Vibe-Fall-2024 - Flipbook - Page 20
Artist Falls and Brook in Autumn, by Benjamin Champney
Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches
Signed & dated lower center: B. Champney 1857
this trip that Champney was commissioned to paint a copy of the
1600 Paysage près de la ville de Rhenen: vaches au pâturage et berger jouant de la flûte, by Aelbret Cuyp, in the Louvre Museum. The
painting was purchased by Boston Lieutenant Colonel William Parsons Winchester and brought back to Boston in July 1844. It was
exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum. The painting is now displayed
at the White Mountain Museum & Gallery in North Conway.
The summer of 1851 was a defining moment in American
art history, for our nation witnessed the birth of one of its earliest artist colonies in North Conway. Inspired by the enthusiasm
of Benjamin Champney and John Kensett, artists such as Alfred
Ordway, Benjamin Stone, and John Casilear ventured north from
Boston and New York to the White Mountains for an introduction to this painters’ haven. For many artists, this summer
visit would become an annual expedition, and together, these
men would shape the White Mountain School of Art. In 1853,
Champney married Mary C. Brooks, and purchased a summer
home and studio at the base of Sunset Hill, and it became a mecca for artists from the Hudson River School and other artists
from Boston, Portland, and throughout New England.
Over the years, more than 400 artists painted in the White
Mountains, and many of them painted with Champney, while in
Conway. In his memoir, Sixty Years’ Memories of Art and Artists, he
recalls, “Thus every year brought fresh visitors to North Conway
as the news of its attractions spread, until in 1853 and 1854 the
meadows and the banks of the Saco were dotted all about with
20
Glen Ellis Falls, by Charles E. Beckett
Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches
Signed & dated lower right: C. E. Beckett / 1853
white umbrellas in great numbers.” This is the image depicted
by Portland artist Winslow Homer in his painting in the Portland
Museum of Art, Artists Sketching in the White Mountains.
It was also in 1851 that Champney’s friend, John Frederick
Kensett (1816-1872), produced a large canvas, 40 by 60 inches,
Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway. The image is painted from Sunset Hill behind Champney’s farmhouse and studio.
Kensett’s image became the single most effective mid-19th-century advertisement for the scenic charms of the White Mountains
and of North Conway, in particular. It was made into a print by
the engraver James Smillie (1833–1909) for the American ArtUnion, and was distributed to over 13,000 Art-Union subscribers
throughout the country. By this time, the White Mountains had
firmly established itself as a tourist destination, with the first of
the grand hotels, The Crawford House, opening in 1850.
Early paintings that attracted the first tourists were sweeping vistas of the White Mountains. Often, these scenes were
romanticized to be more dramatic and wilder, towering mountains with torrents of rushing water and menacing skies, portraying the sublime grandeur of an untouched wilderness, and
often omitting the actual roads, farms, and taverns that made
the artist’s trips possible. “The most distinctive, and perhaps
the most impressive, characteristic of American scenery is its
wildness,” wrote Thomas Cole. These American landscapes
excited the imagination of the viewer. This early art was very
fine and detailed work, drawing on the traditional style of the
MWVvibe.com
