Picture The Twilight by American painter

The Twilight of 1912 by American painter Dwight Wyant Tryon shows the development of his art. In it one discerns an individual type of landscape and the evidences of a rare technic which he has all but perfected. It is, of course, not new, but it is very personal, and it helps to Dwight Wyant Tryon to re-create in delicate gradations of light and of shadow subtle atmospheric effects that are the visible signs of the moods of nature just as smiles and tears are the visible signs of human emotion. However lovely the face of nature, it is always her feelings that he is interested in interpreting, one might say, and it is this characteristic of his landscape that makes it interesting to us. One may estimate quite accurately the worth of any of his later works by the measure of one’s realization of its emotional significance. The objective world, its primitive and elemental grandeur, the naked truth of nature, as we see it in the works of other artists, concerns him not at all. Dwight Wyant Tryon’s art is subjective and his interest is in the spiritual significance of the visible world as it is made intelligible in immaterial beauty. His pictures are poetic but lyric, not epic in their intention. His landscape has a firm foundation, for it is based upon a real knowledge of the topography of a section of the country with which he has been in close contact almost continuously. It is a real, not an imaginary landscape, though it may often seem unreal in its unaccustomed beauty, as his effects approximate the unearthly splendor of those rare and exquisite moments he pictures. Singularly simple in its graphic portrayal of actual appearances, it is variously expressive of a considerable range of feeling which finds embodiment in the sensitive record of definite atmospheric conditions. As the weather affects us in real life, so it does in his art, where the mood of nature is the most important factor and informs the landscape with real meaning. In other words, it is the immaterial rather than the material evidence of nature that interests us in his landscape, just as in human nature it is character rather than personal appearance that interests us.

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Categories : American Painters