Jules Bastien-Lepage: Sharpening the Scythe- John Singer Sargent: Dorothy- John White Alexander: Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt- Charles Webster Hawthorne: The fish and the Man
My husband and I were attending the NBA All Star festivities in Dallas a while back (my husband used to work for the NBA). We didn’t have much time for seeing sights around the city so I only had an hour and a half to run over to the Dallas Museum of Art. Dallas has one of the largest arts districts of American cities. The large building slopes down hill with the landscape. Since I didn’t have much time, I honed in on 1800-1900s paintings. I passed through the Dutch Masters and got the impression that they have a “B” level sampling. They just didn’t compare to the masterpieces I’ve been lucky enough to see in Holland, Munich and London recently.
The museum strives to display representative art from each era and although it is a large building, you get the feeling that they are only able to display a few typical artists before you are already moving on to a new century. This probably works just fine for most people but for my purposes, I didn’t find many of the paintings that suit my interest. In the European section, the closest I could get was “Sharpening the Scythe” 1881 by Jules Basten-Lapage. I liked the open format of the expanse of green field and the rural subject matter but I would have liked to have seen more detail in the men instead of the overal looseness of the painting being maintained throughout.
I had a little more luck in the American section. You can’t go wrong with John Singer Sargent and his “Dorothy” from 1900 is a formidable little girl in a vivid white dress and serious eyes. I love how Sargent sits in the sweet spot between impressionism and classical detail. His sweeping whites make his paintings glow but you don’t lose the real character of the subject. This is the style that I’m always after and I think I’m getting a crush on this guy.
I really liked the mournful but elegant situation of “Miss Dorothy Quincy Roosevelt” 1901 and dog by John White Alexander.
“The Fish and the Man” 1925 by Charles Webster Hawthorne
is worth mentioning. I like the ruddiness of the man’s face and how it is mimicked in the fish.
I have a feeling there were more to be found in the museum since they also had sections dedicated to decorative arts which also featured paintings. I almost missed a Van Gogh they had within an exhibit of a home interior. This museum deserves another look but I’m glad I was able to get an introduction.
