Art Lovers discussion

I know you said 'Luminism' didn't really leave Belgium but I looked at several different sites, which I will post here and I could only find Luminism in America. I couldn't find it in Belgium at all!
This is what I found. And maybe they aren't correlated at all. Idk.

Luminism, late 19th-century painting style emphasizing a unique clarity of light. It was characteristic of the works of a group of independent American painters who were directly influenced by the Hudson River school of painting. The term, however, was not coined until 1954 by John Baur, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

(I will refrain from posting pictures in case you have them up your sleeve, Dirk)

The most important painters in the luminist style were John Frederick Kensett, Fitz Hugh Lane, and Martin Johnson Heade; the group also included George Tirrell, Henry Walton, and J.W. Hill. Paintings by the luminists are almost always landscapes or seascapes, particularly the latter, and are distinguished by a smooth, slick finish; cold, clear colours; and meticulously detailed objects, modeled by rays of light. In these paintings, the sky usually occupies about one-half of the composition, which is often in the format of a long rectangle. The works often show a geometric organization, with the edges of specific objects aligned parallel to the canvas edges.

Although it was not an organized movement, later landscapists such as George Loring Brown and Robert S. Duncanson adopted certain characteristics of the luminists and therefore are sometimes classified with them. Many untrained, or naive, painters, especially those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were influenced by elements of luminism such as its hard linearism, depth, and clear modeling.

https://www.britannica.com/art/luminism

Summary of Luminism

Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, a handful of landscape painters, instead of painting monumental, dramatic scenes of American wilderness, began painting on a smaller, quieter scale. The Luminist style had much in common with the Transcendentalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, which advocated that one immerse oneself in nature in order to know oneself and the divine. While the artists did not cohere as a unified movement, they did share stylistic tendencies. Marked by a certain rendering of light as a uniform glow that infuses the entire scene, Luminist paintings reveal no brushstrokes of the artist, thus maintaining a silent, almost impersonal, surface. The particularly American style has continued to influence contemporary landscape painting.

Key Ideas And Accomplishments

~ While partly influenced by Romanticism, Luminist paintings do not tend to depict nature as grand and imposing, nor do they strive to convey a sense of spectacular, awe-inspiring sublimity. Instead, Luminist paintings with their smaller size evoke a quiet spirituality based on closely observed natural phenomena, especially the quality of light.

~ Luminist light is particularly distinct. It is often cool and hard, almost palpable. The painters use slight tonal modulations, and not brushstrokes, to create the effect of radiant light.

~ Luminist compositions are very ordered, emphasizing the horizontal expanse with a deep spatial recession. The surfaces are precisely rendered, leaving no hint of brushstrokes. This clarity of the picture plane facilitates the viewer's communion with the natural scene presented and lends the scene a certain silence.

Overview

Luminism refers to a type of American landscape painting that became most prominent in the 1850s and lasted into the 1870s practiced among artists associated with the Hudson River School. The artists did not identify themselves as Luminists, as the term wasn't coined until 1954 when the art historian and director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, John I. H. Baur, used it to describe these naturalistic landscapes, often seascapes or river views, emphasizing the treatment of light to create a contemplative and luminous effect. Baur defined Luminist work as, "a polished and meticulous realism in which there is no sign of brushwork and no trace of impressionism, the atmospheric effects being achieved by infinitely careful gradations of tone, by the most exact study of the relative clarity of near and far objects and by a precise rendering of the variations in texture and color produced by direct or reflected rays."

Beginnings and Development
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/...

Concepts, Trends, and Related Topics/b>
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/...

Later Developments and Legacy
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/...

https://www.theartstory.org/movement/...

Definition of luminism

: a theory or practice of realist landscape and seascape painting developed in the U.S. in the mid-19th century and concerned with the study and depiction of effects of light and atmosphere

First Known Use of luminism
circa 1974, in the meaning defined above

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...

Thanks Heather, I didn't want to post all this text in the Pic of the day thread (I try to keep the posts to the bare minimum)

But There seem to be indeed two different art styles that are called Luminism, this is the Wikipage for the Belgian version:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminis...

Thank you, Dirk!