Edwin Dickinson - Hawthorne's Influence

Hawthorne's Influence

Hawthorne, who had himself been a student of Chase and perpetuated some of his ideas, had a strong influence on Dickinson's painting methods and ideas, many of which he retained in his later teaching. Dickinson's Self-Portrait of 1914 is what Hawthorne's students called a "mudhead," a back-lit figure built up in color patches, working outward from the center, rather than filling in contours. Hawthorne had his students use palette knives and even fingers, "as if painting had been just invented" and preventing them from trying to paint details instead establishing relationships between "spots" (i.e., patches) of color. From Hawthorne, Dickinson learned to look for the unexpected and to paint without formulas, to squint to determine value relationships, and to believe that a painting will be better if one leaves off when inspiration wanes, no matter how much is done. Dickinson's use of Hawthorne's ideas in his teaching has been described by one of his former students, Francis Cunningham.