Spotlight: William Merritt Chase’s Shinnecock Hills, Autumn
Chase, Shinnecock Hills, Autumn, circa 1893, oil, Washington, D.C., Collectors
William Merritt Chase studied in Munich in the 1870s, where he mastered the loose, fluid brushwork that was to transfer so well to the American version of Impressionism. After his exposure to French Impressionism in the 1880s, Chase became interested in capturing the effects of light, which caused him to lighten his palette. In the late 1880s, he began to focus primarily on American subjects, and his interest in depicting everyday life in both rural and urban settings was compatible with Impressionist goals.
By the 1890s Chase was teaching in New York in the winter and in Shinnecock, Long Island, in the summer. Among his students were Georgia O'Keeffe, Alfred Maurer, Marsden Hartley and Charles Demuth. After 1902 Chase frequently organized painting trips to Europe with students. On such trips, he often painted demonstration pieces for his classes; the Norton’s Landscape was probably done for just such a purpose during a trip to Holland. A rapidly executed outdoor sketch, it is in every sense an “impression” of a placid afternoon along a canal, while the subdued color scheme reflects Chase’s Munich training.