At Mouquins Painting by William James Glackens
by Carlos Diaz
Title
At Mouquins Painting by William James Glackens
Artist
Carlos Diaz
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
At Mouquin’s Painting - Remastered by Carlos Diaz
William James Glackens (March 13, 1870 – May 22, 1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School, which rejected the formal boundaries of artistic beauty laid-down by the conservative National Academy of Design. He is also known for his work in helping Albert C. Barnes to acquire the European paintings that form the nucleus of the famed Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. His dark-hued, vibrantly painted street scenes and depictions of daily life in pre-WW I New York and Paris first established his reputation as a major artist. His later work was brighter in tone and showed the strong influence of Renoir. During much of his career as a painter, Glackens also worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines in Philadelphia and New York City.
Glackens' subject matter and style changed throughout his life. Influenced by the work he saw during his time in Europe, from Hals and Manet to Frank Duveneck and the Impressionists, Glackens’ early work uses dark, dramatic colors and slashing, overlapping brushstrokes.
He depicted scenes of urban life in Paris and its suburbs and painted the theaters and parks of Manhattan. He continued this style and subject matter for some time until he began to break away from The Eight.
At that point, his most common subject matter was landscapes, especially beach scenes. Later Glackens became best known for his portraits, and late in his life he focused on still lifes. Despite the changing subject matter, Glackens’ work was clearly the product of a man who loved the fluid, unrestrained quality of oil on canvas. Forbes Watson asserted that Glackens focused on strong color effects, above all else, because "the color of the world makes him thoroughly happy and to express that happiness in color has become his first and most natural impulse."His paintings are, paradoxically, "haunted by the spectre of happiness, obsessed with the contemplation of joy."In many ways, he was always the gentlest, least radical of the Ashcan artists.
Glackens is sometimes criticized for his similarity to Renoir. He was branded an imitator. The charge was made that during the 1920s and 1930s “his once vigorous artistic personality had been blunted by too close an imitation of Renoir’s late style.” Glackens himself seems not to have been affected by any doubts about his own purpose and originality. His art did not reflect the social crises of the day, such as the Great Depression; rather, it offered a refuge from that darkness.
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April 8th, 2021
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