The High Pasture Julian Alden Weir 1899-1902

The High Pasture
Julian Alden Weir 1899-1902
From the collection of
The Phillips Collection
Julian Alden Weir was born at West Point, New York on August 30, 1852. He took art classes at the National Academy of Design before traveling to Paris in 1870 to study under Jean-Léon Gérôme. Although Weir was celebrated as an American impressionist, he had a negative reaction when he first encountered impressionism in Paris. Describing the first works he saw as “worse than a Chamber of Horrors,” he initially maintained an allegiance to the more conservative Barbizon School and the approach of his friend and mentor, Jules Bastien-Lepage. By the late 1880s and into the 1890s however, Weir had changed his approach. He began to depict the impressionistic effects of light and atmosphere and moderated his color to a narrow tonalist range, reflecting the influence of Whistler. By the late 1890s, Weir substituted his intense hues for active brushwork and bold patterns in the manner of John Henry Twachtman and Albert Pinkham Ryder, who was a frequent visitor to Weir’s farm in Branchville, Connecticut. High Pasture sums up Weir’s mature approach to landscape painting, in which he used bold, pictorial effects to capture both a visual impression and his intense feelings before nature. Like Monet’s beloved Giverny, Weir’s farm was an enduring source of inspiration. Duncan Phillips noticed how Weir “could suddenly become absorbed and fascinated by the momentary effect of a long familiar and unremarkable scene. I am thinking of what Weir found so paintable in the mere corner of a high pasture, just a bit of sunshine playing along a stone wall and over a well-worn foot path, and a silvery, green tree outspread against a warm blue sky. The design of the picture I discovered later to be original and delightful, but my first pleasure was that of recognition.”
Details
Title: The High Pasture
Creator: Julian Alden Weir
Date Created: 1899-1902
Physical Dimensions: w33.5 x h24.13 in
Type: Paintings
Rights: Acquired 1920, Public Domain
Medium: Oil on canvas

The Phillips Collection
Washington, United States

ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

The Phillips Collection is one of the world’s most distinguished collections of impressionist and modern American and European art. Stressing the continuity between art of the past and present, it offers a strikingly original and experimental approach to modern art by combining works of different nationalities and periods in displays that change frequently. The setting is similarly unconventional, featuring small rooms, a domestic scale, and a personal atmosphere. Artists represented in the collection include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Honoré Daumier, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence, and Richard Diebenkorn, among others.

The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, has an active collecting program and regularly organizes acclaimed special exhibitions, many of which travel internationally. The Intersections series features projects by contemporary artists, responding to art and spaces in the museum. The Phillips also produces award-winning education programs for K–12 teachers and students, as well as for adults. The museum’s Center for the Study of Modern Art explores new ways of thinking about art and the nature of creativity, through artist visits and lectures, and provides a forum for scholars through courses, postdoctoral fellowships, and internships. Since 1941, the museum has hosted Sunday Concerts in its wood-paneled Music Room. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.

Julian Alden Weir
Aug 30, 1852 - Dec 8, 1919

Julian Alden Weir was an American impressionist painter and member of the Cos Cob Art Colony near Greenwich, Connecticut. Weir was also one of the founding members of "The Ten", a loosely allied group of American artists dissatisfied with professional art organizations, who banded together in 1898 to exhibit their works as a stylistically unified group.
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