American Tonalist Landscape Painting “Valley of the Oise” by William Sartain

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WILLIAM SARTAIN
American, 1843-1924

"In the Valley of the Oise"

21" H x 1 5/8" D x 27" W (frame)
… Read more WILLIAM SARTAIN
American, 1843-1924

"In the Valley of the Oise"

21" H x 1 5/8" D x 27" W (frame)
18" H x 24" W (canvas)

Oil on canvas, signed lower right W. SARTAIN | reverse titled with exhibition number three times, original asking price of $ 300 | executed circa 1920

This muted landscape titled In the Valley of the Oise is a picture of tranquility and the essence of Sartain’s refined tonalism work. Executed with a restrained palette and soft atmospheric transitions, the painting captures the hushed stillness of twilight along the Oise River in northern France. This was a very important destination for painters of the Barbizon movement and later the Tonalists. As a composition the scene unfolds in measured horizontals: the luminous sky, the rhythmic band of trees, and the meandering reflective patches of water. The layering is moody in its high atmosphere, a subtle technique that emphasized mood over topographical precision. The sense of calm reverie and diffused light situate the work firmly within the American Tonalist movement, to which Sartain contributed through both practice and teaching.

The reverse of the lined canvas retains the artist’s original title inscription, “In the Valley of the Oise, 18 x 24”, along with two early gallery or exhibition labels, one bearing the original price of $300, and the number “232,” which corresponds to the stretcher inscription. These inscriptions are without a doubt original to the painting from when the painting was in the hands of the William Macbeth Gallery for their 1925 posthumous exhibition of his work.

In writing about the final exhibition by the William Macbeth Gallery for William Sartain posthumously for the benefit of his estate, the New York Times observed in November of 1925:

"The Macbeth Galleries are holding through this month a memorial exhibition of the work of William Sartain, which may very appropriately be noticed in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition of the National Academy. In the Academy exhibition Sartain was represented by one of his Algerian street scenes, a strong composition supported by force of color and enveloped in atmosphere. Sartain was a foundation member of the Society of American Artists, which, as most of us know, existed for many years as an offshoot of the Academy and rival to it, later becoming amalgamated with the older association. Sartain had studied under Yvon and Bonnat and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, but his work holds comparatively little of French influence. Without a suggestion of radical tendencies, it nevertheless is marked by a peculiarly deep individuality, so that it would be difficult to mistake one of his landscapes, heads, or Moorish streets for the work of any other man. He was the son of John Sartain, the engraver, whose punctilious engravings from the paintings of other artists were well know in Philadelphia and New York, but he hardly can be held responsible for the firm and delicate draftsmanship of his son, since in art the fallacy of attributing either vices or virtues to inheritance is particularly obvious.

Sartain's Landscapes: The landscapes at the Macbeth Gallery are not various. The spirit of place appealed but little to Sartain, who bathed the meadows at Manasquam with the same idyllic golden air as hung over the marshlands of he Roman Campagna. He loved horizontal lines, flat foregrounds, broad skies. His landscape "On the Campagna" is notable for its sky, unusually tender and deep with flushed and drowsy clouds. "An Afternoon Sky" is similar in character, is suffused with a rich sentiment that holds the spectator in a kind of trance, a thick, soft enwrapment. In the several heads with which the exhibition is not only enriched but fortified, it is easier to see how fine a structure underlies the dense fabric of tone characteristic of this style. The "Head of an Arab Boy" is a completely fulfilled example of the artist's tact in fusing and saturating a subject with poetic distinction. The brown headdress falling in heavy folds, the white band across the forehead, the yellowish brown fleshtones and the dull red of the background all melt in a single impression, are held in one low tonality. In another head the painting has stopped just short of this complete fusion, and one may watch the sturdy building up of the forms with patches of local color awaiting the final unifying process under which the vigorous framework exists.

William Sartain was an almost unique case of sustained poetic vision in his generation of American painting. Nothing turned him from his appointed course, and his appointed course led him over the same sunsteeped path, among the same rich associations, his mind weighted with these associative values, his art responsive to them."

The William Macbeth Gallery put out a 43 painting catalog dedicated only to Sartain's work as a memorial exhibition from October 27th through November 16th of 1925, in which it notes "In the Valley of the Oise" as no. 30. A copy of the exhibition catalog held in the William Macbeth Gallery archives in their company scrapbook notes the asking price of $ 300 beside the painting along with its dimensions of 18x24.

Condition: The painting is in very good, stable condition. The original canvas has been relined, likely within the past 30 years; it lies flat and secure with no signs of distortion. The paint surface is stable with fine even craquelure consistent with age; the varnish presents an even, clear gloss. Under ultraviolet light, minor and well-matched retouching is visible in the sky and treeline: small spots and a faint vertical line of restoration near the right side, as well as along the outer edges from past frame abrasion. These restorations are professionally executed and visually unobtrusive. The signature remains intact. Frame is modern and shows only minor rubbing. Overall, the work is well preserved and ready for immediate display.

William Sartain (1843–1924)
Born in Philadelphia into a family deeply rooted in the arts, William Sartain was the son of the engraver John Sartain and brother of painter Emily Sartain. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before traveling to Paris in 1868, where he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and studied under Léon Bonnat. Sartain remained in France for nearly a decade, immersing himself in the Barbizon and Tonalist circles and maintaining friendships with American expatriates such as Thomas Eakins and William Morris Hunt.

Returning to the United States in the late 1870s, Sartain became an influential teacher and administrator. He co-founded the Society of American Artists and later served as Dean of the School of Fine Arts at the National Academy of Design in New York. His work bridges the realism of the Barbizon School with the emerging poetic sensibility that came to define American Tonalism. Characterized by low tonal contrasts, soft edges, and an introspective mood, his landscapes and figural works reveal a preoccupation with atmosphere and the spiritual quality of light.

Sartain exhibited regularly at the National Academy, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Paris Salon. His paintings are held in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Academy of Design.

Literature/References:

E. Benezit Dictionary of Artists, vol. XII, Gründ, 2006, p. 429
The Annual Exhibition Record of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1888-1950, Falk, 1990, p. 786 [exhibits 1888 through 1914
The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1876-1913, vol. II, Falk, 1989, p. 424-425 [exhibits recorded 1876 through 1912]
The Annual Exhibition Record of the National Academy of Design, 1901-1950, Falk, p. 460 [exhibits recorded 1901 through 1924]
Exhibition of the National Academy 1861-1900, vol. II, Naylor, Kennedy, 1973, p. 823-824
Memorial Exhibition: Paintings by the Late William Sartain, N.A., October 27 through November 17th 1925, William Macbeth, Inc.
Smithsonian American Art Archives: William Macbeth, Inc. Gallery Archives: Box 107, Folder 1: Artist Registers, circa 1924-1944: "Sartain: Valley of Oise # 232" received as no. 59 in register book [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/macbeth-gallery-records-9703/series-2/box-107-folder-1]
Smithsonian American Art Archives: William Macbeth, Inc. Gallery Archives: Box 124, Folder 2: Scrapbook 9, 1925 January-1927 November [with original gallery exhibition material, noting In the Valley of the Oise as no. 30 measuring 18x24 with an asking price of $ 300]

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