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Armchair Art Historian

We’re excited to be sharing new articles that deep dive into the collection, explore the artistic process, and highlight new scholarship. Armchair philosophers engage in conversation to arrive at new ideas and we hope you’ll join our conversation too.

Click on the following buttons to explore essays on works from the Madden Collection:

Reflections on Missouri Spring

by Sarah Martin, Curatorial Assistant

While it feels that much of the world is slowing down and staying home amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, there is also an undercurrent of pressure to speed up and use this excess of time at home to the fullest potential. While anxiety and depression amidst our current circumstances mount, many are turning to hyper-productivity seeking the satisfaction of completing a major project. These feelings appear further intensified in the creative sectors where artists are experiencing added pressure to create amidst the pandemic.

For many of us, we need the opposite of hyper-productivity to process the current moment and instead can embrace the slowness without sacrificing a creative practice. Looking to Thomas Hart Benton's process during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl provides insight into a slower mode of creation amidst a traumatic event. Serving as a reminder that one does not need to write the next great American novel or create a masterpiece while experiencing a global health crisis. 

Thomas Hart Benton was a leading Regionalist painter from the 1930s known for his depictions of America that revealed the true devastation of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Born in Missouri, Benton relocated to New York and taught painting at the Art Students League. From 1930-31 Benton completed a massive ten panel mural for the New School titled America Today that offered a panoramic look into the labor, struggles, and realities of 1920s Americana. Benton’s practice relied heavily on documenting his surroundings and the experiences of his fellow Americans especially the multi-faceted trauma that was prevalent throughout this era. In Benton’s role as a documentarian, we can see how his experience of these traumatic events impacted his work in the immediate and through reflection. 

While traumatic events often serve as fodder for the artist to create new work, the distance from this initial event is not often addressed. As we’re living in the stressful and uncertain times of the COVID-19, Benton’s process to create his final work Spring on the Missouri can serve as a reminder to be patient with ourselves and not feel guilty for not learning a new language or completing a masterpiece during quarantine. Benton’s practice reveals that documenting and reflecting on pivotal moments in our history happens over time and that documentation at the moment is only part of the full experience.

The ART of Storytelling: Utilizing Il Sospetto by Filadelfo Simi

By Eden Leal, Art History Graduate Student University of Denver

We know that creating paintings that could tell narrative stories is not contemporary, and examples of narrative works can be traced to being produced as early as the Lascaux prehistoric renderings over 17,000 years ago.  According to Edward Brangigan, PhD, a professor of Film and New Media art, “Narrative is a [natural] perceptual activity that organizes visual data into a special pattern which represents and explains experience”. And David Velleman, a professor of philosophy at NYU and Johns Hopkins, further explains that you generate a narrative out of any image as long as it has “emotional cadence” and the signified events tap into our experienced relationships and experiences.

But some works, such as Il Sopetto or “The Suspect” by Filadelfo Simi presents a specialized genre painting that tells a story in stillness that is therefore animated by our imaginations.  Genre painting emerged in the 17th Century in order to depict the commonplace-nature of the scenes and its characters that was often meant to teach a lesson in its represented narratives. In Simi’s work we see peasant crafts-people engaging in tasks of everyday life, but many artistic elements seem to divulge a bigger story that visually unfolds before our eyes.  We can use these visual-artistic cues to put together this narrative in order to learn more about the history, context, and importance of this beloved painting in the Madden Collection.

Narrative Images utilize these small pieces of the composition in order to successfully depict a “pregnant moment” that is ready to unfold.  Will the weaver make the visitor leave? Will the woman run off with her visitor?  Will this be the last time they see each other? We obviously don’t know but Filadelfo Simi demonstrates his excellence by inviting these questions and imaginative conclusions in his visual art practice.

Collection Spotlight: Portrait of a Little Girl by Frank Duveneck

By Sydney Barofsky, Madden Fellow, University of Denver

When I think of portraiture, delicately crafted paintings of wealthy patrons, couples, and families come to mind. Portraits allow us to remember others and express our own wishes for how we want to be remembered. For this Collection Spotlight, let us contemplate how art can be a point of remembrance and self-reflection. Arguably, the portrait painting encapsulates not only a moment in time for its subject, but also the artist making it.

The Madden Museum is home to American painter Frank Duveneck’s 1892 Portrait of a Little Girl. The darker pigment used for the hair, clothing, and background draw our eyes towards the center of the canvas, towards her youthful rosy-cheeked face. She stares off to the side, her head tilted in slight profile where prominent changes in tonality carve out her facial structure. Looking at her gaze, one might recall our own 20th and 21st century tradition of waiting in line for school portraits, only this was much more private and often consumed an entire day. Is she simply posing for her portrait, or calling attention to whoever stands over our right shoulder? While the latter may seem to be the obvious answer, perhaps her gaze and expression alludes to there being something more.

By the time Portrait of a Little Girl was completed, Duveneck was well into the later years of his career. Having been a prominent figure of the Munich school, Duveneck’s characteristic brushwork alludes to his gothic and impressionist influences. As both an art teacher and artist, Duveneck made his mark on American painting traditions over years of work in both areas. When Duveneck left Munich for the second time to go back to the United States, loyal students followed suit, earning them the colloquial term the “Duveneck Boys.” The artist held friendships with other creatives involved in American visual culture such as James Whistler. While as an artist Duveneck gained more fame than monetary fortune, his memory and artistic teachings continued through those he influenced such as the Boston School painter Joseph DeCamp, and American impressionist John Henry Twachtman. Additionally, Duveneck’s work exhibited in several institutions including the Cincinnati Art Museum, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the Madden Museum of Art.

This leads us to Duveneck’s place of prominence at the Madden. From the time of its conception until around 2011, Portrait of a Little Girl was housed in a private collection in Cincinnati, Duveneck’s last city of residence, and home to more of his work. Mr. Madden acquired the painting in 2015, and the work now resides in the University of Denver Madden Collection. Visitors have the chance to stop and contemplate a work of portraiture that captures the delicate nature of youth with an impressionistic realism made bold with Duveneck’s use of dramatic tonal variation. On your next visit to the Madden Museum, take a moment to consider the rich history of this painting and the artist behind it.

Collection Spotlight: Chen Chi

By Mesel Tzegai and Sydney Barofsky

“Feelings of peace, joy, and humanity are all expressed in my paintings. I hope to inspire society to spend some time with these feelings” – Chen Chi

Born in Wuxi, a small city northwest of Shanghai, Chen Chi (1912-2005) was educated in traditional Chinese literature, history, and philosophy as well as the basics of traditional Chinese painting. He later enrolled in an art school in Shanghai that emphasized Western movements, including Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Chi’s style and subject matter was further shaped by his experience as a Chinese immigrant to the United States after World War II. Inspired by the Impressionists, Chi created vibrant paintings depicting landscapes and urban scenes. He brought together elements from his native China and his adopted home on the US, combining Eastern techniques and philosophy with Western conceptions of color and American imagery. Chi’s gestural style, enhanced by his frequent use of watercolor paints, endows the artist’s work with expression and emotion.

The Madden Collection is home to several incredible artworks made by Chi in the late 1950s. Old Metropolitan Opera House (1984)- welcomes the viewer to the warm atmosphere of the theater before or after a performance. Chi’s watercolor painting presents a bright interior of a theater where the glow of the lighting is reminiscent of lanterns. The work reflects the broad span of American imagery captured by the artist in the form of vivid watercolor paintings. The faceless patrons of the opera house shuffle in the back of the theater which gives the composition a sense of movement and vibrance. The impressionistic rendering of the work alludes to Chi’s experience in the Western painting tradition picked up during his time at the Shanghai art school. The ethereal tonality overseeing the composition evokes the use of Eastern philosophy embedded in Chi’s oeuvre, although the choice to depict an indoor scene of American life somewhat differs from the artist’s usual paintings of the outdoors.

Redwoods (1968), another painting which produces a combination of Chinese painting techniques, impressionism, and the American landscape that opens a window to the long creative history of this incredible artist. Capturing the expression of man is most important when painting rather than its likeness, according to Chi. Thus, his watercolor paintings are often called Impressionistic, implying only a general feeling or an impression of man —if they are featured at all— and nature in each piece. Redwoods is an exemplary painting of Chi’s art style.

Saturated in green, the painting shows a dense forest of redwoods, so tall they extend past the length of the frame. Seemingly devoid of human presence, a closer inspection reveals a solitary figure in yellow below the trees.  In Chi’s paintings, the environment and man are in harmony with each other. This is noted by the way careful brushwork blends the human form with the landscape. Measuring at 72.25 by 36.5 inches, Redwoods is a large piece reminiscent of traditional Chinese hanging scrolls, such as Fan Kuan’s Travelers among Mountains and Streams, with a caravan of travelers at the foot of tall mountains. Like Redwoods, the travelers are tiny compared to their surroundings.

Chi’s choice of material for his paintings allowed for a sense of variation and liveliness in the work. Rice paper brings a few irregularities: it bleeds easily and may not react to a brush and water in a consistent way. Thus, Chi had to adapt his paintings to it, but believed that this kept his work interesting. Additionally, Chi typically worked with one color used in multiple tones, washing the entire canvas in a single pigment of watercolor before adding in details with delicate brushstrokes. He would spill the watercolor onto the paper he placed on the floor, a green hue in the case of Redwoods, encouraging puddles to form in particular areas by shifting the canvas or moving the wash with a large brush. Slowly moving the puddles around to paint the canvas was a meditative process for Chi. He believed that art provided an important moral function in society—a belief adopted by many other Chinese artists.

Style, technique, and subject encompass the lived experience of the artist. Chi was trained in both traditional Chinese and Western styles of painting and often combines the two to create a sense of harmony and luminescence in his works. The compositions Chi chooses to depict often show life in the United States. His experience as a Chinese immigrant in Post-war society culminated in several vibrant and colorful depictions of the American urban landscape.

As the fall season approaches, the leaves in Colorado will soon turn color. It is not only a time to seek beauty among the trees and reflect on the passing year, but to turn to art that allows us to contemplate these feelings. Serenity and humanity are evoked in the watercolor landscape paintings of Chi, whose Redwoods finds home at the Madden Museum.

Sources:

Barr, Shirley. “Chen Chi: A Rash of Feeing.” Southwest Art 3, no. 9 (April 1974): 44-49.

Linyong, Zhu. "A Master Painter's Homecoming Exhibition." China Daily (North American Ed.) (New York, N.Y), August 19, 2005. ProQuest.

Meyer, Susan E. “The Poetic Vision of Chen Chi.” American Artist 42 (September 1978): 34-39.

Steiner, Raymond J. “Chen Chi (1912-2005): In Memoriam.” Art Times (2005). https://arttimesjournal.com/art/Art_Essays/Sept_05_chen_chi_memorial/chen_chi_memoriam.htm.