From 1880 through 1920, Tonalism was among the dominant genres of art in the United States with its leading practitioners widely exhibiting and winning awards at major national art exhibitions, including entry to the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Comprised principally of quiet, sometimes intimate landscapes, Tonalism offered a contemplation on what was seen as the nation’s lost idyllic agrarian past contrasting deeply with rapid urbanization and industrialization of the last two decades of the 19th century. Using a somber low-key color palette compared to the light pastels of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, these artists sought to convey the essence of the natural world through a sense of spirituality and melancholy. 

Sometimes dismissed as an American imitation of European post-Barbizon painting, mature Tonalism was, in fact, a distinctly American art form that contributed to the development of modernism in the United States through early experimentation with many of the techniques that were later popularized in the 20th century by the American modernists, particularly the use of abstracted forms and color. The throughline of emotive abstraction particularly evident in our collections connects the Tonalist painters to the artists of the Stieglitz Circle and the Abstract Expressionists of the Post-War Era. As such, Tonalism serves as the introduction to the collections of the O’Brien Art Foundation and The Marty O’Brien Collection of American Art.

The work of Tonalist painter Leon Dabo exemplifies the movement’s embrace of abstraction. Like many Tonalists during the 1880s and 1890s, Dabo shuttled back and forth between France and New York, where he became a founding member of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors. This association, which organized 1913’s groundbreaking Armory Show, was largely responsible for America’s formal introduction to modernism. Dabo’s The Calm (1906) pushes the boundaries of representation toward abstraction. Typical of what art historian David A. Cleveland characterizes as Tonalism’s “emphasis on the broad, graphic, ultimately abstract reading of major forms,” the work eschews narrative for a focus on nature’s symbolic and perceptual capacity.

Painter J. Francis Murphy was another leading figure of Tonalism, highlighted in the defining treatise on the movement, A History of American Tonalism 1880 – 1920 by Cleveland as Tonalism’s “representative yet least appreciated” innovator. Murphy’s On the Brow of the Knoll (1911)—exhibited that same year in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s major contemporary survey, The Carnegie International—and Autumnal Landscape (1898), demonstrate the artist’s interest (and that of the broader movement) in giving form to the unseen atmosphere through the impacts of humidity and light in the air. Rich translucent glazes allowed the New York-based painter to create glistening effects that resulted in the vibration and refraction of tones in his poetic landscapes. 

In contrast to Aesthetic Tonalism are the exuberant landscapes of Franklin Dehaven, Bruce Crane, Gustav Wolff, and Charles Harold Davis. As seen in Dehaven’s After the Rain (1902), Crane’s The Old Wood (1915), Wolff’s Winter Landscape (1907) and Davis’s All Hallow’s Eve (c. 1907–1915), a greater contrast of light and dark along with more expressive paint handling creates a sense of ominous mystery that characterized this sub-movement, which became more popular during the first two decades of the 20th century.

A rare number of Tonalist paintings included the presence of people, such as Figures in the Forest (n.d.) by Henry Ward Ranger and Elliot Dangerfield’s In the Glade (n.d.). Centering the depiction of seemingly ancient trees, both canvases gesture the grandness of nature in comparison to the diminutive scale of figures painted off to the side, dwarfed by the surrounding woods. The resulting feeling of spiritual communion between humanity and nature recalls memories of a lost past as urban development infringed on the harmonious landscape.

During his long career, Connecticut-born and based painter Dwight Tryon was among the best known and most commercially successful Tonalist painters. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, the leading honorary society of art and architecture in the United States, and an important art instructor, helming the Art Department at Smith College. Yet, his reputation diminished as Tonalism fell out of favor. Tryon’s Nightfall (1919) is the type of painting that would have appealed to adherents of the American Aesthetic Movement, a philosophy that coincided with the popularity of Tonalism and advocated for “good taste” developed through consideration of beautifully crafted works picturing harmonious settings.

Ben Foster, like Tryon, was also elected to the National Academy of Design. Their works Waning Day (1916) and The Road to the Farm (c. 1907), respectively, depict Northeastern scenes again with a focus on the atmosphere and weather, achieved through the low-toned palette of subtle greens, blues, grays, and umbers. Through expressive brush strokes, both works emphasize the vitality of the American landscape. For a time in the late 1880s, Foster shared a studio in New York with Charles Warren Eaton. Together they traveled to Grez (near Barbizon). Influenced by those travels, Sunset Through the Trees (1890) is typical of Eaton’s preoccupation with seasonal twilight during fall and winter. Often using silhouetted trees as a device to heighten the interplay between the organic world and the fading light, Eaton’s watercolors and oils are typical of the Tonalist inclination toward ambiguity achieved through soft-edged forms that often served as abstract symbols.