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Artist or Maker: Eastman Johnson (1824-1906)
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Exhibited: New York, The Union League Club, June-July 1974.
New York, Museum of the City of New York,
Dressing for a New York City Childhood
, March 16-September 16, 2001.
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Notes: Property Sold to Benefit the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York*
No sales tax is due on the purchase price of this lot if it is picked up or delivered in the State of New York.
Beginning in 1870 Eastman Johnson produced a string of anecdotal narrative subjects depicting daily life on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts. In an era of post-Civil War strife, Johnson drew upon the visual character of the island and its inhabitants to portray tender and personal domestic scenes which rank among the best of American genre paintings. Play Me a Tune, painted in the 1870s, exemplifies the country's renewed interest in the the celebration of domestic values and family stability following the tumultuous war years.
After several years of studying and traveling in Düsseldorf, London, Amsterdam, The Hague and Paris, Johnson returned to America in 1855. Following his return, the influence of his studies of the European Masters, such as Georges de La Tour and Gerrit van Honthorst, is apparent in his compositions and their dramatic lighting, deep shadows and bright highlights, and also in Johnson's crisp delineation of narrative moments. Most significantly, Johnson was quick to apply his new found talents to subjects that were distinctly American.
Just prior to the Civil War, Johnson depicted subject matter that appealed to the sentimental notions of the conflict-filled nation. His themes ranged from runaway slaves and heroic Union soldiers to rustic, rural types and young women and children in domestic settings. After the war, the artist slightly shifted his approach to genre scenes: "Johnson was more directly challenged than his landscape-painting colleagues to retune his subject matter to the altered tenor of the times...Johnson rose to address a society shaken and altered to its very depths, and one in the process of recuperation and definition." (T.A. Carbone and P. Hills, Eastman Johnson: Painting America, exhibition catalogue, Brooklyn, New York, 1999, p. 66)
In an effort to find new and relevant subject matter, the painter found inspiration in the quiet whaling community of Nantucket. Johnson relished the island's simple way of life, its setting, and its population that offered models of distinctive appearance and character. "Johnson was among the earliest touristic arrivals and for more than two decades would be among Nantucket's most enthusiastic promoters." (Eastman Johnson: Painting America, pp. 78-79) In the September 1885 issue of The Century Magazine, Lizzie W. Champney elaborates further, "Nantucket, one of the rare spots which preserve the flavor and atmosphere of the olden time. The island--with its types of old men and women that are fading out elsewhere...has long been the property of Mr. Eastman Johnson. The man and the place have a natural sympathy for each other. He is a chronicler of a phase of our national life which is passing away, and which cannot be made up with old fashion-plates and the lay figures of the studio." ("The Summer Haunts of American Artists," The Century Magazine, XXX:5, September 1885, p. 854)
In Play Me a Tune, Johnson depicts a woman seated at her piano in her Nantucket cottage performing for a young girl and an older man, who appear to be visitors. The man is garbed in his overcoat and keeps his cap in his hand. The child, who sits by the open flame of the hearth, also remains fully clothed and wears both her shawl and muffler. Johnson suggests that they have just arrived in the house and are attentively listening to the piano. The room is a small, crowded space, and typical of dwellings on the island. Sunshine illuminates the space, and highlights the piano, the sheet music and the objects on the shelf. Johnson contrasts the apparent modesty of the setting with the refinement of a quiet musical interlude.
Eastman Johnson's genre paintings met with high acclaim in his lifetime. The critic Henry T. Tuckerman praised Johnson's truthful, poignant narratives: "In all [Johnson's] works we find vital expression, sometimes naive, at others earnest, and invariably characteristic; trained in the technicalities of his art, keen in his observation, and natural in his feeling, we have a genre painter in Eastman Johnson who has elevated and widened its naturalistic scope and its national significance. His pictures are in constant demand and purchased before they leave the easel." (as quoted in Eastman Johnson: Painting America, Brooklyn, New York, 1999, p. 185)
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work being compiled by Dr. Patricia Hills.
