Envisioning America: The Landscape in American Art

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

“The out-of-doors never belongs wholly to the owner of the land.  It is the possession of all who pass by and find something in its expression that appeals to the inner sense.”

E. Drusille Ford, “The Environment of a Country Home,” The Craftsman 14 (June 1908): 287.

The appreciation of–and harmonization with–nature was a fundamental part of the Craftsman movement that is often taken for granted today.  Hardly novel, this conception of nature was rooted in approaches to the landscape established by artists since Europeans first arrived on this continent.  In this series, we’ll explore the radical reinterpretation of the American Landscape from a menace–something that must be plotted and subdued–into a sanctuary worthy of reverence and protection.  By tracking this transformation from the birth of the Early Republic through the eve of World War One we can better appreciate the reverence for nature expressed in the Craftsman Movement.

The brief history of landscape painting we offer in this session is also microcosm of American attitudes, of thought, and of the role of the arts in American society.  It is not only about learning to paint differently over time, but at its core is tracking the manner in which Americans learned to see differently over time.  We’ll touch upon artists well-known to most–like Sargent, Cassatt, and Whistler–and less familiar names like Willard Metcalf, Robert Duncanson, and Ralph Blakelock.  We’ll witness how, throughout history, Americans have returned to the landscape as a source of inspiration, contemplation, and revelation in times of peace and in those of strife.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Dr. Jonathan Clancy has been the Director of Collections and Preservation at the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms since 2020.  Those interested in the Arts and Crafts field will know his publications including: The First Metal—Arts & Crafts Copper, These Humbler Metals: Arts and Crafts Metalwork from the Two Red Roses Foundation Collection, Beauty in Common Things: American Arts and Crafts Pottery from the Two Red Roses Foundation as well as articles for The Journal of Modern Craft, Style 1900 and Journal of Design History.  Other contributions include chapters and articles on topics ranging from Studio pottery after World War II, American trompe l’oeil paintings of money, and John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark. He is currently co-authoring a catalog on European ceramics for the St. Louis Art Museum and contributing to a planned exhibition on French ceramist Taxile Doat. His article on the ceramic collection of Gustav Stickley for the journal Ceramics in America will appear later this year.