Daniel Garber: Style

"Hawk's Nest" by Daniel Garber

"Daniel Garber's dedication to outdoor study from the motif became the foundation of his method. His buggy and later his 'trusty light truck, canvases, easel and large palette strapped to the truck sides were familiar to folk up and down the valley' as Garber roamed in search of material. Fortified with peanut butter sandwiches, he would sometimes spend all day working outdoors, usually on the same canvas. Because he liked to work directly, without preparatory drawings, Garber needed the constant presence of the motif during most of the execution of the painting. 

After interviewing Garber, a journalist wrote in 1923, 'I want to paint things as I see them,' he says, in his voice that shows just a bit of the Indiana twang, 'and I don't see them in blotches... I have too much respect for the trees that I paint, and their true forms, to make something out of them that I do not feel exists in them.' With such commentary, he allied himself firmly with the Realists of the early twentieth century.

Garber developed a larger, more even touch. In combination with his direct, opaque, and slightly dry application of paint, his technique produce the 'tapestry' effect so often praised by his contemporaries. One critic wrote, 'There is a delightfully decorative quality and an illusive charm in each of the Garber landscapes.' Another viewer praised his landscapes saying, 'Somehow it rested me more than anything else I have seen for a long time. He seems to have a high and true concept of the beautiful.' There is a serenity, an 'all's well with the world' feel.

With a balance of the the real and the ideal Garber drew closer to the personal style of his hero Julian Weir, whose pale, delicate and opaque surfaces discover the same timeless moments of beauty in the most banal country scenes."

To be continued

(Excerpts from Daniel Garber, 1880-1958: Exhibition, June 27 - August 24, 1980, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts" by Kathleen Foster.)