Paper Number Two (2)

One of the advantages of working at a college is the summer hours so this past Friday I spent the day at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT. I had no idea a museum of this caliber existed in Hartford never mind the fact that it is the home to nearly 50,000 works of art spanning 5,000 years. The collections include Renaissance and Baroque paintings, Mediterranean antiques, seventeenth-century American furniture and decorative arts, textiles and costumes, Meissen porcelain, African-American art and artifacts, American landscapes, European and American impressionist paintings, and modern and contemporary art.

The current exhibitions on view are the Connecticut Contemporary which features over 100 works by local, talented artists, Picasso to Pop: Aspects of Modern Art, Faith and Fortune: Five Centuries of European Masterworks, and For the Love of the Game, Race and Sport in America.

I was about to enter a section of the museum when from the corner of my eye I saw this luminescent color of blue, and knew instantly it was the work of Maxfield Parrish. As a young girl Ansel Adams and Maxfield Parrish were my introduction to the art world. Maxfield Parrish was one of America’s most beloved artists who worked during the “Golden Age of American Illustration". He was known to many Americans as the common man’s Rembrandt.

During his lifetime he achieved artistic renowned critical acclaim, and continues to hold the attention of audiences today. His work has been reproduced in calendars, books, advertisements, art prints, and magazines. Maxfield's murals and paintings utilized a unique juxtaposition of designed elements, luminescent colors, photorealistic subjects and romantic images of far-away, fantasy places. In the 1920’s Maxfield Parrish was so popular with the American people one out of four homes had his work hanging on their wall. Even today there is a high demand for his art prints which indicates America’s fondness for his work.

At Haverford College he studied architecture, and then dropped out to study painting. While living with his dad in Gloucester, Massachusetts he painted his first serious work, 'Moonrise', and simultaneously enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. At the Academy he became interested with the work of Howard Pyle and audited Pyle's first classes in illustration. Parrish realized that the use of historic subject matter captured the sentiments of the print audience.

Parrish attended a class at Yale where Jay Hambidge, a historian-illustrator lectured on a composition called “dynamic symmetry”– this system offered a formula for reproducing natural proportions in their works. This symmetry later became a major part of his art. In fact, all of his works are based around this technique. First, he did montage layouts which he would then paint. The final execution was almost etching-like, precisely articulated with romantic images of far-away fantasy places. The colors that appear in Parrish's works are so bold even today cobalt blue is referred to as "Parrish blue.”


Maxfield Parrish
American, 1870-1966
Study for Old Glen Mill, c. 1932 The colors are brillantly bright!

A peaceful place far-away... Serentiy...

Magical...

Wonderous...

A place to just be... Elegant...

Maxfield Parrish, there's only one... Thank you for joining me on this magical journey, until we meet again, I wish you peace...