California Dreaming: Plein-Air Painting from San Francisco to San Diego

This exhibition presents a selection of early
20th-century paintings that celebrate the specific topography and climactic
effects associated with the regional landscape from San Francisco to San Diego.
Adapting certain strategies of French Impressionism, the artists created a
style that has become the hallmark of what is commonly termed Californian
Plein-Air Painting, or California Impressionism. The avantgarde movement of
French Impressionism, preoccupied with capturing immediate effects of light,
color and atmosphere, burst upon the world in 1874. By the turn of the century,
Impressionism was practiced in one form or another throughout the globe. In
America, a distinct version of Impressionism dominated mainstream art from
roughly 1890 to 1930. The relatively new state of California was no exception
to the trend, its breathtaking scenery providing the prime subject matter for
painters working “en plein air,” or outdoors. The
regional style of California Impressionism was created by an incredibly mobile
group of cosmopolitan painters. These locals and transplants traveled throughout
the state of California as well as to artist colonies and metropolitan centers
in the Midwest, East coast, and Europe. They were in search of artistic
inspiration, both from nature, and from exposure to the art of the past and
present. While technically varied, all of the artists associated with
California Plein-Air Painting were utterly devoted to the indigenous landscape
and sought to reproduce faithfully the effects of light and atmosphere that so
specifically characterize the natural paradise that is aptly described by the
moniker of the Golden State.