American Beauty: Painting and sculpture from The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1770-1920
NETHERLANDS
AMSTERDAM • Van Gogh Museum • Ongoing
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The paintings and sculptures are from the Detroit Institute of Arts, which boasts one of the most representative collections of American art in the world. With 90 masterpieces, including famous works such as Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley and Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket by James McNeill Whistler, the exhibition follows the evolution of American art from 1770 to 1920.
Although the artists were familiar with and reacted to European art, they simultaneously developed their own individual style. To shed light on the various artistic currents the exhibition is organized around themes such as 'American Icons', 'Impressionism and Realism', and 'American Modernism'. Portraits, still lifes, landscapes and realistic genre scenes visualize the quest for an independent identity.
One of the movements to arise in American art was the Hudson River School ('the National School'), founded by Thomas Cole and Thomas Doughty, which made its appearance in the second half of the 19th century. American landscape painters believed that America's nature could not be depicted by means of traditional artistic conventions. Emulating English artists such as William Turner and John Constable they succeeded in recording the literally awe-inspiring power of nature on canvas. They were skilled in creating spacious landscapes in pictures that were also often large in size: expansive mountain ranges, reflecting lakes, waterfalls and infinite forests. Frederic Edwin Church, Martin Johnson Heade and other members of the second generation of the Hudson River School placed greater emphasis on the dramatic effect of light in nature and their landscapes generally exude a shimmering atmosphere.
The exhibition American Beauty, organised by the Detroit Institute of Arts, was first shown at The National Gallery of Ireland. Upon closing at the Van Gogh Museum the works will travel to the American Museum in Giverny where they will be on view from 2 March to 2 June 2003.
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