John Appleton Brown

John Appleton Brown (July 12, 1844 – January 18, 1902) was an American landscape painter working largely in pastels and oils, born in West Newbury, Massachusetts.[1] He showed talent at an early age and studied under Emile Lambinet in France. For many years he worked and showed in Boston, summering in his native northeastern Massachusetts and painting his best known lyrical landscapes there. In 1891 he and his wife, noted artist Agnes Augusta Bartlett Brown, moved to New York City, where he died on January 18, 1902.[2]

John Appleton Brown
Born
John Appleton Brown

(1844-07-12)July 12, 1844
West Newbury, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJanuary 18, 1902(1902-01-18) (aged 57)
Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
OccupationAmerican landscape painter
Spouse(s)
Agnes Augusta Bartlett
​
​
(m. 1874)​
Childrennone
Signature

Family and education

Although Massachusetts town vital records[3] and many sources[2][1] identify West Newbury, Massachusetts, as the place of John Appleton Brown's birth on July 12, 1844, some say he was born in the larger neighboring city of Newburyport,[4][5] where Brown attended high school.[6] He was the second of two sons of George Frederick Handel Brown (a combmaker) and Asenath L. Page.[3] His parents supported Appleton Brown's artistic talent throughout his childhood;[7] he spent summer school vacations painting landscapes of his native West Newbury and the surrounding area.[8] Initially he spent a year studying with New England landscape painter Alfred Thompson Bricher.[7] After a year working in a Boston studio shared with fellow-novice Benjamin Curtis Porter,[5] in 1866 Brown traveled to France, where in 1867-68 he studied under landscape artist Emile Lambinet, himself a protégé of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.[7]

Career

By the 1870s, Brown was a successful and well-known Boston painter.[9] His work was exhibited with his friends and mentors[10] William Morris Hunt and Joseph Foxcroft Cole,[11] at shows of the Boston Art Club,[12] and at prominent galleries.[9] In the fall of 1874, he and his wife Agnes went to France to study and paint. He displayed and sold works in the Paris Salon of 1875,[13] whose jurors included established Barbizon school painters.[14] The Browns typically maintained a winter studio in Boston and had a summer house in West Newbury,[15] whose surrounds comprised the rural New England landscapes which were frequent subjects of his art.[8] Starting in 1879, both Browns had annual exhibitions at Boston's Doll and Richards gallery.[10][16] At this time Brown's paintings and drawings were used as book illustrations.[17]

According to Dartmouth College curator and art writer Barbara J. MacAdam, in the 1880s Brown adopted a brighter palette and "turned more frequently to images of fruit trees in full flower, lending him the sobriquet of 'Appleblossom Brown.'"[8] At the invitation of Francis Davis Millet, in 1886 the Browns joined an artists' colony in England,[10] where Americans including John Singer Sargent and Edwin Austin Abbey were working.[8] His paintings of the English countryside, much like in New England, were well received in Boston.[18] Later in the 1880s the Browns summered not only in West Newbury, but also at Celia Thaxter's salon on Appledore Island among the Isles of Shoals off the coast of southern Maine.[10][19] There he became a close friend of Childe Hassam[8] and painted seascapes, including the dramatic and powerful "Storm at the Isles of Shoals."[5]

In the 1890s, Brown's success had expanded well beyond Boston. When he participated in an art show in Chicago, a reviewer described Brown's picture "In the Month of May" as "a brilliant, joyous study of apple-blossoms and sunny greens."[20] In 1891, the Browns moved from Boston to New York City, which offered a more vibrant arts scene.[21] In 1893 Brown received a medal at the World's Columbian Exposition.[2]

Critics’ appraisal

Particularly with respect to the New England spring and summer landscapes for which he was best known and most appreciated,[22] commenters described Brown's work as tender and delicate in its depiction of nature.[23][5] His pictures were described as evocative of—but not imitative of—Corot.[24] A rare negative review appeared in the March, 1872 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. This article focused on an early Brown work "Grindelwald Valley," whose subject of majestic soaring mountains in the Swiss Alps was, in the reviewer's opinion, an audacious one for Brown. In this critic's view, Brown's treatment of such a grand subject as mere sketch had the “unpardonable defect of being thinly painted.”[25] A little over five years later, another Atlantic Monthly review concluded that in the autumn landscape "On the Artichoke, West Newbury," Brown's treatment of clouds reflected in water was appropriately not belabored in its detail: "Though done with one sweep of the brush, it would be hard to conceive how any subsequent caressing or tinkering could add an iota to their tender and evanescent loveliness."[26]

Poetry as inspiration for, as reflected in, as inspired by, and as illustrated with Appleton Brown's work is another common theme among critics and writers.[27][28] In 1879 Brown collaborated with Lucy Larcom, illustrating her book Landscape in American Poetry, which viewed the same New England landscape Brown painted through the words of noteworthy poets, such as John Greenleaf Whittier, from the same region.[29] Just as poetry inspired Appleton Brown's pictures, so too did his art inspire poetry. Will Amos Reed's book of verse Through Broken Reeds contains the poem "On Seeing a Picture by J. Appleton Brown." It begins, "How deep in nature’s lore must artists dip / To form such lights and shadows with a brush’s tip!"[30]

Personal life and death

In June 1874, Brown married Newburyport native Agnes Augusta Bartlett.[31] She was a noted artist in her own right, painting in oil in a style not unlike her husband's.[16] Her subjects included landscapes, flowers, and later cats.[4]

By all accounts, Brown was charming,[15] a good friend,[32] and "retiring and modest" in nature.[2] He was also said to be an excellent art teacher.[33] At the same time, Brown's work was exhibited at fashionable shows that displayed not only art but also fashionable art viewers.[34] Brown maintained "social relations with our best families,"[10] serving, for instance, as an officer in Boston's St. Botolph Club[35] with such luminaries as Henry Cabot Lodge and Francis Parkman.[36] Brown was also a member of the Society of American Artists, and an associate of the National Academy of Design.[1][2]

Brown died at age 57, on January 18, 1902. His friends and fellow artists Alfred Q. Collins and Frank Shapleigh accompanied his body to Newburyport for burial.[2] In March 1902, the Century Club mounted a memorial exhibition of his work.[22] His works are now housed in such institutions as the Harvard University art museums,[37] the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,[38] and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[39]

  • New England Landscape
  • Bridge in Late Spring
  • Hillside in Summer
  • A Country Road

Notes
  1. "John Appleton Brown". Standard Union. Brooklyn, NY. January 20, 1902. p. 2. Retrieved 26 January 2020. He was born in West Newbury, Mass., [i]n 1844, and studied in Europe under the best masters....
  2. "Well Known Artist Dead: J. Appleton Brown Expired Suddenly in New York—He Had Many Friends in Boston". Boston Globe. January 20, 1902. p. 7. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  3. "West Newbury Births". Early Vital Records of Massachusetts From 1600 to 1850. Massachusetts Vital Records Project. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  4. Waters, Clara Erskine Clement; Hutton, Laurence (1885). Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: A Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches. Boston: James R Osgood & Co. p. 103. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  5. "American Painters. J. Appleton Brown". The Art Journal. 4: 198–199. 1878. JSTOR 20569239.
  6. Robinson 1888, pp. 21–22
  7. Robinson 1888, p. 22
  8. MacAdam 2011, p. 38
  9. "The Fine Arts: The Sale at Leonard's". Boston Globe. June 5, 1874. p. 5. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  10. Robinson 1888, p. 24
  11. "The Fine Arts". Boston Globe. April 9, 1873. p. 1. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  12. "The Art Club Exhibition". Boston Globe. January 17, 1874. p. 5. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  13. "The Paris Solon". Chicago Tribune. June 4, 1875. p. 7. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  14. Robinson 1888, pp. 23–24
  15. "Of Gentle Scenes: The Characteristic of the Work Of J. Appleton Brown". Newburyport Daily News. January 22, 1902. p. 6. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  16. "Art and Artists". Boston Globe. April 15, 1883. p. 13. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  17. "Five Beautiful Books". The Buffalo Commercial. December 1, 1877. p. 1 Referring to the gift book Christmastide, of poems and "lavish" illustrations by a number of artists including Appleton Brown. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  18. "Paint and Clay: Interesting Exhibition of Paintings at Williams & Everrett's". Boston Globe. February 10, 1886. p. 6. Retrieved 29 January 2020. A single picture by J. Appleton Brown, 'Old Mill at Cleeve, Warwickshire,' is a sympathetic interpretation of the tenderness of English landscape in Mr. Brown's best manner.
  19. "Art and Artists". Boston Globe. July 1, 1888. p. 10. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  20. "The Fine Arts". Chicago Tribune. September 28, 1890. p. 37. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  21. "Art and Artists". Boston Globe. May 17, 1891. p. 17. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  22. "The Late Appleton Brown" (PDF). New York Times. March 13, 1902. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  23. Montgomery, Walter (1889). "66". American Art and American Art Collections: Essays on Artistic Subjects by the Best Art Writers, Fully Illustrated with Etchings, Photo-etchings, Photogravures, Phototypes, and Engravings on Steel and Wood, by the Most Celebrated Artists, Vol. II. Boston: E.W. Walter & Co. pp. 786–89. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  24. "Appleton Brown's Recent Pictures". Newburyport Daily Herald. March 4, 1875. p. 1. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  25. "Art: Boston". Atlantic Monthly. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. XXIX/29 (CLXXIII/173): 374. March 1872. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  26. "Art: Boston". Atlantic Monthly. Boston: H. O. Houghton & Co. XL/40 (CCXLII/242): 716–18. December 1877. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  27. MacAdam 2011, p. 38 "J. Appleton Brown was a poet-painter. Not only did he create evocative paintings and pastels that celebrated the lyrical moods of nature but he also loved to read verse, illustrated volumes of poetry, had poet friends, and created art that inspired verse."
  28. Burns, Sarah; Davis, John (March 31, 2009). American Art to 1900: A Documentary History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. pp. 619–20. ISBN 9780520257566. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  29. Larcom, Lucy (1879). Landscape In American Poetry, with illustrations on wood from drawings by J. Appleton Brown. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  30. Reed, Will Amos (1889). Through Broken Reeds: Verses. Boston: C. H. Kilborn. pp. 120–21. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  31. Robinson 1888, p. 23
  32. "A Story of Willard". Spokane Chonicle. August 19, 1905. p. 12. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  33. "In the Studios: A Look Into Mr. Appleton Brown's Studio". Boston Globe. p. 2. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  34. "Art and Fashion". Boston Globe. December 10, 1896. p. 4. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  35. "St. Botolph Club History". St. Boltolph Club. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  36. "Club Elections". Boston Post. January 3, 1881. p. 3. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  37. "John Appleton Brown W. Newbury, MA 1844 - 1902 New York, NY". Harvard Art Museums. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  38. "John Appleton Brown (Massachusetts, 1844 - 1902, New York) Garden of Poppies, About 1891". Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  39. "New England Landscape". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved 29 January 2020.

References
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