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8: The use of soft-edged forms to further the sense of ambiguity and mystery of place (known as lost-edge technique in the nineteenth century).
Given the Tonalists' admiration for transcendentalist authors like Emerson and Thoreau, as well as naturalist followers such as William Burroughs and John Muir, it's no surprise that they had a deep appreciation for the mystery and wonder of the natural world.
One important aspect of their artistic style was their preference for unclear forms instead of detailed pictures. They liked soft-edged forms more than hard ones and focused on blurry atmospheric edges, drawing inspiration from the Venetian tradition of "colore" (colour as the basis of art) rather than the Florentine tradition of "disegno" (drawing or design as the basis of art).
William Sartain
Old Meadow, ca. 1890
In William Sartain's painting "Old Meadow" from 1890, this artistic technique turns a seemingly simple landscape into a scene filled with haunting mystery.
The soft-edged, blurred forms of the trees and bushes have an unclear presence, almost as if they are slightly unstable and ever-changing.
To balance these soft forms, Sartain includes a few hard-edged paint marks in the fieldstone walls and the edge of the road, providing a sense of stability and offering a contrast to the overall fluidity of the painting.
Summary
Summary
1. Tonalists were influenced by transcendentalist and naturalist authors and had a deep appreciation for the natural world.
2. Tonalists preferred ambiguous forms over detailed depictions in their artwork.
3. They emphasised soft-edged forms and blurry atmospheric edges.
4. William Sartain's painting "Old Meadow" demonstrates the use of soft-edged forms to create mystery in a landscape.
5. Charles Melville Dewey's painting "Long Island Sunset" also uses soft-edged forms to create a sense of ambiguity and timelessness.
6. Leonard Ochtman's painting "Early Winter" features partially revealed forms, adding an element of mystery.
7. J. Francis Murphy's painting "Spring Mist" shows the power of suggestion with partially seen forms in the landscape.
8. Charles Warren Eaton's painting "Twilit Sky" uses soft-edged forms in a rectangular format to create a two-dimensional world.
9. Arthur Bowen Davies' watercolour paintings "Misted Hills" and "Cloudscape" showcase the Tonalist style's near-complete abstraction.
10. William Gedney Bunce's painting "Venice Shimmer" and Charles Warren Eaton's "Quarter Moon" also demonstrate the abandonment of realistic hard-edged imagery in favour of simplification and expressive colour and light.
Charles Melville Dewey
Long Island Sunset, ca. 1910
Another example of using soft-edged forms to create a sense of uncertainty and timelessness is Charles Melville Dewey's painting "Long Island Sunset" from around 1910.
Partially visible and hinted forms in the painting enhance our sense of vague wonder and create a feeling of strange displacement.
This sense of mysterious and partially revealed forms is echoed in a review by Charles de Kay in the New York Times in 1905.
De Kay describes Leonard Ochtman's painting "Early Winter" from around 1900, where the veiled moon adds an element of mystery to the scene.
Leonard Ochtman
Early Winter, ca. 1900
In "Night," the silence is depicted through paint, with faintly outlined trees and a haystack visible against the sky.
J. Francis Murphy's painting "Spring Mist" from 1905 demonstrates the power of suggestion and the allure of partially seen forms. Soft-edged forms in the landscape are wonderfully highlighted and invigorated by a few hard-edged lines of dark pigment, which represent emerging tree saplings in the mist.
J. Francis Murphy
Spring Mist, 1905
"Twilit Sky" by Charles Warren Eaton, created around 1910, showcases how soft-edged forms organised in a rectangular format can be flattened to create a captivating two-dimensional world. This technique gives the impression of floating and untethered organic forms, similar to what Rothko would later achieve with his multi-forms.
Charles Warren Eaton
Twilit Sky, ca. 1910
The Tonalist style inherently leans towards almost complete abstraction, as seen in Arthur Bowen Davies' late watercolours "Misted Hills" from 1922 and "Cloudscape" from the same year.
In "Misted Hills," Davies uses clear black outlines to provide context amidst shapeless forms, while "Cloudscape" contains almost no hard-edges except at a few points of interaction between horizontal forms.
Arthur Bowen Davies
Misted Hills, ca. 1922
Arthur Bowen Davies
Cloudscape, ca. 1922
William Gedney Bunce's painting "Venice Shimmer" from 1912 exemplifies the artist's movement towards simplification and the abandonment of realistic hard-edged imagery.
William Gedney Bunce
Venice Shimmer, 1912
His late lagoon pictures verge on imaginative mind-scapes, exploring space, time, and expressive colour and light.
The painting includes only a suggestion of a horizon line and a few hazy architectural forms for stability.
Charles Warren Eaton also approximated this approach in his late watercolours, like "Quarter Moon" from around 1910.
Charles Warren Eaton
Quarter Moon, ca. 1910
Frederick Kost
Nocturne, Staten Island, ca. 1895
The far reaches of the landscape create mesmerising (dazzling, bewitching) patterns that can be interpreted both as flat forms on the paper and as receding space fading into the distance.
The painting is anchored by a quarter moon and harder-edged boulders on the foreground hilltop.
A similar sense of mystery and moonlight is echoed in William Kost's "Nocturne, Staten Island" from 1895, where the sea and sky envelop the hinted lights of ships along the harbour quay.
Kost uses a magnificent array of flowing paint marks that seamlessly merge and separate, casting a spell upon the shimmering moonlit waves.
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