Impressionism at the New York Botanical Garden

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I have great leeway deciding the column’s subject each week. There is simply so much to choose from that it takes effort to settle on a specific topic. Yesterday I went shopping for used books at the Barnes and Noble on Route 17S in New Jersey and the first book I picked up was about Impressionism. I do not believe in signs, but it helped focus me on the current show at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), which is Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas. This show runs through Sept. 11, so there is still time to get there.

Impressionism was a new style of viewing and painting the world developed in the mid-1900s. Artists were finally able to easily take their paints outdoors for the first time, due to the invention of metal tubes to contain paints. This allowed them to actually paint outdoors, instead of creating sketches for later studio completion. Warm colors – reds and yellows – were closely juxtaposed with warm ones – blues and greens – to create vibrancy. To tone these bright colors down and thereby prevent garishness, the artists used a lot of grays and other “muddy colors.” Other artistic shifts included the use of open composition: The subject is no longer static and meant to be viewed as if captured within a frame; instead, the scene continues right to the edge of the canvas and the viewer can easily imagine it continuing beyond the frame. The brushwork is different. In paintings of people, the features are, frequently, not brushed in, and their anonymity is used to highlight the scene, not the individual.

Shows at NYBG are usually staged in the right wing of the Conservatory as you come in through the main entrance. This show is in two parts. The flower garden part of the show is on display in the Conservatory wing. The second half of the show continues in the LuEsther T. Mertz  Library Gallery across the NYBG campus, showing paintings by American Impressionist painters. There are 20 paintings hung there, as well as two bronzes. They were painted over a period spanning 1887-1917. I am sorry to admit that while I am familiar with many of the European Impressionists, all the names exhibited here, with the exception of Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent, were unknown to me. I am always grateful to be enlightened, so I “met” evocative painters such as Hugh Henry Breckenridge, Matilda Browne, Ernest Lawson and Theodore Wores. The pieces were loaned to NYBG by museums around the country, as well as by private collectors. The show’s catalogue at $12 is a bargain.

The Conservatory display is as highly colorful as you would expect. On the days when I was there, I saw plenteous delphiniums, salvias, Asiatic lilies, hydrangeas, daisies, black-eyed Susans and much more. The designer for the show is Francisca Coehlo, who is the Vivian and Edward Merrin vice president at NYBG for glasshouse and exhibitions. Architectural elements are provided by fences, gates and an arbor. Additionally, there is a clapboard house with a veranda and colorful flowerbed in front. Vines curl around the porch supports. This house is meant to recall homes at the art colonies that flourished in this period in the summertime in rural areas. These colonies allowed artists and poets to gather together and work on their art. The three most important colonies were Appledore Island off the coast of New Hampshire, Shinnecock on eastern Long Island and Old Lyme, Connecitcut. The patroness of Appledore Island was Celia Laighton Thaxton, who was a journalist and poet. Life at Old Lyme swirled around Florence Griswold – an impoverished gentlewoman, whose home was rented by these artists and who acted as an informal dealer by hanging their works in her home.

NYBG has many additional web resources pertaining to this exhibit available at: http://www.nybg.org/impressionism/guide. I particularly like the option called Impressify (http://www.nybg.org/impressionism/impressify), which allows you to easily turn any of your digital photos into an Impressionist piece. While that can be done with many photo editing programs, this is very easy and a lot of fun.

Van Gogh, a French Impressionist, painted his share of flowers. However, he also paid attention to other aspects of the botanical world. His Cypresses are iconic and he had a dynamic interest in tree trunks. It must be very hard for the designers at NYBG to constantly come up with new shows based primarily on flowers. Perhaps we can look forward to a show based on plant forms, foliage and texture as well.

Green scene, Sura Jeselsohn

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