Breakers at Beaver Tail, Narragansett Bay
Artist
William Trost Richards
(American, 1833 - 1905)
Date1894
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions19 1/2 x 32 in. (25 5/8 x 38 1/2 x 2 1/4 in.)
ClassificationsOil Painting
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Talcott Slater
Terms
Object number1959.14
DescriptionRichards came of age when landscape painting carried the religious, nationalist, and didactic conviction of the American people's unique destiny in a new world. During the initial twenty years of his career, Richards responded by painting beautifully crafted, meticulously detailed, and handsomely conceived landscape subjects, such as In the Adirondack Mountains (1857; Saint Louis Art Museum) and In the Woods (1865; Brooklyn Museum of Art). Following his second sojourn in Europe (1866-67), the ship on which Richards was returning to America nearly foundered during a storm. The experience left a deep impression on him, and thereafter the artist increasingly turned his attention to coastal and marine subjects.Richards interpreted his sea subjects as either emblems of comforting tranquility, such as "On the Coast of New Jersey" (1883; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) or as dynamic, at times cataclysmic, essays on nature's sublime character. "Breakers at Beavertail" exemplifies more the dynamic aspect of Richards's vision. The subject is at the southernmost part of Conanicut Island, a rocky knuckle of earth in Narragansett Bay where Richards built a family home named Gray Cliff. He loved the site and painted it on several occasions. (1) In the New Britain picture, Richards focused intently on shore, sea, and sky. There is nothing anecdotal in or about the images; only the essence of the artist's direct and spontaneous sensory experience is committed to canvas. Richards used a muted reduced palette, a facile yet frugal draftsmanship, and, as always, a marvelously articulate technique to define the powerful expressive elements of his cogent artistic vision. Employing an economy of means to achieve classic expressive ends is a hallmark of Richards's career that is quite thoroughly manifest in "Breakers at Beavertail".
JD
Bibliography:
Linda S. Ferber, "William Trost Richards", exhib. cat. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1973); Linda S. Ferber, "William Trost Richards (1833-1905), American Landscape and Marine Painter," Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1980; Linda S. Ferber, "Tokens of a Friendship: Miniature Watercolors by William T. Richards", exhib. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982); Linda S. Ferber and William H. Gerdts, "The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites", exhib. cat. (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1985); Linda S. Ferber, "Never at Fault": "The Drawings of William Trost Richards", exhib. cat. (Yonkers: Hudson River Museum, 1986).
Notes:
1 . For other representations, see Harrison S. Morris, Richards Masterpieces of the Sea (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1912), facing pp. 20, 36, and 44.
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