Fall is the best season. Let’s dive in.
1. John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott - 1888
Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott features the protagonist of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem of the same name, published first in 1832 and revised in 1842. Set in an Arthurian England, the Lady of Shalott is trapped in a tower, with her only view of the outside world a reflected window in her mirror. If she dares turn towards the real window, she is cursed to die.
So much of the story is left unexplained. Who cursed her and why? When the curse is enacted and the mirror breaks, why must she die? Why does she first board the boat and float down to Camelot? The reader never receives clear answers. It’s exactly the kind of tragic damsel and dreamy, romanticized Middle Ages that the Pre-Raphaelites loved to paint.
John William Waterhouse was not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Here is a refresher from an essay I wrote back in April:
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was itself a short-lived association, lasting from 1848 to 1853. The Brotherhood was founded by seven British artists and writers (William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens, and Thomas Woolner) who joined together in rebellion against the Royal Academy of Arts. They resented the Royal Academy’s commitment to the techniques of Renaissance master Raphael and the Mannerists who came after him. The Pre-Raphaelites wished to return to the styles that preceded Raphael (hence, Pre-Raphaelite), and found inspiration in medieval and early Renaissance artists.
However, Waterhouse was one of many artists who took inspiration from the Brotherhood to create the broader Pre-Raphaelite movement. Others include the wonderful Evelyn De Morgan, as well as Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Robert Hughes.
What I love about Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott is that it’s an ode to the moodiness of autumn: the darkening clouds, the dying reeds, the Lady’s fiery red hair. As the natural world nears its slumber, so too does the Lady of Shalott approach her final, tragic rest.
2. Claude Monet’s Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) - 1890-91
Long-time readers know that I take great inspiration in Claude Monet’s tenacity; he spent about thirty years fighting for success not only for himself but for his fellow Impressionists. The First Impressionist Exhibition was held in 1874 in Paris, and it wouldn’t be until 1886 that the movement found international recognition thanks to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel’s shrewd strategy of showcasing Impressionist art in New York, where audiences were more open-minded.
Monet’s own fate transformed when he produced his Haystacks series, painted in the Giverny countryside; most works in this series were created in 1890 and 1891. Finally, he was experiencing real financial success, and he was able to purchase his home in Giverny, which he had previously been renting.
While some of his former colleagues were now experimenting with Post-Impressionist styles, Monet instead doubled down on Impressionism in his later years. His various series (including his haystacks, water lilies, poplars, and more) aimed to capture changes in light and atmosphere throughout the year and at different times of day. It is for this reason that these works are so evocative when displayed together.
Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) transports the viewer to a fall sunset in the country. We can see the grass is starting to die and the trees in the background are turning orange, though their leaves are muted in the low light. You can practically smell the drying hay. I’ve argued before that through the Haystacks series,
…Monet actually achieved the apotheosis of Impressionism as an aesthetic ideal. Despite his distaste toward philosophizing (oh, how artists hate to be categorized!), Monet accomplished the ultimate stylistic statement that the Impressionists carved out during their first exhibition in 1874. Here, we have an actual impression, or what he called “instantaneity,” which illustrates an observer’s subjective experience in nature.
3. Egon Schiele’s Four Trees - 1917
Egon Schiele was one of the leading artists of the Vienna Secession, a movement launched in 1897 in rebellion against the conservative Association of Austrian Artists. The Secession was a multi-media affair, with painters, architects, graphic designers, and sculptors all joining together to promote their take on Art Nouveau. (Think Gustav Klimt, Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffman, etc.)
Schiele was an Expressionist whose work often featured erotic, sometimes grotesque portraits of contorted figures. Schiele’s work reflected a Viennese culture fascinated by psychoanalysis, and he found inspiration in visiting psychiatric hospitals, which lent a tortured, morbid quality to some of his paintings.
Four Trees, however, is a landscape painted during World War I. Due to his weak heart, Schiele was lucky enough to avoid combat, instead serving as a prison guard, clerk, and other administrative roles. Whether or not this piece was ever intended to reflect the turmoil of the time, I still find Four Trees to be incredibly poignant within that context—three of the trees are clinging to their leaves, but one has nearly faded.
4. Yokoyama Taikan’s Autumn Leaves - 1931
Yokoyama Taikan was a Modern artist and a major pioneer of Nihonga, a Japanese painting technique that used mineral and organic pigments on paper or silk, typically produced between the Meiji Restoration and the end of World War II. Nihonga was intended to stand apart from Western art by using traditional Japanese materials, while still embracing modern styles.
At the turn of the century, Taikan’s Modernist work was initially rejected in his home country for being too untraditional, as he avoided the line drawing techniques expected from previous generations of Japanese artists. Undeterred, he began exhibiting in countries throughout Asia and Europe, eventually building a name for himself internationally.
Even for a Modernist, Taikan was wildly ahead of his time. What I love about Autumn Leaves is how contemporary the piece feels—I could easily believe that it was painted within the last decade. Additionally, one can’t ignore the vibrancy of the colors, something for which Japanese artists have been revered for centuries, from Hiroshige to Murakami.
5. Alma Thomas’s Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze - 1973
And finally, Alma Thomas’s Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze. While Abstract Expressionism found a foothold in the New York School, another abstract movement flourished further south in Washington, D.C. The Washington Color School, as the name suggests, embraced color field painting as a new mode of expression; Thomas was part of the “second generation” of artists who carried the movement into the late sixties and seventies. In a time period when Black artists faced major barriers to having their works exhibited, Thomas defied the odds and built a successful career after she had already completed her first: teaching art to middle school students for thirty-five years.
Thomas’s art is often described as “joyful” and “exuberant”—her many years of working with children and nurturing their creativity no doubt informed her perspective. Unlike many other color field artists of the era, Thomas forewent the use of masking tape and drew her patterns, lending her later paintings a pointillist quality reminiscent of Georges Seurat. Her work was at the cutting-edge of midcentury art in its exploration of color theory, yet to me, Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze still captures the bliss one feels as a small child, racing to tumble into a pile of leaves.
A sublime take on a bright, autumn day. In her words, “The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness in my painting rather than on man’s inhumanity to man.”
Beautiful paintings!
Thanx Nicole 🍂🍁