and artists were quick to sense change and make that change "visually apparent" by giving it "form."  From what i can determine, Ryder wasn't really doing that but because he was so highly attuned to his "craft" it is evident that he was able to delineate in his "romantic" idylls a sense of "modernist foreboding" and "angst." He was, so to speak, a "lightning rod" for his age and the artists of his time recognised this "strange" quality. In the 3 paintings above we can see the flattening out of the painted surface through the use of a more monochromatic use of colour. Of course his play of "light" conveys a sense of "melancholy" and "longing" but aside from his Romantic yearning we detect  in his "emptied out" spaces a "harbinger" of the "darkness" to come and a loss of innocence. Gone, are any allusions to "arcadian pastorals" and "wistful nostalgia" but instead we see a "dark light" beckoning us forward on a "fearful passage" and a relentless, terrible struggle against the elements toward the unknown. 


In the images below it is possible to see the amazing influence of Ryder's paintings on successive generations of American artists.    
Evening Storm - 1942 - Marsden Hartley
Rust Red Hills - 1930 - Georgia O'Keeffe
Going West - 1935 - Jackson Pollock
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish the intergenerational creep of artistic influence ... where does it leave off or leach into the next cultural progression? We cannot ignore the powerful influence of Japanese wood block printmaking on European and then successive American artists and how that has directed powerfully the way contemporary artists make images today. Neither can we relegate Ryder as a relic of the past to be forgotten because his legacy is far reaching and worthy of commendation. No generation is a cultural island but is indelibly linked to their predecessors ... love it or hate it ... there is much to be learned from this historic heritage as it is passed down. Ryder was unquestionably influenced by the European artists he came into contact with on three cultural tours he did of Europe. He was influenced in particular by Camille Corot but somehow avoided the trap of imitation having understood that "innovation" is the key. Nevertheless, Ryder becomes a substantial catalyst for change in painting convention in his time even though his obsessive layering and re-working of his paintings resulted in their ultimate destruction as the colours faded due to poor practice and chemical deterioration. Today, few of his paintings remain showing any of their original glory and spark of genius. Only some early colour reproductions give us a clue to what his "fresh" work would have looked like one hundred years ago. 
 
"It is not the shock of recognition that his paintings evoke, but the feeling little children have of being lost and found again in a strange, God-filled world."


                                                                     Alexander Elliot

What has Ryder done for me and my work you may ask? Some have dismissed him as a "hack" or some "quirky aberration" in art history and not worthy of the acclaim that has been heaped upon him by not only his peers but also the as yet unborn who would grow to love his work. My reply to this would be that history is marked by many peaks of artistic aberration of which Ryder was one. Whatever your opinion, i believe probably the most important aspect of Ryder's influence is his integrity to his painting project. I admire this and am inspired because i know how hard it can be at times to keep working and trying to innovate when there often isn't much in the way of reward for all the hard work except the sheer joy of painting and a personal sense of achievement. Even though he painted less than 200 works in his whole life, Ryder showed a dedication and commitment to his work bordering on exemplar! Any artist who can work on the same painting for 10 or 20 years and still see it as unfinished, gets my respect! I don't think he cared much about wealth and i'm sure he died fulfilled because he loved what he did and lived his passion ... painting ... making pictures!!
 
Here's a few links with images of Ryder's paintings and additional biographical info. 


http://www.rickieleejones.com/gallery/albert.htm

http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/bios/ryder-bio.htm

http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/artist.aspx?artist=albert-pinkham-ryder
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    William M Boot

    An eclectic compendium of artistic and philosophical musings on ideas that have fired my imagination and inspiration over many years.

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    Art Blogs

    Abcrit

    Painters Table 

    Huffington Post Art

    Daily Art Fixx

    Paint Later

    Contemporary Art Daily

    Christopher Volpe's Art Blog

    Chris McAuliffe Art Writing

    Hyperallergic

    Joanne Mattera Art Blog

    Encaustic Art Blog Roll

    The Art Newspaper

    I Like This Art

    ​Contemporary Art Blogs
    ​

    Encaustic Art Blogs
    All Things Encaustic
    Joanne Mattera Art Blog
    Encaustic Links Page

    Art Articles

    Anish Kapoor Coats Cloud Gate In the "Darkest" Black Known to Humanity

    Jasper Johns:Monotypes 

    Robert Ryman: Double Positive

    ​Clifford Still's Radical Repetitions

    Giorgio Morandi: Peculiar Realist

    Giorgio Morandi - Metaphysician of Bologna

    ​Alberto Burri's Challenge

    I Will Not Be A Sunday Painter: Alberto Burri Makes a Picture in 1954

    Jackson Pollock - Tate Liverpool

    Painting and Reality: Art as Analogy

    Real painting - Exhibition Review

    Gerhard Richter Interview: Abstract Paintings

    Abstract Painting: Social Function

    Abstract Painting: Everything is Finished, Nothing is Dead

    Cy Twombly Drawings

    Realizing Clifford Still

    Cy Twombly Interview

    The Cult of Jeff Koons

    Modern Art Was a CIA Weapon

    Agnes Martin - Two Books - A Life

    Agnes Martin - An Existential Shudder From a Pure White Surface

    Agnes Martin - Tate Exhibition

    Agnes Martin - Interview

    The Abstract Sublime in Contemporary Art: Robert Rosenblum

    Nicholas De Stael - Needs To Be Seen

    Donald Judd and Frank Stella Interview - What You See Is What You See

    Imi Knoebel - Interview

    Imi Knoebel - Dia 2009

    Fantasies Artists Have About Success

    Damien Hirst - Plagiarist Extraordinaire - Learn the Truth

    Bridget Riley - Exhibition Review

    Vincent Longo: Interview 2016

    ​Philip Guston:Flesh and Bones and 'Thingness'

    ​
    Luc Tuymans: Interview with Jarrett Earnest

    ​Luc Tuymans: "On the Image" essay

    ​Luc Tuymans: "Le Meprise" Exhibition at David Zwirner Galleries, NYC, 2016

    ​Lloyd Rees: The Final Interview with Janet Hawley

    ​Richard Pousette-Dart:
    Exhibition Review- Pace NYC