Lot Essay
When John White Alexander painted Alethea in 1895 he was at the height of his artistic skill and was enjoying extraordinary critical success in both the United States and Europe. Alethea exhibits the sensuous painting style that earned the artist such wide acclaim.
Of his work in the 1890s, E.D. Kvam and S. Leff have written, "John White Alexander spent the last decade of the nineteenth century in Paris, enjoying the stimulation and aesthetic ferment of this gathering place for artists, musicians, and writers. A new generation of artists, critical of the prevailing materialistic values of their culture, were in reaction against the new realism and naturalism, and were seeking to create a new art that would embody spiritual concerns and idealized beauty. It was in this compatible receptive artistic climate of Paris in the 1890s, made all the more compelling by the confluence of the Symbolist movement and the Art Nouveau style, that Alexander's mature style, a unique and very personal style of non-portrait figure painting, emerged in 1893." (E.D. Kvam and S. Leff, John White Alexander: Correspondences, James Graham & Sons, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 3)
Alexander fashioned the composition of Alethea with a series of contrasts to achieve a level of urbane sensuality that matched the sophistication of late nineteenth-century Paris. He composed the picture using a refined color scheme of blue, pink, fleshtones, and taupe. Bold brushstrokes add drama to the composition as they highlight the brilliant folds of the dress that extend across the composition. The expressive gesture of the figure suggests both intensity and repose and results in classic fin-de-siècle expression. Alexander's painting style as seen in Alethea recalls the bold, painterly realism of the Munich school, which was known to the artist through his mentor Frank Duveneck. In addition, the Munich school emphasized the "spirit" of a painting -- the artist's individual interpretation of a subject as expressed through his individual style.
While living in Paris, Alexander and his wife Elizabeth were prominent members of the city's fashionable social, literary, and artistic circles. During the 1890s the Alexanders became close friends with Henry James and entertained such notables as Claude Debussy, John Singer Sargent, Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Oscar Wilde, among others. Although Alexander and his wife lived in Paris, the artist made extended trips to the United States. In 1895, the year he executed Alethea, Alexander also received the commission to paint murals for the new Library of Congress building in Washington, D.C. Thus Alexander's conception of Alethea coincided with the height of his success both in America and abroad.
Alexander himself wrote of this period in Paris in the 1890s as an intensely stimulating time. Alexander became an integral part of the Paris art world and wrote in a letter of 1891, "Here all the painters meet me with open arms and do anything they can to make it pleasant for us and we find them a fine set of fellows -- and what is very flattering, I find they know all that I have been doing for years;" and in 1893 he wrote again, "Then there is the intimate companionship of the first artists of the world -- which money cannot buy."
Alethea has been described as a "classic example of Alexander's 1890s style, but the restraint which characterized the earlier work was here abandoned for sheer drama. Although the name Alethea -- which may be a version of Alethia, the ancient Greek personification of truth -- the profile bears a distinct resemblance to Elizabeth Alexander, the artist's wife and frequent model. Much of the painting's drama derives from its skillful use of contrast on many levels, one of which is its simultaneous achievement of flatness and corporeality; the flatness results from the overall suppression of detail, the almost flat, black, upper background and the asymmetrical composition itself, while the corporeality results from the manner in which the paint is handled to model the figure and her costume." (S. Leff, John White Alexander, 1856-1915, Fin-de-Siècle American, James Graham & Sons, Inc., New York, 1980, p. 28)
Of his work in the 1890s, E.D. Kvam and S. Leff have written, "John White Alexander spent the last decade of the nineteenth century in Paris, enjoying the stimulation and aesthetic ferment of this gathering place for artists, musicians, and writers. A new generation of artists, critical of the prevailing materialistic values of their culture, were in reaction against the new realism and naturalism, and were seeking to create a new art that would embody spiritual concerns and idealized beauty. It was in this compatible receptive artistic climate of Paris in the 1890s, made all the more compelling by the confluence of the Symbolist movement and the Art Nouveau style, that Alexander's mature style, a unique and very personal style of non-portrait figure painting, emerged in 1893." (E.D. Kvam and S. Leff, John White Alexander: Correspondences, James Graham & Sons, Inc., New York, 1985, p. 3)
Alexander fashioned the composition of Alethea with a series of contrasts to achieve a level of urbane sensuality that matched the sophistication of late nineteenth-century Paris. He composed the picture using a refined color scheme of blue, pink, fleshtones, and taupe. Bold brushstrokes add drama to the composition as they highlight the brilliant folds of the dress that extend across the composition. The expressive gesture of the figure suggests both intensity and repose and results in classic fin-de-siècle expression. Alexander's painting style as seen in Alethea recalls the bold, painterly realism of the Munich school, which was known to the artist through his mentor Frank Duveneck. In addition, the Munich school emphasized the "spirit" of a painting -- the artist's individual interpretation of a subject as expressed through his individual style.
While living in Paris, Alexander and his wife Elizabeth were prominent members of the city's fashionable social, literary, and artistic circles. During the 1890s the Alexanders became close friends with Henry James and entertained such notables as Claude Debussy, John Singer Sargent, Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Oscar Wilde, among others. Although Alexander and his wife lived in Paris, the artist made extended trips to the United States. In 1895, the year he executed Alethea, Alexander also received the commission to paint murals for the new Library of Congress building in Washington, D.C. Thus Alexander's conception of Alethea coincided with the height of his success both in America and abroad.
Alexander himself wrote of this period in Paris in the 1890s as an intensely stimulating time. Alexander became an integral part of the Paris art world and wrote in a letter of 1891, "Here all the painters meet me with open arms and do anything they can to make it pleasant for us and we find them a fine set of fellows -- and what is very flattering, I find they know all that I have been doing for years;" and in 1893 he wrote again, "Then there is the intimate companionship of the first artists of the world -- which money cannot buy."
Alethea has been described as a "classic example of Alexander's 1890s style, but the restraint which characterized the earlier work was here abandoned for sheer drama. Although the name Alethea -- which may be a version of Alethia, the ancient Greek personification of truth -- the profile bears a distinct resemblance to Elizabeth Alexander, the artist's wife and frequent model. Much of the painting's drama derives from its skillful use of contrast on many levels, one of which is its simultaneous achievement of flatness and corporeality; the flatness results from the overall suppression of detail, the almost flat, black, upper background and the asymmetrical composition itself, while the corporeality results from the manner in which the paint is handled to model the figure and her costume." (S. Leff, John White Alexander, 1856-1915, Fin-de-Siècle American, James Graham & Sons, Inc., New York, 1980, p. 28)