William Merritt Chase, The Girl in the Blue Kimono (1888)
Chase was one of the primary American Impressionist painters and renowned as well as a teacher. He is considered one of the first of a “wave of European-trained American talent” in the visual arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Alfred Maurer, Gabrielle ca. 1900
Maurer is considered one of the first great American modernists. This painting is part of the collection of Fra Dana, the American artist (and wife of a Montana cattleman) about whom I wrote here. Maurer and Dana were both students of William Merritt Chase, above.
Rose was an American Impressionist painter originally from California, who like the painters above studied for a time in Paris, where Orientalism was influential. Claude Monet was one of his mentors.
(All the paintings here are indicative of the influence of “Orientalism” on the American painting establishment at the turn of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, this movement in the U.S. has been criticized for its colonialist overtones. Which begs—or maybe answers—the question, “why do all these women appear to be of Northern European descent?”)
Robert Henri, The Blue Kimono (1909).
Henri was one of the “Ashcan School” of artists that came to prominence in the U.S. in the early 20th century—depicting scenes of real street life. Edward Hopper was one of Henri’s students. This painting seems to be a departure from the gritty scenes Henri often painted. And why is it called The Blue Kimono?
Joseph DeCamp, The Blue Mandarin Coat (The Blue Kimono) (1922).
DeCamp was a founding member of The Ten American painters—a group of mostly Impressionists who broke away from the establishment Society of American Artists in 1897. He was originally a landscape painter, and sadly lost hundreds of works in a fire when he was forty-six.
thank you to all my blog friends for giving me reasons to do a hundred posts! SM ♥
