Recently I took a journey to a place of importance in the history of American and international art and in the geography of my soul.
The occasion was a trip to Williamstown, Massachusetts, where a dear friend took me to see a superb exhibition at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute—one of America’s great small art museums. The main galleries of the Clark are nestled at the foot of Stone Hill, while a recently completed art conservation annex sits on its flank. The bucolic hill itself, part forest, part open farm meadows, with meandering wood roads, provides inspiring views of three mountain ranges—the Berkshires, Taconic, and Green Mountains. Its romantic landscape serves as the backyard and escape for many college students and local residents. My memories span the seasons with skinny-dips in a stream at its base, cross country ski trips and toboggan rides through its snowy fields, and long runs through autumn leaves of fiery yellows and reds. Any trip onto the hill promised to blur the lines between the real and spiritual worlds, to offer escape from the cares of the day and refuge in the beauty of nature’s most discrete and secret realms.
No better venue could be found for the spectacular art exhibition entitled Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly. This show displays and offers insights into a brief but important movement in American art at the turn of the 20th century. A small group of landscape painters, including George Inness and James McNeill Whistler, moved away from hard-edged realism, instead filling their canvases with luminous, hazy depictions that captured the mood or spiritual essence of a place. The exhibition’s title comes from a quote by Whistler, who said “Paint should not be applied thick. It should be like breath on the surface of a pane of glass.” ...