The Charleston renaissance

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1998 by Martha R. Severens

Hutty was not alone in his response to the splendor of the Ashley River plantations. William P. Silva, a regular visitor to Charleston, also painted local gardens using many of the same devices. Yet Silva differed from Hutty in two respects: he was a native southerner, born in Savannah, and he had studied in Paris, where he had encountered the work of the impressionists. Many of his paintings are reminiscent of Claude Monet's water lily series, with their hazy edges and almost palpable atmosphere. However, unlike Monet, Silva often titled his canvases poetically, without reference to specific locations (see Pl. X).

Lilla Cabot Perry was a neighbor and protegee of Monet's at Giverny and came to Charleston to recuperate from a nearly fatal bout of diphtheria. Paintings such as the one in Plate XIII reveal how live oaks were central to her appreciation of the countryside, just as poplars had been in France. Like Birge Harrison, who complained to Alice Smith about the difficulty of rendering Spanish moss, Perry appears to have found this southern oddity a challenge.

Many artists appear to have come to Charleston to escape the long northern winters. Frederick Childe Hassam, visiting in the spring of 1925, made drawings of the city's colonial churches and verdant streets. These he translated into etchings that are graphic interpretations of his impressionistic paintings (see Pl.II). However, they are less literal than those by artists such as Verner and Smith, for Hassam etched the plate directly from his drawing. As a result, the print shows the drawing in reverse.

Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine Nivison Hopper (1883-1968), also a painter, spent about three weeks in Charleston in April 1929. During this stay Hopper produced eleven watercolors, mostly outdoor scenes of sunstruck houses and rural cabins. One - a view of the cannon overlooking Charleston harbor - reflects Hoppers interest in the Civil War.(16) The watercolor shown in Plate XVI is Hoppers only painting of a church interior.(17) The composition is dominated by the curiously draped font - a form comparable to the lonely figures that populate Hopper's other paintings.

Prentiss Taylor, a Washington, D.C., printmaker, visited Charleston at the prompting of the poet Josephine Pinckney (1895-1957). He spent four months in Charleston in 1933, recording his impressions in sketchbooks. Reflecting his keen observation and sense of humor is a sketch of three run-down buildings inscribed: "It was here that a shop - it was the middle one - had a sign 'meals at all hours.' Underneath was a framed picture of the 'Last Supper.'"(18)

Under the auspices of the Public Works of Art Project (established by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933), Taylor made a series of lithographs from his drawings. In Horlbeck Alley (Pl. XII) he conveyed the deteriorated condition of the buildings and the street life of the residents in a manner very reminiscent of Heyward's Porgy. Lithography was a medium often associated with journalism and political satire, and it experienced a revival during the Depression in keeping with the populist spirit of the time.