Dwight William Tryon

Moonrise, 1895

oil on wood

10 ¼ x 13 ¼ in.

Gift of Mary Bybee Millliken

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Dwight Tryon was born in Hartford, Connecticut and displayed his art talent at an early age.  He was forced to defer an art career to support his widowed mother.  While working in a bookstore he began painting New England scenes along the Connecticut River.  He went to France with his wife in 1876 to study art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and spent the summer in the village of Barbizon, where he was inspired by the area’s quiet pastoral scenes. After returning to America, Tryon opened a summer studio in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in 1883.  His paintings from this period are twilight and evening scenes executed in a Tonalist manner that was influenced by the Barbizon School.  His style changed in the 1890s from somber tonalities to soft and luminous brighter colors. Tryon became director of the Art School at Smith College and was instrumental in developing their art collection. 

Moonrise dates from Tryon’s mature period when his work shared aspects of Tonalism.  Tryon and other Tonalist painters attempted to express the moods they found in nature rather than details of a specific place.  Tryon often painted moonlit scenes, seeing their generalized forms and somber tones as poetic metaphors for the soul’s mysteries.  Moonrise was created in the studio, where the artist could slowly build up layers of paint to create complex tonal harmonies.

Reference

Charles H. Caffin.  The Art of Dwight W. Tryon – An Appreciation, Averill Press, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-1443773942