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Harrison is identified with an American style called Tonalism.

In Tonalist paintings a single hue dominates the composition, which evokes the nuances of light and atmosphere.

The softened details and unpeopled terrain exhibit Tonalism’s quiet, meditative state.

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Birge Harrison

The Harbor Light, 1900-1910

oil on canvas

24 x 30 in.

Julius F. Pratt Fund

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Born in Philadelphia, Birge Harrison was briefly a farmer and a businessman. He turned to painting in 1876, and studied first at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and then spent six years in Paris where he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.   He returned to New York, where he taught landscape painting at the Art Students League.  Harrison concentrated almost exclusively on landscapes executed in the evocative manner of the Barbizon artists, whose romantic concept of nature and its moods was very much attuned to his own thinking.  He was also a prolific writer on art, and in 1909 Harrison published Landscape Painting, a book which became the standard text for many years.  He founded the artist colony in Woodstock, New York.

In The Harbor Light, Harrison has muted contrast and softened sharp edges, suffusing the small house and shore in a wistful atmosphere of shadow and night light.  He became identified with Tonalism, an American style influenced by the French Barbizon painters and Whistler’s landscapes.  In Tonalist paintings a single hue – often blue or gray – dominates the composition and related colors create a subtle chromatic range that evokes the nuances of light and atmosphere.  The softened details and unpeopled terrain of The Harbor Light exhibit Tonalism’s quiet, meditative state.

Reference

Birge Harrison.  Landscape Painting, originally published in 1909, London: Bibliofile Ltd., 2009. ISBN-13: 978-1103091034