Dwight William Tryon

November Morning, 1901-1902

oil on panel

26 by 34 in.

John Herron Fund

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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. 

Tryon’s favorite subject was a stand of trees in a barren field at twilight or just after sunrise.  November Morning is lighter in color and freer in execution than most of his treatments of this motif.  While it may be reminiscent of impressionist landscapes, such as Monet’s scenes of poplar trees, the intentions of the two artists were radically different.  Tryon despised the naturalism of the Impressionists for his landscapes are evocations of states of mind rather than depictions of nature.  Such landscapes are examples of Tonalism, a style in which harmonious colors and peaceful, open scenes create introspective moods.  In keeping with this attitude, Tryon composed his paintings in his studio from memory.  With their subtle color harmonies and sense of gentle melancholy, Tryon’s works are prime examples of American Tonalism.  After 1890, American Impressionism began to displace the American Barbizon aesthetic, and it was inevitable that the two schools should eventually affect each other.  Whether intentional or not, November Morning reflects the influence of impressionism

Reference

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