World War I and European Trip
Dickinson spent time teaching painting in Buffalo and working as a telegrapher in New York City until his naval service from late 1917 to 1919. War had interrupted Dickinson's plans to visit Europe with his close friend and fellow painter, Herbert Groesbeck, and while Dickinson served in the navy off the coast of New England Herbert traveled to Europe as a soldier and died in the Argonne Forest in one of the last battles of the war. His death seemed to reawaken Dickinson's pain over earlier losses of his mother and brother and to affect subsequent paintings. A trip to Paris to study art followed between December 1919 and July 1920, financed by a gift from Groesbeck's widow and parents of the insurance money paid on his death. Dickinson made a side trip to visit his grave in northern France and then to Spain; two paintings by El Greco in Toledo he declared the best he had ever seen, an admiration that persisted throughout his life. The subject of one was especially meaningful to Dickinson, having visited Groesbeck's grave so recently, The Burial of Count Orgaz.
Read more about this topic: Edwin Dickinson
Famous quotes containing the words world, war, european and/or trip:
“My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“When the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)