As a painter of human figures, usually female, Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921) was an idealizer, a painter of archetypes. The women and girls in his paintings are clothed in otherworldy garments, even appearing as winged angels.
Curious then, that this same artist experimented with inverted shading in his images of plants and theorized about protective coloration among animals in nature with scientific precision. Thayer turned this preoccupation to use, collaborating with fellow artist George de Forest Brush on a proposal for military camoflage for the U.S. Navy during the Spanish American War in 1898. Thayer's son Gerald continued the work and a book resulted, published under Gerald's name: Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909). Abbott Thayer liked to describe the phenomemon as "razzle dazzle." What is also dazzling in Thayer's work is that close attention takes nothing away from the wonder of that one riotous multi-flora rhodoedndron bloom perched on the edge of the bowl, as if staring at its reflection in the water.
Thayer, who suffered from what is now called bi-polar disorder, also suffered the loss of two of his young daughters to sudden illnesses in the early 1890s. He was sustained in his artistic career by the patronage of industrialist Charles Lang Freer, whose name we've encountered in connection with Dwight William Tryon, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and the great Whistler.
To read more about countershading, go here.
Images:
1. Still Life with Rhododendron, 1886, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana.
2. Waterlily, 1881, Meredith Wilson Fine Art Gallery, NYC.
3. Study for Concealing Coloration, c. 1910-195, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.
6 comments:
That first painting ," the riotous multi-flora rhodoedndron bloom perched on the edge of the bowl", is magnificent. What tender, beautiful works from a man who suffered from bi-polar disorder as well as such tragedy in his life.
My gosh, you are an entire education in one person's being. Thanks for this link.
It's curious that Thayer's camo collaborator's name was Forest de Brush. You can't make this stuff up.
Sally, it seems to me that Thayer found in nature a model of creative survival that sustained his talents when so much else drained his energies.
Jeanne, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art - at wwww.americanart.si.edu - has many examples of Thayer's work on rpotective coloration. It's not always subdued coloration, either.
Kate, you could if you were Jonathan Swift or the author of "Pilgrim's Progress." But for the rest of us, no. Brush is another from the ranks of the multi-named painters. Punning aside, George Brush doesn't have that memorable ring to it, does it?
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