J. Alden Weir
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony
Cos Cob Art Colony
The Cos Cob Art Colony was a group of artists, many of them American Impressionists, who gathered in and around Cos Cob, a section of Greenwich, Connecticut, from about 1890 to about 1920....
near Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
. Weir was also one of "The Ten"
Ten American Painters
The Ten American Painters, generally known as The Ten, resigned from the Society of American Artists in late 1897 to protest the commercialism of that group's exhibitions, and their circus-like atmosphere...
, a loosely-allied group of American artists dissatisfied with professional art organizations, who banded together in 1898 to exhibit their works as a stylistically-unified group.
Weir was born and raised in West Point, New York
West Point, New York
West Point is a federal military reservation established by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson in 1802. It is a census-designated place located in Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2000 census...
, the son of painter Robert Walter Weir
Robert Walter Weir
Robert Walter Weir was an American artist, best known as an educator, and as an historical painter. He was considered an artist of the Hudson River school, was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829, and an instructor at the United States Military Academy...
, a professor of drawing at the Military Academy at West Point. His older brother, John Ferguson Weir
John Ferguson Weir
John F. Weir was an American painter and sculptor. He was the son of painter Robert Walter Weir, a professor of drawing at the Military Academy at West Point. His younger brother, J...
, also became a well-known landscape artist who also painted in the styles of the Hudson River
Hudson River school
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by romanticism...
and Barbizon
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
schools.
Julian Weir received his first art training at the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
in the early 1870s before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in Paris in 1873. While in France he studied under the famous French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...
, and became good friends with Jules Bastien-Lepage
Jules Bastien-Lepage
Jules Bastien-Lepage , was a French naturalist painter, a style related to the Realist movement.-Life and work:...
. Weir also encountered impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
for the first time, and reacted strongly: "I never in my life saw more horrible things...They do not observe drawing nor form but give you an impression of what they call nature. It was worse than the Chamber of Horrors."
Weir met James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
in London before returning to New York City in 1877. His works as a young artist centered on still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
and the human figure, which he rendered in a realist style not unlike the work of Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
. In the 1880s Weir moved to rural Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 24,638 at the 2010 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough, is defined by the U.S...
and strengthened his friendship with artists Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality...
and John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...
. The art of Weir and Twachtman was especially well-aligned, and the two sometimes painted and exhibited together. Both taught at the Art Students League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. Weir was also close friends with the still life and landscape painter Emil Carlsen
Emil Carlsen
Soren Emil Carlsen was an American Impressionist painter who emigrated to the United States from Denmark...
who summered with Weir on his farm, before purchasing his own home in Falls River, Connecticut.
By 1891 Weir had reconciled his earlier misgivings about impressionism and adopted the style as his own. Through the remainder of the 1890s and 20th century Weir painted impressionist landscapes and figurative works, many of which centered on his Connecticut farms at Branchville and Windham. His style varied from traditional, vibrant impressionism to a more subdued and shadowy tonalism
Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style...
. He also became skilled at etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
.
In 1912 Weir was selected the first president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, but resigned a year later following the association's sponsorship of the modernist
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
. Weir later became president of the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
. He died in 1919.
Today Weir's paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York; the Phillips Collection
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...
, Washington, D.C.; the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
, Washington, D. C.; Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
's Museum of Art
Brigham Young University Museum of Art
The Brigham Young University Museum of Art, located in Provo, Utah, is the university's primary art museum and is one of the best attended university-campus art museums in the United States. The museum, which had been discussed for more than fifty years, opened in a space in October 1993 with a...
, Provo, Utah; and the Wadsworth Atheneum
Wadsworth Atheneum
The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and...
, Hartford, Connecticut. Weir's farm and studio at Branchville are protected as the Weir Farm National Historic Site
Weir Farm National Historic Site
Weir Farm National Historic Site is located in Ridgefield and Wilton, Connecticut, in the United States. It commemorates the life and work of J. Alden Weir, the American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony. Tours of his studio are offered by National Park Service rangers....
, the Weir family continue ownership of the Windham farm.
See also
- American ImpressionismAmerican ImpressionismImpressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
- Art Students LeagueArt Students League of New YorkThe Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
- Society of American ArtistsSociety of American ArtistsThe Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative....
- Ten American PaintersTen American PaintersThe Ten American Painters, generally known as The Ten, resigned from the Society of American Artists in late 1897 to protest the commercialism of that group's exhibitions, and their circus-like atmosphere...
- List of J. Alden Weir art
Further reading
- Stula, Nancy with Nancy Noble. American Artists Abroad and their Inspiration, New London: Lyman Allyn Art MuseumLyman Allyn Art MuseumThe Lyman Allyn Art Museum was founded in 1932 by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her father, Lyman Allyn. The museum is situated in New London, Connecticut.- Museum and collection :Housed in a handsome Neo-Classical building designed by Charles A...
, 2004, 64 pages