Lucy Cooke

Truth and Beauty of California Impressionists

A thesis by Lucy Cooke

It could be said of all artists who depict scenes of nature in their art that they are in admiration of their subject. This is especially true of the creative individuals found on the west coast of America. Many artists of the Central Coast in particular love nature and draw great inspiration from it. The painters of the California Impressionist Movement (also known as the En Plein Air Painters of California) were no different. Painters such as Euphemia Charlton Fortune and Mary DeNeale Morgan are two examples of California Impressionist artists who loved nature. These painters, true to the style of California Impressionism, were greatly inspired by the natural environment around them. They chose it as both their subject and an extension of their studio because of the admiration they had for it. An admiration of the rugged and diverse landscapes of California in a time just on the edge of an era of wide-spread development. Indeed, how can the present-day [person] ever know what artists felt when standing beside the pristine Pacific Ocean of one hundred years ago. However one thing must be true of the artists of that time: painting outdoors was a way of being profoundly involved with [their] environment, and it provided stimulation and inspiration often impossible for artists to put into words. They loved nature and in the common belief of their time, saw it as a perfect extension of divine creation. In such regard, they sought to replicate it on their canvases (Gerdts and South).

California Impressionism was a style of painting done by a loosely related group of artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The light in the paintings says ‘California.’ It’s as if it comes from somewhere behind the canvas – and radiates a West Coast atmosphere imbued with coastal warm air (Luby). The Artist of this era saw themselves to be diligent workers in expressing the plain truth; that nature was good, majestic and, in that right, the perfect image of divine creation. In general, they held to a doctrine of Creationism believing that nature was truth and beauty made by God. This came before wide-spread theories of evolution, and well before the mixing of these two theories we see today. To reveal something of nature’s power, mystery, and beauty was for the artist [of California] to be akin to the Creator; the artist was like a preacher who makes the obscurity of the parable comprehensible (Gerdts and South).

The metaphoric color of the Californian Impressionist’s pallet consisted of creationism and patriotism, of the truth and beauty of nature made perfect by the divine, and the upholding of the American Dream of promise and progress. California was at the highest reach of both the American landscape and political intention. California was the America’s destiny materialized. Here, at the farthest edge of the Union, were seemingly limitless resources: thick forests, fertile valleys, crystalline rivers, and underground troves of gold. If America really was the promised land – [..] then California was the promise kept (Gerdts and South).

Similarity to French Impressionist

These painters, though painting in greatly similar style to the French Impressionist that preceded them, also held many facets that where similar to the American Hudson River School (Gerdts and South). The Hudson River school was a group of artists in the 1800s who took in the natural landscape of New York and where so inspired by it that they started the tradition of praising landscapes by form of painting (Stern).

The California Impressionists’ perception of wilderness in all its aspects – the grand, the sublime, and the intimate – derived from a world view in which reality was stable and related more closely to the fixed and flawless images by Frederic Edwin, church and Albert Bierstadt than to the transient and tenuous landscapes by claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro (Gerdts and South).

The Californian Impressionists used the style of dabbled light like the French Impressionists but true to the American intent they sought to represent the truth of the natural scene and open opportunity available in the relatively young America of that time (Gerdts and South). California En Plien Air, or California Impressionist painting style is a combination of the traditional American Landscape painting’s unyielding realism and the representation of light characteristic of the loose French Impressionistic style (Stern).

The French Impressionist style was started in Paris, France in the late 1860s. Combating the sanctions of fine art doled out by the government and other high institutions. Impressionist sought to get away from the drive for realism and instead capture the essence of a scene in the moment. The style of Impressionism is characterized by its representational effect. The artists sought to capture the effect light had on the eye’s impression of the subject, rather than a detailed depiction or realism. At the time, people were beginning to understand how light effects vision. This was in part due to a growing scientific understanding that what the eye sees and the brain interprets is not entirely the same thing. Loose brush strokes are a common element employed by Impressionist artists to create this concept of vision. Seeking to express the optical effects of light the impressionist loosened their brush strokes and altered their color pallets. They added pure and more intense colors to the mix. Also, all elements in the painting became equal, both the main subject and the background environment. Capture of fleeting feelings was their goal, so many Impressionist artists left their studios to paint outside. They stood in the outdoor scene and observed live subjects be it people, objects or landscapes. (Wolf) The act of painting outside, while observing the subject is what characterized these painter as being En Plein Air. The French term En Plein Air means simply in plain air and is used because the artists would be outside in the open air while they painted (Stern).

American Artists

The Californian artists shortly preceded the French in adopting this style of painting. This was the era known as California Impressionism. It was a some-what brief era of art inspired by locations of natural beauty such as Monterey (Luby). The artists who partook in this style sought to preserve the visions of nature which lay before them by replicating the scene, stylistically capturing the effects of the natural light onto their canvas (Gerdts and South). California was the perfect subject, it was raw and natural. Since, landscape painting being an American tradition, California gave this tradition an optimal outlet (Stern). The golden natural stretches of deserts, mountains, forests and coast line inspired the artist to seek to re-create the scenes with an attempt at an unaltered re-creation of mood and light on their canvases (Gerdts and South).

The Impressionist style attracted the interest of these American Artists, despite what may seem detraction from accurately rendering the scene due to the loose stylistic brush work. However, this expressive means of painting was more true to the world outside the studio where atmosphere and motion were a part of the scenes laid out before their eyes. The change in brush stokes from precisely rendered imagery to loose, varied work was embraced because all though it did not show each element of the subject it found a way to represent the mood and action of the scene with more honesty. The colors used in impressionism where intense and natural giving more truth and emotion akin to the colors found under the natural light outside of the studio. In addition, Impressionist En Plein Air paintings where often smaller in size than ones created in-studio, creating an intimate scale that resembled the closeness these painters had with their subject. Not all experience in the landscape were heroic and theatrical [..] much of nature’s poetry could be quite, even reclusive (Gerdts and South). These American, Californian, Impressionists also found use for the way the Impressionist style used light.

American painters of the nineteenth century, including California Impressionist adopted aspects of the French Impressionist approach – grayless color, simplified detail, intimate scale and most important, the idea of light itself as subject matter. The Californians continued to portray the landscape realistically, carefully retaining underlying structures and recognizable forms. But the Impressionists gave them a painting method that heightened their ability to represent the outdoor light and color more convincingly (Gerdts and South).

Of course, each artist utilized these methods and stylistic tendencies in their own way. Each reacted to their world with their own unique view and held their own individual connection with nature. They brought their own views to be expressed through the brush and on to their canvas (Gerdts and South). They incorporated this admiration of nature into their lives and work in their own way, expressing it through both their paintings and their activities in their communities.

Euphemia Charlton Fortune

Euphemia Charlton Fortune was one such artist who held her own deep connection with nature. She was a Californian Impressionist painter who lived mostly in the early 20th century. To her friends, she went by the name Effie, and for her paintings she shortened her first name to only an initial or omitted it, using instead her middle name Charlton. This was because she did not like her first name and also to conceal her gender from the greater public throughout her career as an artist (Watson).

Fortune lived from January 15th, 1885 till May 15th 1969. She was born in Sausalito, California and died in Carmel, California. In the meantime, she studied her craft at many schools, including Edinburgh College of Arts in Scotland, St. John’s Wood School of Art in London, the Mark Hopkins Institute of the San Francisco Art Association and at the Art Students League in New York City. Fortune had studios on the west coast in San Francisco and Monterey. She was a member of several Art associations; Such as, the California Art Club, Liturgical Arts Society, The Monterey Guild, and the San Francisco Art Association, as well as the Society of Scottish Artists. There are public collections of her work at M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, and the Oakland Museum (Westphal and Dominik). There was a play written about her life entitled Fortune’s Way (Watson).

Fortune was a woman of two continents. More than once she changed locations from Europe to the United States and back again. Her father was Scottish, so was her early education. After her father’s death when she was only a child, her mother encouraged her to pursue her artistic skill (Westphal and Dominik). At age twelve she was sent to Europe to St. Margaret’s Convent in Edinburgh, Scotland (Stern, Siple and Merrell). She also went to several other schools in Europe where she got her general education. It was later, when studying back in the United States that her talents really developed. She studied under Arthur Mathews at the Institute of the San Francisco Art Association and under Vincent DuMond, F. Luis Mora, and Albert Sterner at the Art Students League in New York City. Fortune was earning a living as a portrait painter by the time she completed her education in New York (Westphal and Dominik). However, her acquaintance with William Merritt Chase during her education sparked her interest in a career of landscape painting (Stern, Siple and Merrell). After her time in New York, she returned to Europe again. She traveled, exhibited her artwork, and worked on commissions (Westphal and Dominik).

In 1912, after traveling Europe for two years, she once again came back to the United States. Upon coming back to California, she took up residence in Carmel. There were other artists already in Carmel, California having had grown into an artists’ colony (Westphal and Dominik). Fortune took part in this community. During this time in the Monterey Bay area she exhibited her work in many galleries. At this time in history, there was still some resistance to women selling art, so she signed her work with her middle name (Stern, Siple and Merrell).

In 1914 Fortune had a studio in Monterey. It was at this studio that she gave lessons in plein-air painting and held outdoor painting classes. To share this craft with others is one way Fortune displayed how inspired she was by nature. Also, she had a great and welcome influence on the area’s other artists and art establishments (Westphal and Dominik). After yet another trip to Europe, Fortune returned to Monterey in 1927 and started the Monterey Guild a group of artists who produced items for churches (Stern, Siple and Merrell).

Fortune’s early work in of the Central Coast was well received by the critics. In 1930 her work Santa Barbara earned her first prize at the California State Fair. She also exhibited her work in many group exhibitions and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The critics praised her work as having a great luminosity of broken lights …always with a view to gaining a new interpretation of the subject rather than to present the subject itself (Westphal and Dominik). John Caldwell called her work an almost pure form of American Impressionism (Westphal and Dominik). Her later work was not as well received. However, this did not deter Fortune, she attributed this lack of praise to a changing style of art, which she criticized back as being as ‘unlike nature as possible’ and devoid of emotion (Westphal and Dominik).

One painting Fortune got a good deal of positive notice for was a large painting of Monterey Bay. In 1918 she exhibited this large painting that was created from several study paintings of the bay she had done beforehand. One of these, Study of Monterey Bay, shows the quickness of her brush and the remarkable quality of freshness in her work (Stern, Siple and Merrell).

The work, Study of Monterey Bay by Fortune, was created in 1917. It is a 12-inch by 16-inch oil on canvas painting. It is housed at the Irvine Museum and can be seen in the book California Light (Stern, Siple and Merrell). This study painting features the Monterey Bay left of center. Around the bay, there are the houses and beaches that were present at the time. The painting is clearly from a hilltop as you look down on the buildings and farther down on the bay. The landscape stretches out beyond the bay, becoming less detailed into the distance.

The whole painting is done in large expressive brush strokes, mostly in a horizontal pattern. Houses and other landmarks are described in various white and tan tones with some purples, browns, reds, and blues intermixed. The slanted roofs of the Monterey houses are made obvious with wide brushstrokes that follow the direction of the roofs, diagonally cutting short shapes downward through the picture. The sides of the houses are in some places white or yellow, showing their true vertical planes with flat brushwork intertwined with the vague impressions of windows.

You can infer through this painting that the landscape spreads out into the distance, the farther into the picture plane, the less detailed, longer and more horizontal become the brushstrokes. The bay is painted in a deep blue, highly contrasting the beige and whites of the land. Small shapes of boats rest in the water, they are painted with short narrow strokes, cutting out slightly almond shapes in the ultra-blue water. This is but one work of Fortunes, though out a life time of her art, that shows the time and energy she put into re-creating the landscape. Time and energy put in for love of the subject.

Mary DeNeale Morgan

Mary DeNeale Morgan another artist whose connection with nature was apparent in her work. In the California arts community she left her mark as a teacher, organizer of associations and painter (California-Art.com). She was born just a few decades before Fortune. Mary D. Morgan was the second of seven children. She was born on May 24th, 1868 in San Francisco California. She died on October 10th, 1948 in Carmel, California (Westphal and Dominik). The studios she held in her life were located in Oakland and Carmel. She was a member of numerous art organizations, including the Carmel Art Association, the Carmel Club of Arts and Crafts, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Morgan studied at the California School of Design and also with William Keith. There are public collections of her work in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the Stanford University Art Gallery, the University of Southern California, and at the University of Texas (Westphal and Dominik).

Like Fortune, she was of some Scottish descent, however her family had immigrated to Canada and then to Monterey in 1856. She was born in San Francisco. At age two she moved with her family to Oakland because of father’s work as an engineer (California-Art.com; Westphal and Dominik). Morgan’s early education was in the Public Schools of the San Francisco area. Even when she was very young, Morgan showed a skill for drawing. Later, she went to the California School of Design. She studied there under Virgil Williams, Emil Carlson, and Amedee Joullin (Westphal and Dominik).

In 1896 she held her studio in Oakland, California (California-Art.com). She even taught at the Oakland High school. She exhibited her work in San Francisco and Oakland. In 1903 she had her first taste of Carmel, California. She was at once enchanted with the area, and in 1904 started her studio there, later settling in the area in 1910 (Calfornia-Art.com; Westphal and Dominik). It was then that she began hosting private classes at her studio in Carmel, and joined the local artist groups and associations (Westphal and Dominik). She became an integral member of the art community in Carmel (California-Art.com) Morgan was a very active member of the art community in Monterey for more than thirty-five years. Morgan, unlike Fortune, was a compellingly regional artist. She rarely traveled outside of [the Monterey] community, finding all that she needed for inspiration just outside the window of her studio in Carmel. Morgan, for some years during her time in Monterey, directed the Carmel Summer School of Art. It was Fortune who got Morgan to invite William Merritt Chase to come to teach at the school in 1914. His coming was said to have had a great influence on local artists (Westphal and Dominik).

Morgan worked in a tempera, water color and Oil paint. She painted the landscape often incorporating sand dunes, houses, and cypress trees (Calfornia-Art.com; Westphal and Dominik). She featured in her work the rocky shoreline of the Monterey Peninsula with its characteristically twisted cypress trees, the bustling harbor the verdant and colorful fields of flowers, and the picturesque architecture of Monterey and Carmel (Westphal and Dominik).

Morgan’s works were praised for their individuality, strength, vibrancy of color and accurate depths. (Westphal and Dominik). In 1928, she was called one of the nation’s foremost women artists by the editors of Scribner’s magazine (California-Art.com). Like Fortune, she also signed her work by shortening her first name to only an M. Morgan had a quick style of painting, capturing light and color from an En Plein Air perspective. Her studio was decorated with these painting of the Monterey Peninsula. Her love of the area was clearly reflected in her work and inspired the work she did during the 1930s for the Public Works of Art Project, painting scenes of Old Monterey. Morgan’s titles for her work were softly poetic: Garden by the Sea, Cypress Silhouette, Skyline Parade, [and] Sparkling Sea These titles further illustrate that the natural landscapes of the Monterey Area held a loving place in her heart (Westphal and Dominik).

Morgan’s painting October Golden House is a 40 inch by 48 inch Oil on canvas painting (Westphal and Dominik). It features the ocean waters rough with white waves near the shore. Curved cypress trees on golden out crops of land are painted with purposeful, textured brush strokes that illustrate the visual softness of their leaves and strength of their bark. Rocks are seen in the crashing surf and out beyond the water we find the horizon in the upper left. Faint clouds texture this small rectangular pocket of sky. The color pallet used in this work is slightly tinted with pinks and purples. Also, the light comes from the far right indicating perhaps the low sun setting in the west. The Shadows of the trees are cast far and long across the land which is a rich golden color. Only the tops of the tree’s leaves are deep green, the bottom layers being reddish orange. The light and color of this painting is beautifully executed, giving it a wealth of detail and accuracy of mood and form. Morgan used smaller brush strokes in this piece than Fortune did in her study mentioned earlier. This work is a finished piece of art that stands alone. The mood of Morgan’s painting is very observational; the point of view is slightly elevated off the ground, higher than would be expected of a person’s vantage point. Morgan meticulously uses the Impressionist style while preserving the details of this landscape. The darker green-blue lowlights in the ocean’s moving waters near the shore contrast the high pinks and purples on the water’s surface giving the impression of natural depth. This is another piece that shows the time and energy put into re-creating the landscape. It show the love she had for the subject if for nothing else the energy she put into painting it.

Conclusion

E. Charlton Fortune and Mary DeNeale Morgan showed their love of nature through both their paintings and in the way they shared their style with their community. The paintings are done with love, which shows in the accuracy they painstakingly place in their crafted. The attention to detail, positive mood and longevity of practice is a clear sign that these two artists, like many California Impressionists loved nature. Both these women artist also taught and worked with art associations and other community driven efforts. This show they sought to share this love of nature with others. Morgan’s having directed the Carmel Summer School of Art and Fortune having taught En Plein Air painting classes are but two examples of these women sharing their love of the landscape with others (Westphal and Dominik).

To the Artist of this era nature was a grand expression of divine perfection. It was their work, their job, to express this fact as best they could. The better they could show the beauty of nature, then the more highly regarded they were as arts. It was an American tradition to paint clean, realistic, exalting scenes of the vast landscapes. True to that American intent they sought to represent the truth of the natural scene and open opportunity. However, they did so with their own stylistic voice of honestly through the Impressionist Style of capturing light (Gerdts and South). They used the this style to more accurately capture the essence of nature that is outside of the studio. This open style of paint gave them the tool to express the natural with more truth and emotion (Gerdts and South).The Artists of the central coast in California Impressionist era loved nature and drew great inspiration from it. Particularly in Monterey, E. Charlton Fortune and Mary DeNeale Morgan, amongst others of their time, where inspired by the raw beauty of the Pacific Ocean and fresh coastal shoreline. A love that shows clear in the work they left behind.

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