| Between 1875 and 1907, the Monterey Peninsula epitomized California art. The towns of Monterey, Pacific Grove, and eventually Carmel, each interconnected yet distinct, boasted populations of artists who shared their lives, ideals, and respective arts in a free spirit of association and collegiality. Beginning with Jules Tavernier's arrival in 1875, art produced on the peninsula broke from the tightly rendered style of the Hudson River school to become increasingly subjective, meditative, and simple. By 1900, the majority of the artists in the region had arrived at a tonal style featuring close-value colors and moody atmospheric effects. Some went one step farther, producing canvases reductive not only in color but also in form. For others, the progression culminated in impressionism.; Most accounts of the Monterey Peninsula's artistic legacy have cited the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire as the primary impetus for coastal settlement. These histories have also focused primarily on Carmel's literati, marginalizing the role that Monterey's visual artists played from 1875 on. By 1907, many of Monterey's first- and second-generation painters had in fact reached artistic maturity, moved on to other locales, or died. In that year, artists of Monterey, Pacific Grove, and now Carmel-by-the-Sea, which by 1905 could boast its own colony, achieved a new level of professionalism and organization, most significantly through the opening of Monterey's Del Monte Hotel gallery.; Among those who lived or worked frequently in Monterey, Jules Tavernier, William Keith, and Arthur Mathews now rank as major figures in California art. Some, such as Charles Rollo Peters and Francis McComas, claimed international reputations in their day, making them worthy of renewed recognition. Others are today little known outside biographical dictionaries. To be sure, many California artists visited the peninsula during this period and remain outside the scope of this survey. Only those who lived on the peninsula, spent much time there, or devoted significant work to peninsula subjects are featured. These artists define the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chapter of California's art history, which is here told through eight principal protagonists exemplifying the period's major trends, and a host of ancillary players. |
