These two paintings by the prolific artist known colloquially as Grandma Moses remind me of, and embody the feelings that I had of a trip to Old Rag mountain, near Sperryville, Virginia. The naive quality that immediately identifies the work as being by Grandma Moses evokes for me the simple, rural, and charming character of the area around Sperryville, with it's twisting farm roads, neatly tended farms, and ever present view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a beautiful day and the clear late-afternoon sunlight amplified the tonalities of the greens, blues, and brown colors of the location. It seems that experience informs the appreciation of "naive" art.

Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses), 1860-1961
She married Thomas Salmon Moses in 1887 and had 10 children. She painted her first painting in 1920; and began painting in earnest in 1927 after the death of her husband. Her pictures, which she exhibited at local fairs, depicted country scenes filled with people and executed in a naive manner. At exhibition of her work in a drugstore window in 1939 caught the attention of Louis J. Caldor, who introdued her work to Dr. Otto Kallir, director of Galeries St. Etienne in New York City. She executed about 1,600 pictures. The above painting, King Church, is listed as no. 1541 in the artist's inventory book. It was executed in August, 1952. The painting below, The Sycamore Farm, is recorded as no. 782 in the inventory book and was painted in July, 1944.

I've discovered that I have a burgeoning interest in nineteenth-century men's dress and have been learning the terminology for describing the relatively simple yet elegant clothing. For instance in this unidentified early nineteenth-century group portrait, the central figure wears a blue, short-waisted cutaway coat with long tails and wide lapels, a high-collared white linen shirt with de rigeur stock, and white trousers. The fashionable nature of his dress in comparison to the somber and conservative attire of the other sitters intrigues me. He appears to be the same age of the figure (a brother?) at left, who points to the Viceroyalty of Peru on the globe, and younger than the figure at right (the father?). Why is his dress so fashionable compared to that of the other two men? He must be the baby. We will call him "Chauncey."

The artist's depiction of the objets on the mantle and his/her adroit rendering of the mirror with a view of a well-stocked library, both of which convey a post-Enlightenment sense of cultivation and gentility, bring me back to the issue of the white trousers of the central figure (I have wish-listed Victoria Finlay's History of Color in which she documents the historical cultural significance of colors). Clean white trousers, or even white linen shirts, must have been a sign of wealth, cultivation, and elegance in the nineteenth century, and even today. To think how incredibly difficult it was to maintain the appearance of cleanliness with regard to white fabric in the nineteenth century?

I also like that the artist has priveleged the depiction of the elaborately patterned carpet over perspectival accuracy (the klismos chairs cling percipitously to the highly angled floor). Like so many of the intentional inclusions in the painting--the clothing, the globe, the objets, the books--the depiction of the carpet is more of a conveyor of economic, social, and cultural significance rather than an indicator of a realistically documented setting.

A Problem Picture: A Visit to the Haunted Chamber

One of the great perks of my job is that I get to scower decades worth of auction catalogues. I ran across this painting, which appealed to me for the tension created by the composition and the contrast created by the black dresses of the two figures and the yellow tonality of the room, including the oak floorboards and yellow bed dressing. The painting is entitled A Visit to the Haunted Chamber (click to enlarge) and depicts two elegantly, but conservatively, dressed women cautiously entering a room. A glimmer of light shines through a crack in the door hidden from the women's view, but which also attracts two errant rats. Although, one could relegate this painting to an artist's desire to create a tension in the work, I am reminded of the great interest in spirituality that occurred during the latter half of the nineteenth century, particularly following the Crimean War, the American Civil War and, later, the Great War. The personal result of those tragedies was that individuals who had lost loved ones in the conflicts sought refuge in the world of spirits, in particular, the belief in an afterlife and the ability of the deceased to communicate, via mediums or apparitions, to the living (the English also developed a tradition of fairy painting). I have yet to research the exhibition records of the work and any periodicals that commented on the picture, but am increasingly interested in the narrative implied in the work. With regard to the formal elements, I am drawn to the beautifully rendered embroidered bed dressings (although somewhat tattered) and the painting above the fireplace, which depicts a young girl in a salmon colored dress painted in the style of Sir Joshua Reynolds standing next to a stag. I have named the two women Shawna and Debbie.

William Frederick Yeames, R.A. (British, 1835-1918)
A Visit to the Haunted Chamber
o/c, 23 1/2" x 33 1/4"
signed and dated l. r. "W.F. YEAMES-1869-"
Exhibited: Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1870, no. 187; Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, 1887, no. 3 (lent by R.H. Knowles)
Literature: M.H. Stephen Smith, Art and Anecdote, pp. 160-61

Yeames was born in Taganrog in southern Russia, where his father was British Consul. He came to England at the age of thirteen and studied under the sculptor Richard Westmacott, then spent six years in Italy before settling in London and making his debut at the Royal Academy in 1859. He remained a regular contributor, becoming an Associate in 1866 and a full Academician in 1878. For many years he was a member of the St. John's Wood Clique, together with P.H. Calderon, H.S. Marks, G.D. Leslie, D.W. Wynfield, and G.A. Storey. This group concentrated on subjects of a historical nature and narrative paintings in which the story was revealed by close study of the actions and expressions of the subjects. In Yeames's work this technique evolved into the genre known as the "Problem Picture," in which the narrative of the image creates an unresolved dilemma or paradox for the viewer. In other words, the picture is deliberately intended to be enigmatic or open ended.

Yeames excelled in most types of painting, including portraits and landscapes, but he made his name with elaborate reconstructions of historical events, both real and imaginary. His most famous work, And when did you last see your father?, was exhibited at the Academy in 1878, and is in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/lastseefather/lastseefatherlarge.asp?back=0).