| To modern eyes a nineteenth-century landscape painter's oil sketches often appear more satisfying than his larger finished paintings. We accept them as works of art, attuned as we are to high levels of abstraction and painterly flourishes in works of all scale. Although many of these sketches remained private, used as part of the creative process, some of them were publicly exhibited and sold. Between 1830 and 1880 oil sketches, notably of landscapes, became a fixture in Academy exhibitions, hung in a special "sketch room." Studio receptions, charity auctions, and artists' estate sales arose as alternate venues for their display and sale. The freshness and verve of these works attracted critics and collectors precisely for those characteristics that, at the time, denied them the status of a work of art.;This dissertation concentrates on the leading landscape painters of that era, notably Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Inspired in part by Thomas Cole's example and Asher B. Durand's "Letters on Landscape Painting" these artists took to the open air. The hazards accompanying such ventures, whether to the Catskills or the Andes, encouraged interest in the sketches resulting from the artist's travels. Following the artists' return to the studio, these small works often adorned the walls as trophies from distant venues. As oil sketches were publicly exhibited, they became marketing tools for future paintings. Positive critical response to these small paintings enhanced their desirability among collectors. Framed and hung as a work of art, the painted sketch became a work of art. From an occasional practice designed to help the landscape painter compose an easel painting, oil sketching became a significant form of artistic production in its own right. As a result, the painted sketch in the hands of American artists would not only play a critical role in the development of studio canvases, it would emerge by the end of the nineteenth century as an independent work of art. |
