William Merritt Chase’s Atmosphere at the Tenth Street Studio Building free essay sample

In this essay I will explore the development of the Tenth Street Studio Building, marketing methods developed by many of the tenants of the Tenth Street Studio, and emphasize the innovations achieved by William Merritt Chase upon residing in his what became popular studio and the effect this had on the art ideals of the time and younger generations of artists. The Tenth Street Studio Building was developed from an idea by James Boorman Johnston who hired architect Richard Morris Hunt to develop the land purchased by Johnston at the North side of Tenth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in 1857. Annette Blaugrund describes the Studio Building in The Tenth Street Studio Building as a three-floor brick building that had studios that circled around a central gallery that would be used communally. Johnston intended this space to be used as a complete work and exhibition space for artists and proved to 1Cikovsky, Nicolai Jr. We will write a custom essay sample on William Merritt Chase’s Atmosphere at the Tenth Street Studio Building or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page William Merritt Chase’s Tenth Street Studio, Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1976), p. 3 ? be a progressive and successful idea for the time. Hudson River School artists such as Frederic Edwin Church, Jervis McEntee, and Sanford R. Gifford were connected to the Studio Building since its birth in 1856. The Studio Building was used as a place for artists of all kinds including writers, popular painters of the time, architects resided and met as a cultural center of the American art world. The Studio was a building where the artists could congregate and discuss the popular art of the time. Also, there held exhibitions collectively in the gallery where members of the community could come with the opportunity to move around the interconnecting studio rooms of the artists. Blaugrund discusses the artists of the studios as members of the National Academy of Design and the Century Association, two institutes that held dissimilar training and styles; the works of the artists of the studio affected each other’s work. She also goes to discuss that though the artists had dissimilar training, the artists all held a â€Å"common objective—to capture the art market. †2 Blaugrund discusses early marketing methods that developed during this time in the art world through that of tenants of the Tenth Street Studio Building. Selling work directly from the studio was key to artists. Every year, the Studio Building held receptions with music, food, and refreshments and invited people to view and purchase the art, as discussed previously. This method was a European that was popular of the times; it was a method of self-promotion that was vital to the artists of the building. In the early times of the Studio Building, the artists of residents held simply decorated studios. Many of the artists also found more opportunities to sell and promote their works, by developing outside relations. Other means to sell works were to exhibit at art organizations, auctions, and clubs. Residents of the Studio Building were leaders of 2 Blaugrund, Annette. The Tenth Street Studio Building : artist-entrepreneurs from the Hudson River School to the American impressionists / Southampton, NY : Parrish Art Museum , c1997. ? major art organizations and also members of committees in the community. This gave many new, younger artists of residence the opportunity to exhibit with well-known artists (Blaugrund). Around the 1880’s and 1890’s, marketing of art began to shift and became an opportunity for an art dealer to become involved in the selling of work. The shift was gradual during this time, and it only became an available market at this time because of the growth in the industry and the elevation of prices. Even with this new development, William Merritt Chase felt the need to stick primarily to self-promotion and studio receptions of the European style. Dissimilar to artists of the Hudson River School who resided in the Tenth Street Studio Building and preferred the simply decorated studio spaces, was William Merritt Chase who moved into the Studio Building in 1878 and preferred a lavishly decorated space full of worldly objects. Chase studied at the Munich Royal Academy and traveled through Europe prior to his residence in New York. He is an example of the new generation of artists who studied in Munich and Paris, and later was included in â€Å"the ten†Ã¢â‚¬â€a group of American impressionist artists who exhibited together. Though Chase was often tied to the relations he had from his training in Europe, he held an â€Å"American sensibility† to his work produced. 3 Chase became an important teacher to students at the Studio Building who were or would later reside as tenants. For twenty years, Chase resided at the Studio Building before beginning teaching at his own school: Chase School from 1896-1907. Chase moved into the Tenth Street Studio Building and took over the vast space that was originally intended for a gallery space. This is the gallery space that impressed early observers of the building, the space eventually proved useless and was converted into a studio. The gallery transfered from Alber Bierstadt to Chase in a moment that is symbolic of â€Å"a shift in artistic style 3 Blaugrund, Annette. The Tenth Street Studio Building : artist-entrepreneurs from the Hudson River School to the American impressionists / Southampton, NY : Parrish Art Museum , c1997. ? and studio decor and function. † (Blaugrund, The Tenth Street Studio Building. ) The studio was completed in 1879 when it was filled with numerous kinds of art and artifacts from his collection. When Chase moved out of the studio, an auction was held that catalogued his possessions as at least twenty-five different categories of objects. This studio was recalled as â€Å"the finest studio in the city, if not in the whole country,†4. The collection ranged from paintings, studio equipment, woman’s footgear; Cikovsky compares Chase’s studio to the 16th century German Wunderkammer. The large amount of exotic objects promoted the studio and brought an attraction to it. Studios such as Chase’s were common in Europe among painters such as Makart. Chase enveloped this European idea while studying abroad, and made it popular in America. Chase’s studio â€Å"became interchangeable with the ateliers of Makart and others,† (Blaugrund, Tenth Street Studio Building) an action that was probably intended by Chase. The use of the studio was primarily a tool that reflected his aesthetic. As an artist, Chase was deeply involved with the idea of surrounding and enveloping himself with an atmosphere of art. The accessories of the studio were not embellishments but were actually of use as equipment to Chase as the settings and use for figure paintings and portraits. Objects of the studio can be detected in his paintings of the studio itself, though their primary use was to create the aesthetic ambiance and atmosphere that Chase found necessary to work in. It created an atmosphere for Chase that emphasized the possibility to explore the untainted theme of beauty. In 1906, Chase stated â€Å"the secret of the success of the old masters in the good times when they left their great works was their environments—and it was this influence that helped to produce their great works. It is really that in art that counts and it was this kind of art atmosphere that was of 4 Cikovsky, Nicolai Jr. William Merritt Chase’s Tenth Street Studio, Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1976), p. 2 ? importance. †5 This amplifies the need felt by Chase to be surrounded by the atmosphere of the aesthetic. Art atmosphere was the underlying tool that was necessary to an artist. Prior to this time, studios were not considered â€Å"studios† but another name such as a â€Å"work-room. † Rooms such as this were often depicted as plain and undecorated. The noted contrast between this earlier time is due to the change in belief of an artist’s space and the method used to develop art. The American students of Munich and Paris wished to move away from the minimal taste of the grandiose subjects that were replicated in American art during the early 19th century. Cikovsky gives credit to Chase and his colleages of developing the term Hudson River School to reference these traits in his article. Artists that still held residence at the Studio Building at this time were: Whittredge, Church, Brown, Heade, and La Farge. It is interesting that Chase chose to reside in the Studio Building where a number the residents were members of the style Chase and his colleagues were attempting at moving away from. The new generation moved away from landscapes, choosing to depict still-lifes instead. The meticulous detail was replaced with a painterly style; theirs were paintings of elegance and a replacement of emphasis on the devotion of nature to that of art. William Merritt Chase also used his studio as a marketing tool. This method highly worked, as it became very well known—something that is obvious due to the vast amount of recollections of the studio. This use of his studio was similar to what was established at the start of the Tenth Street Studio Building, it was the use of self-promotion. The studio served to display the success of the artist while promoting one’s work; Chase was able to create his lavish and atmospherically pleasing environment in doing so. Chase also used the studio at Tenth 5 Cikovsky, Nicolai Jr. William Merritt Chase’s Tenth Street Studio, Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. (1976), p. 7 ? Street as a subject in his works. This was considered a marketing method for Chase as his studio was put on permanent public display by paintings shown in the current magazines. From 1880-1885 Chase developed paintings that the setting was that of his studio. Blaugrund describes how the use of figures in these pieces are not used for narrative but humaniz e the interiors and that the identity of the women used as models by Chase is unimportant to understand the works. The earliest piece in his studio by Chase is Interior of the Artist’s Studio that depicts the lavish objects of the room. The subject of the piece as described by Blaugrund, is Chase himself as an educator in an environment of his own creation. During William Chase’s career as an artist, he developed a style from the darker Munich style to a deeper impressionistic style. Overall, William M. Chase’s Tenth Street Studio intended to evolve the style of American art away from the meticulous landscapes that were connected to American art that had been developed by artists such as the Hudson River School. Chase helped move the Tenth Street Studio Building into a new era of a younger generation that trained in Europe and had a more painterly style. Chase gave the Studio Building the attention that it had been lacking, and helped it to become the center of American art once again. The Studio Building was given business once again, and Chase’s studio became somewhat of a gallery—what the space was originally intended for. American aesthetic became prominent, Chase created a symbol for the artistic center in the development of his studio while revitalizing the Tenth Street Studio. The studio helped to create the personal gallery trend that developed in the United States gaining a national identity, which led in a form of the emulation of what was already developed in Europe. William M. Chase’s paintings were not as successful as his promotional activity in his lifetime. Chase’s studio and lifestyle were highly celebrated during his time, much more that his works. Though Chase continued to teach in a number of schools, including his personal school The Chase School which later developed into the New York School of Art. The Tenth Street Studio Building’s lifetime gradually ended, with it being demolished in 1956. Though a similar atmosphere that was established by the Tenth Street Studio continued to develop in its Greenwich neighborhood. Galleries developed that held a communal theme similar to that of the 1860s. Abstract expressionism emerged in the new generation of artists in the area, and the galleries gave these artists the freedom to select and display their own works similar to the style of the Studio Building. This marketing method used was a return to one of the self-promotion found at the Tenth Street Studio Building. Works Cited Blaugrund, Annette. The Tenth Street Studio Building : artist-entrepreneurs from the Hudson River School to the American impressionists/Southampton, NY : Parrish Art Museum, c1997. William Merritt Chases Tenth Street Studio Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr. Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1976), pp. 2-14 Published by: The Smithsonian Institution Stable URL: http://www. jstor. org/stable/1556890 Visits, Parties, and Cats in the Hall: The Tenth Street Studio Building and Its Inmates in the Nineteenth Century Garnett McCoy Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan. , 1966), pp. 1-8 Published by: The Smithsonian Institution Stable URL: http://www. jstor. org/stable/1557104