"Luminism.” The word has a peculiarly radiant sound and an air of mystery, as if it were the name of an occult theology or metaphysical system of thought. For art historians, the term pertains to a stylistic phenomenon among mid-nineteenth-century American painters, characterized by simplified composition, intensified light, and motionless silence. Since some of the pictures of the Hudson River School possess the requisite features, figures from that school's founder, Thomas Cole (1801-1848), to its second generation, notably John F. Kensett (1816-1872) and Sanford Ronbinson Gifford (1823-1880), as well as genre painters such as George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) and William Sidney Mount (1807-1868) have each been enrolled among the ranks of the Luminists. Today, Luminism--a term coined in the 1940s by art historian John Bauer--has come to be regarded as "the central movement in American art through the middle of the nineteenth century," having supplanted the Hudson River School in the eyes of most scholars.
Yet owing perhaps to the tremendous diversity of its practitioners, the expressive underpinnings of Luminism have not been fully defined. While it will not be the purpose of this brief article to attempt such a task, a study of the work of an early Luminist, the Gloucester-born Massachusetts marine painter Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), can cast light on this significant genre.
Crystalline Panoramas
Lane's crystalline panoramas of sailing vessels, executed between 1849 and his death, are recognized as among the earliest and finest examples of the Luminist technique. John Wilmerding, a noted expert on American art, has single-handedly rescued Lane from obscurity with an array of articles, books, and exhibitions that highlights more than twenty-five years of research. Wilmerding has designated Lane as the "central figure" of the Luminist movement, making the once-unrenowned painter one of the key figures in current American art history.
Wilmerding, who is leaving his post as deputy director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to teach at Princeton University, has organized the most comprehensive survey of Lane's paintings ever assembled. The exhibition, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, opened at the National Gallery and is now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston through December 31. Sixty-six works covering the years 1844 to 1864, the artist's period a unique opportunity to examine Lane's achievement and to evaluate some of the theories that have been put forth to explain it.
Unlike his Hudson River School contemporaries, who left literary accounts of their artistic enterprises, Lane kept no notebooks, published no articles, and rarely delved deeply into his artwork in his letters. He was not a member of the preeminent National Academy, as were the Hudson River School painters, and he infrequently submitted pictures to the major exhibitions in Boston and New York City. Correspondingly, there is almost no contemporary commentary on his work. Though Wilmerding has pieced together details of Lane's biography, including his travels, occupations and his general milieu, we know almost nothing about Lane's intentions as an artist.
Lane spent most of the first half of his career in Boston as an apprentice in the shop of William S. Pendleton, the premier lithographer of his day. It was here that Lane's
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