The Florence Griswold Museum

Today is Saturday, November 22, 2008 and I made my way to Old Lyme, CT to visit the Florence Griswold Museum. It wasn't what I expected. The museum itself is currently showing an exhibit by Bessie Potter Vonnoh in the Krieble Gallery and Saturday was the first day of their holiday exhibit - beautiful Christmas trees designed by 4 very different artists - a papercutter, a woodworker, a glass artist and a printmaker. There is no photography allowed in the galleries or museum at all.

Florence Griswold (1850-1937) herself was not an artist but rather the owner of a boardinghouse that was her family home. It was known as a retreat for approximately 200 artists from the hustle and bustle of NY and Boston and became known as the center of the Art Colony and the home of American Impressionism. The home is set in the time frame of the early 20th century (1910) and though many of the items in the house are reproductions, there are also original paintings and furniture. Miss Florence (as I discovered everyone who worked there affectionatey called her) was born on Christmas Day in 1850. Due to some bad investments made by her father, she sold off everything she owned piece by piece including the house in 1936. The home has wonderful wide plank uneven wood floors and I swear there is a fireplace in every room but not one bedroom had a closet!

From the 1880's until the early 1900's, the most common type of painting was known as the Tonalism. This style of painting "is characterized by the use of harmonious colors and delicate effects of light to create vague, suggestive moods" and consisted most of landscapes.

(http://www.flogris.org/exhibitions/2006/06americanplace.html) To be honest, they seemed very dark and depressing to me although they also had an ethereal aura about them. The most famous of the Tonalist painters was Henry Ward Ranger (1858-1916), also considered the founder of the Art Colony. It was Ranger who "discovered" the boardinghouse of Miss Florence in 1899. He was later joined by Childe Hassam (1859-1935) and Willard Metcalf (1858-1925) and the Tonalist style gradually gave way to a style known as American Impressionism. This style sought more to convey the effects of atmosphere and sunlight and many of paintings were done "en plein air" or out of doors. This style definately suited my personality more than the Tonalist style. Similar to the French Impressionists like Monet and Renoir, these paintings are more colorful, light and cheery. You can really see the difference in the styles as you admire the paintings while moving through the upstairs bedrooms. The American Impressionists chose to focus more on the grand Colonial houses, churches, gardens and landscapes - a simple, old-fashioned way of life while all about them times were changing.

As the decade of the 1910's dawned, Prince Ito in Japan had been assasinated, Robert Peary reached the North Pole, plastic was invented and the Boy Scouts were founded. By the end of the decade, we had entered World War I, Henry Ford created the car assembly line and the first traffic lights were installed. (http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/) Who can blame the artists for wanting to remember a time where life seemed a little quieter, a little tamer?