He also began teaching at the newly formed Art Students League, making him a highly visible and influential central figure in American artistic circles. When he returned to America from Germany, he established an elaborately decorated studio in the Tenth Street Studio, the first building in New York designed as an artist space. This might reflect his training in Munich (which he chose over studying in Paris). The painting demonstrates the broad brushstrokes and interest in the play of light that are characteristic of Impressionist art, however, Chase's palette is notably more muted than most of French Impressionist painting. Prospect Park was also an answer to the sophisticated spaces of European capitals, arguing that American cities had evolved to include such cultural considerations. Furthermore, as a natural space engineered by people in the midst of an urban environment, the park provided the perfect backdrop for Chase's vision of upper class leisure and genteel interaction with light and nature. The park offered a convenient spot to paint en plein air, following the example of the French. There is a sense of ease as she strikes a contemplative pose. Here, Chase depicts his future wife sitting in a row boat in a small lake. His series on the Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which he painted and exhibited in 1886, exemplifies his Impressionist style. William Merritt Chase was one of the earliest American artists to incorporate Impressionism into his work. Many of the artist colonies and exhibition societies that supported Impressionism were critical in broadening American art beyond academic painting. The American Impressionists fostered new organizations for the creation and exhibition of their work these innovations would last beyond the popularity of the style.The Impressionist interest in everyday life and commonplace scenes, however, marked a difference from the transcendentalist visions of earlier 19 th-century American landscape painting. American Impressionism built upon the examples of landscape painting practiced by the Hudson River School and the Tonalists, particularly in the emphasis on immersion in the natural world and an attention to light and color.As American industrialists built private collections of art, they had previously purchased Old Master works to demonstrate their good taste American Impressionists were the first contemporary artists to be widely collected by Americans. Combining European sophistication with identifiably American subject matter, American Impressionism quickly became popular among the increasing numbers of upper-class patrons.In both style and subject matter, Impressionism inspired American painters to document their rapidly modernizing world with a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia. Although initially many American artists rejected the loose sketchiness of French Impressionism, their eventual adoption of the style ultimately facilitated a revolutionary break from the linear style and classical narratives that defined academic painting.
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