Description:
scene of dark water in foreground with curved central mountain beyond; landscape; water; vegetation; mountain; outdoor
Label Text:
Kent was once described as "painter, muralist, printmaker, book illustrator, graphic designer, author, lecturer, hermit, wanderer, navigator, eccentric non-conformist, aggressive social reformer, amateur politician, notorious political subversive and patriotic American." Dublin Pond comes from the beginning of his career as an artist and was the first of his paintings to enter a museum collection.
Kent painted Dublin Pond during a year-long stay at an art colony in Dublin, New Hampshire. The landscape captures the stillness at the end of a summer day and owes much to Kent's mentor, Abbott Thayer and Thayer's views of Mount Monadnock and Dublin pond. Asymmetrical, abstracted forms and contrasts of light and dark call attention to the edge between sky and hill, blue water and shadowed water. Details emerge upon closer viewing - trees along the shore, their reflections in the water. The simplified forms point to the influence of Japanese prints, popular among artists and collectors at the turn of the century.
Other label: Dublin Pond dates from the beginning of Rockwell Kent’s career as an artist and was the first of his paintings to enter a museum collection. Kent painted Dublin Pond during a summer apprenticeship in 1903 with his mentor, Abbott Thayer, at an art colony in Dublin, New Hampshire. It draws inspiration from Thayer’s views of Mount Monadnock and Dublin Pond, and its simplified forms point to the influence of Japanese prints, popular among artists and collectors at the turn of the century.
The landscape captures the stillness at the end of a summer day. Although the painting at first appears to be broadly abstract, details emerge upon closer viewing, including trees along the shore reflected in the water.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1904.2.1 |
