Born in Massachusetts, Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858-1925) developed an early appreciation for the natural world—even during long hikes to Boston in the sweltering summer and icy winter to take his first formal lessons from artist George Loring Brown. And, while Metcalf later set up a studio in Manhattan and hobnobbed with the likes of Gilded Age playboy architect Stanford White, he seemed to find restoration and creative solace by getting back to nature and painting the varied beauty of the seasons.
Springtime
Spring is a generally appealing season for artists, and as Metcalf grew older, he felt an even keener sense of personal rejuvenation when the world around him became green and flowering again. Metcalf often focused on painting March's first surges through the clutch of winter, such as the 1911 and 1921 Thawing Brooks, while works like Maytime and May Afternoon showed the newly blooming landscape in its full glory.
Metcalf's luminous 1906 May Night was done at Florence Griswold's boardinghouse in Old Lyme, Connecticut, where Metcalf spent time with artistic colleagues like Childe Hassam and escaped the hassles of city life. Metcalf wasn't averse to painting more urban scenes of spring, however, as seen in his 1902 Battery Park, Spring and Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park. The 1911 Central Park view is especially intriguing, framing the city's oasis of nature with panoramic detachment beneath a bright blue late March or April sky.
Summer Splendor
When Metcalf summered at Old Lyme, he took his easel out for plein air painting sessions and he also gathered various specimens of bird eggs, bird nests, moths and butterflies. Metcalf collected and studied these natural treasures for years, with the impressive trove eventually being donated to the Florence Griswold Museum in 1971.
Metcalf was adding to his naturalist collection when he was in his late twenties and had traveled to French Impressionist master Claude Monet's realm of Giverny, France. Metcalf produced some lovely works during this European period, including the beautifully verdant 1888 Sunlight and Shadow. 1910's June Pastoral is another lush, grassy scene, while September and Waning Summer bring the season to its end, as leaves begin to change and days become shorter and cooler.
Autumn Glory
The New England region is famed for its autumn foliage, and Metcalf was quite adept at reproducing many a stunning fall scene. Works like The Golden Carnival and Autumn Glory illustrate such finesse, as does Metcalf's gorgeous 1922 Indian Summer, Vermont. Also painted in Vermont, November Mosaic is both crisp and mellowed, and like Indian Summer it offers a further poignancy, having been completed just a few years before Metcalf's death.
Winter's Festival
Metcalf's willingness to leave the comfort of his studio to brave frosty temperatures was proof of his love of all seasons and his sportsman's attitude toward painting. The results of such frigid challenges were fine scenes like The Winter's Festival, Icebound, The White Mantle and the freshly fallen drifts of The White Veil. Able to convey glistening mirrors of frozen water and a hundred nuances of white, Metcalf lured us into a silent snowy wonderland where no other human foot had tread, as he took the art of nature and made it his own.
Sources
- Willard Leroy Metcalf -- The Florence Griswold Museum
- November Mosaic, Willard Metcalf -- New Britain Museum of American Art
