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From Church to Dove: One Hundred Years of American Painting from the Heckscher Museum of Art |
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The Poetry of Moonlight c. 1880-90 Oil on canvas 30 x 25 1/4 inches Heckscher Museum of Art, Gift of August Heckscher |
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Virtually a self-taught artist, Ralph Albert Blakelock began exhibiting his landscapes at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1867. By the 1880s through the 1890s, Blakelock's style showed a marked change from his early, atmospheric works. He ceased painting actual scenes from nature and began creating "visions" based on memories and sketches from two western sojourns in 1869 and 1872. The central theme of Blakelock's paintings from this period—solitude—found expression in his many moonlight landscapes and Indian encampments. In The Poetry of Moonlight, Blakelock depicts the dramatic effects of changing light, and his use of patterning is particularly effective. In praising these types of scenes, contemporary critic Royal Cortissoz wrote, "The true Blakelock is the artist who saw nature 'en silhouette'…A tree was for him a kind of screen, whose boughs etched a curious pattern across the sky." | ||