Christopher Patch: Matinicus

“I have done a number of pictures this summer which have not arrived in my mind from direct impressions but are creations of fancy arising out of my knowledge and experience of the facts employed. The result, while in continual danger of becoming either illustration in a bad sense or melodrama, has nevertheless evolved into very rare pictures.” George Bellows describing his trip to Matinicus Island in a letter to Robert Henri 1916

American painting has a long historical and aesthetic relationship to the landscape. This relationship often viewed as romantic has developed our idea of the natural landscape both as a cultural artifact in painting, but also as a philosophical construction of nature. In the 20th century such painters as George Bellows, Marsden Hartley, Fairfield Porter and Alex Katz explored this heritage as a way of creating an American identity. Mantinicus Island off the coast of Maine was specifically attractive to artists because of the hard working local fisherman and the “unspoiled corner of rustic America” that was still intact in contrast to the industrialization of modern America. Naturally this was a perfect place to react and respond to the landscape with a direct eye.