Tonalism

Tonalism. A trend in American painting, c. 1880–c. 1910, in which subjects (particularly landscapes) were treated in a muted, romantic, idealized manner akin to the type of soft-focus, impressionistic style of photography known as Pictorialism (or Pictorial photography) that was popular at the same time. The term ‘tonalism’ (or ‘tonalist') was evidently first used in print by the painter Samuel Isham (1855–1914) in his book The History of American Painting (1905), but it did not really catch on until it was used by the art historian Wanda Corn in the title of an exhibition at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, in 1972: ‘The Color of Mood: American Tonalism, 1880–1910’ (earlier the term ‘Quietism’ had sometimes been used to describe the trend). Corn described Tonalism as ‘a style of intimacy and expressiveness, interpreting very specific themes in limited color scales and employing delicate effects of light to create vague, suggestive moods'. In its use of soft brushwork and blurred outlines, Tonalism was related to Impressionism, which developed at more or less the same time in the USA, but the Tonalists can be distinguished from the Impressionists because of their preference for subdued colouring and for creating a mood of mystery or poetic reverie (scenes were often depicted at dusk or in mist, rather than in the clear daylight chiefly associated with the Impressionists). The painters who are considered to typify Tonalism include Thomas Dewing (see TEN), who specialized in interiors rather than in landscapes, George Innes (1825–94), probably the most famous American landscapist of his generation, and Dwight Tryon (1849–1925). Whistler, too, is sometimes embraced by the term, although he spent most of his career in Europe