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A deaf artist who wasn't blind to a child's mortality - Newsday.com
Can we see evidence of an artist's deafness in his canvases? Do the still, impassive sitters communicate the silence of the portraitist's days? A splendid array of paintings at the American Folk Art Museum by John Brewster Jr. (1766-1854), a deaf limner of the human face, suggests that the artist's disability gave him special access to his subjects' inner lives. Perhaps, but what matters is the work itself, at once ethereal and concrete, very much of this world, yet suggesting the pull of eternity.
Brewster was born to relative privilege, descended from one of New England's oldest Puritan families. His most productive period coincided with the infancy of the republic, and he served the wealthy merchant class who pushed the American ideal forward.
Starting in the 1890s, he wended his way through Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and eastern New York state in search of portrait commissions, and the people he painted had much in common: They were stolid citizens, and in his renderings, prosperity oozes from the cut and fabric of their austere dark suits and snowy collars.
James Prince, a well-to-do merchant based in Newberryport, Mass., relaxes amid the trappings of a cultivated gentleman, his young son in attendance. Behind them, a shelf heaving with leather-bound books marks the man's standing and aspirations. He displays an air of benign amusement, hinting at a self-regard free of smugness. The boy's features resemble his father's, but they remain expressionless, as if waiting for the imprint of experience.
Children were Brewster's specialty. Boys and girls alike face the viewer solemnly, their stocky little bodies shrouded in long white gowns. One girl clutches a basket of strawberries in one fist, a stalk dripping red fruit on the other. Her cat prances at her feet, while a green meadow stretches out into the distance. She is Betsy Brewster, the artist's half-sister, immortalized in 1800 as a tiny Eve in the American Eden.
Her less fortunate sister, Sophia, stands against a dark, dark field as the sun sets behind her head. Sophia died at age 5 that same year, and Brewster may have painted her portrait posthumously. It emanates sadness.
The dismal ordinariness of child mortality clouds over this luminous show. Brewster's children never play or look the least bit wicked. Little angels-in-waiting, they pensively contemplate the surprise that will be their fate.
The ruddy-cheeked Francis O. Watts dandles a bird on his index finger. In the other hand he holds a blue thread, tied to the bird's claw so that it cannot escape. It's a pretty image with a deeper meaning; the bird is the child's soul, tethered, for the moment, to this world but poised to soar heavenward.
Whether or not Brewster's hearing had anything to do with it, the artist excelled at eliciting eye contact and establishing a rapport with those he painted. Brewster's subjects project an extraordinary level of intensity, and he evidently had a talent for soaking it up, through all his available senses.
A DEAF ARTIST IN EARLY AMERICA: THE WORLDS OF JOHN BREWSTER JR. Through Jan. 7 at the American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St., Manhattan. For exhibition hours and admission prices, call 212-265-1040 or visit folkartmuseum.org
Can we see evidence of an artist's deafness in his canvases? Do the still, impassive sitters communicate the silence of the portraitist's days? A splendid array of paintings at the American Folk Art Museum by John Brewster Jr. (1766-1854), a deaf limner of the human face, suggests that the artist's disability gave him special access to his subjects' inner lives. Perhaps, but what matters is the work itself, at once ethereal and concrete, very much of this world, yet suggesting the pull of eternity.
Brewster was born to relative privilege, descended from one of New England's oldest Puritan families. His most productive period coincided with the infancy of the republic, and he served the wealthy merchant class who pushed the American ideal forward.
Starting in the 1890s, he wended his way through Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and eastern New York state in search of portrait commissions, and the people he painted had much in common: They were stolid citizens, and in his renderings, prosperity oozes from the cut and fabric of their austere dark suits and snowy collars.
James Prince, a well-to-do merchant based in Newberryport, Mass., relaxes amid the trappings of a cultivated gentleman, his young son in attendance. Behind them, a shelf heaving with leather-bound books marks the man's standing and aspirations. He displays an air of benign amusement, hinting at a self-regard free of smugness. The boy's features resemble his father's, but they remain expressionless, as if waiting for the imprint of experience.
Children were Brewster's specialty. Boys and girls alike face the viewer solemnly, their stocky little bodies shrouded in long white gowns. One girl clutches a basket of strawberries in one fist, a stalk dripping red fruit on the other. Her cat prances at her feet, while a green meadow stretches out into the distance. She is Betsy Brewster, the artist's half-sister, immortalized in 1800 as a tiny Eve in the American Eden.
Her less fortunate sister, Sophia, stands against a dark, dark field as the sun sets behind her head. Sophia died at age 5 that same year, and Brewster may have painted her portrait posthumously. It emanates sadness.
The dismal ordinariness of child mortality clouds over this luminous show. Brewster's children never play or look the least bit wicked. Little angels-in-waiting, they pensively contemplate the surprise that will be their fate.
The ruddy-cheeked Francis O. Watts dandles a bird on his index finger. In the other hand he holds a blue thread, tied to the bird's claw so that it cannot escape. It's a pretty image with a deeper meaning; the bird is the child's soul, tethered, for the moment, to this world but poised to soar heavenward.
Whether or not Brewster's hearing had anything to do with it, the artist excelled at eliciting eye contact and establishing a rapport with those he painted. Brewster's subjects project an extraordinary level of intensity, and he evidently had a talent for soaking it up, through all his available senses.
A DEAF ARTIST IN EARLY AMERICA: THE WORLDS OF JOHN BREWSTER JR. Through Jan. 7 at the American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St., Manhattan. For exhibition hours and admission prices, call 212-265-1040 or visit folkartmuseum.org
