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About Theodore Robinson
One of America’s premier painters of the nineteenth century, Theodore Robinson (1852-1896), was born in Vermont but grew up in Evansville, Wisconsin. He began his art training at the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by studies at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of New York, which he helped organize. Robinson went to Paris and enrolled at the atelier of Emile-Auguste Carolus-Duran, but soon transferred to the École des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme, the great French master draftsman. Later in New York he worked with John La Farge on a variety of mural projects and did some teaching to supplement his income. Robinson was one of the pioneer artists who encircled Monet at Giverny. He spent six summers in Giverny between 1886 and 1892, and the summer of 1894.
Child with Geese is a remarkably subtle composition with three geese moving across the front plane in a regimental fashion, about to offer amusement to the child in the open doorway. Nineteenth-century audiences would have enjoyed the potential humor of such a scene. The outstanding use of a monochromatic color scheme still shows Robinson’s debt to Carolus-Duran and it reveals his reticent use of color. There is a dignity in the representation of this peasant child, whose unadorned form is framed by the doorway opening. Here is Robinson seeking out the common people, those who come from a working background. His imagery is quite different from the earliest impressionist works of Childe Hassam.
Frequently Robinson is characterized as an American impressionist, and indeed, when his work reveals this assimilation of Monet’s influence, his work is usually outstanding. But he is more than that, for Robinson was a true artist, always a seeker of truth in his own work from the earliest days. A superb draftsman, he designed his compositions with unequaled skill and sought a freshness in his approach to his subject matter. Robinson strove to stand in the front rank of innovators, where American painters assimilated the modernity of French impressionism. |
Paintings by Theodore Robinson
| Child with Geese |
| oil on canvas: 10 ¾ x 16 ¼ inches |
| signed and dated 1886: lower left |
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