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拍品專文
Sanford Robinson Gifford's rendering of brilliant light is one of the central aspects of his oeuvre and the chief aspect of his art that unifies his work with his contemporaries. "Atmosphere," writes one historian, "--the palpable representation of space, with its sublimated contents, so emphasized by Durand in his 'Letters of Landscape Painting' as the sign of true mastery of the landscape art--is the indissoluble link that connects the Luminism of Kensett, Heade, and Gifford with the Hudson River School." (J.K. Howat, et al., American Paradise, The World of the Hudson River School, New York, 1988, p. 47)
Gifford was consciously drawn to the American landscape at a young age. Like many nineteenth-century artists, he was initially preoccupied with portraiture in the early part of his career. An 1846 sketching trip in the Catskills and Berkshires, however, fueled his passion for landscape and it became the sole focus of his career. "During the Summer of 1846 I made several pedestrian tours among the Catskill Mtns. and the Berkshire Hills, and made a good many sketches from nature. These studies along with the great admiration I felt for the works of Cole developed a strong interest in Landscape Art, and I opened my eyes to a keener perception and more intelligent enjoyment of Nature. Having once enjoyed the absolute freedom of the Landscape painter's life, I was unable to return to portrait painting. From this time my direction in art was determined." (As quoted in I. Weiss, Sanford Robinson Gifford, New York, 1977, p. 26)
John Wilmerding notes, "Sanford Gifford developed a modification of the picturesque composition that enabled him to emphasize his major concern and master subject, the effects of light and color. He selected and modified views to create bowls of the landscape to serve as containers for the light-filled air...The clarity of the trees in the foreground are in contrast with the veiled forms in the distance. Gifford believed that 'the really important matter is not the natural object itself, but the veil or medium through which we see it.'" (American Light: The Luminist Movement 1850-1875, Washington, D.C., 1980, p. 36)
Gifford spent much of the period from the late 1850s through the mid 1860s working in New York and New England. The present painting, Summer Idyll, is typical of this period in both palette and that the landscape depicted seems to be an amalgam of various actual locations. The artist has applied various touches of muted browns, yellows and greens in a lively, painterly fashion. His treatment of the sky is smooth and clear and reflects the artist's increasing interest in the effects of light and atmosphere. In Summer Idyll, these subtleties of light and color take precedence over a concern for rendering specific topography. The present scene appears to be derived from a composite of studies of different locales.
As with other works of the period, Gifford cloaks the landscape of Summer Idyll in a serene light and hazy atmosphere evoking a soft and poetic mood. Divine and pristine, the landscape appears to be untouched by the hand of man; however, a sole isolated figure under the tree in the foreground indicates the onset of man's encroachment on paradise. Gifford emphasizes closely related values in order to create a feeling of unity as well as to reveal nature's harmonious interworkings. Through his rich depiction of luminous light, Gifford is suggesting a transcendental notion of the passage from God to Nature to Man.
"Gifford was not a rebellious spirit. He made no overt moves of rejection towards the system of style and belief that he shared with his friends and contemporaries in the second generation of the Hudson River School, though, in his concentration upon color and light, he did succeed in finding an identity within it. But more than this, the things that he shared with his contemporaries knowingly or unknowingly became transformed by an artistic mentality and sensibility that, in its refinement, acute sensitivity, delicacy, subtlety--in short, in its aestheticism--had no parallel among them...it was an exclusive art. Its perimeters were close and clearly marked, and were so in order that Gifford could devote himself to the subtleties of color and pictorial design that, in the final analysis, lay at the center of his artistic temperament, and that were no less central to the appeal his paintings had for his contemporaries and continue to exercise today." (N. Cikovsky, Jr., Sanford Robinson Gifford, Austin, Texas, 1970, p. 18)
Gifford was consciously drawn to the American landscape at a young age. Like many nineteenth-century artists, he was initially preoccupied with portraiture in the early part of his career. An 1846 sketching trip in the Catskills and Berkshires, however, fueled his passion for landscape and it became the sole focus of his career. "During the Summer of 1846 I made several pedestrian tours among the Catskill Mtns. and the Berkshire Hills, and made a good many sketches from nature. These studies along with the great admiration I felt for the works of Cole developed a strong interest in Landscape Art, and I opened my eyes to a keener perception and more intelligent enjoyment of Nature. Having once enjoyed the absolute freedom of the Landscape painter's life, I was unable to return to portrait painting. From this time my direction in art was determined." (As quoted in I. Weiss, Sanford Robinson Gifford, New York, 1977, p. 26)
John Wilmerding notes, "Sanford Gifford developed a modification of the picturesque composition that enabled him to emphasize his major concern and master subject, the effects of light and color. He selected and modified views to create bowls of the landscape to serve as containers for the light-filled air...The clarity of the trees in the foreground are in contrast with the veiled forms in the distance. Gifford believed that 'the really important matter is not the natural object itself, but the veil or medium through which we see it.'" (American Light: The Luminist Movement 1850-1875, Washington, D.C., 1980, p. 36)
Gifford spent much of the period from the late 1850s through the mid 1860s working in New York and New England. The present painting, Summer Idyll, is typical of this period in both palette and that the landscape depicted seems to be an amalgam of various actual locations. The artist has applied various touches of muted browns, yellows and greens in a lively, painterly fashion. His treatment of the sky is smooth and clear and reflects the artist's increasing interest in the effects of light and atmosphere. In Summer Idyll, these subtleties of light and color take precedence over a concern for rendering specific topography. The present scene appears to be derived from a composite of studies of different locales.
As with other works of the period, Gifford cloaks the landscape of Summer Idyll in a serene light and hazy atmosphere evoking a soft and poetic mood. Divine and pristine, the landscape appears to be untouched by the hand of man; however, a sole isolated figure under the tree in the foreground indicates the onset of man's encroachment on paradise. Gifford emphasizes closely related values in order to create a feeling of unity as well as to reveal nature's harmonious interworkings. Through his rich depiction of luminous light, Gifford is suggesting a transcendental notion of the passage from God to Nature to Man.
"Gifford was not a rebellious spirit. He made no overt moves of rejection towards the system of style and belief that he shared with his friends and contemporaries in the second generation of the Hudson River School, though, in his concentration upon color and light, he did succeed in finding an identity within it. But more than this, the things that he shared with his contemporaries knowingly or unknowingly became transformed by an artistic mentality and sensibility that, in its refinement, acute sensitivity, delicacy, subtlety--in short, in its aestheticism--had no parallel among them...it was an exclusive art. Its perimeters were close and clearly marked, and were so in order that Gifford could devote himself to the subtleties of color and pictorial design that, in the final analysis, lay at the center of his artistic temperament, and that were no less central to the appeal his paintings had for his contemporaries and continue to exercise today." (N. Cikovsky, Jr., Sanford Robinson Gifford, Austin, Texas, 1970, p. 18)