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Dwight William Tryon

Dwight W. Tryon, January 1912. Freer Papers/FGA Archives. Inscribed, "To my friend Charles L. Freer."
The Rising Moon: Autumn

1889
Oil on wood panel
H: 51.0 W: 80.3 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1889.31a-b
The first of Tryon's works to enter Freer's collection, The Rising Moon: Autumn reflects how the artist was inspired by the French Barbizon school. Although the Barbizon painters had been active a full generation earlier than Tryon, their bucolic, atmospheric imagery remained extremely popular among American collectors of the Gilded Age. Here, Tryon adapts the Barbizon style to the strictly American subject of New England haystacks, recreating South Dartmouth scenery from memory in his New York studio. Using shades of blue and green to portray the rural setting's calm, evening atmosphere, Tryon also incorporates more intense reds and yellows to draw the viewer towards the haystack, the tree line, and the farmhouse in the distance. Though signs of human habitation would eventually fade out of his works, the meadow and tree line became signature motifs and key compositional elements of Tryon's mature landscapes.

The Rising Moon: Autumn was one of the artist's most popular paintings during his lifetime; Tryon referred to the work as his "mascot." Freer bought the painting straight off the easel during an unannounced visit to the artist's studio. Although Tryon and Freer believed that the painting's "subtle charms" could only be appreciated by an elite few, it was nonetheless widely exhibited. The work was well received and won gold medals at the International Art Exposition in Munich in 1892 and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago the following year.
Springtime

1892
Oil on canvas
H: 96.8 W: 211.4 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1893.14a-b
In 1890, Freer sought Tryon's counsel in decorating his new home on East Ferry Avenue in Detroit. Tryon was happy to oblige. By offering interior design advice, the artist created an opportunity for a major commission; with his letters he sent sketches highlighting spaces in Freer's great hall that needed art. Tryon then outlined a program comprising images of the four seasons, a dawn landscape, and two marine paintings. Springtime was the first to be completed. The painting's clearly articulated horizontals and verticals echoed the hall's architecture, making the work an "integral part of the room," as Tryon described it.

Though Freer occasionally allowed individual pieces to be exhibited outside his home, he and Tryon believed that the works were best viewed as an ensemble. The "decorations," as Tryon called them, had a consistent horizon to complement the "classic purity" of the interior. According to Tryon's biographer Henry White, the artist's panels for Freer's house were "ideal as backgrounds, keeping their place, subordinate to the decorations, and yet glowing with a quiet richness, handsome in color themselves."
Dawn

1893
Oil on canvas
H: 71.0 W: 154.6 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1906.86a-b
Though the seven decorative paintings Tryon created for Freer's great hall were meant to be appreciated as a whole, several works—through their placement, size, and formal arrangement—serve as harmonious pairs. For example, both Dawn and Winter, which were hung on either side of a double mantel, incorporate the coarsely woven canvas as a compositional element, contributing to their delicate atmospheric effects. By incorporating the texture of the canvas into the depiction of the landscape, Tryon created a seamless union of form and content.

The two works also represent opposite yet complementary moods. The melancholy scene of winter, Tryon's least favorite season, is answered by what one critic described as the "vaporous sweetness" seen in Dawn.
Winter

1893
Oil on canvas
H: 71.5 W: 155.2 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1893.17a-b

Though the seven decorative paintings Tryon created for Freer's great hall were meant to be appreciated as a whole, several works—through their placement, size, and formal arrangement—serve as harmonious pairs. For example, both Dawn and Winter, which were hung on either side of a double mantel, incorporate the coarsely woven canvas as a compositional element, contributing to their delicate atmospheric effects. By incorporating the texture of the canvas into the depiction of the landscape, Tryon created a seamless union of form and content.

The two works also represent opposite yet complementary moods. The melancholy scene of winter, Tryon's least favorite season, is answered by what one critic described as the "vaporous sweetness" seen in Dawn.
Summer

1892
Oil on canvas
H: 97.0 W: 155.2 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1893.15a-b

The similarities in the execution of Autumn and Summer suggest that, like Dawn and Winter, the two works have a dialogue. Both use horizontal bands of color and contrasting colors to articulate the New England countryside. Autumn incorporates light purple pigments in the clouds to offset the dark brown and red hues of the changing foliage. Similarly, Summer uses dark green to create depth among the pink flowers in the foreground.
Autumn

1892
Oil on canvas
H: 96.0 W: 125.0 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1893.16a-b

The similarities in the execution of Autumn and Summer suggest that, like Dawn and Winter, the two works have a dialogue. Both use horizontal bands of color and contrasting colors to articulate the New England countryside. Autumn incorporates light purple pigments in the clouds to offset the dark brown and red hues of the changing foliage. Similarly, Summer uses dark green to create depth among the pink flowers in the foreground.
Daybreak: May

1897-1898
Oil on wood panel
H: 106.7 W: 121.9 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1906.78a-b

Tryon considered this painting one of his most intriguing, possessing, he wrote, "more moods and phases than any picture I know." Freer also admired the work's subtleties. After purchasing it in 1898, he devoted an entire day to studying the painting in various rooms of his Detroit mansion, observing how shifting lighting conditions emphasized different aesthetic qualities in the work. In a letter to the artist, Freer declared Daybreak: May to be a "marvelous interpretation" and a "great success."

Although Tryon had already painted several early-morning scenes of South Dartmouth in the springtime, Daybreak: May differs in its technical approach. All attention to line and defining contour is nearly obliterated. Details are shrouded in a hazy veil of lavender pigment; the unusually tall tree line extends nearly to the top edge of the canvas, actively challenging the overwhelmingly horizontal orientation typical of Tryon's landscapes. The layering and toning of the diverse colors—greens, reds, purples, and blues—not only contribute to the work's atmospheric texture, but also evoke a sense of quiet anticipation, perhaps for what the breaking day may promise.
Niagara Falls

1898
Pastel on brown paper
H: 29.5 W: 37.0 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1906.91a-b

In 1894, hoping to inspire Tryon to work in pastel, Freer sent the artist a quantity of textured, dark paper similar to the kind Whistler used for his pastel creations. Tryon, delighted, declared pastel "a charming medium" that promised "new beauties and possibilities." As he told Freer, "The very sight of pastels on paper gives me a pleasure which I rarely have in contact with any other materials." Tryon found that pastels were not only suited to depicting the ethereal effects of springtime and winter, but that they also could "directly" translate the artist's vision. Freer shared this interest in pastels' surface quality, eventually acquiring thirty-six works in the medium by Tryon—including Niagara Falls—as well as a number by Whistler and Thomas Dewing.

According to an inscription by the artist on the reverse, Tryon gave Niagara Falls to Freer in 1898 as a "Souvenir of 'A Sentimental Journey.'" The two men often traveled together from New York to Detroit and back, and they must have stopped at Niagara along the way. A subject markedly different from those in Tryon's placid images of rural New England, Niagara Falls had long been a popular focus among American painters. Tryon's interpretation, however, eschews the grandeur and drama that attracted other artists. The gentle qualities of water and air take precedence over the falls' power and fury. Soft violets and whites are rendered against the dark blue water and turquoise sky, articulating the airy quality of vapor. Tryon also incorporated the paper's textured surface to help evoke the transparent effects of mist.
Early Night

1903
Pastel on gray-brown paper
H: 20.2 W: 30.5 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1906.93a-b

Pursuing a newfound attraction to pastel in 1903, Tryon created a work that harkens back to such earlier, Barbizon-influenced oil paintings as The Rising Moon: Autumn. The romantically rendered Early Night also illustrates Tryon's exploration of pastels' expressive and visual potential on paper. The dark brown support not only contributes to the work's atmospheric texture, but also takes on a representational function. Tryon uses the untouched paper to define the road, which guides the viewer into the picture, leading the eye from the foreground up to the cottage near the horizon, and then to the richly colored, moonlit sky.
The Sea: Evening

1907
Oil on canvas
H: 76.2 W: 121.8 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1907.151a-b

In a letter to Freer, Tryon remarked that The Sea: Evening is "nearest to a masterpiece of any I have produced." In 1906, Tryon received a commission from William K. Bixby, a business associate of Freer's, who asked for a moonlit seascape. Consequently, that September the painter—who was an avid fisherman—spent a week in Ogunquit, Maine, looking for artistic inspiration as well as a place to catch pollock. The trip inspired several pastels along with the promised oil for Bixby, which the artist described as "express[ing] the power and vastness of the sea and sky as elemental forces." After a second trip to Ogunquit in February 1907, Tryon completed The Sea: Evening, and Freer purchased the work that July.

Tryon's use of color reflects a cold austerity not expressed in his other seascapes. The subtle gradations of dark blues and greys in the sky, accented by the faded golds of the setting sun, elegantly complement the violet and lavender pigments of the ocean. The work's horizontal orientation and smooth, wavy brushstrokes suggest the movement of the waves; the delicately layered palette combined with the painting's large scale evokes an overwhelming feeling of calm. Comparing the work to one he had seen in a Japanese temple, Freer declared that The Sea: Evening shared the "same big qualities of excellence."
The Sea: Night

1915
Pastel on cardboard
H: 19.2 W: 29.4 cm
United States
Gift of Charles Lang Freer F1915.127a-b

The Ogunquit, Maine, shoreline featured in the monumental oil painting The Sea: Evening, also inspired this pastel. While in Maine, Tryon and a friend, collector Walter Copeland Bryant, watched the moon rise over the sea, noting how the moonlight reflected off of the waves and illuminated the path at their feet. Entranced by his visual experiences in Ogunquit, Tryon declared that exotic realms were "nowhere to this wonderful place."

In The Sea: Night, Tryon uses thick, opaque strokes of bright yellow against the paper to replicate the shimmering light on the metallic water, achieving luminosity in a fundamentally grainy medium.