Frank Weston Benson - Influences

Influences

Benson was "deeply influenced" by Johannes Vermeer and Diego Velázquez, masters from the seventeenth-century. Vermeer painted few works during his lifetime, about 35-36 paintings, but nearly each of them has become a masterpiece. The Dutch artist from Delft was astute in his depiction of light and "poetic quality" of his subjects.

  • Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1660-1670, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague

  • Diego Velázquez, Juan Pareja, 1650, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

  • Diego Velázquez, Old Woman Frying Eggs, 1618, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Impressionism, particularly the work of Claude Monet, played a role in the development of Benson's own American Impressionistic style. He capitalized on Monet's color palette and brush strokes and keenly depicted "reflected light", yet maintained some detail in the composition. Per Chambers, Benson represented American people with an "ideal of grace, of dignity, of elegance."

  • Claude Monet, The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1880, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

  • Claude Monet, Two Girls in a Boat

  • Claude Monet, Pont d'Argenteuil

Benson's watercolors reminded some critics of Winslow Homer's works.

  • Winslow Homer, After the Tornado, watercolor, 1899, Art Institute of Chicago

  • Winslow Homer, The Fog Warning, watercolor, 1885, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

  • Winslow Homer, oil, Artists Sketching in the White Mountains, 1868, Portland Museum of Art

Works of his friends:

  • Robert Reid,Tempting Sweets

  • Robert Reid,Her First Born, 1888, Brooklyn Museum

  • Edmund Tarbell, The Sisters, 1921, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina

  • Edmund Tarbell, Arrangement in Pink and Gray (Afternoon Tea), ca. 1894, Worcester Art Museum

  • Abbott Thayer, Landscape at Fontainbleau Forest, 1876

  • Abbott Thayer, Dublin Pond, 1894

  • Abbott Thayer, Winged Figure, 1889, Art Institute of Chicago

  • Willard Metcalf, My Wife and Daughter, ca. 1917

Benson was not one to experiment with emerging art forms, like Cubism, Expressionism and Fauvism. As American Impressionism extended to Post-Impressionism about 1913, Benson stayed with traditional genres and his American Impressionist style. As a result, "The pretty, genteel life that Benson had depicted was criticized. Benson's reaction was to turn to nature, and birds replaced the women and children as his objects of interest." said Dean Lahikainen, curator of the Peabody Essex Museum.

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