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Lot Essay
Jack Wilkinson Smith's depictions of the California coastline are exceptionally articulate visions of nature. Smith's compositions, complemented by the artist's ingenious use of light to convey emotion, are among the boldest conceived of the early twentieth century. An inveterate traveler, the artist extensively explored the California and Oregon coasts before settling in Southern California where his art and teaching would have a profound impact on contemporaries and future generations of landscape artists.
Smith painted throughout Southern California and was most often drawn to the Laguna Beach area. However, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the shoreline and rock formations in the present work most resemble the area of La Jolla Cove. This departure from the conventional and more commonly depicted locale by Smith and his contemporaries makes Rough Seas and Rocks an especially unique example from Smith's broad career. In the present painting, Smith has created a formal coastal scene of luminous realism for which the artist was best known. Composed of shimmering layers of paint over an underlying geometric composition Rough Seas and Rocks stands apart from the more typical coastal compositions by Smith's peers. A strong diagonal line through the composition reinforces the artist's clarity of vision and the flattened rocks pressed to the edge of the foreground provide a sense of immediacy to the scene. Thoughtful interpretations of the nuances of light and color, evident throughout the composition, are especially apparent in the warmer foreground tones with touches of lavender and orange in the reflected surface of the rocks and water. Not only does Smith create a dramatic scene of the power of nature, but through aerial luminism he creates a deeper transcendental notion of the beautiful unspoiled coastline.
From the beginning of his career, Smith's landscapes of the California coast were met with positive acclaim and by 1925, the year in which Rough Seas and Rocks was executed, a critic offered the following review: "Jack Wilkinson Smith paints rocks well, he models mountains, he finds the long level of the sea--and over all these things he flings the pale gold mantle of sunlight, the warm and tender veil of mystery that makes them beautiful...We begin to feel that he should be called the painter of sunlight par excellence." (as quoted in R.L. Westphal, Plein Air Painters of California: The Southland, Irvine, California, 1996 ed., p. 110)
Smith received early training at the Art Institute of Chicago before securing a position with the Cincinnati Enquirer where he was assigned to depict scenes of the Spanish-American War. Smith first visited California in 1906 and became enamored with the landscape, which he described as "nature's own splendor." He would become a founding member of the Biltmore Salon, California Art Club, and the Laguna Beach Art Association, which attracted contemporaries such as Carl Oscar Borg, Hanson Puthuff, George K. Brandriff, and William Wendt, among others. Smith distinguished himself as a leader of the group, whose landscapes and seascapes captured the distinct light and topography of the California coast with bravura of brushwork and lushness of palette un-rivaled by any artist of the day.
Smith painted throughout Southern California and was most often drawn to the Laguna Beach area. However, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the shoreline and rock formations in the present work most resemble the area of La Jolla Cove. This departure from the conventional and more commonly depicted locale by Smith and his contemporaries makes Rough Seas and Rocks an especially unique example from Smith's broad career. In the present painting, Smith has created a formal coastal scene of luminous realism for which the artist was best known. Composed of shimmering layers of paint over an underlying geometric composition Rough Seas and Rocks stands apart from the more typical coastal compositions by Smith's peers. A strong diagonal line through the composition reinforces the artist's clarity of vision and the flattened rocks pressed to the edge of the foreground provide a sense of immediacy to the scene. Thoughtful interpretations of the nuances of light and color, evident throughout the composition, are especially apparent in the warmer foreground tones with touches of lavender and orange in the reflected surface of the rocks and water. Not only does Smith create a dramatic scene of the power of nature, but through aerial luminism he creates a deeper transcendental notion of the beautiful unspoiled coastline.
From the beginning of his career, Smith's landscapes of the California coast were met with positive acclaim and by 1925, the year in which Rough Seas and Rocks was executed, a critic offered the following review: "Jack Wilkinson Smith paints rocks well, he models mountains, he finds the long level of the sea--and over all these things he flings the pale gold mantle of sunlight, the warm and tender veil of mystery that makes them beautiful...We begin to feel that he should be called the painter of sunlight par excellence." (as quoted in R.L. Westphal, Plein Air Painters of California: The Southland, Irvine, California, 1996 ed., p. 110)
Smith received early training at the Art Institute of Chicago before securing a position with the Cincinnati Enquirer where he was assigned to depict scenes of the Spanish-American War. Smith first visited California in 1906 and became enamored with the landscape, which he described as "nature's own splendor." He would become a founding member of the Biltmore Salon, California Art Club, and the Laguna Beach Art Association, which attracted contemporaries such as Carl Oscar Borg, Hanson Puthuff, George K. Brandriff, and William Wendt, among others. Smith distinguished himself as a leader of the group, whose landscapes and seascapes captured the distinct light and topography of the California coast with bravura of brushwork and lushness of palette un-rivaled by any artist of the day.