Abbott Thayer: Still Life and Concealing Coloration

Still Life and Concealing Coloration

  Thayer's surviving still lifes describe the essentials of a flower in a bowl or on a table, and are filled with subtle colors and the diffused light made popular by French impressionists. These works appear to be quickly and easily painted, and the fluid application of paint suggests a very different process than the more painstaking approach he used for his angels and ideal figures, which often took years to complete.
From his earliest attempts at painting, Thayer was drawn to animals and nature, finding subjects in the forests and streams of New England. His careful observation of nature and thorough academic training in the laws of color and values led him to study how animals use natural camouflage to conceal themselves from predators. With his son Gerald, he published his theories as Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909).
Thayer claimed that nature camouflaged animals by placing their darkest colors on their backs to counter the sunlight falling upon them, and their lightest colors closest to the dark ground. The fractured outlines and patterns, mimicking native habitats, would cause the animal to disappear when placed against the appropriate background.
The book drew considerable criticism, particularly from President Theodore Roosevelt, also an amateur naturalist. Roosevelt and others rejected Thayer's argument that the purpose of all animal coloration, no matter how conspicuous, was for the purpose of concealment. Some of Thayer's ideas were applied to camouflage during World War I.

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/thayer/paintingsnoframe.html?/exhibitions/online/thayer/still-Thayer53.html

"Our book presents, not theories, but revelations." Abbott Thayer, 1909
In 1909, Abbott Handerson Thayer and his son, Gerald, published a controversial book titled Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, offering their theory of animal camouflage. Thayer believed that the coloration of animals, no matter how eye-catching, was meant to disguise them in nature through what he called "countershading." Even bright pink flamingoes would vanish against a similar colored sky at sunset or sunrise. No matter that at times their brilliant feathers were highly visible, their coloration would protect them from predators at crucial moments so that "the spectator seems to see right through the space occupied by an opaque animal."
Not all readers were convinced. The most passionate criticism came from Teddy Roosevelt, who was in Africa when the book came out. He protested upon his return that Thayer's theory was ludicrous, arguing that on his trip he had spotted some of the animals Thayer mentioned from miles away. Roosevelt's challenge sparked a heated debate between the two men. Roosevelt wrote a 112-page article refuting Thayer's ideas; Thayer repeatedly invited Roosevelt to his home in New Hampshire, hoping to demonstrate his theories, but Roosevelt always refused (Nemerov, "Vanishing Americans: Abbott Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attraction of Camouflage," American Art, Summer 1997).
Please read:
http://eyelevel.si.edu/2008/10/in-this-case-ma.html
Please watch the following short movie about his work
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=169&subkey=78

Roses
ca. 1890
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23947
oil
56.6 x 79.7 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly

The fluid application of paint lovingly describes these flowers, of which a critic said, "A bowl of roses in Thayer's hands becomes more than a flower-piece; it is a glimpse into the very center of beauty."
The critic who wrote this was aware of Thayer's rare ability to apply paint in a fresh and fluid way, bringing these pink and white tea roses to life.

Flower Studies
ca. 1886
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23931oil
62 x 46.3 cm

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
This study of white water lilies and tall trumpet-shaped lilies in red and white shows how Thayer worked out details of flowers before setting them into a final composition. The lilies are painted over traces of a landscape design that can be seen underneath the flowers.
Abbott Handerson Thayer grew up surrounded by nature in Keene, New Hampshire, and for the rest of his life sought refuge in rural places and fresh air. Even though he was part of the New York art scene in the 1880s, he lived with his family outside of the city in several towns along the Hudson River. This study of water- and trumpet lilies, with its bright colors and quick brushstrokes, shows his method of working out the details of the flowers before placing them in a final composition.

Peacock in the Woods
1907
Collaboration with Richard Meryman
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23964oil
50.6 x 51.2 cm

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer 
Thayer and his student Richard Meryman created this painting as an illustration for Thayer's book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909). More than a demonstration of the principles of natural camouflage, Peacock in the Woods is an excursion into optical complexity, wildlife art, and impressionist painting.

Hooded Warblers
1900–09
Gerald H. Thayer and Gladys Thayer
watercolor, stencil, and oil on wood
30.7 x 25.6 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott H. Thayer

Painted by Abbott Thayer's son and daughter, this depiction of the Hooded or Yellow-Throated Warbler and its background demonstrates natural camouflage. The bird on the overlay has the same color and pattern as its background, which is painted on the underlying panel. You can demonstrate this by placing your mouse over the image, and you will see the form of the bird appear in the mask.


Blue Jays in Winter, study for book Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom
about 1905-09
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23924

oil on canvas
22 1/8 x 18 1/8 in. (56.1 x 45.9 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the heirs of Abbott Handerson Thayer1950.2.12
"Our book presents, not theories, but revelations." Abbott Thayer, 1909
In 1909, Abbott Handerson Thayer and his son, Gerald, published a controversial book titled Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, offering their theory of animal camouflage. Thayer believed that the coloration of animals, no matter how eye-catching, was meant to disguise them in nature through what he called "countershading." Even bright pink flamingoes would vanish against a similar colored sky at sunset or sunrise. No matter that at times their brilliant feathers were highly visible, their coloration would protect them from predators at crucial moments so that "the spectator seems to see right through the space occupied by an opaque animal"
Not all readers were convinced. The most passionate criticism came from Teddy Roosevelt, who was in Africa when the book came out. He protested upon his return that Thayer's theory was ludicrous, arguing that on his trip he had spotted some of the animals Thayer mentioned from miles away. Roosevelt's challenge sparked a heated debate between the two men. Roosevelt wrote a 112-page article refuting Thayer's ideas; Thayer repeatedly invited Roosevelt to his home in New Hampshire, hoping to demonstrate his theories, but Roosevelt always refused (Nemerov, "Vanishing Americans: Abbott Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attraction of Camouflage," American Art, Summer 1997).
PLease watch this podcast
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=169&subkey=78


Other paintings in the Smithsonian relevant to the Concealing book:
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23963
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23944
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23949
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23953
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23948


Landscapes and Mount Monadnock


Thayer's early landscapes were sunny views of hills dotted with cattle. At the turn of the century, he developed a broad style with fresh, brisk brushwork. He combined thinly painted washes and thick brushstrokes to create the illusion of great distances.

After 1900, Thayer focused on views of Mount Monadnock, the grand presence above his home and studio in Dublin, New Hampshire. Thayer's visions of Monadnock owe a debt to transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who also stood in awe at the sight of this particular mountain. He portrayed the mountain in its seasonal "personalities," but came to favor a view of the bright dawn's winter sun striking the peak.

Spring Hillside 
ca. 1889
oil
43.5 x 58.9 cm
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Rosse 
Mount Monadnock was a familiar sight to Thayer long before he moved to Dublin, New Hampshire. He retained a memory of the majestic mountain from a youth spent in Keene, New Hampshire.Spring Hillside,one of his earliest views of Monadnock, is in striking contrast to the darker, brooding images of the mountain that filled his later canvases

Winter Sunrise, Monadnock 
1917 
oil 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George A. Hearn Fund, 1917.

 Thayer's views of Mount Monadnock became unmistakably his own interpretation of this grand source of spiritual power towering over the land. Maria Oakey Dewing, an artist and close friend, remarked of this painting, "None but one who had come face to face with nature for long periods of study as Thayer had could have painted that landscape called Monadnock.

Dublin Pond, New Hampshire1894
oil
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23930 
51.1 x 40.8 cm  
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans

Thayer described this view of a New Hampshire landmark to the collector William T. Evans as "a very successful picture of the sunshine striking down into the bottom of a summer lake." The vertical format reflects Thayer's interest in Chinese and Japanese paintings, as well as in the work of James McNeill Whistler

This painting was a wedding present for Abbott Thayer’s friend the architect Stanford White. It is a view near the artist’s home in Dublin, New Hampshire, and Thayer himself thought the finished painting “a very successful picture of the sunshine striking down on the bottom of a summer lake.” Thayer’s many outdoor scenes of Dublin reflect his passion for nature, an interest that also surfaces in his portraits and allegorical scenes, which are often set in New Hampshire’s green fields
A longtime resident of Dublin, Abbott Thayer  gave the painting to the architect Stanford White as a wedding present, and it hung for many years in White's New York apartment in the old Madison Square Garden.
http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=670&subkey=976

Cornish Headlands 

1898 

http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=23929 
oil
76.5 x 101.8 cm  

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly 
Thayer described this dramatic view of the cliffs and sea at Cornwall, England, as "one of a very few things I've done that I love."

While traveling near Cornwall, England, in the summer of 1898, Thayer wrote about this painting to his friend, the architect Stanford White, saying it was “one of a very few things I've done that I love and know to be something like great art.…I sat down on that headland and just reveled in the wonderful fact that its splendor could be to some extent perpetuated on that canvas.”
 

Monadnockca. 1911
oil
4.8 x 43.5 cm 
This version of Mount Monadnock combines Thayer's expression of the pure joy of paint on canvas with a careful rendering of the mountain's luminous crest. Thayer remarked, "The outline of this mountain against the sky is as sharp as steel. Many painters soften such outlines for the sake of 'atmosphere' but I can't make this one sharp enough."