Tonalism in Connecticut: American Antiquity at it’s Finest

It’s a sunny and chilly Thursday March afternoon on Fairfield University’s campus as I walk up to Bellarmine Mansion. In there the Bellarmine Museum has a brilliant collection of American impressionists on display for their show Dawn & Dusk: Tonalism in Connecticut (Jan. 17 - April 12). 

Durham Connecticut, 1879 - George Innes

Imagine you have just walked into your own private collection room in the Met and on display are 56 of some of the best American impressionists focusing on Northeastern landscapes that encompass all four seasons. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen an impressionist exhibit before. After all, the French Impressionists are some of the first painters art students learn about and naturally fall in love with initially. To really appreciate the magnitude of the paintings is to have walked (or run) around the same New England area without the modernity that we are accustomed to seeing today. It was a joy seeing cotton skies layered in blushes that meshed with each other splendidly. Contrast was also on full display in a way that is only seen today with some of the best photography filters. In essence a lot of what fine art is today has changed; ornate gold wooden frames no longer hold paintings to further magnify their beauty and instead an austere approach has replaced it to produce in mass. But what we can say is that for those who are lucky enough to visit exhibits like these is that when we see them we are transported to a time that we could only fathom in our imaginations. 

A Bright Winter Day, 1915 - Mina Fonda Ochtman