Violinist

Maker Alson Skinner Clark (American, 1876 - 1949)

Collections

American Paintings Selections

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1902

Mediumoil on canvas (wax relining)

Dimensionscanvas: 26 × 22 in. (66 × 55.9 cm.) frame: 33 3/4 × 30 × 2 3/4 in. (85.7 × 76.2 × 7 cm.)

Signedl.r. A.S. Clark

Inscribedon back of frame, u.l. 3833 Schoelkpf

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Alson Clark Jr.

Status

Not on view

Label TextInfluenced by Alson Clark's study with the American expatriate artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler in Paris, Violinist is an exercise in color, shape, mass, and line. Clark tilted the floor upward, disregarding the rules of perspective, so that it becomes a sloped expanse of color. The violinist provides a vertical element that anchors the intersection of the planes of the walls and floor, balancing the composition. Clark used just a few colors with similar values to unify the painting tonally.

This painting marked a breakthrough for Clark when it became the first of his works accepted to the Salon des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1902. For Clark, a young art student, exhibiting at the Salon meant that he had begun to achieve success as a painter.

Object number87.90