exhibition

Exhibition of Sketches in Oil by Alfred Maurer, of Paris and New York; and Water-colors by John Marin of Paris and New York.


ID: 215, Status: completed
Exhibition period:
Mar 30‒Apr 17, 1909
Type:
group
Organizing Bodies:
Photo-Secession Galleries
Quickstats
Catalogue Entries: 40
Artists: 2
Gender: female: 0, male: 2
Nationalities: 1
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Date Title City Venue Type
Catalogue
Exhibition of Sketches in Oil by Alfred Maurer, of Paris and New York; and Water-colors by John Marin of Paris and New York. 1909.
Nr. of pages: [PDF page number: 4].
Holding Institution: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Preface
Charles H. Caffin: Alfred Maurer, 1 p.
Charles H. Caffin: John Marin, 1 p.

“ALFRED MAURER
Is Saul also among the prophets? was the query suggested by Alfred Maurer's picture in last year's Salon. For it represented a life sized figure, supporting a color scheme of geranium red and two blues of similarly arresting hue. Could this be the work of a man hitherto associated with low tonalities; which bad been duly honored in America, where the safe thing always counts, with prizes and medals. Alas, it was true ! Poor Maurer had left the sure path and was consorting with the prophets, the crazy seers-those who sec. The quondam pupil of Mr. Chase had had his eyes opened by Matisse. He had been led to discover other colors in his paint box than blacks and drabs and white ; also to look for color beyond the walls of an artificially darkened studio. He had been drawn out-of-doors into the sunshine. There, under the indirect persuasion of Matisse, he has found himself seeing, not only local color, but visions of color, evoked from the actual fact, by the play of his imagination under the spell of some particular mood. He has ranged himself, in fact, with the other man in Paris, who, as I have tried to suggest in die case of Marin, are trying in their pictures to substitute interpretation for representation, and whose interpretation eliminates as far as possible the assertion of the concrete, seeking an abstract expression through color-harmonies, somewhat as does the musical composer.
In these studies then, for that is what they are - color notes of spiritual impressions received in the presence of nature, he is not aiming at the representation of the landscape, hut at the projection on the panel of the color-harmonies with which for the moment nature has inspired him. They are primarily to be judged as little creations of color beauty, with the same detachment from notions of subject matter, that you approach the appreciation of a piece of antique pottery. You may even observe in some of them - I don't know how intentionally on Maurer's part – a dripping application of the colur, and the leaving of portions of the ground apparent between the masses of color, that recall the antique potter's method of applying colors and leaving parts of the biscuit of the vase in reserve. In judging them this way, however, one may be conscious sometimes that an object has been so emphasized as to challenge the mind to a question of what it represents, without giving sufficient clew to the answer. A doubt is raised. One is puzzled, and thus the mental operation of conjecture interferes with the free play of the imagination.
But the occasional occurrence of these concrete disturbances to the purely abstract impression may server by contrast to bring out more: clearly at what this artist and others, working in the same spirit, are aiming. They would borrow from nature only so much form as may supply a scaffold on which to hang the decoration of a color fantasy. When once we have accepted this point of view, we cease to attach separate importance to the scaffold, and only ask, in return that the artist will not obtrude it on our notice. If he does, it is at his own peril of disturbing our appreciation of his abstract purpose. The latter, for my own part, seems a natura1 evolution from the example of Whistler and marks a new and very suggestive note in modern painting. It is the more to be respected, that it is in the nature of treasure-trove, recovered from a redoubtable past ; for it is, along the line that Whistler blazed, a reinforcement of our own art by infusing into it some of the principles of the antique art of the Orient.
CHARLES H. CAFFIN.”

“JOHN MARIN
John Marin is one of the younger Americans in Paris, who are more intent on self-expression than on pursuing the well-trod path which leads to official honors. He is part of that fermentation which, started by Cezanne and stirred by Matisse, has given new impulse to the artist’s old recipe of seeing the world for himself. It is the latest product of the influence that oriental art began to have upon the occidental in the sixties; briefly stated, a more abstract way of receiving and of rendering the impression of the scene. It is not so much a visual as a spiritual impression, eliminating as far as possible the consciousness of the concrete; the rendering in consequence being not a representation of the original but an interpretation. Shall we describe it as the principle of a Whistler nocturne, extended to include all kinds of daylight?
The water-colors of this exhibition vary in the degree to which they suggest the actuality of the scene. In some the impression of locality and of enlivening figures are vivid; in more, however, the consciousness of facts disappears in a spiritualized vision of form and color, that I can best explain to myself by the way in which a composer will expand a motif into an elaborated harmony. Bur in whichever way the motif of the locality is treated – wheter rather directly or by interpretation - there is a creativeness displayed in the color scheme. The ordinary eye would look in vain for these color-harmonies in the actual scene, but will recongnize both their truth and their extraordinary fascination in these imagined visions. For the most part they are harmonies of indescribably delicate tonalities; wrought on the Japanese principle of the ''Notan'', a balance of dark and light, of the intimate relationship of contrasted values. Through subtle in the ensemble, they are constructed vigorously, in free, broad washes of color, applied with an admirable directness that seldom misses or overpasses the impression which is sought to be conveyed. There are it is true, occasional instances, for example, in some of the skies, where the tact of omission might better have been employed, but for the most part this fine instinct of feeling what to leave our is a notable characteristic of these pictures.
Marin also worls in oils, pastel and etching. In the first, while there is evidence of the same independent vision and beautiful sense of color, he had not, when I saw his work last summer, as yet found himself so decisively as in his water-colors. His etchings of Venice, Amsterdam and Paris, excellent as they are, show less independence of vision, being somewhat reminiscent of Whistler; but the pastels, delicate morsels of suggestiveness, once more reveal not only Marin’s refinded imagination, but also his essential individuality. He was born at Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1875.
CHARLES H. CAFFIN.
The Photo-Secession Gallery. March thirtieth, 1909.”
Catalogue Structure
"Alfred Maurer", cat. no. 1-15
"John Marin", cat. no. 1-25
Charles H. Caffin: Alfred Maurer, 1 p.
Charles H. Caffin: John Marin, 1 p.
Additional Information
Catalogue Structure altered

+Gender Distribution (Pie Chart)

+Artists’ Age at Exhibition Start(Bar Chart)

+Artists’ Nationality(Pie Chart)

+Exhibiting Cities of Artists(Pie Chart)

+Catalogue Entries by Type of Work(Pie Chart)

+Catalogue Entries by Nationality(Pie Chart)

Name Date of Birth Date of Death Nationality # of Cat. Entries
John Marin 1872 1953 US 25
Alfred Henry Maurer 1868 1932 US 15
Recommended Citation: "Exhibition of Sketches in Oil by Alfred Maurer, of Paris and New York; and Water-colors by John Marin of Paris and New York.." In Database of Modern Exhibitions (DoME). European Paintings and Drawings 1905-1915. Last modified Jan 8, 2020. https://exhibitions.univie.ac.at/exhibition/215