Luminism and tonalism contrasted, also baby goats

I met these young goats the other day on a farm in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire and was quite taken with them. In keeping with my ongoing policy of featuring baby animals, they are included in this evenings post.

I was asked in the comments to explain the terms Luminism and Tonalism. I will begin with the earlier form, luminism (my spell check always suggests Leninism when I write that). Here is a luminist painting below by Martin Johnson Heade.

and here is another by Samuel Coleman.

Luminism is a term that is used to describe the work of the second generation of Hudson River school painters. So we are talking about an era just before and after the civil war. Luminist painting is characterized by a stillness, a fascination with the effects of light, often at sunset, large dramatic or sublime vistas often of exceptional scenery, rendered in extraordinary detail with an invisible brushstroke that disguises the hand of the artist. Often the sun is within the painting, causing everything to be backlit. If the sun is placed inside a painting it will glow, as the light seems to shine from it.

Below is a tonalist painting by R. Swain Gifford,

and another by Inness

Tonalism is the American school of painting that replaced Luminism. Influenced by the Barbizon painters, (more about them here) the tonalist painters were almost the opposite of the luminist painters

Tonalist paintings are usually shot through with a single pervasive color, of no particular place, have visible and rough brushwork, and are heavily designed or invented rather than made from careful observation of some actual place.

Where luminist painting is often concerned with clarity and infinite detail, tonalism is usually broadly painted and often has lots of murky and mysterious areas.Tonalism is only being rediscovered now, there are few references on the subject and compared to the well known Luminist painters like Fitz H. Lane or Sanford Gifford , artists like Bruce Crane and Henry Ward Ranger are pretty obscure.

I will return to the tonalist painters soon, however in order to do it I am going to have to scan things from my clipping files. There just isn't enough accessible material I can find on the net. See you all tomorrow.

images from artrenewal.org and athenauem.org