Tonalism and Aestheticism
Painters who preferred fog to sunlight: Whistler painting the Thames at night, Inness painting oak trees in autumn haze, and the idea that art does not need a story.
Tonalism and Aestheticism: Fog, Atmosphere, and Art for Art's Sake
Tonalism and Aestheticism were two related movements that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century. They shared a conviction: that painting does not need to tell a story, convey a moral, or depict a specific place. Painting needs to be beautiful. The subject is secondary. The effect is everything. Tonalism was primarily an American movement. It lasted from about 1880 to 1915. Tonalist painters used muted colors, soft edges, and atmospheric effects to create landscapes that felt like moods rather than places. They painted at twilight, at dawn, and in fog. They preferred the low light of late autumn to the bright sun of summer. Aestheticism was broader. It was a philosophical movement that originated in England with the critic Walter Pater and the painter James McNeill Whistler. Pater wrote that art should be judged by its beauty, not its morality or usefulness. Whistler put this idea into practice with paintings he called "nocturnes" and "arrangements," titles that deliberately avoided narrative content.
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and spent most of his career in London and Paris. He was difficult, witty, and litigious. He sued the critic John Ruskin for libel in 1878 after Ruskin wrote that Whistler's "Nocturne in Black and Gold" looked like "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler won the case, but he was awarded only a farthing in damages, and the legal costs bankrupted him. His "Nocturne" paintings, including the work available in our store, show the Thames River at night. The paintings are barely representational. The river is a dark expanse. The buildings on the far bank are suggested by a few brushstrokes. Lights on the water are small dots of yellow and orange. The painting is not about London. It is about the experience of standing by a river at night and seeing light on water. Whistler gave these paintings musical titles: "Nocturne," "Symphony," "Arrangement." He was making a point. A piece of music does not depict anything. It exists for its own sound. A painting, Whistler argued, should exist for its own visual qualities. The subject is just the starting point. The painting is what matters. His portrait of his mother, "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1," also available in our store, is one of the most famous American paintings. It shows Anna McNeill Whistler sitting in profile against a grey wall. The painting is often called "Whistler's Mother," but Whistler hated that title. He wanted the painting to be seen as an arrangement of shapes and tones, not as a portrait of a specific person. The painting became an icon of American motherhood anyway, which would have irritated him.
George Inness (1825-1894)
Inness was the leading American Tonalist painter. He was born in Newburgh, New York, and spent his career painting landscapes in the Hudson River Valley, in New England, and in Florida. He started as a Hudson River School painter but moved away from the detailed, realistic style of Cole and Bierstadt toward something softer and more atmospheric. His "Autumn Oaks," available in our store, shows a landscape at twilight with oak trees silhouetted against a hazy sky. The painting is not sharp. Edges blur. Colors blend into each other. The scene is recognizable as a landscape, but the specific details are less important than the overall mood. Inness was influenced by the philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystic who believed that the physical world was a reflection of a spiritual reality. Inness tried to paint that spiritual reality by reducing the physical specificity of his landscapes.
Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904)
Heade was a American painter who is difficult to categorize. He is sometimes grouped with the Hudson River School, sometimes with Tonalism, and sometimes treated as a category of his own. He painted landscapes, seascapes, still lifes of flowers, and studies of hummingbirds in their natural habitats. His "Approaching Thunder Storm," available in our store, shows a coastal scene with a dark storm cloud moving in from the left. The water is still. A small boat sits on the shore. The contrast between the dark sky and the calm water creates a tension that is almost physical. You can feel the storm coming. Heade painted this in 1859, and the painting demonstrates the Tonalist interest in atmosphere and mood over topographical detail. His paintings of haystacks and marshes, also in our store, show the same approach: wide, flat landscapes with low horizons, muted colors, and a sense of stillness that comes from the atmosphere rather than the subject.
The Philosophy
Tonalism and Aestheticism were reactions against two things: the moral seriousness of Victorian art and the optical precision of Impressionism. Victorian painting told stories. It showed moral lessons, historical events, and sentimental scenes. Tonalism and Aestheticism said that painting does not need a story. Impressionism recorded the optical effects of light on a surface. Tonalism and Aestheticism said that painting is more than what the eye sees. The Aestheticist slogan was "art for art's sake." The phrase comes from the French philosopher Victor Cousin, who wrote "l'art pour l'art" in 1818. The idea is that art does not need to justify itself by being useful, moral, or educational. It justifies itself by being beautiful. This was a radical idea in the nineteenth century, when art was expected to serve social, moral, or political purposes. It is less radical now, because most people accept that art can exist for its own sake. But in the 1880s, it was a fighting matter.
Why Tonalism Matters
Tonalism was the first American art movement that was not derived from European models. The Hudson River School was derived from European landscape painting. American Impressionism was derived from French Impressionism. Tonalism, while influenced by Whistler and Barbizon painting, developed its own distinctly American character: a preference for muted color, atmospheric effects, and landscapes that feel like memory rather than observation. Tonalism also produced a way of seeing that influenced American painting for decades. The soft edges, muted palettes, and atmospheric effects of Tonalist painting can be seen in the work of Edward Hopper, who studied under Robert Henri but retained a Tonalist sense of mood. They can be seen in the work of Milton Avery, whose flat color fields and reduced forms owe something to Tonalism's simplification of landscape. The movement may be forgotten by the general public, but its influence persists.
Where to See Tonalist and Aestheticist Paintings
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has Whistler's "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1" (though it is more commonly found at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris as a loan). The Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has the largest collection of Whistler's work, including the "Peacock Room," a complete interior he decorated. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. holds works by Inness and Heade. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a strong collection of American Tonalist painting. The Terra Foundation for American Art has significant Inness and Heade holdings.
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