Martin J Heade - The Gems of Brazil
Long term readers of Art Every Day will know that I often like to spend a bit of time here putting attention on artists who are often neglected or overlooked in the pages of Art History.
And with the American artist Martin Johnson Heade, we certainly have another artist who deserves far more attention that he ordinarily receives.
Heade never really gained much in the way of fame during his own lifetime (and, indeed, his work was all but forgotten from the time of his death in 1904, until its first real resurgence in the 1950s)
However, he was fairly close friends with a number of other prominent American painters of the era - not least, members of New York’s famous “Hudson River School” including Sandford Gifford, Frederic Church
And in fact, Heade’s association with these artists in particular is another reason why his own work is so interesting.
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After all, The Hudson River artists were fundamentally inspired by European ideals - i.e aiming to create work which had a mixture of “sublime” romanticism, along with a more “luminist” Impressionism.
Whereas for Head - there is always a sense that he is seeking something quite different from the standard European and American art traditions.
In fact, one of his most prominent influences towards the height of his career was not an artist at all . . . but, rather, the legendary Naturalist Charles Darwin.
And it was after reading Darwin’s seminal works including “The Voyage of the Beagle” and “On the Origin of Species” that Heade decided to embark on his own little expedition - determined to begin a whole new series of paintings.
Tentatively titled “The Gems of Brazil” - these works included at least 40 paintings of the plants, flowers, and wildlife Heade encountered in the forests of Brazil.
And the long term aim here was not only to exhibit these works as a collection - but, also, for them to form the basis of their own book too . . . which Heade tentatively hoped would one day sit on the shelf alongside Mr. Darwin’s himself.
Yet sadly, while Heade’s travels did provide him with more than enough inspiration to work with - still, his ideal goal for these beautiful paintings would never quite come to fruition.
As I’m sure many authors and artists can understand, he soon discovered that actually publishing a book was a lot more of a complicated process than originally thought (not least because he wanted his paintings to be reproduced in full detail, exactly as they had been painted . . . and, at the time, colour printing was still pretty much unheard of for art books!).
Thus, his “gems of Brazil” collection would remain something of an unfulfilled dream for Heade. But, reset assured, the seeds planted in this period of his career would still prove very fruitful for the rest of his life.
Within a few years, Heade decided to set off on his travels again - this time, motivated simply by the sheer love of his work, rather than with any specific series in mind.
He worked in Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Jamaica, and countless other places, before finally returning to St Augustine, Florida - where he would live out the remaining 20 years of his life.
And despite never achieving the renown or the commercial success he might have hoped for - still, there is comfort to think of how Heade still managed to devote so much of his life to his passion. (Which, in all truth, is possibly the greatest achievement any of us can have in this life.)
I never heard of this artist, but his paintings are beautiful.
Too bad the book never materialized, I'd get it. Thanks for the selections.