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About Edward H. Barnard
The work of this almost forgotten Boston painter is consistently well executed and unmistakably American in content, although it has the spirit and technique of French impressionism. Barnard, who "excelled in suggesting the glitter and vibration of sunlight on old oak trees or on the marshes and hillsides of old New England," appears to have left few paintings behind, perhaps because he died at the relatively early age of fifty-four. Fortunately, his limited autobiography comes to us thanks to a farsighted journalist (Coburn, 1909); it was excerpted from a brief autobiographical sketch. With the exception of his youthful artistic experiments in watercolors, colored chalk, and map drawing, Barnard was evidently no child prodigy. In 1872, when he was seventeen, Barnard became a student in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Two years later, he was awarded a prize by the Society of American Architects. It has been suggested that the famous *Philadelphia Centennial Exposition inspired Barnard to paint, but in any instance, by the winter of 1876, he was studying privately under John Bernard Johnston, who was a young landscape and animal painter and a former pupil of *William Morris Hunt. Barnard met *Charles Henry Hayden, who would become his life-long companion. Morrell (1899-B) referred to Bernard and Hayden as a modern Damon and Pythias (neither would eventually marry). Barnard became a student at the *School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the same year this institution was founded. At the intervention of Professor William R. Ware, Barnard seems to have gained permission to copy casts in the museum in the spring and early summer of 1876, prior to the school’s opening in July. In later years, Barnard acknowledged a debt to William Morris Hunt: "All my training at this early time was under Mr. Hunt’s influence, and I have always been thankful for it." (Coburn, 1909; quoted from manuscript as dictated by the artist). Although Hunt died too soon to take part in the revolutionary movement of impressionism, he certainly demonstrated his progressive attitude toward modern art by promoting *Barbizon School pictures in Boston. Barnard remained at the Boston Museum School until 1881.
Having finished his art training, Barnard was pressed to the pragmatic aspect of his career, specifically illustration, which provided a reasonable income. After a disagreeable sojourn in Minnesota as a magazine illustrator in 1881, Barnard returned to the East and worked as a "figure designer" in a stained glass company, most likely the firm that employed Charles Hayden, Cook, Redding and Co. In Boston, Barnard had an opportunity to visit the *Foreign Exhibition, which included impressionist paintings shown at the Mechanics’ Building.
In spite of such direct influences, Barnard was reasonably satisfied with his work as a decorative artist and, after four years, sailed for Europe, hoping to continue his career in this field. After some time at the *Académie Julian under *Gustave Boulanger and *Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, the overcrowded conditions prompted Barnard and his special friend Hayden to seek the instruction of *Raphaël Collin in a private atelier. In landscape painting, they learned to work in the *plein-air manner of *Jules Bastien-Lepage; their works became records of the effects of atmosphere and outdoor light. Barnard and his friends – Hayden, *Robert Hatton Monks, and *Charles H. Davis – sketched regularly together in the French countryside and the environs of Paris. After about two years, Barnard went to Italy to study the "great decorative masters," but, disappointed with this selective discipline, he soon returned to Paris.
Since he was always noted for his technical skill, it is not surprising that Barnard exhibited portraits and even an historical work with the paintings of numerous other Americans at the huge *Paris Universal Exposition of 1889. The revelation of impressionism had come to him in the winter of 1888, when he visited an exhibition of *Claude Monet’s canvases. He said the
gallery "was filled with outdoor nature and it filled me chock full." That year, Monet had been in Antibes, painting marines and landscapes, and in *Giverny, Barnard wrote to Hayden and Davis to join him in visiting the exhibition and "had the pleasure of seeing their eyes open also."
Unfortunately, thus far no one pivotal work reveals his conversion to impressionism; however, Barnard’s early awareness of Monet and the former’s rapid acceptance of the avant-garde aesthetic places him into the rank of America’s first group of impressionists. It was exactly at that time that *Theodore E. Butler and other pioneers were learning the techniques of impressionism while living near Monet in Giverny (see Love, 1985, for the in-depth study). Barnard came back to Boston in July of 1889 to earn his living as a painter, though he lamented in later years that he "couldn’t paint even a passable landscape to earn a living, either." Within a few months (January and February of 1890), the works of Edward Barnard, Charles Hayden, and Robert Monk were exhibited in Chase’s Gallery at 7 Hamilton Place in Boston, and Barnard became known in Boston as a serious and intelligent painter (Exhibition of Pictures, 1890). Most of these works were probably painted in the Barbizon manner. An outstanding draftsman, Barnard was also respected for his ability as a teacher of drawing at the Bradford Academy.
While maintaining his space in the *Harcourt Studio Building in Boston, Barnard submitted a canvas to the 1890 annual at the *National Academy of Design. After executing murals for a church in Salem, he joined his friends, Hayden and Davis, at *Mystic, Connecticut. Here and occasionally in the Berkshires and at Chatham, he gathered material for his paintings of the next eight years. And here, he executed some of his finest examples of impressionism. Barnard was fascinated with "the atmosphere along the Connecticut shore," which, he reported, "is better for painting than any place I have found." The artist exhibited at the annuals of the National Academy again in 1892 and 1895, with works emanating from these areas: A Sunny Morning – Chatham and A Misty Day – Connecticut.
In 1893, Barnard began to send works to the *Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual, an exhibition schedule which was to remain uninterrupted until 1904. There was a diverse selection of impressionism at the 1893 *World’s Columbian Exposition, to which Barnard sent two canvases, one entitled Midday and the other a self portrait. Around this time, he painted his masterpiece, River Weeders in Mystic, Connecticut. Shortly after the Chicago exposition, Barnard’s work was included in the annuals of the *Art Institute of Chicago (1894-1911). Barnard was not one of the Boston group (*Edmund Tarbell and others) who helped form the *Ten in 1898, but he was well known for his impressionism, as indicated by various critical reviews.
Barnard remarked how it was "the power to paint out of door light which Monet has shown us that makes it so fascinating and lures us out of our stuffy studios," but despite Barnard’s great regard for Monet, his work is more restrained and less decorative than that of his French mentor; certainly, it is less expressive and more regulated. Indeed, in some of his later works, his precise and repetitious applications of *broken color resemble *Pissarro’s counter-*neo-impressionist technique of the early 1890s. Barnard wrote that a landscape painter should be happy, but, more than this, the candid, pleasant attitude of his imagery, which frequently included figures at work, is in character not only with Barnard’s personality and philosophy of life, but also with impressionism in general. Although he used various touches of color to produce a softened contour and an "impression" of form, this never obscures his skill in drawing; his poetic, albeit, analytical methodology seems to emanate a kind of American frankness and optimism and his reticence to render bright color is also more American than French.
In the mid 1890s, Barnard continued painting with Hayden and Davis in Connecticut and exhibiting in various annuals. Hayden died in 1901 at the age of forty-five. Barnard was presented with a one-artist show at *Doll and Richards Gallery a year later. He exhibited three canvases at the *St. Louis Universal Exposition of 1904, and a one-artist exhibition at Rowlands Galleries in Boston presented an excellent selection of his oeuvre in 1906 when he was most successful. During his relatively short career, Barnard was the recipient of numerous awards when he participated in exhibitions of national scope. He died at the McLean Hospital in Westerly, Massachusetts, in 1909. Although Barnard was a prolific painter, there were few exhibitions of his work during his lifetime. On the other hand, the *St. Botolph Club held a memorial exhibition in 1910. To conclude, Barnard put his faith in truth: ". . . also with M. Zola I believe that truth (with a big T) is it."
REF.
Exhibition of Pictures by Edward H. Barnard..., 1890;
Morrell, 1899-B; Chamberlain, 1901; Exhibition of Landscapes
by Edward H. Barnard, 1903; Paintings by Edward H. Barnard, 1906; Coburn, 1909; Memorial Exhibition: Work of Edward H. Barnard, 1910; Domit, 1973; Phillips, 1973, vol. 2, pp. 18-19; Sellin, 1982, pp. 120, 212; Fairbrother, 1986-A, p. 199; Gerdts, 1991, pp. 126-127; Gerdts, 1992-B, cat. no. 4. |
Paintings by Edward H. Barnard
| Summer Landscape |
| oil on canvas: 20 x 27 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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