Thomas Hart Benton: Return to Nature

"A Tree in the Forest" by Thomas Hart Benton

"Finding myself in this situation, I determined to get away from Paris, forget all theories, return to painting directly from nature, and see if I could produce any finished pictures. With the assistance of a French artist whose acquaintance I had made, I found a place in a small mountain village . This area was quite rugged and offered attractive scenery full of running streams and numerous waterfalls. Landscape motifs were everywhere. I remained there from mid-August until early November, and freed from all the pressures of Paris, I did the best work of my sojourn in France.

Amalgamating the various methods I had learned and casting out the influences I did not find immediately useful, I managed to complete some dozen canvases. Although a few were broadly brushed, I used the Pointillist method of painting with small spots of color for most of them. However, I abandoned all schematic color treatment, trying to paint the colors and tonal values of nature as they appeared. One of these paintings, a chestnut tree "Contre Soleil,' has survived. The rest were destroyed, along with my other Parisian experiments, and in fact, nearly all my youthful efforts, when our family home at Neosho, Missouri, burned to the ground in 1917.

When November arrived and it became too cold for outdoor painting, I returned to Paris, hung my new work about my studio, and prepared some little cards announcing an 'atelier thé' for its exhibition. Some of these cards I delivered, the others I left on the counter at the Cafe Dome, where my American and English acquaintances could see them. This effort at self-promotion proved a complete flop. Only three people came, my neighbor, John Carlock, my mentor and Donald Wright. Since my three visitors, though friendly to me, thoroughly detested each other, the gathering was less than a success. Wright was the only one to show real interest."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "An American in Art: A Professional and Technical Autobiography" by Thomas Hart Benton.)