Attempting in non-painter language to summarize the spirit of his method, one may, perhaps, reduce it to the equivalent elements in his own character—poise and sympathetic penetration. The balanced effect of his landscapes is very notable: a harmony of colour in which there is no jar, a similar equipoise in the details introduced, a delicate adjustment of strength and tenderness and of sentiment to facts; an ensemble of uninterrupted unity. In the matter of sympathetic penetration—a rather clumsy expression for which I can find no happy alternative—his method is even more remarkable. I allude to the affectionate studiousness with which he analyzes the significant constituents of the landscape, and to the degree in which his eye penetrates the secret of the envelope of atmosphere, of that particular quality of atmosphere characteristic of New England.
I would cite the “Early Spring, New England,” not as an example of one of his most beautiful landscapes, but as a triumph of technical resource, to which was awarded the gold medal in 1898 at the Carnegie exhibition in Pittsburg. The foreground is a pasture with a brook winding through it, and several leafless trees which spread their delicate network of branches against a clear, open sky that reddens slightly near the horizon. Beyond is cultivated land, partly covered with the brilliant green of young vegetation, and partly red, upturned soil, with a team ploughing. Farther back are gently rising hills.
The front of the picture is painted with remarkably delicate detail, and in the distant parts there is a similar suggestion conveyed of the worthiness of the scene to be minutely studied. There is not a square inch in the composition that is without individual interest, and yet this elaborate mosaic unifies into a single impression of spaciousness; for the relative significance of each plane in the picture has been so shrewdly realized. The eye is invited to travel back to the remotest part of the ground and up into the expanse of sky. This is the primary invitation of the picture as would be that of the actual scene; and then follows, if you have eyes for it, the beckoning in this and that direction to the separate interest of the various parts. This accurate rendering of the effect of intervening atmosphere upon the receding forms and colours brings the atmosphere itself into the picture; a softly stealing animation, not yet nimble, but gently quickening into life. It is, indeed, a picture of quite extraordinary subtlety; and so much the more a triumph of accomplishment because it is a very large one, and the mere problem of filling such an extent of canvas with the evidences of minute observation, so that it should still hold well together, was a most formidable one. There was no possibility of evasion or of falling back upon convenient generalizations: the problem, once grasped, had to be solved to its ultimate conclusion.
Yet the very magnitude of canvas and of problem impairs somewhat the intimacy of feeling in the picture, and for all its abounding skill we shall not reckon it among Tryon’s choicest work. In that he gives us, when he wills, the sense of spaciousness within a much smaller frame, and, compassing it around so discreetly, makes its subtle appeal by so much the more insinuating. These comparatively smaller pictures are too numerous and different in character to allow of detailed allusion, yet one may single out a few such gems as “The Rising Moon” and “Sunrise,” owned by Mr. Charles L. Freer; “After Showers—June,” owned by Colonel Frank J. Hecker; “The Meadow—Evening,” owned by Mr. A. T. Sanders; “Springtime,” owned by Mr. George
From the collection of J. J. Albright, Esq.
EVENING—AUTUMN.
By Dwight W. Tryon.