Gilbert Davis Munger
(American, 1836–1903 )
Two Trees
1901
oil on canvas, 44" x 36"
Gift of Pilgrim Congregational Church, Duluth, MN
Although it was painted
in the United States two years before the artist’s death,
Two Trees clearly belies the influence of the French Barbizon
school on Gilbert Munger. The painting’s dark palette,
its large trees and relatively miniscule figures, and its combination
of thick, brushy paint and finely detailed passages, identify
the work as an Americanized version of scenes painted decades
before by Rousseau, Millet and others working around the Forest
of Fontainbleau, whom Munger emulated during his extended stay
in Europe between and 1877 and 1893. Gilbert Davis Munger’s
career began at the age of 13 when he was apprenticed to natural
history and landscape engraver William Dougal in Washington,
D.C. While employed producing engravings of specimens for the
Smithsonian Institution from western U.S. expeditions and later
as a field engineer and map lithographer for the Union Army,
Munger studied and practiced landscape painting on his own.
He sketched the landscape around Washington, D.C., studied
paintings by contemporary landscape artists in museums, and
read the works of John Ruskin, whose encouragement to “see
the divine in nature” clearly impressed the young Munger.
Resigning his commission after the war, Munger first gained
widespread attention with a large rendition of Minnehaha Falls
(1868), which he painted when visiting his brothers, who had
moved to St. Paul. The painting was purchased by San Franciscan
William Ralston, and hung in the grand staircase of his mansion
where it was seen by hundreds of elite guests. With this success
and with his brothers’ St. Paul (and later Duluth) music
businesses serving as a midwest stop, Munger spent the years
1868 – 75 moving between the coasts. He painted with
Clarence King’s famous western surveys, producing sketches
which were later published as chromolithographs in King’s
Systematic Geology. From English travelers in the American
west, Munger was paid a large sum for illustrations of local
scenery, and these newfound patrons advised him to travel to
England, which he did in 1877. Munger remained in Europe for
sixteen years, painting in England, Scotland, Italy, France,
and Spain. He was profoundly influenced by Corot, Rousseau
and other artists of the Barbizon school, and gained great
critical recognition and commercial success all over Europe.
Two Trees clearly bears the stamp of the Barbizon school, with
its rich but subdued palette, thick impastoed paint, and images
of rural laborers, even though it was painted some eight years
after Munger’s return to America, at a time when Barbizon
and Hudson River school-influenced painting was losing favor
to the modern styles of Impressionism and post-Impressionism.
Munger died two years after Two Trees was painted, and shortly
after finishing a monumental painting of Niagra Falls. The
Tweed Museum of Art is fortunate to possess the largest known
collection of Munger’s paintings, and presented the first
large survey exhibition and publication on the artist in 2003. Visit the on-line catalogue raisonne of Gilbert Munger at www.GilbertMunger.org. |
