French Spring

French Spring is James Carroll Beckwith’s informal glimpse across a meadow in which a line of three young trees leads the eye toward a boundary of rich blue-green foliage and a wooden fence. Beyond, at left and right, rustic buildings are just visible, their red walls echoing a trio of scarlet spots representing blossoms, perhaps poppies, in the foreground. Beckwith applied paint in vigorously dashed and blended strokes of the brush that reflect the rapidity with which he worked. The open ground of the meadow is a virtually flat space of brushy modulated greens and golds that appears to recede into space only thanks to the carefully placed retreating tree trunks. Foliage, fence, and houses are cropped and crowded by the edges of the composition, obliterating the horizon to create a confining, intimate view even as they provide a firm organizing structure for the work’s loose, casual brushwork.

Beckwith was in France as early as 1873 and made numerous return visits. Primarily a painter of portraits and figural subjects, the artist also experimented with painting en plein air, or outdoors, during excursions in the French countryside, as French Spring attests. The work’s precise date and the site it depicts are unknown, but it demonstrates the painter’s awareness of current artistic trends. By the late 1880s, plein-air painting was becoming a widespread practice among both European and American artists as they sought to record in their works the effects of natural light. In this work, rapidly painted on a small, easily portable panel, Beckwith also abandoned traditional academic technique to paint directly onto the support, freely and spontaneously, rather than drawing first. Yet in blending his colors and using near-black tones for the shadowed areas by the fence, he stopped short of fully embracing impressionist technique. French Spring shares its tipped-up perspective; concern for decorative, asymmetrical composition; and brushy blending of colors in flat areas with landscape paintings by several of Beckwith’s American contemporaries, such as Theodore Wendel’s Brook, Giverny (TF 1987.13), another work in the Terra Foundation collection.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 6–29, 1987.

Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915 (Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915) Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 1–November 1, 1992; April 1–October 31, 1993; April 1–October 30, 1994; April 1–October 31, 1995. [exh. cat.]

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 10, 1999–May 7, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

En Plein Air: American Painters in Giverny, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 8–May 25, 2003.

Le Passage à Paris: les artistes américains en France, 1860–1930 (Passing through Paris: American Artists in France, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, April 1–October 31, 2005. [exh. brochure]

Le Passage à Paris: les artistes américains en France, 1860–1930 (Passing through Paris: American Artists in France, 1860–1930), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, April 1–October 29, 2006. [exh. brochure]

Gerdts, William H. et al. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 42, 272; pl. 86, p. 273 (color).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 42, 272; pl. 86, p. 273 (color).