American painters | Guillermo Coll

30May 2022 by Enriquecoll_1601 No Comments

Frederic Remington

Most of us are unaware that we have found Frederic Remington’s works (1861-1909) a number of times in our lives. These works have been replicated ‘ad nauseam’ in all sorts of things such as decorations, movie posters or book covers. Some of his paintings depicting the conquest of the Far West, the Native Americans and the Native Indian Wars have become cultural icons nowadays. The Seventh Art, the cinema in particular, owes him so much. Some of the well-known sceneries of any classic western seem to be inspired by his paintings. Remington had a life of adventure: he experienced first-hand everything he painted. He worked as journalist, photographer, newspaper correspondent and writer. The tradition of such paintings is still fully in force in the United States of America. We need…

One Dollar Bill

Illustration

Unfortunately, there are so few works of American painters of the 19th century exhibited in European museums. In Madrid, there are quite few samples in the Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza. With the exception of Sargent, people barely knows the paintings by Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer or George Inness. But there is also a prejudice that these painters are merely following the styles arisen in the old continent. Obviously, many of them travelled throughout Europe and completed their training but once home they were capable to give their own works a dynamic sense typical of an emerging country. At the end of the 19th century, there were artists who were masters of the trompe l'oeil technique such as John Frederick Peto or William Michael Harnett and who arose in the United States. The…

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

Painting

Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938) was an elegant and smart American painter attached to ‘tonalism’, a painting style that arose in the United States around 1880 and whose well-known representatives were George Inness and James McNeill Whistler. The ‘tonalist’ painters looked for an ideal of beauty and gave their pictures a particular veiled atmosphere, both landscapes and objects seemed to be surrounded by a subtle mist. These artists equally focussed in finding the correct and exact value of the colours and the hues. Dewing’s works are mainly devoted to female figure, he was capable of giving the portrayed women a refined spirituality. All those women posed with a certain languor, oblivious to our gaze, sometimes they turn their back on us, always smart and unattainable. These characters integrating the landscape seem…