Late in the Nineteenth Century, William Dean Howells wrote that novelists concern themselves with “the more smiling aspects of life, which are the more American.” A painter who responded to those smiling aspects was Frank W. Benson, whose brilliant Impressionist canvases captured the happy †and sunny †side of New England life.
Benson was an artist transfixed by light; it was the ingredient that sets his art apart from others. Whether in subtly illuminated interior domestic scenes, deftly lit portraits or idyllic, sun-splashed views of his family on a Maine island, Benson used light to capture beauty and convey emotion and messages of the good life.
A leader among American artists, Benson (1862‱951) was a success not only as an oil painter, but watercolorist and printmaker. His subjects, from family to New England landscapes to hunting and fishing scenes, were consistently popular with the public. He won virtually every award in the art world.
The finest works of Benson’s career, indeed the most enduringly beautiful pictures of summer leisure in Maine ever created, were painted during Benson’s half century on North Haven Island in Penobscot Bay near Rockland. Commemorating the 150th anniversary of his birth, preeminent Benson authority Faith Andrews Bedford has organized “Impressionist Summers: Frank W. Benson’s North Haven,” comprising 70 works, on view at the Farnsworth Art Museum through October 31.
Born in Salem, Mass., where he lived most of his life, Benson studied at the school of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and taught there for many years. In France, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, summered in Brittany and visited London before resettling in Salem in 1885.
At the outset, Benson focused on portraying upper-class women in quiet domestic settings, combining solid figure construction with subtle modulations of light in the manner of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. Some of his best Boston studio work utilized “the muted light of an oil lamp or the glow of flames dancing in a fireplace,” observes Bedford.
Benson’s female sitters tended to dress in fashionable but conservative styles of the day; on occasion when garbed in more flamboyant attire, he painted them in a flashier, bravura manner reminiscent of John Singer Sargent. He also adapted his imagery of gracious young womanhood to allegorical purposes in murals at the Library of Congress in 1896, and in other murals utilized striking patterns of wildfowl against the sky.
Around the turn of the century, Benson began to work, often outdoors, in a looser, more colorful Impressionist manner, although he always retained the careful draftsmanship of his academic training. Seeking the perfect summer retreat, he painted in Dublin and Newcastle, N.H., where he was joined by Edmund Tarbell, his close friend, fellow teacher at the Museum School and painting soulmate. In Newcastle, Benson began to use broken brushwork and a high-keyed palette to depict figures outdoors in dazzling natural light. “It was as though Benson had stepped across a threshold into another world, eschewing forever the light of lamp and fire for that of the sun,” says Bedford.
As a measure of his prominence, in 1898 Benson joined Childe Hassam, Tarbell, John H. Twachtman, J. Alden Weir and other Impressionists in The Ten American Painters, who united to control the quality, coherence, hanging and tastefulness of their exhibitions. Formed not “to challenge the academy, but a means for self-advancement of men whose work shocked nobody,” in the words of eminent art historian Oliver W. Larkin, The Ten showed together for nearly two decades.
After a brief stay in Ogunquit, Maine, a burgeoning art colony that lacked the solitude and relaxed atmosphere he wanted, Benson finally settled in 1901 on North Haven, a remote island a dozen miles from midcoast Rockland. Wooster Farm, a white, 1795 farmhouse with great views near the ocean, was surrounded by 25 acres that included an apple orchard, spacious fields and a barn Benson turned into a studio. He was accompanied by his wife and four children, Eleanor, George, Elisabeth and Sylvia, who shared his love of the outdoors and the opportunity to escape from their busy lives in Salem and Boston.
When the artist saw his wife silhouetted against the blue sky he had an epiphany: “This is it,” he recalled thinking. “This is where I want to paint her&• and the children.
Benson painted seascape murals on the walls of the house, and posed his daughters and friends in fresh, vibrant, sunny images that reflected the clear summer air of coastal Maine. Benson’s most memorable paintings †and highlights of the exhibition †are these sun-drenched portrayals of wholesome, innocent young women in long white dresses, often outlined against a bright blue sky.
In that first year on North Haven, Benson’s initial painting featured his 11-year-old daughter Eleanor in a summery dress, shielding her eyes against the sun. As Farnsworth director Christopher J. Brownawell observes, “Benson found his muse in Maine.”
It is unlikely that any museum this summer can boast of a more brilliant and beautiful display of art than that which greets visitors in the exhibition’s first gallery. Arrayed here is a 1909 series depicting young women awash in island sunshine, starting with “Sunlight,” 1909, in which Eleanor, resplendent in a long, white dress, stands ramrod straight on an island hillside, shielding her eyes against the brilliant Maine sun. “Summer,” circa 1909, shows white-gowned Elisabeth and a neighbor’s daughter seated on the hillside with the sea and Vinalhaven Island in the distance. The third of this trio features another neighbor’s daughter, “Margaret ‘Gretchen’ Strong,” seated on the hillside, her white dress shimmering in bright sunshine. Benson combined the three pictures into one brilliant group portrait, “Summer,” an icon of American art, not in the exhibition.
The eldest daughter, Eleanor, was a frequent subject, posing on the front porch of the farmhouse with her sisters; using a parasol as a shield while reading on the farmhouse lawn; gazing into the distance with the family dog; seated under dappled sunlight at the edge of a forest; and sitting by a window in a Vermeer-like picture. The standout is a stunning view of Eleanor wearing a broad, veiled hat and white gown backed by a blue sky punctuated with fleecy, white clouds.
Equally spectacular is a rare North Haven interior portrait of his youngest daughter Sylvia in a broad-brimmed hat radiant in light from an unseen source.
In his only interior of Wooster Farm, “Rainy Day,” Benson depicted his daughter Elisabeth curled up in a rattan chair near the warmth of the fireplace, reading a book. Small sketches, pewter candles and vases decorate the mantelpiece, and a blue Canton vase used in still lifes rests on a table.
The artist’s rambunctious son seldom appears in North Haven pictures; he was too restless to pose quietly. He kept rocking the boat, terrifying his sisters, while they posed for the beautifully painted, sunny “Calm Morning,” showing George and two of his sisters in a dory.
Two quite different paintings of nonfamily members suggest Benson’s stylistic range. “Laddie,” a Golden Boy if there ever was one, depicts a neighbor’s adorable toddler posed in a luminous white outfit suffused with island sunlight.
Fourteen years later, the artist painted a dark, penetrating portrait of his good friend and fellow hunter, Parker Stone, who was the Wooster Farm caretaker/handyman. An outdoors person uncomfortable in his suit, tie and cap, he fixes the viewer with a wary gaze, while light from the left highlights his angular features and aquiline nose.
Benson’s versatility is apparent in landscapes, like views of Wooster Farm, seascapes including the scintillating “Shimmering Sea” and expressive views of irises and the Monet-like “Lily Pond.”
In 1912, Benson took on the challenge of etching, quickly mastering the medium, and, like all his artwork, it was an immediate success. “Critics were captivated by their decorative, delicate quality and the fine gradations of tone and value,” says Bedford, and as his sculptor friend and North Haven neighbor Bela Pratt reported, sold “like hotcakes at good prices.”
On view are splendid etchings showing son George holding an osprey, his daughters in island landscapes, wildfowl skimming across storm-tossed seas, fishermen at work. The standout, “Boats at Dawn,” evocatively reflects the early hours and hard work of men who live by the sea.
Before he was done, Benson, who had started out aiming to be an ornithological artist and became an avid fisherman and hunter, turned out so many wildly acclaimed views of birds in animated flight and duck hunters with their decoys that he was called the Dean of the American Sporting Print. “He has been credited,” observes Bedford, “with creating something that did not exist before †the sporting print. And in so doing, he created a demand that continues to this day.”
Benson’s love of the outdoors, his familiarity with the look and characteristics of each species and his ability to compose realistic yet aesthetically pleasing compositions shine through in paintings of eagles on tree branches or osprey toting prey, watercolors of ducks rising in flight or seagulls skimming over choppy water and etchings of eagles alighting or birds forming patterns in the sky. Most beautiful of all is “Herons and Lilies,” an oil painted in 1934, showing pristine white birds flying over a deep blue lily pool and dark green shore foliage and trees. Few, if any, American artists have depicted birds with greater accuracy and beauty than Benson.
Starting in the early 1920s, Benson tried his hand at watercolors and, as usual, quickly became proficient and popular in the medium. Attracted by its portability on trips, he quickly learned to take advantage of the spontaneity and speed of watercolors to capture fresh impressions of hunting and fishing, birds in flight, nature, the movement of water and sky, fishermen at work and floral still lifes. Well into his 70s and 80s he created atmospheric views of lobstermen hauling traps and old salts exchanging greetings from their dories. Created freehand, using transparent washes to convey essentials in his watercolors, “He captured well the shimmering quality of sunlight; there is a sense of heat as well as humidity,” reports Bedford.
Benson continued to summer on North Haven until 1941, when the outbreak of World War II and ill health ended his four-decade residency. The property was eventually sold and is today in private hands, but the ambience of those glorious summers a century ago lingers around the property.
“For Benson, North Haven was a place of renewal, inspiration and experimentation,” observes Bedford, adding that each time he experimented with a new motif or style there, “the praise was instant, the demand overwhelming.” She concludes that “few artists have had so long or so successful career in so many media. And they all began at North Haven.”
Bedford’s 128-page, lavishly illustrated catalog with perceptive, highly informative essays is attractive and well done. Published by the Farnsworth Museum and Skira Rizzoli Publications, Inc, it sells for $40.
The Farnsworth is at 16 Museum Street. For information, www.farnsworthmuseum.org or 207-596-6457.
