Past Exhibition

Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection

August 28–December 13, 2018

Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC 29303

About the Exhibition

The radical changes wrought by the rise of the salon system in nineteenth-century Europe provoked an interesting response from painters in the American South. Painterly trends emanating from Barbizon and Giverny emphasized the subtle textures of nature through warm color and broken brushstroke. Artists’ subject matter tended to represent a prosperous middle class at play, with the subtle suggestion that painting was indeed art for art’s sake and not an evocation of the heroic manner. Such enchanting French paintings introduced a visual vocabulary of style, color, and content that was soon successfully adopted by American artists. Many painters in the South took up the stylistics of Tonalism, Impressionism, and naturalism to create equally picturesque works which celebrated the Southern scene as an exotic other, a locale offering refuge from an increasingly mechanized urban environment. In its presentation of some forty paintings created between 1880 and 1940—including landscapes and genre scenes—Scenic Impressions traces an international aesthetic’s journey to and germination in the American South. In its presentation of some forty paintings created between 1880 and 1940—including landscapes and genre scenes—Scenic Impressions traces an international aesthetic’s journey to and germination in the American South.