Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965). The Brook at Carversville, circa 1925. Oil on canvas. 26 x 32 inches (66.0...

Description

Edward Willis Redfield (American, 1869-1965)
The Brook at Carversville, circa 1925
Oil on canvas
26 x 32 inches (66.0 x 81.3 cm)
Signed and dated indistinctly lower left: E.W. Redfield / 19__
Signed and titled indistinctly on the stretcher bar: E.W. Redfield / The Brook at / Carversville

Property from a Distinguished Collection, Oklahoma

EXHIBITED:
[Probably] Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1925 (as The Brook at Carversville);
[Probably] Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York, November 1927, cat. no. 19 (as The Brook at Carversville);
Heinz Ocean Pier, Atlantic City, New Jersey, "Landscapes by Edward Redfield," n.d., no. 13, prior to 1944 (as Carversville Brook);
Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, "An Exhibition of Paintings and Crafts By Edward W. Redfield," December 3-January 28, 1962, no. 9 (as Carversville Brook).

LITERATURE:
C.V. Kirby, Ph.D., "A Little Journey to the Home of Edward W. Redfield," Public Schools of Bucks County, Unit 3, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, 1947, n.p. (as Carversville).

Edward Redfield is regarded as the dean of the New Hope School of painters, centered around the historic mill town of New Hope, on the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The artist's painterly views of the Delaware River basin and its surrounding scenery tapped a well of national pride in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and his large-scale canvases depicting the Bucks County landscape rank among the finest and most esteemed examples of American Impressionism. Among the contemporary admirers of Redfield's canvases was his fellow artist Guy Péne du Bois, who wrote in 1915, "the Pennsylvania school of landscape painters, whose leader is Edward W. Redfield, is our first truly national expression. It began under the influence of the French Impressionists. It has restricted itself patriotically to the painting of the typical American landscape." (As quoted in T. Folk, Edward Redfield, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1987, p. 36)

In works such as the present example, Redfield developed a unique and direct manner of plein air painting that built on the legacy of his French Impressionist predecessors, but one which contemporary audiences and art critics found fresh, innovative and inspiring. His technique of thick long brushstrokes was much more muscular than the feathery, abbreviated strokes of his French peers. Redfield built up his surfaces with multiple layers of pigment, creating a rich impasto that was textured and dimensional. He painted his large canvases in a single outdoor session, in order to capture the fleeting effects of sunlight, shadow, and their interplay among the trees, streams, and hills, sometimes strapping his canvas to a tree on blustery days and standing knee-deep in snow. It was this sense of immediacy and vigor, along with a particular pride of place, that were the distinct hallmarks of Redfield's legacy.

Born in Delaware, Edward Redfield, like many of his contemporaries, received artistic training both at home and abroad. After his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1887 to 1889, Redfield departed for Paris to receive further training at the Académie Julian. During these years he traveled to the French countryside accompanied by Robert Henri. In the forest of Fountainebleu Redfield learned to paint en plein air, our out-of-doors, commencing a lifelong preference for this novel manner of painting. Upon returning to the States in 1893, Redfield continued the plein air tradition in his renderings of the landscapes of Buck's County.

The Brook at Carversville features a favorite compositional style for Redfield; that of a foreground creek winding into the picture's center, surrounded by the characteristically wooded natural landscape, trees, and old stone buildings and bridges of rural Pennsylvania. His composition is anchored by a stone structure along the edge of brook, as well as a large craggy tree that angles boldly across the picture plane and shades the creek from the bank. The visual sweep of the viewer's point of entry at the creek and toward the stone bridge, and then beyond to the hills is guided by the diagonal lines masterfully layered throughout. This artistic device gives the scene a remarkable sense of depth and spatial recession, which allows the eyes of the viewer to wander throughout the scene as they might wander through the landscape, discovering detail after charming detail. Utilizing bold, energetic brushstrokes, he created a unique cross-hatching effect and a pattern of color and motion. Indeed, in the present work, Redfield is able to capture a specific season and time of day with the expressive, dynamic style for which he is best known.

In this bucolic scene, the nearly-melted remaining snow of late winter and early spring lends a hushed serenity and anticipation particular to that time of year in the countryside. The sunlit brook quietly babbles its way toward the viewer while bundled figures cross the arched stone bridge, soaking in the warm rays of late afternoon. The distant characteristic mauve, peach, violet, and emerald tones of the Bucks County terrain allow the viewer's gaze to linger just over the bridge, there glimpsing another picturesque stone structure, and then to settle beyond in the dappled light and cool shadows of late afternoon, which, in their transience, gradually transform the appearance of the hillside.

The village of Carversville was originally a gathering place for the Lenni Lanape tribe of indigenous people, whose territory included present-day northeastern Delaware, New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and surrounding areas. The Lenape called the area of the town Aquatong, or "many springs." By 1730, roads had been formed into Carversville's dense forests so that settlers could haul out wool and farm produce and bring in lumber that had been rafted down the Delaware River from northern Pennsylvania. Originally called Indian Village by the settlers, the town was later named Mill Town for its rustic stone mills, later Milton and finally, in 1833, Carversville, in honor of the town's first postmaster. The town is now a u nationally designated historic district. Featured at the center of the present work is the Carversville Bridge, built in 1854 of roughly squared stone near the heart of the village. The double arch bridge spans forty-five feet across the Paunnacussing Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River.

The present painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Edward Redfield's works being compiled by Dr. Thomas Folk.




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